Chapter Twelve

CHAPTER TWELVE

"W here do you suppose our husbands have gone?" Grier asked.

She was asking the question of Charlisa, who didn't have an answer for her. After Dane had run out so quickly, Grier had spent the better part of two hours behind the bolted chamber door until one of the senior sergeants came to tell her that there had been a raid on the market, but that the raiders had fled and Shrewsbury men, including the duke, had returned after a search of the surrounding countryside.

With the castle no longer under lockdown, at least for the moment, Grier was free to go about her day, but she really didn't have any idea what that meant other than bathing and dressing, which she did with Euphemia's help.

The old servant was in fine form this morning, chatting away about things they had been discussing last night, but it was odd how differently Grier felt about the same conversation after being intimate with Dane the night before. Yesterday, she had been open in asking questions of Euphemia, but now that she had experienced the mating of a man and a woman, she felt quite private about it.

She didn't want to talk about it, even when Euphemia chattered on about how to please a husband. To Grier, what had taken place between them was deeply personal and she didn't want to share it with anyone, not even with Charlisa who had come to see how she was faring after drinking so much ale the night before.

Grier was glad to see the vivacious blond, but truth be told, she wasn't feeling all that well. The ale had given her a raging headache. However, it was her first full day at Shrewsbury as the duchess, and she was eager to get on with it. With Charlisa's encouragement, she finished dressing in the red dress made of wool, much softer than anything she'd ever known wool to be, and pinned the lovely marriage brooch on her breast. After last night, the brooch meant something to her, a gift from the man she had married. A man she was quickly growing very fond of. Fully dressed and ready to face the world, she followed Charlisa on a tour of Shrewsbury so she could learn what she needed to learn about running a castle.

It was a daunting yet exciting task.

But the truth was that it was difficult to focus on daily tasks when her husband was nowhere to be seen, and Charlisa felt the same. The outer bailey was full of men, but no knights. Still, the women continued on, and as the morning mist began to clear and the sun began to shine through, Grier and Charlisa picked up a companion in Laria, who joined them on their walk. As they moved across the inner bailey bridge and skirted the outer bailey where the men were mustering, it was that scene that had brought about Grier's question–

Where do you think our husbands have gone?

Charlisa seemed quite distressed that Dastan was not in sight. "I do not know," she said honestly. "The soldiers have said they have returned, but I do not see them. I hate it when Dastan rides to battle, but I suppose I should not complain. Since we have been married, there has hardly been any trouble at all. The worst was last month, when Lord Garreth was killed. They were gone three weeks and when they returned, it was with Lord Garreth's body and Dane was declared the new duke. And, oh! That horrible majordomo, Adalgar. Have you been told about him? He had been with Lord Garreth for many years and he wanted the dukedom for himself. When it was given to Dane, he told us that Dane was sure to fail and that they would wish for Adalgar to return."

Grier hadn't heard about the horrible majordomo but, already, she hated the man. "But Dane has not failed," she said. "He will not fail. He is a great knight and his father is the Duke of Warminster. He was born to serve Shrewsbury."

Charlisa looked at her, a smile on her lips. "He is kind and handsome," she said. "Just as my Dastan is kind and handsome. We are very fortunate, you and I. We have married kind and handsome men."

Grier couldn't help but smile, perhaps an embarrassed gesture. She'd noticed that Charlisa was very nearly obsessed with "handsome" husbands, as if it should be the most important thing to all of them.

Not that Grier disagreed with her.

"I suppose we are," she said. "It is odd; a week ago, little did I know this would be my fate. It seems as if this has all happened so fast and I am still trying to catch my breath."

Charlisa wasn't unsympathetic. "I can only imagine how you must feel," she said. Then, she continued rather hesitantly. "What was it like to be an oblate? Did you pray all day and all night, and hardly sleep?"

Grier shook her head, laughing softly at Charlisa's question. "Nay," she said. "We prayed at designated times, just as you do. The rest of the time, we had assigned duties. Some of us worked in the garden, some in the kitchen, and some of us sewed."

