Conquering William (29 page)

William was glad someone had the words, because they escaped him. Appalled came closest to what raged through him. “I am afraid God is nowhere in this.”

He dismounted and tossed the reins to Cedric.

Caomh slid to the ground from where he rode with Rufus.

“Caomh?” A woman appeared in the crooked doorway to the hovel. With her dead eyes and sunken cheeks, he could not guess her age, but hopelessness and fear trailed her.

“Mags, meet Sir William.” Caomh moved to her side and stood beside her, bristling like a broody mastiff.

“Aye, but what be he doing here?” Mags paled and dipped into a curtsy. Her threadbare skirts revealed bare feet. “Begging your pardon, my lord.”

“Nay, Mistress Margaret.” William took it all in. The bare, cracked yard, the skin covered windows, the gaping holes in the thatch. Most of all he could not drag his eyes from the three emaciated children huddled in their mother’s skirts. “It is I who must beg your pardon.”

Empty beast pens sagged to one side of the dwelling.

“Are there many like this?” he asked Rufus.

“Aye, my lord.” Rufus’s face wore grim resignation. “Most of the village fare no better.”

“Dear God.” Untilled earth, choked beneath weeds and nettles stretched out behind the cottage. By now, the soil should have been turned to rest for winter, ready for planting with the thaw.

The children’s pinched, chapped faces would follow him to the grave. The rags they wore barely covered their stick limbs.

“How long has it been thus?”

“Many a year, Sir William.” Rufus took position beside him. “There is more, if you care to see it.”

“I must see it.” William’s breakfast soured and churned in his gut. He would not suffer a beast to live in such conditions. “How long since these fields were planted?”

“Planted?” Mags gave a bitter laugh, crossing her arms. “What shall we plant, your lordship? Acorns?”

Caomh tugged his wife back to his side. “Whist, Mags.”

“Did Tarnwych not send you seed?” William already had the answer and he barely heard Mags’s reply.

“Dunstan sold the seed.” Rufus cleared his throat. “He sent just enough of the harvest to the keep to make sure Gord did not ask too many questions, and sold the rest.”

“Gord said nothing?”

Rufus stared over his shoulder. “Gord sent his reports to Sister Julianna.”

Dunstan and Sister, a perfect pairing that rendered the bailiff impotent. He had seen Gord’s frustration that first day in the kitchens. With no reason to trust him, still Gord had tried to tell him that the keep larders remained all but bare because the villagers had nothing to spare. They had not even enough for themselves. Mags would lose one if not all her children before winter turned to spring.

In the months following his wedding, he and Gord had built a solid relationship, but William had reeled from one problem to the next. Putting out the fire in the barn, only to have a new one spring up in the henhouse. Alice, Sister Sunshine, even his own family had conspired to keep his eye from where it should have rested all along.

By God, this stopped now. “Cedric!”

“Aye, my lord.”

“Ride hard for Tarnwych. I want Gord here as fast as you can get him. I do not care what he is doing.”

“Aye, my lord.” Cedric wheeled his horse and cantered away.

William motioned Rufus. “Let me see the rest of it.”

It got worse in the village nearby. Oldsters, too ill and starved to rise from their matts. Children with hollow eyes and sunken bellies. Women wearing that dull resignation that comes from seeing your children’s deaths looming irrevocably closer. And men, beaten by life and loss, unable to lift their heads and call themselves men.

“Pick a group of men,” he said to Rufus. “Find out what the villagers need the most, and get it here. Get Mistress Ivy here to see what she can do.”

“Aye, my lord.” Rufus’s eyes glistened and he turned his head away. “I will see it done.”

“Everything, Rufus. Clothing, linens, food, implements, whatever they need. If you must chop firewood for them, do it.”

“Aye, my lord.”

“And when Gord gets here, have him make a list of repairs. I want it by sundown.”

“Aye, my lord.”

“Donnchadh.”

“My lord?”

“Ride for The Crags. Tell you father how matters lie here, and see what help he can offer.”

“Aye.” Donnchadh scuffed the earth with his boot. “Only, I am as likely to return with more of my brothers.”

“Every sodding one of them, if that is what it takes.” William leapt onto Paladin’s back. “I am going to find out how matters came to this sorry state.”

