Lord of My Heart (10 page)

“Bring it here,” her uncle commanded.

Madeleine swallowed. One of Paul’s hounds raised its head, and she fancied she saw cruel suspicion in its eye. She rose and carried the letter to her uncle, sure he must hear her knees knocking, must see how her hand trembled as she held the parchment out to him.

He scarcely looked before awkwardly scrawling “P de P.” “Write my name in full beneath,” he commanded.

It was hard not to collapse with relief.

He smirked. “Bet you thought I couldn’t write. Better than a cross, eh? Read it back. Let me see how it sounds.”

Madeleine froze.

“Read it, damn you! If you’re fooling me and can’t write sense, I’ll have you whipped.”

Madeleine sat with a bump and stared at the sheet. Her heart scurrying, she forced herself to recollect the half-heard words. “My great and puissant liege. Hesitant as I am to disturb you during your mighty enterprise of reforming and civilizing this barbaric land . . .” She carried on, inventing when she could not remember, expecting a bellow of outrage at any moment.

When she finished, he nodded. “I fancy you changed a bit here and there,” he said, “but it sounds very well. Give it here.” He sealed it and summoned the messenger. Within the hour, Madeleine watched her letter to the king being carried away by the long-limbed runner, safe by the most severe laws from all interruption of his journey.

The messenger was heading to Winchester. Madeleine had no way of knowing how far that was, and she knew the king might not be there. He was always on the move, particularly with new troubles popping up all over the place. But the messenger would find him and soon, very soon, the king would come and bring her a husband.

The depleted work force was forced to toil beyond its endurance to care for crops and beasts at the same time that it built the castle. The people were subjected to blows and beatings for every small infraction. Everywhere she looked Madeleine saw weary, gray, malnourished people, and she suspected she herself was no exception. Though her uncle spent coin to buy better food, mostly for himself, even meals in the hall were poor.

Madeleine suspected that the money was running out. She knew Paul had given some to Odo when he returned to his duty, so his son might have a new sword and more fine garments in which to play the peacock. Her money. Baddersley’s money, which should be used to care for the people.

There would be an accounting when the king came.

But till then she could do so little. Since Aunt Celia took no interest in charitable work, Madeleine took over the distribution of what scraps were left from the hall table. She discovered the kitchen workers were passing out baskets of good food to their families and put a stop to it. What food there was would go to those in greatest need. She did not report the thievery to her uncle, however, for fear of what mad retaliation he would take. Had he not had one poor man hanged for letting his pigs get into the cornfields?

Every day she made herself available to those with problems, particularly medical ones, but only the Norman guards and servants asked her assistance. The English remained surly. No, more than surly.

The English hated her.

They hated Paul and Celia, too, but that was a dull resentment. Her they hated in an active, burning way.

Why?

Everywhere she went she felt their eyes pierce her like sharp blades, though when she faced them, their expressions were dull and blank. Even just crossing the bailey her spine crawled with the feeling that she was a target.

For a while she had continued to go out into the countryside to collect wild plants to supplement the food. She had also hoped for a meeting with her outlaw, with Golden Hart, so she could seek his help. But one day she had been struck by a large stone, thrown with vicious intent. She had fled back to her guard and stopped her wanderings.

She talked to Dorothy about it as she prepared for bed one night. “Is it my imagination, Dorothy, that the people here hate me?”

The woman combed out Madeleine’s long chestnut hair. “Why should they, my lady?”

“I don’t know. Do they say anything to you?”

“No,” said the woman sourly. “Hold your head still, do.”

Madeleine realized her maid must be as cut off as she was. No wonder she was surly. “Would you like to share my English lessons, Dorothy?”

She felt a particularly hard yank on her hair. “No, I would not, my lady,” snapped Dorothy. “The very idea. Teach them to speak proper. That’s more to the point.”

Madeleine sighed. “I wonder when I will hear from the king.”

“Doubtless he has better things to do than bother about your affairs,” said the woman, driven for once into loquacity. “Why, if matters are everywhere as they are here, he must be driven mad by the wretches. Refusing to do their work, always complaining, trying to leave their proper place as if they had a right to wander wherever they will. Heathens, that’s what they are, for all they pray in a Christian church.”

