Candle in the Window (4 page)

“Lady Saura?”

Bartley spoke, reminding her of her duty, and she
rose with a hidden tremble of her knees. “Aye, of course. Is
he still hunkered by the fire?”

Bartley nodded. Maud glared at him and he realized
anew that the noble Saura couldn’t see him. “Aye,
m’lady. He never leaves there.”

Saura moved toward the servant, catching his
shoulder and then his arm, showing him how to guide her.
“Please
take me to him,” she asked
courteously. “And as we go tell me about yourself.”

The man started with doubtful steps across the
room. “I’m just one of th’ churls here,” he
volunteered, and then fell silent, unused to conversing with women,
especially young, beautiful women who stood head and shoulders
above him.

“Are you married?” she prodded,
matching his hobbling gait with her own.

“Oh, nay, never had time for that, what
wi’ chasin’ around m’lord’s estates after
thieves an’ poachers an’ such.”

“You were a soldier?”

“Aye, an’ I had me own horse th’
lord let me ride—that was Lord Peter’s father,
an’ then Lord Peter—till I got too crippled t’
ride in winter.” His voice sank. “Then I got too
crippled t’ ride in summer, an’ I got
banished.”

“Banished?” Saura encouraged him with
the gaze of her violet eyes, and the elderly man forgot she was
blind.

“Stuck in th’ keep like some old horse
they’re too kind t’ kill.” His bitterness bled
into his voice, into the agitation of his limbs. “I’m
grateful. Not many lords keep their old men-at-arms in where
’tis warm when they aren’t of any use. But ’tis
hell t’ be old. Don’t ever get old, ’tis just one
long day after another, an’ not enough work t’ fill
th’ time.”

“But, Bartley! What would I have done without
you these last weeks?” Saura clasped his arm close to her
side and shook it. “You’ve been such a support, helping
me with the balky servants and caring for Lord William so I was
free to order the cleaning.”

“And where would I be without you sitting
with me in my corner and telling me stories about the battles of
your youth?” The warm, golden tones of William’s voice
were rich with sincerity and gratitude.

The old warrior trembled a little more, struck with
the
palsy of age and embarrassment. “Good
master, I didn’t know ye listened.”

“It’s been the only thing that’s
kept me sane.”

Bartley blushed, his papery skin darkening.
“Here, m’lady. That damned dog’s on your heels
again, m’lady, don’t trip on him.” He assisted
Saura to a chair and stood back as the mastiff lowered itself to
the floor at her feet. Stepping in front of William, Bartley said,
“Been a long time since I taught ye t’ ride a horse
without fallin’ off. We shared some things, m’lord,
an’ since ye can’t fight anymore, an’ I
can’t fight anymore….”

“Come to the fire tomorrow,” William
invited, “and we’ll reminisce.”

Pleased beyond all recognizing, Bartley wandered
off to boast that Lord William had spoken to him, just like the old
days, and cordial as ever.

The silence between lord and lady hummed eloquent
with accord.

“Very gracious,” Saura approved.
“Did he really teach you to ride?”

“Everyone had a finger in that pie,”
William answered, stretching out his legs to the fire. “If he
wants to remember his tutelage, I’ll deny him not.”

Saura grinned, and rubbed a finger across her lips
to erase it. To her mind, a grin didn’t go with the image of
somber housekeeper. “You asked for me, my lord?”

“Are you laughing?”

She scrubbed a little harder at her lips.
“Not laughing at you. But you made that old man so
happy!”

William’s voice turned frigid. “I can
make anyone happy these days, just by speaking civilly.”

The grin snapped off her face. “Then spread a
little cheer, my lord.”

“Now, why is it,” he mused, “that
when the servants displease you, you are distressingly polite and
soft-spoken? When I displease you, you fly into a rage.”

“Because I expect better from you!”

“Why?”

“My lord,” Saura said with thin
forbearance, “you are a warrior. What do you do with a
soldier who loses a leg?”

“Teach him another trade.”

“And if he will not learn?”

“Let him turn to begging.”

“’Tis a hard world. What do you think
of a man who has all the privileges of a loving family, a home and
enough food, but must be forced to care for himself? What do you
think of a man who refuses to take the burden of work from his
father’s shoulders, a man who abandons his son?”

