Always (12 page)

“How many children were there at the abbey with you?” he asked suddenly.

“There were five in my earliest memories,” she answered slowly. “But one died when I was still quite young. Two were quite a bit older and left when I was about six, then two others when I was eight.”

“Did no other children come to the abbey?”

“Nay. The abbess had been taking children in only because she needed money to run the convent. But Father paid her well enough that it was no longer necessary.”

“Did you miss the others when they were gone?”

“Nay. I did not see them much. I was younger, and they—” She cut herself off abruptly, stirring Aric's curiosity.

“They…what?”

“They did not seem to like me much,” she explained painfully, making Aric frown. Older children rarely liked to hang around with the younger ones. Still, he got the feeling that there was more to it than that.

“Why do you think they did not like you?” he asked carefully.

There was a silence filled only by the night sounds around them; then she sighed. “Sister Eustice said it was because I never got beatings. I never complained at how awful the meals were when they replaced my dinners, and none of the others knew about the cold baths or cleaning. They thought I got special treatment and resented it.” There was a splash of water; then she said with a defiant tone, “I was rather glad when the last two left. That was when I got to start working in the stables with Sister Eustice.”

Aric frowned. It sounded as if she had known quite a lonely life.

Another spate of mutters and gasps told him that she had sunk further into the water, and he could not resist a glance over his shoulder to see how far she had gotten. She was in up to her neck now, and all he could see was the back of her head. Suddenly she ducked that under the water, too. She came up gasping a moment later and whirled toward him, mouth open. It snapped closed as she glared at him. “You are looking, my lord.”

“You stopped talking,” he murmured mildly. He again turned his back.

After a moment of irritated silence, she asked, “How long is it till we reach Goodhall?”

“A week, give or take a day.”

“A week.”

He heard a slight sigh between the splashes of water as she moved about. “Have you seen it? Do you know what it is like?”

“Nay.”

“I am sure it is lovely. Father would not banish us to a hovel…Would he?”

He was surprised at the uncertainty in her voice. Was she unsure of the man's love for her? Something that had seemed obvious to him appeared not so obvious to her. “Nay. I am sure it is lovely.”

She was silent for a moment, then asked, “What was
your childhood like? You said you had a brother and two sisters. What are they like?”

Rosamunde peered at him curiously as she asked the question, and saw the way his back suddenly went ramrod straight, his shoulders seeming almost to grow a good inch out of his body. His voice when he spoke was as chilly as the water had seemed when she first stepped into it.

“Hurry up and get out of there. We should return to camp.”

She continued to stare at him curiously for a moment, then moved thoughtfully out of the river. She began to pull her clothes on again. Here was a mystery. Her husband hadn't at all liked her question about his childhood. Had it been bad, or did he simply not wish to share it with her?

She would learn in time, she decided grimly.

 

Rosamunde shifted on her mount and glanced at her husband's back hopefully, but as far as she could tell, there was no sign that he intended to stop for the night anytime soon. It was unfortunate, really, because she had to relieve herself.

Shifting, she glanced at the scenery around them and sighed. After a week of travel, everything was starting to look identical. She saw the same trees, the same grass, the same river, the same clearings. She could almost believe they had been traveling in circles. Painful circles. After nearly a week on horseback, her behind seemed to have blisters on top of more blisters. And while it had seemed a grand adventure at first, Rosamunde had decided she preferred doctoring horses to riding them.

She also preferred living in the abbey to roughing it with her husband and his soldiers. While there had been a lot of rules regarding behavior in the abbey, it seemed to her that life was even worse out in the real world. Silence may have been demanded in the abbey during
meals and mass, but silence was all she got from these men. Not that they did not talk. They did. To each other. But the only things said to her seemed to be “Nay” or “Rest yourself.” Oh, yes, and “Come.” Her husband greeted her with that ere dragging her off to allow her to perform personal tasks.

