Rosamund (7 page)

“Do you think our half-brother had a hand in Hugh Cabot’s death, Edmund?” the priest asked his eldest brother.

Edmund sighed. “I do not like to believe it, but I cannot say I believe him entirely innocent. Nothing can be proved of him, however, no matter what I think, or what Rosamund thinks.”

Richard nodded, understanding. “Should we be content to allow our niece to go to court?” he wondered aloud.

“Hugh wanted what was right and good for his wife. She is becoming a woman, Richard. Maybel tells me the lass’ courses are now upon her. She is a virgin. Her next marriage will be consummated, and she will birth heirs for Friarsgate. Henry’s son is just a bairn. Our niece would be into her twenties and the boy barely old enough, if she were forced to wait for him. Better she go south to court, and when she returns with a husband, she will bring new blood to strengthen the Boltons of Friarsgate. Besides, it is past time that our half-brother ceased to lust after these lands. They belong to Rosamund.”

“Once she leaves, once she sees the world beyond Friarsgate, she may not be satisfied to remain here,” the priest said thoughtfully.

“Nay, Rosamund will return, and she will remain. She gains her strength from Friarsgate, brother,” Edmund told him.

“I will depart for St. Cuthbert’s tomorrow,” Richard said.
“After I have seen Henry off.”
He chuckled. “Henry will awake on the morrow with a sore head, I predict. He drank more tonight than he usually does. He will wake hoping it was all a dream and that Rosamund were still in his clutches. I should not get such enjoyment out of his discomfort. It is hardly Christian of me, yet I do get enjoyment from his discomfort,” Richard admitted. “You will let me know when Rosamund is leaving so I may come and bid my niece a proper farewell.”

“I will,” Edmund said.

“Then I will bid you good night, brother Edmund,” the priest said, and he stood up. “Sleep well and dream of angels.” He walked from the hall,
his black robes showing no indication of motion so smooth was Richard Bolton’s gait. The white robe belt about his midsection stood out in stark contrast to the dark fabric of his robe.

Maybel came from her place by the fire and joined her husband. “You should have told me,” she said, rebuking him.

“You were not sitting so far from the table that you did not hear me tell Richard that I knew little. Hugh kept his plan close, and he was right to do so. Henry may cry to the heavens, but he cannot claim any collusion between Hugh Cabot and me.”

“He will claim it, but if you are being candid with me, husband, then he cannot prove collusion just as we cannot prove he had a hand in Hugh’s death,” Maybel returned.

“You must go with her to court,” Edmund said.

“I know,” Maybel returned, “though it does not please me to leave you, Edmund. Still, it will not be forever, and you are a man more concerned with his duties than a well-turned ankle,” she said, chuckling. “I can trust you, Edmund Bolton, for there are those only too willing to tell me should you stray from the straight-and-narrow path.”

He chortled and put an arm about her. “And you, wife? Will you be tempted by the excitement of the court?”

“I?”
Maybel looked offended by the question.

“Well,” he said with a grin, “you are a fine figure of a woman, lass, and when you smile, ah, it cheers a man, it does.”

“Flatterer!” She swatted at him affectionately and colored becomingly. “My only concern will be in seeing to Rosamund’s safety and happiness. I must make certain there are no more marriages arranged for anyone’s good but our lass’.”

Edmund Bolton nodded. “Aye,” he said, “we don’t want her married off to someone like my brother Henry.”

“God forbid!” Maybel cried. “I will see that she isn’t. Naught will happen too quickly, I am certain. Rosamund is not important enough to be bothered with by the high and mighty. She will join the queen’s household and do what she is told to do. She will not be considered until they need an heiress to marry off,” Maybel concluded wisely.

“And you, my good wife, will be there to guide her,” Edmund noted with a smile.

“Aye, I will, Edmund,” Maybel responded.

In the morning Henry Bolton came slowly into the hall of the manor house as his half-brother had predicted. His head hurt him dreadfully and he had almost forgotten the arrival of Sir Owein, the king’s man.

“Where is Rosamund?” he asked. “She is to go with me today, is she not?” He sat down at the high board and shuddered as a trencher of bread filled with hot oat stirabout was placed before him.

“Do you not remember?” Richard Bolton said quietly. “Our niece was put into the king’s care, and will go to court in the late summer with the knight sent to fetch her.”

“I thought I had dreamed it,” Henry Bolton said sourly. “Richard, you know the law. Is what Hugh did legal? Do you want our niece leaving Friarsgate and being wed to some stranger?”

“There is no talk of marriage,” the priest replied.

“But eventually they will use her, for her inheritance is a goodly one,” Henry almost moaned. He pushed away the trencher.

“You have used her,” Richard noted quietly. “Ever since Guy and Phillipa died you have employed every means at your disposal to retain control over Rosamund’s inheritance. You married her to your eldest son first. Then to Hugh Cabot. Now you would force her to wed with your second son, a child of five. You care nothing for Rosamund. Only what she possesses. Hugh was right to see her sent from here for a while. Let her see a little bit of the world. Let her meet the rich and mighty. Our niece is a winsome girl, Henry. Perhaps she will have the good fortune to fall in love with the man chosen for her. Perhaps she will make powerful friends, which cannot hurt this family. When she returns home to us, and she will, I hope she will be happy. But whoever becomes Rosamund’s new husband, she will be happier than if she were yet in your clutches. Now go back to Otterly Court and mind its business. You have three sons and three daughters to provide for, as well as Sister Julia, who you may be pleased to learn, thrives at her convent.”

Henry Bolton’s stomach rolled with his nausea. “Julia,” he muttered, “was provided for when she went to St. Margaret’s.”