“Enough!” William’s voice started
at her level and rose above her head as he stood in ready ire.
“My God, who are you? Saint Genevieve who through the grace
of God restored sight to her own mother? Perhaps blindness is a
puny thing to you, you haven’t experienced it.”

“’Tis as big as you make it.”

“But everything I am is bound up with my
sight. You said it, I was a warrior. A knight! I had to fight to
protect my home, my family, my people. They’ve no use for me
now!”

“Oh, don’t they?” Saura relaxed,
on steady ground. “Did you arbitrate their quarrels, hand
down judgment for their crimes?” William didn’t answer,
and her grin blossomed again. “You have a reputation for
fairness in arbitration. Did you leave the education of your son to
others? He pines for you, for your support, as he grows into
maturity. Your father needs a man to talk to, to ask advice of, to
be with. Your tenants need guidance. They are a bunch of lost and
bleating sheep without your firm hand. You’ve sown what you
reaped, my lord, a demesne filled with people
who worship you. But all your former good deeds will be forgotten
soon if you don’t stir yourself to add to your
legend.”

Listening to her warning, William wished he
weren’t so scrupulous. That part of him that insisted on
equity for others insisted on equity for himself. He wanted to deny
the woman’s point of view, proclaim his justification for
being self-centered and forlorn. Goaded beyond control, he asked,
“Have you ever been in despair and in need of a human touch?
And those who love you are too afraid of your disability to touch
you? As if it would rub off? Haven’t you ever been alone in
bed at night and felt the walls closing in, felt imprisoned by your
own body?”

Saura’s throat closed with incipient tears of
recognition, but he charged on. “You creak like a woman too
old and dried-up inside to understand the weakness of the flesh.
Never loved a man, never held a child. The way you talk, I’d
think you never sinned.”

The legs of his chair thumped heavily as he flung
himself into it, and Saura grappled with the surge of unexpected
affinity that twisted her heart. She tried to talk, but she
couldn’t: comfort was nothing more than a whisper, fragmented
in her mind and constricted in her breast.

“What are you doing? Praying for me?”
William’s voice lashed at her, and then softened in a hush of
thought. “Praying for me.” His fingers tapped an
impatient dance on the arm of his chair. “Are you praying for
me?”

She remained silent, and was rewarded with his
charge.

“You’re a nun, aren’t
you?”

“Oh, dear lord.”

“Of course.” He snapped his fingers.
“I should have realized. It’s logical; only a nun could
bring this kind of discipline to a household.”

Saura gulped and patted her flushed cheeks.
“Your father….”

“Swore you to secrecy? Why, madame, are you
here to teach me?”

She sighed and smiled, entertained by the evidence
of his lively mind, and his faith in his own conclusions.
“I’m here to teach you,” she acknowledged.
“I am a teacher of the blind.”

“And you have every reason to sound so
sanctimonious. You never have sinned, have you? Never held a man
with love, never mothered a child.”

“And I never will.” She touched her
barren womb with the intense pain of one who wants more. “An
aging maiden with no hope for tomorrow.”

William bit his lip in regret. He’d wanted to
bait her a little, but he never meant to probe an open wound.
“The choice was not yours, to enter the nunnery?”

“If I’d had my choice, I would have my
husband and my family.”

Struck by the call of a frustrated kindred spirit,
he offered the best comfort he could. “I cannot help you with
the husband, madame, but we are your family now.”

Touched by the graciousness of the offer, she
answered, “Thank you, William.”

He grinned. “William? Will you call me by
name only when you’re pleased with me?”

“My lord,” she faltered, embarrassed by
her revealing slip of the tongue.

“I like it. It reminds me of my
mother.”

“Your mother?” Stunned, she grappled
with her dissatisfaction. She was nineteen and that poorest of
creatures, an unmarried woman, but his
mother?

“When I vexed her, she called me ‘my
lord.’ In quite a sarcastic manner. I recognize your kinship
with her.”

She coughed.

