“Stinging nettles! Why, child, don’t you know to stay away from those? You’ll be stinging for hours, you will. Come, sit.” Eustacia pulled out a stool then addressed Beatrice. “Did you rub some fern on it? The underside of a fern leaf does some good, it does.”
“I didn’t see any.” Beatrice shrugged then walked toward the window and the basin of water at the end of the upper hall. “I’ll start on the churning.” She proceeded to scrub her hands and wrists with the water.
A fine red rash covered Annabel’s hands, and a chill crept over her face and along her arms.
Eustacia’s brows creased, her fists planted on her hips. “No more,” she said with a firm set of her ample jaw.
Annabel stared at her.
“I don’t care what the master says, you’re not working in the fields anymore. I have need of you here in the kitchen.” She bent over and yanked up Annabel’s skirts.
Annabel gasped, scrambling to push her skirt back down. The same angry red rash covered her legs.
Eustacia scrunched her face disapprovingly and turned in Beatrice’s direction. “That butter can wait. Take Annabel down to the river to wash, then put some mud on this rash.” Facing Annabel again, she said, “Lots of mud. Smear it on these legs and hands and sit on the bank until it dries. But before you go …” Eustacia pulled out a small table from the wall, laid out with a chunk of cheese, some bread, and two pitchers. “Eat.”
Both girls sat and Beatrice quickly sliced the cheese. More tears pricked Annabel’s eyes. This time they were tears of gratitude.
After a cooling dip in the river, Annabel’s legs and hands still stung, but the discomfort ebbed after she washed off the mud. Another relief came as the villagers went home at midafternoon, finished with their fieldwork for the day. Work at the manor fell into a rhythm as Beatrice began her duties in the dairy while Annabel helped Eustacia prepare supper for the servants and the workers building Ranulf le Wyse’s new home.
Though careful to stay out of her lord’s way, she glimpsed the plans for the new house as she brought the food into the upper hall. The plans were laid out on the trestle table while Lord le Wyse discussed them with his master mason.
House was not a strong enough word for what the lord had planned. It was to be a castle with many rooms and three towers, one rising up a full two stories higher than the rest of the building. Annabel was one of the few villagers who had traveled outside the demesne, and the only place she had ever seen anything as grand as this was in London.
The grand house was at least two years from completion, although she overheard that a portion of it would be livable in several weeks.
To prepare for the meal, the servants set up trestle tables end to end down the middle of the upper hall floor to accommodate all the servants now living at the manor. Despite the crowd, Tom atte Water managed to sit across the table from her. She stared down at her plate, the table, anywhere but at him, knowing he was probably leering at her. When he spoke to her, she pretended not to hear.
After long, uncomfortable minutes of trying to ignore him, she heard him scrape his chair back to leave. She breathed a sigh of relief to see him leave with the rest of the men after the meal and leapt to help the other maidservants clean up, clearing tables and tossing the excess food into the slop bucket.
By the time the room was back in order, her legs trembled with fatigue. All the maids began to scatter and she wondered where she would sleep. Annabel looked for Beatrice, hoping the girl could provide answers, but she realized the dairymaid had been strangely absent since dinner ended.
Eustacia was busy giving instructions to a serving girl about what to purchase at the market the next day, so Annabel retrieved her bag from behind the small screen and stood nearby. She prayed Mistress Eustacia would notice her soon and tell her where she might sleep. She hoped she didn’t look as exhausted as she felt, not wanting to draw attention to the fact that she wasn’t accustomed to such hard work.
Feeling nearly invisible in her shadowed corner, Annabel watched Lord le Wyse cross the room and address Gilbert Carpenter, the master mason and foreman over the skilled craftsmen working on the castle.
Lord le Wyse was almost a head taller than his foreman. In the dim twilight of the upper hall, he looked darker than he had in the fields. His hair lay in a heavy swath across his forehead, grazing his black eyebrows. His shoulders were massive next to the much-smaller Gilbert. But while comparing him to Lord le Wyse, she realized Gilbert’s features were perfect and symmetrical. He had a well-formed nose, light-colored eyes, and light brown hair. He looked to be no more than thirty years old and was quite handsome.