"What did you do?"

"I sewed."

"What did you sew?"

"Lace shawls that the abbey sold," she said. "We did not have much income, and the shawls brought in badly needed funds."

Charlisa leaned in to her, as if to tell her something in confidence. "I do not sew very well," she admitted. "I think I was born with ten thumbs."

Grier laughed. "I am sure it is not that bad."

But Charlisa nodded firmly and before she could answer, Laria spoke. "She is a terrible seamstress," the girl declared. "You will always know anything she makes because it looks as if a blind man pieced it together."

Charlisa pinched the girl, who yelped and rubbed her arm in the offending spot as Grier continued to giggle. "Well," Grier said thoughtfully. "You show me what I must know about running a house and hold, and I will show you how to sew properly. Agreed?"

Charlisa nodded eagerly. "Agreed."

With that, the trio headed over to the kitchens, which were in the outer bailey behind the great hall. Grier found everything about the outer bailey fascinating; the soldiers, the trades, even servants running about on their assigned tasks. There was a whole world there, a world that she now presided over, although it didn't feel quite real to her. It was a strange place, filled with strangers, but they all belonged to her and to Dane. This was to be their world together, forever, and there was joy in that realization that she never imagined possible.

Their wonderful world, together.

A week ago, she could never have dreamed that this would be her life. Two days ago, she could have never imagined she would actually be happy with this marriage, but she was. Charlisa was correct; she'd married someone handsome and kind, someone that belonged only to her, and for a woman who had been beaten and starved, isolated from the world for most of her life, she was far too trusting in her newfound happiness. She had no sense of reservation about it. Surely anyone who made her so happy was someone who deserved her adoration, respect, and loyalty.

That was the way she looked at it.

For the first time in her life, she was actually happy. She very much wanted to belong in this world that now belonged to her. And that included newfound friends that she was very curious about.

"Tell me of yourself, Lady du Reims," Grier said as they headed into the kitchen yard through a tall wooden fence. "How did you come to marry Sir Dastan?"

Charlisa lit up like a spark at the mention of her husband. "My father is a great warlord who is allied with Dastan's uncle," she said. "Dastan's family is one with great means, but my family has greater means and a greater army, so it was simply a matter of convincing Dastan that a marriage to me would be in his best interests."

"But you are happy?"

Charlisa's expression told the story. "So very happy," she says. "He has told me that he loves me. That is all I need to know."

Grier thought on the prospect of having a husband's love. It wasn't such an outlandish thing, considering her father had loved her mother. Even as a child, she had known that. The thought of having Dane's love seemed like the most unreachable of wishes, for surely a man who was forced into marriage would not love the woman he'd been tied to. Perhaps he could be fond of her, but love? It didn't seem possible, and her heart sank with that thought. Perhaps, God could give her his blessing in a husband that loved her.

It was a lonesome prayer.

"You are very fortunate," Grier said after a moment, envious of something Charlisa had. "Dastan seems like a good man."

Charlisa nodded her head fervently. "He is," she said, watching Laria as the woman went over towards the hen house. "But enough about my husband; I could speak on Dastan all day long and you would weep with boredom. Therefore, let me tell you about the kitchen yard, where we are now. You did wish to learn about Shrewsbury, so let us start here. The cook manages the yard and I will introduce you to her. She is an old woman named Alvie, and can hardly hear, but she is a master when it comes to cooking and tending the kitchens. We cannot get along without her."

From that point on, Grier listened closely to all Charlisa had to say. The woman spoke of the buttery, the butchery, the sheep herds they had that provided not only wool but meat, and the very large flock of chickens they had in an enormous coop that was watched over by two men whose sole job was to make sure the chickens didn't fall prey to any predators.