Anger drove William back to Tarnwych. Each strike of Paladin’s hooves on the ground driving his fury higher. A lord of a demesne had a responsibility to his people. They paid his taxes and fed the keep, and in exchange he provided his protection and his aid. Not all lords honored their duty, but for him to have become one of those lords made him want to empty his belly.

Attuned to William’s mood, Paladin outstripped the other riders and arrived in the bailey in a shower of mud and sod.

Sir Arthur had raised his sons to honor their duty, shoulder their responsibilities. In one morning, William had become the sort of scavenging cur who fed off his people. Some part of his brain warned his anger lay with Sister Julianna, but she nestled safe in the convent now.

Amidst her ladies, Alice sat in a pool of wintery sunlight that burnished her hair to flame. The very picture of a chatelaine at her sewing, laughing and chatting with the keep women.

Whilst less than a mile hence, babes would not see their next birthing day.

She looked up as he strode forward, his heels ringing on the flags. Her smile of welcome died, replaced by a wary expression.

“Leave us.”

Women snatched their sewing and scattered.

“William?” She rose, her embroidery clutched in one hand.

Here she sat, warm, fed and sheltered. He shoved his hands behind his back before he shook her. “Are you enjoying your morning, my lady?”

“Aye.” Alice held up her scrap of fabric. “We were doing some mending, and sewing some…Did the hunt not go well?”

“It went well. Until a poacher nearly split my head in half with his arrow.”

She stepped toward him, concern creasing her face. Her embroidery fluttered to the ground. “Are you hurt?”

“Step back, my lady.” He did not trust the control he had on his anger. “I am well enough. At least I was well until I discovered why the poacher had fired on me.”

“William, I do not understand.”

“That may be.” He clasped his hands together, battling to control the fury writhing within. “Ask me why the poacher fired at me.”

Her chin came up, a tiny gesture of defiance he wanted to stamp out. “I do not like this game, William.”

“I do not care, my lady. Ask me why.” He stepped toward her and she backed up. Good. At least she had a God-given sense of self-preservation.

“Why did the poacher fire at you?” Her throat worked as she swallowed.

He frightened her. She needed a fright to shake her out of her life-long slumber. “He was starving.” His boots touched her bliaut hemline. “Along with his wife and children, and every other soul in the village.”

Alice averted her gaze and frowned. “Surely not. We send supplies from the castle through the harsh months.”

“Do we?” Her innocence made him even angrier. How much of her life did she spend closing her eyes to what happened about her? She was not a child anymore. As a grown woman she had duties, and she sat here and embroidered silly green swirls on white linen. “When was the last time you went to the village?”

“Sister did not—”

“When, Alice?”

She rubbed her hands on her bliaut. “A long time.”

“Weeks?”

“Aye.”

“Months?”

Her pretty face crinkled in confusion. “I do not—”

“Years?”

“Not years.” Up came that defiant chin again. “I was last there…” Her eyes widened to sparkling green gems. Her shoulders slumped. “Surely not years.”

“Years.” William drove his point home. “You have not been there in years. Yet you have been chatelaine at Tarnwych since your marriage to chemise-lifting William.”

“I was not really chatelaine.” She held her hands out to him in silent appeal for understanding.

He had none for her. She did not deserve his compassion whilst her people died of disease and hunger. Her complacency sickened him. “Nay, you were not chatelaine at all. It was too easy to let that wicked nun take charge of your life and the lives of everyone around you. You lived in your own private world, Alice, whilst your people”—he gripped her shoulders—“your people, not hers, suffered. They still suffer.”

Tears turned her eyes brighter green. “I did not know.”

“You know now.” He dropped his grip. “What are you going to do about it?”

“What would you have me do? I know nothing of—”

“I would have you grow up, Alice. Become a woman I can respect.”

She flinched as if struck, and tears glistened in her eyes. “What if I cannot become the woman you want me to?”

“Then, my lady, you are someone to whom I cannot be husband.”

* * * *

The churchyard was the worst. Alice went from grave to grave, some no better than a crude, wood-fashioned cross.

So many graves, scattered over the winter-brown grass like pockmarks.

Earth mounded beside the gaping maw of a fresh grave. Another soul to add to her guilt tally.

“My lady, we should return to the keep.” Seamus trailed after her.

“Not yet.”

