Michael JECKS - The Leper's Return

“Well?”

“Someone’s been trespassing over your land.”

“What? Who?” Coffyn leaned forward, peering closely, his swollen and bleary eyes screwing up with concentration. He chewed his nails, and William looked away.

It was ever the way, the guard thought, that men would be fooled by their women into trusting them too much, only to find that they had been deceived. He could only feel sympathy for his master.

“Tell me! It was the Irishman, wasn’t it?”

His words were spat out with as much virulence as if they had been a noxious draft, and it gave William a certain perverse pleasure to be able to shake his head. “Oh no, sir. It wasn’t him. It was a leper.”

“A leper!” Coffyn sank back in his seat, horrified. “A leper,” he breathed.

Fifteen minutes later William left the solar and made his way to the buttery to fetch a quart of ale. All in all it was shaping up to be a profitable night for him, and he smiled as he poured his drink.

Baldwin left his hall not long after Jeanne had departed to change from her travelling clothes. For the duration of her visit, Baldwin had given up his own bedchamber. It was the newest room in the place, and seemed to remain the warmest. The other upstairs room, the one at the opposite end of the hall above the buttery, he had allocated to Simon and Margaret. That left the undercroft beneath his bedchamber. It was to this little room that he now repaired, and as he entered, he found his servant sitting on his chest and watching Uther, who, on hearing his master, instantly left his bowl of food to leap at him.

“Down, you brute! Edgar, how could you…”

“Yes, Sir Baldwin, I’d think so,” Edgar said quickly, and strode from the room.

“I… Edgar?” Baldwin felt his mouth fall open at his servant’s behavior, and hared after him. He found Edgar outside in the little plot that Baldwin had optimistically termed his orchard. “Edgar, what in God’s name are you doing, walking away from me when I…”

In answer, Edgar glanced back at the building. “I could hear almost everything that Lady Jeanne said to her maid in the room above.”

“But I…” The knight fell silent. Two possibilities were suddenly opened before him: one was that his servant had just saved him from shaming himself by insulting Jeanne’s maid in full hearing of both women, something which, no matter what Jeanne’s private thoughts about Emma, must surely offend her to some extent; the second was that Edgar had, no doubt unintentionally, become privy to Jeanne’s views on her maid as well as, possibly, Baldwin himself.

“I hope you didn’t try to listen to their conversation. That would be quite shameful,” he said cautiously as Uther appeared at the door and sat down for a scratch.

“No, sir, I was careful not to listen,” Edgar said.

His response irrationally irritated Baldwin. He was of a mind to be insulted – not for any failing on Edgar’s part but because of Emma’s interruption of what Baldwin was already thinking of as his first attempt at romance. The fact that Emma had necessarily made it an abortive attempt made the knight want to share out his bitterness. “I should hope so too!” Uther shook himself, sending a small gobbet of drool flying against the wall. “And Uther – how could you have let Emma get to the door first like that? You know Uther is a guard.”

“I’d have expected Wat to leave Chopsie tied up. I wasn’t to know the dog would be free. Anyway, since then I’ve had the hound locked up in your room.”

Some women liked dogs, and Baldwin had no reason to think that Jeanne herself didn’t but there was a great difference between a little lapdog and Uther. There was a brash, confident slobbering enthusiasm about him that was entirely lacking in a gentlewoman’s small pet. Some dogs could subtly work their way into a household without being noticed. One moment there was a space in front of the fire, and the next a small mongrel had filled it. It was that way with old Ben, Baldwin’s farm dog. One day there had been space before the fire, the next the little mutt had inveigled his way in, and it was as if he had always been there.

Uther, on the other hand, was incapable of insinuating himself into a small gap. If there was a small gap, it soon became Uther-sized as he shoved his way through. When Uther was present, it was impossible to miss him. It wasn’t only the fact that a creature weighing over six stones was hard to ignore, nor the smell of three-week-old damp rags that he invariably carried with him wherever he went. No, it lay more in the fact that Uther had about him a variety of canine devotion that was touching to someone who liked dogs, and intensely repulsive to someone who didn’t.

But Baldwin wasn’t going to admit that in front of his servant. “This is nonsense!” he snapped. “Uther is my dog, and he always stays in the hall. How else can he protect the place? You’ll give him the run of the hall again immediately.”

Edgar raised an eyebrow, and opened his mouth as if to argue, but Baldwin held up his hand. “That is my decision. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Sir Baldwin,” Edgar said again with that irritating servility that felt like condescension. “If that is what you wish, I will see to it.”

“Good.”

“But…”

Baldwin glared. “What?”

“I was thinking, sir, that it might be best if we kept Uther from the hall while you’re eating. He might unsettle Emma – or Lady Jeanne.”

It was a sensible suggestion. Baldwin nodded, absently patted the dog on the head, and began to walk back to his new room. “And now fetch me water and a bowl. I need to wash.”

The meal was not an unqualified success. Edgar remained on his best behavior, which meant he cultivated an air of suave competence, responding to any orders with a distant politeness. His demeanor left Baldwin disgruntled; he would have enjoyed being able to order his man about, to demonstrate he knew how to keep his servant on his toes.

Jeanne could see that Simon and his wife were more interested in her and their host than their food, and that was enough to make her maintain a calm reserve. It was easier than trying to make polite conversation in which every subject was analyzed for a possible second meaning.

Yet she was struck with the knight’s property. The house was a great old cob and thatch longhouse, generously proportioned, but Baldwin had made several improvements, according to Simon and his wife. When they had first visited him here, it had been merely a single-storied hall with a small dairy at the back, a buttery and pantry to one side. Now each end contained upper rooms, areas of privacy from the servants and bondsmen who messed and slept in the hall. That was not all, for the new red sandstone block attached to the rear of the house was Baldwin’s new buttery, where all his brewing equipment was stored. It meant that he now regularly had too much ale for his own people and could sell off his excess. The old buttery was still in use, but like the undercroft was used more as a storeroom than a working area.

“That stew was excellent,” she commented as Edgar placed a fresh bread trencher before her.

“I am glad you enjoyed it,” Baldwin said. “It wasn’t so easy before with the old kitchen.”

“When did you have the new one built?” asked Margaret.

“During the summer. The old one caught fire. I must admit, I’d been thinking about doing something about it for some time already, though. It was too small for my purposes. I used the quarry over at Cadbury for the stone, and now I have a kitchen large enough to feed an earl, should it be necessary!”

“Do you look for advancement, then?” Margaret asked.

“Christ’s Blood, no!” said Baldwin, sincerely shocked. “What benefit would I gain from banneret’s rank or higher? All it would mean would be that I would have to fund more men to no advantage.”