Evidently, they needn't have worried too much about protecting the chickens, because Laria was inspecting some newly-hatched chicks and a nearby rooster took unkindly to her. Suddenly, Laria was being chased by a very big rooster, screaming as she ran around the kitchen yard. Charlisa started laughing, as did Grier, watching the young girl fend off the rooster who grew angrier every time she tried to kick or swat at him. It was very humorous until Laria headed in their direction and both Grier and Charlisa realized that big rooster was coming for them. Charlisa grabbed Grier by the arm and they fled into the kitchens with Laria on their heels, who slammed the door behind them so the rooster couldn't follow.

Inside the hot, fragrant kitchen, Grier continued to giggle as Charlisa berated her frenzied young cousin.

"I have told you to stay away from the chickens," she scolded. "You know that the roosters will chase you!"

Laria wasn't too contrite in spite of the attack. "But the chicks are so sweet!"

Charlisa rolled her eyes. "You are useless," she said. Her attention returned to Grier. "I apologize, my lady. I did not intend that your first visit to the kitchen yard would end in you running for your life from an angry rooster."

But Grier wasn't bothered in the least. "Not to worry," she said. "We had to come to the kitchens, anyway, and here we are."

Charlisa nodded, distracted from her pouting cousin as she looked around the low-ceilinged structure. There was an enormous hearth with all manner of pots hanging over it on iron arms, and a big oven built right up against it. Everything was hot and steaming, and as they watched, kitchen servants bustled around completing their tasks.

There was a woman whose sole job was to make bread, and Grier watched with interest as the woman worked busily on what looked like two or three different types of loaves. There was also a woman who was responsible for the fire in the hearth, and a massive iron pot of water was tucked up towards the rear of the hearth, steaming. That was the castle's hot water supply, Grier was told.

Everyone seemed busily going about their tasks as the cook, a very big woman with a round face, round nose, and thinning white hair supervised what was going on. She had a big spoon in her hand, as she'd been stirring something that was cooking over the hearth, but when she turned and saw Charlisa and the ladies, she quickly put her spoon aside and rushed to greet them.

"M'lady," she greeted Charlisa. "What can I do for ye?"

Charlisa indicated Grier. "This is Lady de Russe, our new duchess. You will be taking your orders from her from now on." She then spoke to Grier. "My lady, this is Alvie. She has been at Shrewsbury for a very long time."

The cook looked at Grier in surprise, quickly bowing her head. "The baby," she murmured, her eyes wide at Grier. "Ye're the baby. The little lass. I knew yer mother, m'lady. God's Soul… ye look just like her."

That caught Grier off guard and very quickly, she felt her emotions bubbling up. "You… were here when my mother was alive?"

Alvie nodded. Then, she seemed to tear up, lifting her apron and blowing her nose in it. "Aye, m'lady," she said. "I was here. I loved yer mother; she was a kind and decent woman. Do ye not remember me? I used to call ye ‘Lamb'. Ye used to come to my kitchen and ask for sweet cakes. Do ye not remember?"

Grier thought very hard, realizing she did remember coming to the kitchens as a child where a woman would give her sweets. "That was you?" she gasped. "I remember asking the cook for sweets and you would give me cakes of oatmeal and honey."

The old cook was nodding furiously, bobbing her head in agreement. She looked as if she was about to burst into tears as her red face became even redder.

"That was me," she said. "I was devastated when yer mother passed and yer father sent ye away. We didn't know where ye went, but that bastard of a majordomo told us ye'd gone with the church. And now ye're back!"

She seemed so happy about it, which made Grier feel some joy as well. She could hardly believe there was someone left at Shrewsbury who remembered both her and her mother from those years ago.

"I am," she said. "I have come back to stay. I have married the duke and this will be a happy place again, I promise. I do not know much about this majordomo some have spoken of, but I am glad he is gone. Did you take your orders from him, then?"

Alvie lifted her big shoulders. "Mostly from Lady du Reims, but sometimes the old fool would try and tell me what to do. But I wouldn't listen to him; nay, I wouldn't!"

