In the midst of the clamor, Lady Mathilde’s voice came clear and strong. “Follow me to the hall, Sir Henry,” she commanded as she headed toward a building directly across the yard.
He required no urging. Indeed, it was all he could do not to grab her arm to hurry her along.
It wasn’t just that his clothes and hair were getting wet; it was the smell of wet stone—a potent and vivid reminder of those long hours in that cold, damp dungeon when he feared he would be dragged out and executed at any moment. That scent made him relive the beatings and, worse than any physical blow, the sickening realization that the man to whom he had sworn an oath of loyalty and brotherhood did not trust him.
Once out of the driving rain, Henry handed his soaking cloak to a servant who appeared beside him, then shook himself like a dog, as if that could rid him of not just the damp, but the unhappy memories, too.
In a way, it worked, and as the fear and dismay dwindled, he straightened and took in his surroundings while Lady Mathilde bustled off, saying something about a chamber and some food.
The hall itself was small, although comfortably furnished with benches, stools and even chairs upon a raised dais at one end. The well-scrubbed tops of large trestle tables that would be set up for meals leaned against the walls, along with their bases. Bright tapestries depicting scenes of hunting and ladies in a garden lined the wall behind the dais to keep out the chill of the stone walls. There were metal sconces for torches along the walls, and great smoke and age-darkened oaken beams held up the slate roof.
Best of all, though, was the large fire burning in the central hearth. Henry went there at once and, sighing, held out his hands to the welcome warmth. They had put in wood from an apple tree, and the scent mingled with that of wet wool, damp linen and the moist rushes below his feet.
Meanwhile, Lady Mathilde flitted about giving orders like a general in the midst of battle. Lady Giselle disappeared up some curved stairs that led, he assumed, to bedchambers and dry clothes. Cerdic and the rest of the sodden escort came in and arranged themselves on the opposite side of the fire. Each and every one of them cast hostile glances at Henry as they shuffled their feet and jockeyed for a place closest to the heat.
Henry ignored them. He was used to scrutiny, whether speculative or hostile.
Once or twice a pretty and particularly buxom serving woman wearing a gown that seemed molded to her full-figured body passed by. She made no secret of her interest in Henry, surreptitiously and coyly smiling at him.
Henry was used to this, too, and he supposed she would come to his bed if he so desired. He didn’t so desire. First, it had never been his way, despite what many assumed, to fall into bed with any young woman who happened to catch his eye. Secondly, he had already discovered the few times he’d bedded a woman since his days in the dungeon that not only did making love not inspire sleep, it actually made him more wakeful. And last, but not least, he doubted the lovely and modest Lady Giselle would be inclined to accept him as a worthy suitor if he was bedding one of her servants right under her very nose.
As for any wayward fancies concerning Lady Mathilde and such activity, they were surely borne of fatigue and the unusual events of this strange day. To be sure, she was a bold and spirited woman, but not at all the sort he preferred. She was too audacious for his taste. While he was here, he would stay as far away from her as possible.
Lady Giselle appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Now she wore a gown of soft blue velvet that matched the color of her eyes. Her white, virginal veil was shot through with matching blue threads and held in place by a thin coronet made of intricately twisted gold. The long cuffs of her gown were embroidered with gold and emerald-green threads, the green matching the silken lining of the garment. A slender gilded girdle sat upon her hips.
She was the epitome of beauty, and as she paused on the bottom step, as uncertain as a fawn, he thought that he would surely be a fool not to woo and hope to wed her.
“Would you care to change your clothes?” Lady Mathilde asked, startling him out of his reverie.
He looked down to find her at his elbow, and with a disturbingly astute expression on her face. If someone were to tell him she possessed the ability to read his mind, he’d be inclined to believe it.
“There is a chamber ready for you now,” she added.
He was aware of Lady Giselle gliding toward the hearth and decided he wasn’t that wet anymore. “No, thank you, my lady. I’m quite comfortable.”
Lady Mathilde’s pursed lips revealed her reaction to that little lie—and then her eyes lit up like a bonfire on Midsummer’s Eve.
“Father Thomas!” she cried, brushing past Henry and rushing toward a middle-aged priest who’d just entered the hall.
Maybe Lady Mathilde hoped to be a nun.
If that was so, he doubted any convent, or any Mother Superior who expected docile novices, was quite ready for her.
Instead of continuing toward the hearth, and to Henry’s chagrin, Lady Giselle seated herself on one of the chairs on the dais. He contemplated leaving the fire to join her, but Lady Mathilde was coming toward him, leading the priest like a proud mother hen with a single chick. The priest followed serenely in her wake, a gentle smile on his pleasant face topped with a graying fringe of hair and a bald pate.
“Sir Henry, this is Father Thomas, the chaplain of Ecclesford, although he refuses to live here,” she said, relaxed and happy, her eyes dancing with delight.
He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d started to giggle. She looked so different, it was hard to believe this was the same woman who’d confronted him not so long ago.
It suddenly seemed rather a pity she wasn’t a serving wench, and one who would welcome the chance to spend a night in his bed.
God save him, he must be more exhausted than he knew.
Father Thomas smiled at Henry with beatific apology. “I fear Lady Mathilde will never forgive me for preferring to live among the villagers,” he said, his accent marking him as a well-educated man who’d probably been the younger son of a noble household in the south of France. He shrugged his shoulders with elegant grace. “They need me more.”
“More than soldiers?” Henry asked genially. He instinctively admired men of cloth—at least, most of them. “I would think soldiers are more prone to sin.”
The priest’s patient eyes seemed to reveal a knowledge of the world few worldly men possessed. “All men are tempted, my son. At least a soldier knows he will be housed and fed. The poor in the village have no such security, although the ladies of Ecclesford are more generous than most.” He sighed. “But it is as our Lord tells us, the poor will always be with us, and their lives are difficult.”
Although Henry wasn’t ignorant of the lives of the poor, rarely did the fate of such people intrude upon his life. Standing before the kindly, soft-spoken priest, he suddenly felt rather ashamed that it should be so.
“Father Thomas says there has been no word or sign from Roald,” Lady Mathilde said. “The more days that pass and we do not see him, the more I hope he has accepted my father’s desire.”
Her words and her smile made Henry think of a very different kind of desire, one that had nothing to do with her late parent. His mind instantly conjured