Lord le Wyse’s looks were harder to sort out. One side of his face, the side with the leather patch, was thrown into shadow, giving a soft glow to his good eye and strong, prominent cheekbone. He would have been considered handsome before his face had been scarred and he’d lost his eye. Annabel watched as he gestured with his right hand while keeping his left arm tucked against his midsection. She’d heard someone say he was only five and twenty years old. It was hard to tell, as his face was obscured by the patch and the beard. He held his head and shoulders at a commanding angle, the posture of a powerful man.
She had every intention of avoiding him as much as possible. She was his servant and as such was at the mercy of his harshness. But she felt oddly mesmerized by his scar, eye patch, and maimed hand.
“Miss Annabel,” called an insistent voice.
“Hello, Adam.” She forced her face into a smile. “How is your arm?”
“’Tis well.”
She saw that the bandage was still there, though quite covered in dirt.
“Miss Annabel, you didn’t meet my father.”
“Oh, Adam, I don’t think now is the best time.” Annabel glanced desperately at Eustacia, but she was still talking with the same young woman.
Adam’s smile disappeared. “Oh. My father wants to meet you. I told him you would make a fine mother.” The timid smile returned.
She swallowed and felt a ridiculous urge to run from the room and go home. She could not face the inevitable meeting, not tonight. “Thank you, Adam, but I’m very tired. I promise you’ll see me again tomorrow. Now it is time for you to go to bed. And besides, we can’t disturb your father while he’s speaking with Lord le Wyse. Tomorrow. I promise.”
Adam cocked his head to one side. Finally, he nodded then wandered away.
Her head ached with the weight of fatigue, and she prayed she hadn’t hurt the little fellow’s feelings.
Mistress Eustacia talked on with the maidservant, gesturing with one hand while her other rested on her hip. Annabel again looked around for someone to ask about sleeping arrangements, but the other maids and workers had already slipped out the door of the upper hall, leaving her to stand conspicuously still while everyone else had somewhere to go. She thought of her little bed in her father’s house. If only she could crawl under the familiar sheet and lay her head on her own pillow.
Desperate now, she moved toward Mistress Eustacia. Oh, thank you, God, the maid was walking away. “Mistress Eustacia.” Annabel bit her lip at the tremor in her voice.
The woman turned, and her eyes grew big at the sight of Annabel. “Oh, my dear, what is it?” Eustacia’s eyes flicked down to Annabel’s bag. “Ah, you haven’t found your bed. I’ll take you there, I will. Come.” She huffed a tired breath, grabbed a candle, and turned toward the door at one end of the now almost-empty hall. “It’s the best time of day, when a body can fall into bed after its labors.”
Annabel followed her. When she turned to close the door, Lord le Wyse’s eye met hers. She turned away quickly.
“All the women servants, except me, sleep down here in the undercroft,” Mistress Eustacia said between huffs, making her way down the stone steps. “The men are bedded down in the barn and the sleeping shed. I’m in the upper hall with the master, in case he needs anything. I’ve been with his family since before he was born, and a gentle
r boy you never saw.” Her voice lilted and ended with a sigh, as though the memories were dear. “’Tis only too sad that he’s had such pain in his life, it is.” She shook her head.
She must mean whatever destroyed his eye and mangled his hand.
Her mistress clicked her tongue. “The attack was the beginning of his sorrows. But the other, well, I shouldn’t even speak of — I, who know more than anyone.” They had made it to the bottom of the steps and stopped at the door to the undercroft. She stared at Annabel in the moonlight and a slight smile crossed her lips. Lifting her hand to Annabel’s cheek, Eustacia caressed it for a moment, then let her hand fall. “You’re a kind, gentle lass. I see it in your eyes. He should have married someone like you instead of — “ She shook her head again and turned away. “But there’s no wisdom in speaking of that.”
Annabel’s tired mind registered surprise at her mistress’s implication.
