Chapter Fourteen

A few days after she was attacked, Eyreka finally stopped looking over her shoulder, expecting to be pounced on from behind. She would never have admitted the fact to anyone, but the attack had rattled her. She sat stiffly erect at the table, uneasy and unsure how to approach her husband’s guard. She nodded to Sara to serve the nooning meal.

Though her jaw still pained her, the swelling had gone down. She knew she looked a sight; the bruising on her jaw had started to turn from a ghastly shade of purple to a truly lovely shade of green tinged with yellow. Eyreka was wise enough to know the longer she lay abed, the longer her people would carry a grudge against her husband. Eyreka could not let that happen. Though she did not hold the attack against Augustin, she knew there were those who did.

She looked over at the empty seat beside her and then over to where Garrick sat.

She wondered just how much longer her son would hold out before voluntarily speaking to her. It had been almost a fortnight since either of her sons had spoken to her. And then only to let her know that they did not approve of her means to keep their family home intact. Unwilling to explain, reasoning with them yet again, she asked. “Why are you not out on patrol with Augustin?”

“I’ve sent Patrick,” he answered.

“Do you think that wise?”

“I’ve been to see the blacksmith,” he interrupted, changing the subject. “Ceredig has almost finished the repairs to the armor. My men need not fear a sword will find its way through any broken rings in their mail.”

Eyreka’s emotions tangled. She was relieved to have at least her eldest speaking to her again. She turned away to sip at the spiced wine, uneasy with her son’s avoidance of a discussion of his decision to send the hot-tempered young Irishman out on patrol with the Normans.

She would have to let it go. “I’m pleased that Ceredig has decided to work with you,” she said smiling. The blacksmith had been instrumental in her leaving the holding unnoticed. If not for his timely intervention, her sons would have followed too closely behind and prevented her from seeing the king. Only the gods knew where her sons would be right now if she had not had the courage to take matters into her own hands.

Eyreka looked around the hall, pleased to see that all appeared normal. “Dunstan?”

Her younger son was speaking with one of her husband’s men, but he ended the conversation and turned toward her expectantly. “Aye, Mother?”

An improvement, she thought. She had his attention. “Has the southern meadow been readied for planting?”

He nodded his head and smiled, and a low-pitched grumbling to her left caught her attention.

“Did you salt the meat intentionally?” she heard Georges ask.

Surprised, she took a bite of her own game hen and sighed. It was not salty at all. The Norman obviously had no sense of taste.

“This wine is sour enough to turn the food in my stomach,” she heard another of her husband’s men grumble.

She lifted her wine goblet and took a tiny sip; the wine was potent, but very smooth. Not a hint of sour. The Norman guard obviously needed to develop a taste for their Saxon fare. After the meal had ended, she rose, quickly followed by Aimory.

“’Tis my duty to guard you today, milady.”

Rather than argue, Eyreka bowed her head and walked toward the kitchens. Aimory followed closely behind her and mumbled something about the food not being fit for a beast, let alone a starving warrior.

On a whim, she stopped at the end of the long table where most of the Norman guard sat and popped a piece of meat from one of the half-filled trenchers into her mouth. She started choking on the dry, overly salted bit of fowl. Without thinking, she grabbed the nearest goblet and took a huge gulp. The sour wine made her eyes tear.

When Aimory silently offered her a cup of water, she tried to thank him, but couldn’t stop choking. She gave up trying and drank deeply. He was smiling at her reaction, and she wondered if there was something she had missed.

“Milady, mayhap I should describe the daily fare your husband’s men have been served,” Aimory said in a low voice.

She nodded, “I think a walk to the kitchen and herb gardens would be invigorating.” While they walked, Aimory explained how the Norman guard had been served over-salted meat and game with day old-bread and sour wine from the very first day they arrived at Merewood.

Eyreka could feel her blood begin to boil. Outraged that one of her own people would do such a thing, she knew she couldn’t ignore the proof she’d choked on.

She stalked into the kitchen ready to do battle. “How could you be so cruel as to serve my husband’s men such meat?” she demanded of Gertie. The older woman backed away, but the expression on her face remained blank.

Eyreka did not want to ask, almost afraid to hear Gertie’s reply, but she had to. “Did you not soak the meat first before serving, or did you add more salt?”

The woman did not answer her.

“What happened to the wine? I tasted each new barrel opened myself. Not a one was sour!” Impatience had Eyreka running a hand through her unbound hair.

“If I may speak,” Aimory offered quietly.

Eyreka nodded.

“From the first we have been served similar fare. We thought mayhap your cook had much to learn. But the constant praise your son’s men heap upon the cook has made me suspicious.”

“And when I tasted the food, you realized…”

“…that we were not being served the same food.” Aimory finished.