Charlisa smiled as the old cook's hackles went up. "Adalgar was not a very nice man to the female servants," she said, trying to be tactful. "I did not fear him, because the duke put me in charge of the kitchens and the hall, but whenever he tried to exceed his authority, Dastan would step in and he greatly feared Dastan. It was a blessing when Dane became the duke because it forced Adalgar from the castle. He was under the delusion that he was to be the next duke."

"The idiot," Alvie sniffed. Then, she beamed at Grier. "But now that ye're here, we'll have happy times again. ‘Twill be as if yer dear mother has returned. Now, Lamb, what can I prepare that is special for ye? I know! Sweetcakes!"

Grier didn't even have time to answer the woman before she was rushing off, calling to another servant lady and telling her what they needed to prepare. Grier and Charlisa watched it all, looking at each other and shrugging.

"I suppose that means she is happy to see me," Grier said, grinning. "Truthfully, I'd forgotten all about her. What a lovely discovery."

Charlisa agreed. "It is a lovely discovery," she said. But then she paused, spying Laria over near the baker, sniffing at the bread that was coming out of the oven hot and fresh. "One of the first things I must tell you about your duties is to watch out for my cousin. She cannot keep her hands off of anything."

Grier turned to look at Laria, chuckling when the baker slapped the young woman's hand as she tried to tear a piece from a fresh loaf of bread.

"She is young," she said. "She will learn to behave soon enough."

"Unless the rooster finally catches her and stabs her to death with his spurs," Charlisa said. Shaking her head at her cousin, she returned her attention to the cook and a thought occurred to her. "Have you ever cooked anything before?"

Grier shook her head. "Never," she said. "As I said, we all had assigned duties at the abbey, and my duty was to sew. Why?"

Charlisa smiled, that same dreamy smile Grier had noticed the woman had when she either looked at or spoke of her husband.

"Because I think it would be a wonderful thing to cook something for my husband," she said. "To make him something to eat with my own hands. Don't you think that would show him how much I care for him?"

Grier had no experience with anything like that, so she didn't really know, but she didn't want to sound na?ve. "I am sure he would like anything you did for him," she said. "But what would you cook?"

Charlisa took Grier by the hand, pulling her over to where the cook was beginning to throw ingredients into a big wooden bowl.

"Alvie," she said, answering Grier's question by speaking to the cook. "May we make the sweetcakes? For our husbands, I mean. They are out ridding the town of the terrible raiders, so we would like to make them something special."

Alvie looked at her as if completely baffled by the question. "Ye… ye want to do this yerselves?"

Charlisa nodded firmly, looking to Grier for support, who began to bob her head up and down because she was being prompted to. Truth be told, she had no idea what to do in the kitchen, so the thought of failing to produce something pleasing for Dane was greater than the inclination to want to try.

But Charlisa had no reservations; the woman was fearless when it came to showing affection for her husband, and Grier thought that was a rather admirable quality. So what if she failed? It seemed to Grier that with Charlisa, it was all about the effort, and in that thought, Grier realized she could learn something from Charlisa when it came to her own marriage with Dane.

It was all about the effort.

"Aye," Grier said. "We want to do this ourselves. Surely making food with our own hands will make it taste twice as good to our husbands. Will you show us how to make these cakes?"

Alvie was still bewildered by the request, but she showed them nonetheless. In fact, she brought out a second wooden bowl and poured oats and eggs and honey into it and told the women to start mixing the dough with their hands, which they did.

Rolling up their sleeves, Grier and Charlisa stuck their hands right into the mixture and began to knead and mix, watching everything Alvie did for the dough from putting in extra honey to sprinkling ground cinnamon and cloves into the mixture. A little bit of salt went in, followed by raisins, and all the while, the women were mixing and mixing, squeezing the dough to make sure everything was incorporated.