Eustacia pushed the door open and entered the barely lit undercroft, a large room the size of the upper hall but with stone arches undulating the ceiling and columns interrupting the open space here and there.
Women lay or sat on at least a dozen cots. Mistress Eustacia found one in the center of the room and pointed. “Here. This one’s unclaimed as yet. Do ye have need of anything? I was young once, so there’s naught you can’t confide in me.”
“Nay, Mistress Eustacia, thank you.” Annabel dropped her bag onto the thin straw mattress.
“I’ll talk to Lord Ranulf tonight. I need your help in the kitchen tomorrow. There’s to be no more fieldwork for you. The lord listens to me, he does.” She stared into Annabel’s eyes, holding the candle up, as though to better inspect her features. She seemed about to say something then smiled wistfully and squeezed Annabel’s shoulder before quitting the room.
Chapter
4
Annabel opened her bag and pulled out her nightgown. She changed her clothes quickly, not even looking to see if anyone was watching. She crawled onto the bed and wrapped the sheet around herself. There was no pillow, so she rested her head on the crook of her arm.
“You there. New girl. It’s Annabel, isn’t it?”
Ruefully, Annabel turned her head toward the voice coming from the cot to her right, her hopes of sinking into sleep crushed.
Beatrice leaned toward her, resting her elbows on her knees. “I came from Lincolnshire with Lord le Wyse, along with most of us here. My mother was a milk maid and my father’s dead. What about you? I heard you tell Lord le Wyse that you didn’t want to marry that ugly bailiff.”
Annabel sat up, trying to sound friendly instead of exhausted and lonely. “My father’s dead too, I’m afraid. As for the bailiff, that was simply a … misunderstanding.” She hoped the girl wouldn’t press her further.
Beatrice eyed her with a shrewd expression. “You have a very pretty face, although you’re a little skinny. Why haven’t you married yet?”
Annabel swallowed. “I …” She probably shouldn’t say that she had yet to meet someone she would want to marry, so she shrugged.
Someone called out from the corner behind Annabel, “She thinks she’s too good for Glynval men, that’s why!”
Her face burned as a few snorts erupted around the room.
A slow smile spread over Beatrice’s face. “Perhaps she is too good for Glynval men. But maybe one of the Lincolnshire men has caught her eye.” A few protests rang out from the Glynval maidens.
Annabel shook her head. Just smile, she told herself.
“No? Why not? We have handsome men. More than one, I’d say.”
Maud came through the door and slipped over to the bed on the other side of Beatrice. Annabel realized she hadn’t seen either of them after supper, and fleetingly wondered where they could have been.
“Eh, Maud, you met the new girl?” Beatrice flicked her head around to Annabel again, her pale brown hair clinging to her neck. “What was your name again?”
“Annabel.”
“Of course I know her.” Maud’s voice sounded harsh and cross. “She’s from my village, isn’t she? Are you addled, or just simple?”
A couple of guffaws were joined by ooohs from several points in the large room.
Beatrice stared back at Maud. “So you’re the smart one? I suppose you already know her life’s story, then.”
“Of course.” Aiming her eyes at the ceiling, Maud went on. “Her father died three years ago of the pestilence. He was once a rich merchant, but he lost all his money and ships. She and her two precious brothers were never made to do their share of the boon works or harvest work, so when Lord le Wyse came, the jury told her mother she had to send one of her children to work for him. Since Annabel’s two brothers are too lazy to soil their soft, white hands, Annabel had to do it. What of it?” Maud threw herself onto her bed and turned her back on Beatrice.
“Well, if I ever need information, I’ll certainly know who’s full of it.” Beatrice casually strode over to the candle nearest her and blew it out. On the way back, Beatrice whispered to Annabel, “So you’re the one whose ma got you sent away from kith and kin.”
“I suppose you could say that,” Annabel whispered back. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping the other girls were ready to go to sleep. She tried to pray, but tears came before any thoughts were able to congeal into words. She kept her eyes closed, hoping anyone who looked at her would think she was asleep. Someone blew out the rest of the candles and the lamp and plunged the room into darkness.