It was true that people continued to slip away from the manor in ones and twos. Paul put his guards on the village, but still his daily rages against Golden Hart marked another family gone. When the headman of the village came to report that the ox-herd and his family had escaped, Paul turned a deep, engorged red, then a frightening white.

“What?” he roared. “Go after him! Bring him back!”

No wonder he was in a rage; Madeleine felt a spurt of panic herself. The ox-herd was one of the essential people on any estate, and though his full skills would not be needed until harvest time, who would look after his beasts? Without oxen they would surely starve.

“No one knows where he’s gone, Lord,” stammered the man.

“Find him,” ordered de Pouissey. He lunged forward and fastened his beefy hands around the man’s throat. “Find him!” He shook the man, who made nasty gurgling noises.

“Aunt,” cried Madeleine. “Stop him!”

Dame Celia shrank back. “Why? He’s just another troublemaker. Let him strangle.”

Madeleine ran forward and grabbed her uncle’s thick arm. “Uncle, stop!”

He released the man’s throat and flung Madeleine off so that she was sent sprawling on the floor. “Keep out of my way, you wretched girl!‘” he snarled. His hounds leaped up and stood over her, growling, keeping her on the floor at his feet. She stared at their bared fangs and could imagine them tearing at her throat.

Her uncle looked down at the headman, who was kneeling, clutching his throat and choking. “If any of the oxen die,” he said flatly, “you die. Now get out of here.”

On hands and knees, the man went.

Paul de Pouissey turned on Madeleine. “Interfere with me again, Niece, and I’ll yoke
you
to the plow.” With that he snapped his fingers and lumbered out into the courtyard to whip more work out of the laborers. With a disdainful curl of their lips the two hounds abandoned Madeleine and followed.

Shakily, she rose to her feet. She looked to her aunt, but found no help there.

“Stupid girl,” the woman snapped. “Don’t you know better than to interfere in men’s affairs? I don’t know what they taught you at the convent, but you’d better unlearn it if you want to live. No husband will put up with such as you.”

Once or twice Madeleine saw someone slip in to speak to her uncle under cover of darkness: an informer from the village. As a Norman, she should be pleased, but she hated the man, whoever he was. In spirit she felt closer to the English than to her relatives. She was terrified that the traitor was bringing a tale of Golden Hart and that she would see her outlaw dragged before Uncle Paul.

“Do we know who Golden Hart is, Uncle?” she asked one day at the table when Paul had just finished another ranting complaint about the man. She worked at picking the flesh off a very small fish, apparently the best that could be had in the nearby river.

“A Saxon traitor,” snarled Paul. “When I have him I’ll make him pay. I’ll lop his limbs. I’ll blind him slowly. I’ll cut off his balls,” he said with relish, “and then the villagers who worship him can care for him as he crawls around in the dust like the beast he is.”

The piece of fish in her mouth threatened to choke Madeleine. He would do just as he said. Had not Duke William had the hands and feet of the rebels at Falaise chopped off?

She forced the food down. “But do we know who he is?” she persisted, striving for a casual tone.

Her uncle grunted a negative. “Some say he’s a displaced Saxon lord, even Earl Edwin of Mercia, though that young good-for-nothing’s kept tight at William’s side. Others say he’s that Hereward, or King Arthur come to save them.” Her uncle laughed. “He’s no ghost, as they’ll all know when they hear him scream. Give me that dish, girl.” He poked among the mess of greens. “Steward!” he bellowed. The harried man came forward to receive the bowl and contents in his face. “Find some decent food, or God knows I’ll geld
you!”

Madeleine fled the table.

She went to the chapel and prayed for the safety of her outlaw, begging forgiveness at the same time for the treason of it. “Keep him safe, sweet Savior,” she whispered. “Guard him. But,” she added wryly, “let him not entirely denude my land of people before I have a chance to see it whole again.”

No message came from the king.

