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  “You have a bathing room?” Hugh was pleased.

  “The keep is small as castles go,” Alette replied, “but we do not lack amenities. The two latrines are directed into a single sluice that flows underground into the river,” she told him proudly.

  The bathing chamber was another marvel. It had a large stone tub that was oblong in shape, into which cold water could be pumped. There was a small fireplace where water could be heated just beyond the tub. The large kettle that hung over the coals had only to be tipped down the slanted incline of the tub to bring the temperature of the bathwater to a more comfortable degree. A larger fireplace on the opposite wall from the tub warmed the room. There was a table with towels, and other accoutrements for bathing. When the bath’s drain was uncovered, Alette told them, it emptied into a sluice that ran into the latrine’s sluice, thus keeping it clean.

  Father Bernard said he would bathe when the others were done.

  Alette brought Hugh and Rolf to the bathing chamber, asking, “Which of you will go first?”

  “I will defer to my guest,” Hugh said, bowing to Rolf.

  “Nay, my lord, no longer a guest, but Langston’s steward,” came the polite reply. “I must defer to my lord.” Then he, too, bowed.

  Hugh laughed. “I’ll argue no further with you, Rolf. I long for that bath.” He began to strip off his garments, handing the individual articles of clothing to the pleasant-faced older woman who attended the lady Alette.

  “This is Ida, my serving woman,” the keep’s mistress told him. “Get in now, my lord, while the water is hot.”

  “Does not Isabelle help with the bathing of guests, lady?” Hugh asked.

  “I thought her too young for such duties,” Alette answered.

  “She must learn,” Hugh said. “Have Ida fetch the girl so she may help you. I will send her away when Rolf bathes.” He climbed into the water and sat down upon the bathing stool.

  “Fetch my daughter,” Alette told her serving woman quietly.

  On her return, Ida reported, “She says she will not come.”

  Hugh looked to Rolf. “Bring my lady,” was all he said.

  They heard the screech of outrage even before the door to the bathing chamber was kicked open to allow the steward entry with his captive. Isabelle was thrown carelessly over Rolf’s shoulder, and she was kicking wildly, beating upon his back with clenched fists. When he set her upon her feet, she furiously hit him as hard as she could.

  “How dare you lay hands on me, you oaf!” she screamed. Grinning, he blocked her second blow.

  “I asked him to bring you, ma Belle douce,” Hugh said. “As my wife, you will be expected to bathe honored guests. Your mother tells me you have no experience in this art. It is time that you learned. There is a sea sponge on the table. Take it up, and after you have dipped it in the liquid soap, scrub my shoulders.”

  “I will not!” she spat.

  “Your touch must be gentle, but firm, ma Belle,” he told her calmly, ignoring her open defiance.

  Isabelle crossed her arms over her chest, staring mutinously at the back of his head. “Have you no ears to hear, Saxon? I will not bathe you. It is a ridiculous custom, and besides, as long as she lives, my mother is the lady of this keep, not I.”

  “Madame, you will wash me,” he said, his tone hardening.

  “You cannot make me,” she returned smugly.

  “Belle,” her mother besought her, “the lady of the keep is the lord’s wife. Once you have wed Hugh Fauconier, I must retire to the background, my daughter, and you must take up these duties, not I.”

  “When I am my lord’s wife I shall,” Isabelle said, “but not a moment before then, madame. Of course, such a union is yet in doubt.”

  “Ma Belle douce is shy,” Hugh said with false sweetness. “It pleases me that she be so demure and retiring. It but adds to her charm. You will watch your mother, ma Belle, and learn from her. I shall not require you to bathe me until we are man and wife.”

  “Go to the devil!” Isabelle snapped at him. “I will not remain here to see you pampered like some overweening infant.” She whirled about, but Rolf blocked her way, smiling blandly.

  “You have heard the lord’s instructions, lady,” he said.

  “The lord’s instructions?” The girl looked at him, outraged, and then kicked him as hard as she could in the shin.

  “Owwwww!” Rolf yelped, hopping about as Isabelle pushed past him and was gone out the door.