God, why have you put me here? Do you truly care? If only she had a Bible, she would be able to find guidance. She had dreamed of becoming a nun because as a nun she believed she would be allowed access to a Bible. Not only that, but in a nunnery she wouldn’t have to be around Bailiff Tom ever again. But unless God gave her a miracle, she’d never be a nun.
She reached down from her low bed and fumbled in her bag. She fished out her prayer beads and small cross, clasped them to her chest, and felt a measure of peace. Praying for sleep, she closed her eyes and blocked out the shadowy figures of the other maidservants.
The maid in the bed beside her, a villein’s daughter from Glynval, whispered loudly, “So what happened to our lord to cause him to be maimed?”
An unfamiliar voice answered, “I know that story well. When he was sixteen he came to the aid of a servant girl who was being attacked by a wolf.”
“A servant girl? Truly?”
“He fought off the animal. Mistress Eustacia’s husband shot the wolf through the neck with an arrow, but not before it had clawed out the lord’s eye and mangled his hand.”
Annabel’s chest ached at her lord’s fate.
“Some say he’s part wolf now, that he prowls the woods at night.”
Several low hoots and a couple of gasps went round.
“Some say they’ve seen him.”
“Could be,” a voice chimed in.
More offensive comments, punctuated by laughs, swept through the sleeping quarters.
“But what of his scars?” Beatrice’s shrill voice rose about the laughter. “Aren’t you curious to see how extensive” — she lingered over the word extensive — “they are?”
Laughter echoed throughout the large room, and Annabel pressed her hands over her ears to keep out their banter as they discussed the possibilities.
How could they speak so of their lord, and he only one floor above them?
She could take no more of their talk. And besides that, she didn’t think she could fall asleep until she visited the privy. Annabel quietly slipped from her bed, and after putting her dress back on, hurried across the room and out the door. She shut it behind her with a sigh of relief at escaping the group’s notice.
The dark silhouette of trees surrounded her, alongside the manor house and a few outbuildings illuminated by the moon. Standing still to listen, she heard only the faintest rustling sounds around her. She slipped her hand into her pocket and felt her knife.
She turned and rushed through the t
rees, down the newly worn path to the women’s privy. Holding her breath as she hurried, almost running, her gaze darted around in search of any perceptible movement. She made it to the small wooden building and shut herself inside.
When she came out of the privy, she looked around again. Nothing moved and there were no ominous sounds, only a frog croaking in the distance. She began walking back along the path, wrapping her arms around herself, feeling the cool night air on her face.
Annabel dreaded going back into the undercroft with the other maids. But not wanting to be caught outside alone by anyone — especially the bailiff — she walked steadily toward the manor house.
She then noticed someone coming through the trees — not along the path toward her, but far to her right. She froze. The form was too tall to be any woman she knew. Had he seen her? Annabel ducked behind a large oak and watched.
The figure wandered among the trees, veering away from her into the thick of the forest. She was fairly certain now that the figure was Lord le Wyse, based on his height and his build. She started to sidle quietly away, hoping he wouldn’t hear or see her. Then he fell to his knees on the ground.
Is he hurt? Does he need help? Perhaps she should go get Mistress Eustacia.
Before she could rush away, he bent forward and moaned as though from deep inside. The sound grew, raw and wrenching, until it became a howl. Then he bowed lower and was still.
Was he sick? Somehow she sensed his pain was not physical. She watched and listened, but he didn’t move.
The silence seemed to weigh on her shoulders. She wanted to get away before her lord saw her, as he clearly wished to be alone, but she was afraid of making a noise and drawing his attention.
Her legs were beginning to cramp with fatigue, impelling her to take a step toward the manor house. Her foot landed on a twig and it snapped with a loud crack.
She stopped and held her breath, watching Lord le Wyse’s bent body. After several frozen minutes, she tried again. When she stepped back onto the path, this time her footfall made no sound. She walked carefully until she reached the clearing and the manor house. Darting inside the undercroft, she hurried to her bed.