Laurie Grant - My Lady Midnight

She fled, silently thanking God and all the saints that he had apparently not heard her speaking French.

Alain turned back to his involuntary guests behind the barred window. “Well, have you considered your position during the night? Have you decided to tell me what you were doing in Hawkswell Wood?”

“We told you, we were going to join King Stephen’s forces,” sneered the one called Jean.

“And I told you yesterday I didn’t believe you,” Alain said with a pleasantness that he was far from feeling, especially after finding Haesel down here visiting with them. He wanted to smash the big ugly Norman’s nose into his skull. “None of Stephen’s forces are encamped near here, for I control the valley. Now why were you really here, fellow? Did you hope to infiltrate the castle? Did you think I was so stupid I’d hire any lordless soldier wandering around?”

“Nay, it’s as he said,” asserted the other one, known as Ivo, a rough-looking knave if there ever was one.

“It’s a pity you’re holding to that story,” murmured Alain with a careless shrug of his shoulders.

“Are ye goin’ t’ torture us, then, my lord? We ain’t afraid,” Jean boasted, though he couldn’t quite hide the uneasy look in his squinty eyes.

“Perhaps. Or perhaps we’ll just forget you’re down here,” Alain said with an elaborate show of unconcern. “Imagine it, my fine fellows—no food, no water, no one coming to visit you…the days would turn into weeks. How long would you last, I wonder?”

“Long enough, I’d vow, to see this castle in Stephen’s hands,” came Ivo’s snarling retort.

Was it all just bravado, or was the lout truly less afraid of possible starvation than torture? Perhaps he just felt torture was a more immediate prospect, whereas starvation might take longer—or did he have reason to think Stephen’s forces would somehow be able to take the castle soon, and liberate them?

It was just a rhetorical question in any case, for Alain had never yet stooped to torture, though he was not foolish enough to let these rogues know that fact. Continued incarceration ought to make them willing to talk, given time.

What had Haesel been doing down here? True, she had asked if she might explore, but he had pictured her poking her nose into all the aboveground nooks and crannies within the vast castle and strolling along the wall walk. Taking the trouble to lift the trapdoor was a little more than exploring, he thought.

He could not have explained the urge that had caused him to interrupt the reeve in midspate as that worthy fellow was trying to explain why Lucan the miller should not be expected to do his boon work, in order to check on his prisoners. Alain wished the urge had not caused him to find Haesel here.

Always eager to get rid of the feeling of suffocation that attended his trips down the dark, narrow steps that led to his one-cell dungeon, he turned around. He had started up the stone steps, in fact, when he stopped and turned back to the men in the cell.

“Do you speak English?” he asked suddenly, hoping to catch them off guard. If they denied speaking English, then how had they been able to speak to Haesel?

“Me? Speak that gibberish? N—”

Alain heard a grunt as if Jean had just elbowed Ivo in the ribs.

“That is, yes, just enough to flirt with the serf women, and make a bargain with them what sell their wares, if you catch my meanin’, my lord,” Jean said with a wink.

“Yes, that little blond woman is a hot little piece, my lord,” put in Ivo. “Is she your new leman? I’d watch her—she has a wandering eye, ye know.”

Alain stomped up the stairs before he could give in to the urge to throttle both of them.

Shaken by the near-disaster, her eyes stinging with held-back tears, Claire dropped the trapdoor with a clatter. The arrogant caitiff! How dared he speak so cruelly to her, as if she were so witless that she fully merited the full measure of his contempt! How dared he stare at her with those icy, suspicious eyes? She deeply resented the flash of fear that had gone zinging through her after encountering those eyes. Had he made Julia feel that way?

Why, for just one of those silver pennies she figured were stored in some of those barrels, she’d move a couple of the barrels over the trapdoor—then let him try to get out! She grinned, imagining his rage at being penned down there with the likes of Ivo and Jean for company, until someone missed him! ‘Twould serve him right, though he’d probably bellow so loud he’d make himself heard through the ground before he became hoarse, and they’d find him all too soon. Saints, but he’d be mad as a rabid dog when he was finally freed!

She stopped at the threshold, struck with the realization that if she did just that, he would be powerless to stop her from taking the children. He would not even know. The priest probably taught them their lessons in the chapel or in his own quarters. She must find them, quickly!

But no, it couldn’t possibly succeed, Claire had to admit after a moment’s consideration. She had not been here long enough to have a position of trust. On her first full day at Hawkswell Castle, she could not simply take the children from the priest under some pretext, then walk over the drawbridge and beyond the curtain walls with them! Why, even supposing Father Gregory would allow it, the lowliest soldier would know better than to let her pass unchallenged with them.

She must not let her distaste for planning the kidnapping make her impulsive. Nothing would substitute for careful forethought and learning the layout of the castle and the nature of its inhabitants, so she had best get on with the exploring she had asked to do.

The thought of dampening Lord Alain’s overweening rudeness had cheered her, though, so that she was able to put on a smile before going out into the sunlight of the bailey once more.

The open area within the inner curtain wall was a beehive of activity now that the funeral was over. Men and women were rushing hither and yon, some heavily laden with baskets and bundles. A rhythmic clanging was coming from a rude outbuilding to the right of the great hall, and as she passed by it she saw a man hammering upon a broadsword.

“Good morrow, girl. I am Ewald, the armorer, obviously enough,” he said, nodding at the sword in his hand.

Girl. She was jolted by the simple appellation, being used to being addressed as “my lady,” but it had been said with smiling friendliness. You are not a lady here, Claire.

“Good morrow, Ewald,” she said. “I be Haesel, my lord’s children’s new nursemaid.” She waited warily, on guard lest the armorer find something amiss with her English. But he kept smiling. He was well named, she thought, seeing the muscled shoulders straining beneath the rough russet tunic. Ewald meant “powerful” in English.

“Aye, that I know. I know also that last night ye spurned the attentions of yon coxcomb up there, and I commend ye for it.”

She followed his eyes to the far end of the wall walk, and spied Hugh le Gros pacing there with a pike in his hand.

“Aye,” she said, looking back at Ewald. “But how—?” Had the story spread all through the castle?

“Annis is my wife,” he explained. “I wasn’t at supper last even, but she told me what happened. You have any further trouble with that Norman knave, you come to her or me.”

“Thank you,” she said, warmed by his offer. “’Tis right kind o’ ye.”

“You are well come, Haesel, but perhaps I’d best get back to my work now.”

She bade him good-day and began to move on, then stopped as she saw, at the far end of the bailey, Lord Alain’s horse being held by a nervous-faced groom, while another man on the far side of the horse endeavored to lift the stallion’s off front hoof. That must be Guy, the smith, she thought, and smiled as clear across the bailey she heard him swearing in terse gutter French when the war-horse began to snort and stamp. Yes, the smith sounded just as testy as Lord Alain had predicted.