“I called you for a reason.” He ignored
her emotion, recognizing the enigma of a woman’s mind.
Whatever interpretation he put on her reaction, he would probably
be wrong. “As you so tactlessly pointed out to me, I stink.
I’ve not had a bath since last fall, and through the long
process of learning to eat I’ve dropped food on my clothes
and in my beard. Do you think…?”

That Woman moved with speed and confidence, he
thought sourly as he poured water over his chest. A contingent of
female vassals had escorted him to the solar and stripped him while
the men wrestled the huge tub in front of the fire. Buckets of
water had been hauled up the stairs and kettles of water hung over
the fire to boil. In no time he had dipped his big toe in and then
settled with a sigh. He waved everyone away with his enormous hand
and let the warmth seep into his bones and move his blood. He had
endured the cold for too long: the cold without, and the cold
within.

Now peace reigned in the chamber, the door shut
tight against drafts.

Lady Saura and her handmaid were in consultation
over his clothing trunk, and the murmur of their voices washed over
him.

“This feels like a fine, light wool
tunic.”

“Aye, and ’tis dyed a serviceable brown
with braid at the sleeves and hem.”

The other serving women worked quietly under
Saura’s direction or settled with their sewing. Their hushed
chatter
reminded him of a spring bath four years
ago, and in his mind’s eye he saw the large chamber as it
looked then.

Built off the great hall, it was dominated by the
polished wooden master’s bed, raised on a dais, fitted with a
canopy and hung with curtains to keep out the winter winds. The
clothing trunks sat against the opposite wall, close enough to the
hearth to keep the contents dry but not to catch a stray spark.
Blessed with more light than any other room in the castle, the
solar contained clusters of stools and benches in the window seat
where the women worked. Windows overlooked the fenced garden of the
bailey. The iron grille protecting them cast square shadows into
the room and the wooden shutters were finished with elaborate
carvings.

William chuckled as he remembered how his wife had
insisted on first the windows, then the carvings. His father had
shouted she would beggar them with these ridiculous ideas, and Anne
had shouted back, telling him to fix his own dinner and mend his
own clothes and bear his own grandchildren. It had been quite a
violent altercation, and in the end Lord Peter had cheerfully
ordered the shutters carved and Anne had continued to bear him
grandchildren.

Until she died with the last one. William had laid
her to rest beside the four tiny graves of their children who had
gone before.

He waited for the familiar rush of grief, but there
lingered only a sweet melancholy. He missed her: her boisterous
laugh, the scent of lavender on her clothes, the plump cushion of
her body against his at night. But he no longer mourned her, and if
this monstrous handicap had not been visited on him, he would have
cast his eye around for a woman to marry and live with.

He didn’t like this process of pursuing one
woman until she capitulated and then forsaking her and pursuing
an
other. He knew men who did: Arthur, and to a
lesser extent, Charles, sought the myth of the perfect woman in
every bed. During the years they were fostered by his father, no
serving maid beyond her first flowering lay on her pallet
alone.

But that particular pattern of male behavior was
foreign to him. His energies were better utilized as a warrior, his
desires better cared for by a woman who loved him. He had used the
serving women around the castle to sate his bodily needs, but he
yearned for the one lady who would heal his soul. He sighed and dug
the rag out of the bottom of the tub.

A rustle of material caught his ear, and one of the
maids stepped up to test the water. William perceived the swirl of
her finger by his thigh and smelled the spicy scent of carnation,
and grinned. Catching her hand in his, he rubbed the soft skin
beneath his thumb and rumbled, “Wench! Is my leg so
interesting you yearn to touch it?”

The girl said nothing, only laughing in a startled,
breathless way and tugging against his hold.

Emboldened by her laughter—she was obviously
not afraid of him or his blindness—he tugged back.
“Don’t go, I have more I can show you than mere
leg!” With a jerk, he pulled her into the tub and onto his
lap.

Water rose in a great splash and they were
instantly wet from head to toe. The girl gasped and struggled in an
inept, careless manner, as if she weren’t accustomed to
having a man hold her. The quick skim of his hand down heŕ
soaking body assured him this couldn’t be the case. Any wench
blessed with generous bosoms and hips and a tiny waist had been the
recipient of many an embrace.