After a lonely night she had risen early this morning and asked Seamus to bring her to the village. From hovel to hovel they had gone until Alice felt she would be sick.

William’s anger made horrible sense in the face of the aching poverty all about her. She had left her people to die awful, painful deaths.

Work crews teamed like ants over three village dwellings. William already making his presence felt. Cart after cart rolled into the village from the castle, bringing barrels of dried meats and fruits, bales of linen, sacks of wheat and barley, and stacks of farming implements.

The villagers huddled in small groups and watched as if they had lost the will to take part in their resurrection. Everywhere she went the women’s hostile stares tracked her. Faces that spoke of tragedies almost past bearing.

Alice met each stare, and pressed into her memory the knowledge of their suffering, the lashes her soul must bear for her apathy.

“Lady Alice?” An emaciated priest strode across the churchyard toward her. “I am Father Joseph.”

Up in Tarnwych, Father Mark cowered in silence, whilst this man bore the weight of his deathwatch on his stooped shoulders.

“So many.” Alice motioned the crosses.

“Aye.” Father Joseph folded his hands before him. “Last winter was especially harsh. Many fell ill and some who did survive the contagion succumbed during the summer.”

“I had no idea.” Pitiful and inadequate, she could not even look him in the eye.

“Aye.” Father Joseph picked up a handful of earth and dribbled it through his fingers. “I tried to send messages to Father Mark, but…” He shrugged. “At least you are doing something now.”

“It will not help these people.”

“Nay.” Father Joseph crossed himself. “They are with God now, and their suffering is eased. It is the living to whom we must turn our eyes.”

“You have Sir William to thank for this.” Alice motioned the increased activity about the village. “He saw in an instant what I have been blind to for years.”

“God bless him.” Father Joseph’s voice choked with emotion, and he cleared his throat. “And God bless you, my lady. We cannot fix the past. We can only go forward.”

If only it were that easy. Alice nodded and waved Seamus closer. “I am ready to return now.”

“My lady.” Father Joseph touched her arm. “I have found life rarely falls into clear paths of good and evil or right and wrong. We are human, and we live our lives in the gray area betwixt these things.”

His words made no sense to Alice. All that she saw about her came from the evil of neglect and ignorance. There were none of Father Joseph’s gray areas here. She nodded and led Seamus back to where he had tied their cart.

Back at Tarnwych she hunted down the one person who could help her.

Beatrice sat in the hall with Richard, Mathew, and Adam playing a game of stones beside her.

“Lady Beatrice. Could I speak with you?”

Beatrice stiffened, and her face tightened in anger. “I have spoken with William earlier this morning.”

“Aye.” She deserved all the anger Beatrice and William heaped on her head. “I need to ask you to help me with something.”

Rising, Beatrice dusted off her skirts. “I do not know that I am inclined to help you, Lady Alice.”

“Teach me how to be a chatelaine.”

Beatrice stilled and stared at her. “What did you say?”

“I know what William must have told you. I only now returned from the village and have seen it for myself. Whatever he said cannot convey the horror of what goes on there. I cannot fix my past mistakes.” She had Father Joseph to thank for that one. “But I can make sure I do not make them again.”

“Let us walk.” Beatrice motioned Martha to watch the children. She waited until they had moved far enough away for privacy. “How is it that you do not know how to care for a keep? My mother taught Faye and I from the time we were little.”

“I was raised by Sister Julianna, and I do not believe she had any experience to pass on.”

Beatrice toyed with the end of her flaxen braid. She stopped before a casement overlooking the moors. “I suppose not.”

“I am not excusing what has happened.” Alice swallowed past the dryness in her throat. “I want to learn.”

“You know, Alice, I keep trying not to like you.” With a sigh, Beatrice looked at her. “First there was you not wanting to allow us into Tarnwych, then the thing with Mathew, and now this. I look at all these actions and my head condemns you as a cold, miserable bitch.”

Put before her like that, Alice could see how Beatrice would think thus, still…

“But here is my problem, Alice.” Beatrice took her hand and led her to the casement seat. Drawing Alice beside her, she said, “I do like you, Alice. You are funny and sweet, and despite your dull dresses and that God-awful wimple, there is a sparkle to you that I want to draw closer to. I know William sees it, and I have struggled not to see it since I arrived here.”