As they worked and learned, Laria wandered over and began sticking her fingers into Charlisa's bowl, pulling forth sweet oat dough to lick. Charlisa scolded her and Alvie pulled up a spoonful of the stuff, handed it to Laria, and then swatted her on the behind to shoo her away. Laria wasn't too offended since she had sweet dough to lick off the spoon, but when that was finished, she headed back over to the baker to pilfer more bread from the woman, who gave up trying to chase her away and handed her a half of a warm loaf. Happy, Laria found a place near the door that led to the kitchen yards and shoved fresh bread into her mouth.

In all, it was one of the better mornings Grier had ever spent. Charlisa was sweet and eager, Alvie was patient and kind, and Grier thought that she could come to love her surroundings very much. There had been such uncertainty with her return home yesterday, but after the encounter between her and Dane last night, and then a morning filled with old friends and new experiences, she was coming to think that she could come to like being at Shrewsbury very much.

It was turning out to be much more than she could have hoped for.

Therefore, she mixed the dough happily, so very pleased with the direction her life was taking. When the ingredients were well mixed, Alvie helped her and Charlisa make the dough into flat little patties for baking, but when it came to actually putting them in the oven, Alvie insisted on doing it. She didn't want the women to burn themselves. They helped her put the cakes on the long, flat wooden sheet and watched her slide them into the hot oven.

Now, all they had to do was wait.

As the smell of cinnamon filled the kitchen, and smoke from the hearth began to back up against the ceiling, Charlisa followed Alvie back over to a table where the woman had been making crust for meat pies, while Grier found herself over with the baker, who was making a different type of bread. She had already made bread from wheat, but now she was mixing rye flour in with the wheat. As Grier was watching with interest, a servant opened the door from the yard, coming in with a basket of eggs.

It shouldn't have been an action that stood out in a kitchen that was busy. It was a normal action, that of opening a door, but the unfortunate reality was that Laria was standing right next to the door finishing off the warm bread the baker had given her, and the rooster that hated her was still by the door when it opened. The bird hadn't moved. When it caught sight of Laria, it ruffled its feathers and bolted through the open door, rushing at Laria and causing the girl to scream in fear.

What happened next was a chain reaction of biblical proportions.

When Laria screamed and ran, she crashed into the baker, who dropped the mass of flour she had in her hands. Flour exploded onto the rooster, onto Laria, and onto the floor as Laria ran from the rooster, and the rooster gave chase.

Covered in flour, Laria ran right into Grier, who had been watching the baker, and when she saw the angry rooster bearing down on her, she leapt up onto the baker's table, also covering herself with flour. When she slammed her hand into a bowl of water that was on the table, the water sprayed up onto her chest and neck, sealing the flour to her skin and hitting her in the face with droplets.

As Grier gasped at the mess she'd made, Laria and the rooster continued their mad dash. They crashed into Alvie as the woman tried to avoid them, and the rooster flew up and flapped its wings at Charlisa, who screamed and began slapping at it with the first thing she could find, a large metal spoon. She whacked it, but good, stunning the rooster for a moment before it picked itself up and kept running, now running because it was panicked and not because it was chasing Laria. With a wild rooster on the loose, servants were screaming and running from the kitchen, creating an uproar, while those still inside the kitchen were either up on tables or heavily armed, or both.

An angry rooster with big spurs was a fearsome sight, indeed.

"Open the door!" Grier yelled at the baker, who was closer to the yard door than the rest of them. "Open the door and he will run out!"

The baker was terrified but she did as she was told. Arming herself with a rolling pin, she rushed to the door and threw it open, only to have men charging in from the outside. In fact, men were charging in from another door as well, and very quickly, the kitchen was full of men with weapons who had heard the screaming.

When Grier happened to look up at the men flooding into the kitchen, her gaze fell on Dane, who had his sword leveled, ready for battle. Their gazes locked and Grier would never forget the look on his face.

Deadly.

The man was prepared to kill.

The rooster slipped out under the legs of the men and ran out into the yard, leaving behind a trail of destruction in its wake.

And that was the last they saw of it.