  “Ahhh, lady,” Ida said, a disapproving look upon her face, “the girl should have been beaten long ago. May God have mercy upon you, my lord Hugh. The wench is possessed by demons for certain.”

  “Add more hot water to the tub, Ida,” Hugh answered her. “It grows cold.” Then he turned his head, smiling up at Alette. “Do not fear, lady, I will tame her in time,” he promised.

  “She has a kind heart for animals, my lord,” Alette said, tears in her bright blue eyes, “but with people she is so impatient.” Then without another word Alette washed Langston’s lord. When she had finished, she dried him off, wrapping him in a warm towel. “The solar is yours now, my lord. I cleared my possessions from it today. I will sleep with my daughter until she is your wife, and then, with your permission, keep the chamber for myself. Ida will take you and see you comfortably settled. Go quickly lest you catch a chill.”

  He wanted to protest, but he did not. She had done what was correct, for the lord’s chamber was now his by right. She would have been embarrassed, and not just a little offended, had he refused her, even out of kindness and consideration for the lady herself. “I thank you, madame, for your courtesy,” he replied, and followed Ida from the bathing chamber to his new quarters.

  Alette now turned to Rolf de Briard. “Come, my lord,” she said to him, “do not dally, for the priest has yet to wash himself.”

  Rolf masked his shyness at disrobing before her, as he quickly handed her his clothing and climbed into the tub just vacated by his friend. He had thought Alette the loveliest woman he had ever seen when he first laid eyes upon her. Now, he realized that he was still strongly attracted to her. He was not certain what to do. “How old are you?” he suddenly asked, surprising her.

  A rosy glow suffused her, and she was relieved that his back was to her so he could not see it. “I am thirty,” she told him. “I was fourteen when I was married to Robert de Manneville, and just fifteen when Isabelle was born. Why do you ask?”

  “I am thirty-two,” he answered, and then grew silent.

  “Do you have a wife?” she asked him after a short time. She was diligently scrubbing his short white-blond hair.

  “Nay. I could never afford one. I am a younger son of a third wife,” he explained. “Were my eldest brother not the generous man he is, I should never have had the means to become a knight, but Ranulf, God bless him, always had a soft spot for me.”

  “It helps to have someone who loves you,” Alette agreed. “I was orphaned at the age of four, and put into my uncle’s care. He was a hard man, but eventually saw that a husband was found for me.”

  “Did you love Robert de Manneville?” Rolf asked boldly. He had no right to do so, he knew, but somehow he had to know.

  “He was my husband,” Alette said quietly. “I gave him my loyalty, my honor, and my respect. He asked no more. He sought a wife to raise his sons and give him other sons. In that I failed him.” She rinsed his hair, pouring a bucket of warm water over it, and handed him a cloth to mop his face. “You are clean now, my lord,” she said, and he arose to be toweled. “Have you fresh garments to wear in the morning, or shall I have the laundress wash these tonight?”

  “I have other clothing,” he answered her as she wrapped a warm towel tightly about his loins.

  “Then seek your bed, sir, before you catch a draught,” Alette ordered him, and she smiled sweetly.

  “Lady, I thank you for your attention,” he replied, and departed the bathing chamber.

  Alette released some of
the water from the tub, and then, adding more hot water, went to find the priest so he might bathe. After checking to see that the fires in the hall were banked, she found Ida and instructed her to see the bathing chamber was cleaned when Father Bernard had finished his ablutions. “Then come to bed, Ida. Belle’s room will be crowded until she weds the lord, but you will have the trundle, and my daughter’s serving woman will sleep upon a pallet.”

  “The sooner the girl weds, the better,” Ida said, her look disapproving. “She needs correction, and only a husband can give it to her. God forgive Lord Robert that he would not let her be disciplined as a child. She is like some wild creature, my lady.”

  “Better to pray that the new lord does not grow angry and ask King Henry for another wife,” Alette fretted.