She had not had an actual conversation with anyone since her bath in the river. She had bathed once since then, but then it had been in the morning while everyone else was still sleeping.

She had tried starting conversations that first night after her bath. While sitting around the fire eating the food the men had prepared, she had chattered away, asking questions and trying to find some topic of interest. But her husband had only grunted in response, then had suggested she go to bed. When she had protested that she was not tired, he had ordered her to sleep. She had lain down, but she had not slept.

The next morning Rosamunde had risen before the others, tended her personal needs, collected what berries she could find, and returned to the clearing to find the men stirring. Once again, throughout the morning she had tried to get her husband to talk. She had chatted merrily away in an effort to bring about a return of the temporary rapport they had shared by the river. It had not worked. He had sat silent and unresponsive, perhaps even unlistening, through her litany of childhood memories. Finally, she had given up. They had traveled in a depressing silence since then, long days on horseback that did not end until the sun set.

The only change Rosamunde had effected since that time was that she now had a chore to perform when they finally stopped each night. She had taken to tending to the horses. Not that her husband knew. And if the others knew, they ignored it. Actually, she did her best to hide it from them. She pretended to be attending to her own
horse, moving quickly to Marigold's side whenever any of the men came near the spot where the fellow in charge of the horses worked.

She liked Smithy, for unlike the other men, he did not seem to mind if she assisted him. He had tried to shoo her away the first time, but in the presence of a wounded or ailing animal, Rosamunde could not be shooed, and Smithy had been working with a horse with an injury. The beast tended to catch up one of his hind legs every now and then while trotting. Rosamunde had recognized the animal's condition, and as soon as she had diagnosed it as stringhalt, Smithy had relented. Now after a week, he even seemed grateful for her assistance.

It was her first success since leaving the abbey, if such could be called a success. At least the man allowed her to work with him. Sighing, she glanced toward her husband's back, surprised to see that he had actually stopped. Reining her horse in beside his, she glanced down into the valley below, taking in the green everywhere: a verdant valley with a river running through it, and a lush forest that moved up a smaller incline directly in its center. Leaves obscured the spires and turrets of the keep that rose below, like a magical castle.

“Goodhall.” She murmured the name with a certainty that surprised her. She had never seen the place, had not even been given a description, and yet she knew exactly what she was looking at. It was perfect. It was quaint. It was beautiful, and it was the home her father had chosen for them. She felt tears of gratitude well in her eyes and blinked them quickly away. Somehow, his gift of this keep to her said more of the king's feelings than all the times that he had told her he loved her. Suddenly she knew he had meant it.

This was a castle fit for a princess in a fairy tale. It proved that her father saw her as special. Rosamunde's gaze flickered to her husband as he suddenly urged his horse forward. She spurred her own to follow.

 

Though Goodhall was a dream come true from a distance, it was a little less so once they had entered the bailey. The potential was there, and it was still a lovely castle, but it had been let go a bit. It was obvious from the bailey that the chatelaine had been lax. The damage was not enough to be too upsetting, only enough to make Rosamunde realize that there was work to be done. And that she had no idea how to do it.

She was just starting to fret over that when her gaze automatically sought out and found the stable. Her breath caught in her throat in a combination of dismay and rage. If the castle was a bit run-down, the stables were a ruin. The walls boasted holes big enough for the horses to stick their heads through. Without thinking, merely reacting to the sight, she turned Marigold toward the building, urging her into a trot.

Rosamunde had not gone far when Aric's barking of her name made her rein her mount in and turn to take in his thin-lipped expression. “I thought to check on the stables, my lord. They—”

“Here.” He pointed at the ground beside his mount.

Rosamunde hesitated, then sighed and rode back to his side.

Apparently satisfied with her obedience, Aric turned and continued on to the keep steps, assuming that she would follow. Seeing little choice in the matter, she did. They had barely paused before the stairs to the keep and begun to dismount when the main doors opened and a man began to hobble out on the arm of a servant.

