hoped the Lady Adelie believed in braziers, or maybe even a fire, in the family’s privy chambers.
It was a nerve-wracking wait. Pengraic had struck to the heart when he’d said I had but two choices — enter a nunnery or take the only other offer open to me: serve Lady Adelie, Countess of Pengraic, who was a close cousin of my father’s mother. I loved my Lord God and all his saints, but I did not think I would manage well with the isolation and rigidity of a nunnery. Besides, I wanted a home and family of my own one day. After the death of my father I had little choice left in my life. I had stayed some months with a distant cousin, but she and I did not settle well together and she resented the cost to her household of the small degree of food I ate at table. It was a relief to leave her house. I felt keenly the loss of my home on the death of my father; I was well aware that alone, and with no dowry, I was but a hair’s breadth away from destitution despite my noble heritage.
How unhappy then, that in this single household prepared to offer me shelter the resident lord appeared determined to despise me.
I sat there and tried to fight back the despondency. I wondered why it took so long for the lady of the house to send for me. Was this a test? Had she forgot me? Should I say something to Alaric who occasionally slid by the door, glancing in as if he, too, wanted me gone?
Finally, as an early evening gloom settled over the house, I heard more footsteps on the staircase, and a moment later a woman appeared at the door.
‘Mistress Maeb?’
I stood up, a little too hastily.
‘Yes.’
The woman stepped closer, holding out her hands to take one of mine. She was older than me, perhaps by ten or twelve years, and even though her face and eyes were weary she offered me a smile and her hands’ clasp was warm.
‘I am Evelyn Kendal.’
‘Mistress Kendal,’ I said, and dipped in courtesy.
She patted the back of my hand. ‘No need for such formality with me, Maeb, though you should always show Lady Adelie respect. We have kept you waiting long. I am sorry for that. My lady has been feeling unwell and she asked us to sit with her while she slept. But now she is awake and feeling more cheerful, and has remembered you. Is this your bag? So little for all your belongings! Follow me and I shall bring you to my lady.’
I picked up my bag — truly only a heavy cloth wrapped about my few remaining possessions — and thankfully departed Alaric’s alcove. A few steps beyond it I heard him scurry inside, a shadowy spider glad to have his home released to him once again.
This was my first good look at the interior of Rosseley manor house. I had been awestruck when I rode up, for the entire house was of stone, a great rarity for its expense and thus only an option for the greatest lords. Inside it was spacious and well appointed — the hangings on the walls were thick and colourful and there were large wooden chests pushed against walls. As we passed the doors that led into the great hall of the house I saw a glimpse of the colourful pennants and banners hanging from the walls and ceiling, and I was much impressed.
But what should I have expected? The Earl of Pengraic was one of the Marcher Lords, almost completely independent of the king, wealthy beyond most of the Norman nobility, and a great man for the influence of his family and of the extent of his lands, lordships and offices.
‘This house came to the earl as part of Lady Adelie’s dowry,’ Evelyn said as we began to climb the staircase. ‘We use it during the winter months when the Marches become too damp and cold for my lady to bear. We sometimes spend spring and summer here, also, for the earl often needs to attend court and it is but a day or two’s barge ride along the Thames to the king’s court at Westminster.’
‘Is that where the earl and his son have gone now?’ I asked. I had spent a moment envying Lady Adelie for the wealth of her dowry, and then the envy evaporated as I thought on the marriage it had bought her.
Evelyn nodded. ‘King Edmond has asked the earl’s attendance upon some difficult matter, I believe. Have you travelled far, Maeb?’
‘A long way,’ I said. ‘All the way from Witenie.’
Evelyn stopped on the stairs and laughed in merriment. ‘A long way? Oh, my dear! The distance from here to Witenie is but a trifle compared to that which we will cover when eventually we go home to Pengraic Castle in the Marches. That is a long journey!’
I flushed, feeling myself a country bumpkin. I had thought the four-day ride along the roads from Witenie — just west of Oxeneford — to Rosseley Manor on the Thames south of Hanbledene, a grand adventure in my life, but when I compared it to the vast distance this household needed to travel from the Welsh Marches to this lovely spot in Bochinghamscire … I felt the fool.
Evelyn smiled kindly at me. ‘It is always an entry to a vaster world, Maeb, when you first join a family such as this. I forget sometimes what it was like for me, eleven years ago.’
I nodded, feeling a little better for Evelyn’s compassion, and we resumed our climb up the staircase.
The upper level of the house comprised the family’s private quarters. There were a number of smaller chambers, and one large, the solar, and it was to the solar that Evelyn led me.
My first question about the family was answered when Evelyn opened the door, and I felt the warmth of the chamber.
Lady Adelie did like a fire, then, or braziers. At least I should be warm.
We paused just inside the door and I looked about hastily, trying to spot my lady. The chamber was well lit from a window to the east and, indeed, warmed by several charcoal braziers. There was a richly curtained bed at the far end of the chamber, several stools and benches positioned about, a cot or two, and what seemed to me to be a horde of children standing in a group looking at me curiously.
To one side in a beautifully carved chair, alongside the largest of the braziers, sat a woman who, by the richness of her clothes, must be the Lady Adelie, Countess of Pengraic.
I dipped hastily and dropped my eyes.
‘Mistress Maeb,’ she said, her voice thin with exhaustion, ‘come closer that I might speak with you more easily.’
I walked over and took the stool that Lady Adelie patted.
Her hand was bony and pale, and when I finally raised my eyes to her face I saw that it was thin and lined, her eyes shadowed with fatigue.
‘I am sorry I kept you so long waiting. The day …’ She made a futile gesture with her hand. ‘Well, it has escaped me. I should not have so delayed you, for you are family, and welcome here.’
She managed to put some warmth into that last and I smiled in relief.
‘Thank you, my lady,’ I said. ‘You have honoured me by asking for me to be here. I am immensely grateful, and shall do my best to serve you in whatever manner you ask.’
‘It will be a thankless task,’ Lady Adelie said. ‘I shall try, myself, to be of little labour to you, but, oh, the children.’
The children … The words echoed about the chamber, and I glanced at the six children who had lost interest in me and now talked or played among themselves. They all had Stephen’s look — fair-haired and