Eyreka turned back toward her maidservant, Sara, who stood beside their cook. “What have you served my husband?” she demanded.

“You share a trencher, do you not?”

Eyreka could not believe the anger laced between the woman’s words.

“See that you toss out all of the tainted meat you have been serving my husband’s men. From now on, I will personally taste each and every trencher that you serve them.”

On their way back across the bailey, Eyreka heard angry shouts being hurled from atop the curtain wall. She hurried over to the wall with Aimory close beside her.

“And I said I cannot let you in, Norman dog,” Kelly shouted down at the angry warriors demanding entrance.

Eyreka could not believe what she just heard. By Odin, when had the situation between their two peoples degenerated? Had she been so occupied trying to maintain the peace, she did not notice things had not deteriorated to where they now stood…they had been that way all along?

Bits and pieces of conversations filled her head, and in each one, there had been a complaint from her people about Augustin’s men, their squires, and their servants. She had thought she handled the complaints to everyone’s satisfaction. To be fair, she had heard nearly an equal number of complaints from the Normans muttered beneath their breath. She had been so focused on melding their lives together that she had ignored the true state of affairs.

“Kelly!” Fear iced through her stomach. She must do something or all would have been for naught.

The young warrior turned around to face her. At her pointed look, a deep flush started up his neck, making each and every one of his freckles stand out.

“Aye, Lady Eyreka?”

“I trust that you will allow my husband’s men entrance into our home without further incident, lest I have to speak to my son about your conduct.”

The flash of fear in the man’s eyes told her all that she needed to know. Garrick was yet unaware that anything untoward was happening. At least it was not on his orders that Kelly acted, barring the Norman guard entrance to the keep.

She turned and asked Aimory. “Does this sort of thing happen often?”

He looked up at the scowling guard and then at her. “Every time one of our guard goes out on patrol without one of your son’s guard.”

It was worse than she thought. After she had begged for leniency for the two Norman guards who let de Jeaneaux beat her, then snuck food to them, her husband’s men still did not fully accept her. Wishing for the moon to drop pearls of moonlight into her outstretched hands would not be enough to make it so. The problem involved their two peoples. Her son’s guard had yet to be persuaded to trust the Norman guard. Her grand plan to live separate lives, while she and Augustin settled into life together at Merewood, was not as inspired as she had thought. In going their separate ways, sleeping in separate chambers, she had let everyone know that she had little regard for the new lord of the keep. Her show of respect to him as lord meant little, when she had not accepted him as a man.

In her heart she admitted that she had been trying to delay the inevitable, hoping to grow accustomed to having a husband again. But that was not the whole of it, she thought. She was afraid. Afraid of the way she was drawn to the man she had wed. The man who looked at her with Addison’s beautiful storm-gray eyes, the man who made her skin tingle every time he walked into the room. It was obvious from the way her husband avoided her that she was the only one suffering.

“Are you all right, milady?” Aimory sounded concerned.

“I must speak to my husband.” Unease tangled together with the growing fear that she was becoming enthralled with the last man she wanted to be attracted to.

“He is trying to sort out the difficulty with the blacksmith,” Aimory offered.

“Difficulty?”

“Aye, for some reason Merewood’s smithy does not have time to repair any Norman armor.”

Eyreka’s first reaction was to chastise the young knight for speaking out against one of her people, but she remembered Garrick’s comments from just a short while ago. Her son had been more than pleased with the repairs Ceredig had made to his men’s armor. How was it that Ceredig had time for Merewood’s Saxon populace and none for the Normans?

Aimory left her at the door to her chamber, but only after wrangling a promise from her that she would lie down and rest.

As soon as the warrior’s broad back disappeared, Eyreka opened the door the rest of the way and swiftly descended the stairs in his wake, knowing the loud commotion coming from the hall held the man’s full attention. She hurried. It was only a matter of time before one of her son’s guard would take Aimory’s place at her door. Her husband’s vow to protect had not been hollow.

She slipped through the crowd of people waiting in the hall, shaking her head at those who tried to speak to her. Thankfully her people knew her well. She needed time away. With de Jeaneaux behind lock and key, she felt safe leaving the walls of the holding.

The sunlit path led her away from the walls of her home. With each step, her anxiety fell away. The trill of birds above her soothed her tired soul. The heady scent of sun-warmed pine mingled with the scent of wildflowers lining the well-worn path toward the stream. She slowed her steps and breathed deeply, inhaling the fragrance. How she missed taking solitary walks through the wood. It was just what she needed to clear her head. Mayhap now she would be able to decide upon a course of action that would bring the two groups closer together and accept one another. It would take a miracle, she snorted. Lost in her own troubled thoughts, she stayed away longer than she intended.