He was old, as ancient a man as she had ever seen. And he had not aged well. His hair, what was left of it, stood out from the sides of his head like tufts of white grass. One side of his wrinkled old face was lifted in a smile of greeting, but the other side seemed to be making a good effort at sliding off of his old bones. The mouth drooped downward; the eye was closed. His whole left side
seemed to be sagging. His left shoulder was slumped, the arm hung limp at his side, and his left leg dragged behind as he hop-limped determinedly out the door.

Rosamunde stared at the man with brief amazement. Despite the shriveled, dilapidated state of the man's body, he was obviously the chatelaine here. Which explained the state of affairs. A man in such shape could hardly be expected to keep on top of things. Her only question was why her father had not replaced the man and allowed him to retire. He was as battle-scarred and careworn as anyone she had ever met. If anyone deserved a rest, it was this man.

She had just come to that conclusion when Aric took her arm and urged her forward.

“My Lord Burkhart. Welcome to Goodhall,” the man rasped as soon as they paused before him. The greeting was given with a drawing up of one shoulder, like a soldier before inspection, the attitude so dignified that one could almost ignore the fact that due to the slack side of his face, the words came out as “Ma Or Burhar. Wahom hoo ooha.”

“Thank you.” Aric murmured with a warm smile that carried over into his voice. “I take it you received word of our imminent arrival?”

“Aye. We received a message from the king several days ago.” If they paid close attention they were able to decipher his slurred speech. “I have had the servants working to prepare everything. I hope it meets with your approval.”

The words were a question of sorts, a concern that all was well. Suddenly the way he stared blankly through them with his one milky eye explained why. As well as being paralyzed along the left side of his body, the man was blind in the one eye that would open. That explained the question in his voice: he could give the orders, but could not see if they were carried out. Once again she
found herself wondering why this man had been left in charge. Was he an old friend of her father's? And was her father simply loyal to his friend, or had he neglected the proper reassignment of Goodhall for too long?

“Everything looks wonderful,” Rosamunde answered quickly. Aric glanced at her with a combination of amusement and annoyance, then shook his head slightly. She apparently thought so little of him that she believed he might have reprimanded the man for something so obviously beyond his control.

Not that she noticed his look, though, for her gaze was fixed on the old chatelaine. His face broke out in a smile. “You must be Lady Rosamunde.”

“Aye, my lord,” she murmured warmly, clasping the hand he extended toward her.

“Lord Spencer, at your service, my lady. Long and faithful servant of your father's—until time and fate made me useless.”

“Not useless, my lord, surely,” she chided gently. “Just look at how you keep this place.” She tried not to let her dismay at its condition show in her voice. It was not this old man's fault.

“You are very gracious, my lady. Your father said as much to me. He told me also that you were as lovely as your mother inside and out, so I can actually picture you in my head.”

Rosamunde smiled anxiously at the words. “You knew my mother?”

“Oh, aye. A fairer lady never walked this earth than the fair Rosamunde.” A gentle smile of reminiscence covered his face. “Even Eleanor, in her day, could not have outshone her.” He nodded as if to verify the statement, then frowned slightly. “But I am being rude by keeping you standing out here. You have traveled far and must be tired and thirsty. Come, I ordered food and drink to be prepared.”

Holding tightly to the arm of his silent aide, he turned back toward the door, and started to make his slow, agonizing way back up the stairs.

Taking her arm, Aric followed just as slowly. Rosamunde frowned over her shoulder toward the stables as she went. She would rather have checked the building out first, but knew her husband would not allow it. She would check on it later, she assured herself silently, the first chance she got.

 

The first chance she had was not until after supper was finished. Aric was busy chatting with Lord Spencer and not paying her the least attention. Standing, she moved slowly around the great hall, peering first at the Goodhall seal and crest, then at the swords on the wall. She was aware that her husband had noticed her leaving the table, but after seeing her wander aimlessly about briefly, he'd turned his full attention to the older gentleman who was telling tales of battle and his life.