  “Go and rest yerself, my lady,” Ida told her, patting her mistress’s arm. “It will look better in the morning, I am certain. Surely lady Isabelle can be made to see reason.”

  “May God and His Blessed Mother hear all our prayers,” Alette replied fervently.

  Chapter 3

  Langston Keep was not a large establishment. Off its Great Hall, at one end of the building, was a buttery and a pantry. The solar was located behind the Great Hall at its far end. It took up two-thirds of the space, with the bathing chamber taking up the rest. Along one wall of the Great Hall three doors opened into small rooms, one of which was Isabelle’s. It was separated from the other two, which were used for guests, by the fireplace. The household servants slept in an attic above the hall. Below was a huge space for the storage of foodstuffs, weapons, and other dry goods, and the kitchens as well.

  Hugh and Rolf learned that the keep had no mesne, or organized military personnel. The porter was a doddering old fellow. There were no watchmen or men-at-arms. Hugh understood how providential the arrival of two knights with their squires had been.

  “How would you have protected yourselves if you had been attacked?” he asked Belle. “Langston has been a sitting duck for too long, and only your isolation has protected you.” He was almost angry.

  “Who would attack us?” she demanded scornfully. “Besides, the villages would rally if there was danger.”

  “Your serfs would run into the woods and hide,” he said bluntly. “It is debatable if they would even remember to take the livestock with them. You and your mother could have been killed, or worse.”

  Rolf went into the villages, asking who would prefer life as a man-at-arms to tilling the soil. He returned with a respectable troupe of younger sons ready and eager to be turned into soldiers. Half a dozen slightly older men who had offered their service would be trained with the younger men, but would become watchmen for the keep. The elderly porter would be replaced by his grandsons. Daily the men marched upon the bailey green, usually under the watchful eyes of the two squires, Fulk and Giles, who also taught their fledglings how to use spear, pike, and crossbow. Sometimes Rolf or Hugh would come to watch, and make suggestions.

  As Langston’s steward, or seneschal, it was now Rolf’s duty to administer the estate. He would handle routine legal and financial matters, and direct the serfs and freedmen. In a larger household the various domestic departments would each have had a head, answerable to the steward, but Langston was far too small for such grandeur. Rolf preferred leaving the handling of the keep’s staff to Alette for the time being. To his great surprise, Isabelle proved enormously helpful as well. The household’s records up to the death of the last steward were meticulous. The previous holder of the office had been both thorough and careful in his management.

  As Belle could neither read nor write, she had kept all the facts of the estate’s business in her head, memorizing them down to the smallest detail. Now she sat patiently with Rolf in the Great Hall for several mornings, dictating the details to him as he carefully transcribed them into the estate books.

  “Her memory is absolutely faultless,” Rolf told Hugh admiringly as they rode out one afternoon to Langston’s farthest village to see what repairs were necessary to the cottages before spring. “I could not help but ask my lady Alette why her daughter was being so cooperative with me when she resents our presence so bitterly. My lady says that her daughter is actually relieved to have a steward to take over again because she prefers being out of doors to having the responsibility of Langston on her slender shoulders. I think the lady Alette dissembles a bit with me, for Isabelle of Langston loves her lands dearly. It must be a wrench for her to give up her authority. Still, she is no fool, and must realize she has no choice in the matter.

  “Isabelle accepted the responsibility willingly when she had to,” Rolf continued. “For a maid to fulfill her familial obligations so thoroughly is very commendable. If you but tame the wench, she may make you a good wife after all.”

  “She was a good administrator?” Hugh asked his friend, impressed by Rolf’s praise of Belle.

  “Aye! The serfs may complain, and claim to be glad to have a lord over them once again, but it is only because they resented having a woman rule them. She was every bit as hard as a man with them, seeing that the rents were paid on time, that the fields were tilled and harvested properly, that a fair price was obtained at market. She has not allowed the villages to fall into disrepair, or the poachers take too much game from the woodlands. Aye, the lady Isabelle did very well for Langston in the absence of its lord, Hugh.”