Instead a spell of hot weather brought sickness, causing vomiting, fever, and death. Few of the castle people took the pestilence, but it roared through the already wretched village. Madeleine knew it was the near-starvation of the people there that made them so vulnerable. She cursed her uncle even more.

See what he had brought them to! Now there were few people fit to slave on his fortifications. Work in the fields had slowed almost to nothing. Animals were barely tended and the weeds grew up strong to choke the corn. A winter famine was almost certain.

Why didn’t the king come?

The villagers had always refused Madeleine’s attempts to act as healer, but now she would not be put off. Summoning two guards, she went out among the people. They still glared at her, but she was growing competent in English, and she demanded that they speak to her. She gave them herbs and explained how they should be used to ease the vomiting. Once, she saw a woman throw the medicine away and could have screamed with vexation. What was wrong with these people?

She refused to give up. Even if they did not use her treatment, at least she knew she was doing her best. As she sat alone one day in the solar tying bundles of herbs, a girl sidled in and waited. It was Aldreda’s fair-haired daughter.

“Yes?” Madeleine said.

“Please, Lady. There’s a child sick.”

“There’s dozens of children sick, girl.”

“My brother, Lady.”

Madeleine looked up. Was this the first crack? Was she being accepted? “What’s your name?”

“Frieda, Lady.”

Madeleine smiled at the child, who looked to be about eight. There was no answering smile.

“Where is your brother?” Madeleine asked.

“At our house. It’s between the hall and the village, Lady. Da’s a forester. Ma asks that you come, but without your guards, Lady. It must be secret or Da’ll throw the medicine away.”

It could be a trap, but Madeleine found it hard to believe that Aldreda would plot so openly to murder a Norman lady. The penalties for the whole community would be terrible. The father’s enmity was only too likely. This could be her chance to show the people she was their friend. She gathered up her supplies and wrapped a cloak around herself.

They slipped quietly across the bailey. The earthwork was up and a wooden palisade was being built on top. With so few laborers, however, the work was going slowly, and there were gaps here and there. On the far side, the stream had not yet been diverted to fill the moat, and rough bridges spanned the ditch for the carts of logs. It was alarmingly easy to cross unnoticed. Madeleine prayed that no enemy would attack Baddersley. She didn’t think it could repel a bunch of children armed with sticks.

Soon Madeleine and the girl stood before a substantial thatched hut at the edge of the woodland. Aldreda came out, a shapely woman with a strong, beautiful face. She was no more warmly disposed than usual, but Madeleine told herself she would be happier when her child was eased.

“He’s within,” said the woman coldly.

Somewhat hesitantly, Madeleine ducked through the low door and found herself in the typical house of a prosperous family. It was small but divided to give at least two rooms other than the one in which she stood. The walls were made of sticks well packed with clay, and there was a small window, open now to the sun, with shutters that could be closed to keep out the wind. The split-log floor was swept clean, and a fire burned in a central stone hearth. The smoke rose efficiently enough to escape through a hole above, but enough lingered to fog the room, and on such a warm summer’s day it made the room stuffy.

The only furnishings in the room were two long chests and a simple loom. Tools and dishes hung on the walls.

She looked around for the sick child and saw a man. The father? He stood looking at her, just a shadowy shape in earth-colored clothes.

“Where is the child?” she asked, disturbed by the slight tremor in her voice.

“There is no child.” Her heart leaped at that familiar voice. “You have been brought here to see me.”

“Are you sick?” she asked, moving toward him.

He stepped back, away from her. Light from the fire, the roof vent, and the window illumined him. He was as dirty and ragged as before, with a hood shadowing his face.

“No.” The coldness in his voice finally penetrated, stopping her. Menace weaved through the room with the smoke and caught her breathing. Logic said Edwald wouldn’t harm her. Instinct overrode logic.

“Then I am wasting my time,” she said and turned to escape. He grasped her arm.

“Take your hand off me!” She was as afraid for him as for herself. “Harm me and the wrath of God will fall on everyone here.”
Oh, sweet Jesu. He hates me too. Why? Why?