  Hugh Fauconier was pleased by Rolf’s words. There could come a time, and not so far away, when they would be called upon to serve the king in a military campaign. It pleased him to know that Isabelle would be able to manage in their absence.

  Everything was going smoothly but for his courtship. Belle remained fiercely hostile. There seemed to be no level upon which he could approach her in a tender manner. Rolf, he noticed, however, seemed to be girding up his courage to approach the widowed lady Alette. He had not spoken of his feelings, but Hugh had eyes in his head, and saw the direction in which his friend’s interest lay. I shall have to build a house within the bailey for my steward, he thought, smiling.

  The next day dawned gray and damp. It had been very cold all week. Nonetheless Belle put on her cloak and disappeared from the hall shortly after breakfast. Hugh watched her as she made her way across the bailey to the granary. She entered it, and exited a few minutes later carrying a cloth bag. Fascinated, he decided to follow her. The landscape being relatively flat made it easy to keep her in sight, and he kept far enough behind her as to not attract her attention.

  Isabelle walked briskly over the frosty fields. The ground was hard beneath her feet. There was no wind, and a pearlescent sun tried hard to force its way through the milky sky, but was unsuccessful in its attempt. Ahead, Belle could see the river. A thin coating of ice had built up along its banks. The tall, deep gold reeds with their feathery heads stood like silent sentinels in the morning light. An upturned cockle was drawn on the shore. Reaching it, Belle sat down, staring out across the water. Just a few miles downstream lay the sea.

  Hugh stopped, watching the girl as she sat in silent contemplation. He had never seen her so calm, so at peace.

  A small flock of snow geese flew low over the river, setting down in the water near Isabelle. She did not move even as they came swimming ashore and then waddled out of the water. The geese gathered about the girl’s feet. Reaching into the bag she carried, she began spreading the grain for them. The birds ate quickly, greedily, and when they had finished, they settled down about her, preening, one or two meandering up to have their necks rubbed. Hugh Fauconier was totally fascinated by the scene. Then, at some unheard signal, the geese hurried with much clacking back into the water, and swam off up the river. He wondered about it until he saw two large white swans emerging from the reeds. They are such ungainly birds on land, Hugh thought.

  Isabelle stood up now, and reaching into her bag, tossed grain to the swans. When they pressed themselves around her, Hugh worried, for swans were notoriously mean and could bite cruelly. Belle, however, st
ood unafraid. The swans were obviously old friends. Hugh understood the patience needed to gain the trust of such feral creatures, for he had raised, tamed, and trained hawks and falcons his entire life. He had sensed from the beginning that Belle herself was such a creature. Now, seeing her with the geese and swans, he realized that if wild birds could be brought to eat from her hand, there was, for all her willfulness and temper, much good within the girl who was to be his wife. He had seen enough. Turning, he followed the almost invisible path through the fields back to the keep.

  “Will it snow?” Alette wondered aloud that evening as they gathered in the Great Hall.

  “By morning,” Belle answered her mother. “The damp was almost visible in the air. It has been quite cold for several days now, and there has been no wind all day, madame. The beasts have been brought from the fields. I saw them being driven in as I returned home this afternoon. The serfs know the weather almost as well as I do.”

  “Are the snows heavy in winter here, ma Belle?” Hugh inquired.

  “They are mostly light, but sometimes great,” she answered him. “Why did you follow me today, my lord?”

  “You saw me?” He was surprised. He had been careful.

  “First I heard you. You are a big man, and move noisily. Then I saw you,” she answered him, “out of the corner of my eye as I fed my flock.”

  “I wanted to see where you went,” he answered honestly.

  “Did you think I went to meet a lover?” she demanded, an edge to her voice. “I do not like being spied upon.”

  “I did not think you had a lover,” he said quietly.

  “What? Am I not desirable enough, then?” Her tone was sharper.

  “I think your sense of honor is far greater than any passion you might feel,” Hugh told her. “In our short acquaintance you have not appeared to me to be light-skirted, ma Belle.”

  For the first time since they had met, she smiled at him. There was no doubt his reply had pleased her. She said nothing more on the matter.