“Your oldest daughter will take her final vows in another few years, brother. I will expect you to deliver a goodly sum to the convent at that time in thanksgiving. The sum you settled on the child when you placed her there has hardly been enough for her maintenance. St. Margaret’s is not a wealthy house. She is a godly young girl.”

“She was an ugly baby,” Henry said gloomily. “Mavis’ girls are beauties, every one of them, but they will still need good dowries.”

“Which you, undoubtedly, planned to siphon from Friarsgate’s resources,” Richard observed dryly. “Otterly has good lands, Henry. Small, but fertile. You’ve helped yourself liberally to the livestock here over the years. Your flocks and herds should be good and they should be thriving. Make them even more prosperous. Your girls will have the dowries they deserve one day. They are yet bairns and you have time if you are industrious. You are a Bolton, Henry! Where is your pride? It seems to have disappeared in your quest for what is not yours.”

“Has becoming a priest made you forget from whence you sprang,
bastard?
” Henry snarled at his oldest brother.

“Our father gave me life on the loins of his mistress, it is true, Henry, but it is our father in heaven who has made me equal to any. I would also remind you that both our father and your mother treated
all
of his sons with love,” the priest replied.

“You will want to begin your journey back to Otterly shortly,” Edmund Bolton interrupted quietly. “Shall I have cook pack some bread and meat for you to eat as you ride? Ah, here is your son.”

“I’m hungry,” Henry the younger announced loudly as he climbed up to the high board. “My mother always feeds me oat stirabout and cream in the morning.”

“Your mother isn’t here!” his father snapped. “We’re leaving!”

“But I’m hungry,” the little boy repeated.

“Then sit down and eat what I cannot,” his father shouted, grabbing up his son and slamming him into a chair.

Henry the younger dipped the spoon into the trencher that had been set before his father.
“It’s cold,”
he whined.

“Then don’t eat it!” Henry the elder roared back.

“But I’m hungry!”

“Fetch Master Henry some hot oat stirabout,” Rosamund said, coming into the hall and hearing the commotion. “Uncle, take some wine. It will help your head. Father Richard, I thank you for the mass this morning. It was lovely to hear mass in our wee church again.”

“Would you like me to send you a young priest, niece?” came the question. “There is a lad at St. Cuthbert’s who I believe would suit admirably. A manor such as Friarsgate should not be without a priest. A small remuneration and his keep will suit Father Mata.”

“Mata?”
Henry Bolton looked suspicious. “ ’Tis a Scots name.”

“Aye,” Richard answered.

“You would bring a Scot into Friarsgate? Are you mad?” Henry said loudly. “You know the Scots are not to be trusted.”

“He is a priest, Henry,” came the calm reply.

“Priest, or no priest, he will have clansmen eager to steal our sheep and our cattle! I will not have it, Richard!” Henry declared.

“Mata is the son of a Scot’s lass, the bastard of the Hepburn of Claven’s Cairn, and an English man-at-arms,” Richard said. “He has been raised at St. Cuthbert’s and knows naught of clan. His mam died giving birth to him, Henry. He is as English as you are. Before she died his mother asked that he be called by the Scots for Matthew, so he would know his whole heritage. He is a gentle young man and will serve Friarsgate well.”

“And the decision is not yours to make,
uncle,
” Rosamund spoke up. “Edmund? What do you think?”

“I would welcome a priest again,” Edmund said. “There are several marriages that need to be celebrated, and quite a number of bairns in need of baptizing.”

“But a Scot?”
Henry said again.

Edmund pierced his youngest brother with a fierce look. “Richard says that this priest is a good man for Friarsgate. When was our brother ever disloyal to the Boltons, Henry?”

“I will welcome Father Mata,” Rosamund interjected quietly.

“He shall be sent, niece,” Richard told her with a small smile.

Rosamund now turned to her uncle Henry. “I have my work to do, uncle. There is seed to be distributed this morning, and I must supervise. I wish you a safe journey home. You will remember me to your good wife and my little cousins.” Then she looked directly at Henry the younger. “Good-bye, boy,” she said, and hurried from the hall.

“I’m glad I don’t have to marry
her,
” Henry the younger said. Then he continued shoveling hot oat stirabout into his mouth.

“Shut up, you lackwit!”
his father shouted savagely, and his fingers closing about the cup that had been placed before him, he gulped down the wine in it, but he did not, as Rosamund had promised, feel any better.

O
wein Meredith was surprised to learn that while his young hostess was hardly educated to court standards, she was learned in many other ways. She would never, he thought to himself, be truly happy anywhere but at Friarsgate. Rosamund Bolton had become an integral part of the manor. Despite her youth she was looked up to by her tenants and her workers. In this, her uncle Edmund and her late husband Hugh Cabot had been successful. Once Henry Bolton had gone, everything done on the manor was done in Rosamund’s name only, thus reinforcing her position as Friarsgate’s heiress.

From the spring on Owein had watched, fascinated, as she oversaw every facet of the manor’s varied life. Friarsgate was practically entirely self-supporting. Several varieties of grain, vegetables, and fruits were grown. It was Rosamund who determined which fields would be tilled and which would lie fallow. It was she who set the schedule for pruning the orchards. Cattle were raised for milk and meat, for sale or for barter. At Hugh’s suggestion Rosamund grew interested in raising horses. But it was the sheep that gave Friarsgate its greatest source of wealth, for Friarsgate wool was highly prized.

The manor possessed a small mill with a resident miller. There was a small church and a priest’s house that was now swept out, to be prepared in anticipation of Father Mata’s arrival. There were meadows and pastures for the cattle, the horses, and the sheep. There were woodlands, common pastureland, and common woodlands where Rosamund’s people
might hunt and fish or graze their own livestock. Most of Friarsgate’s people had once been serfs, but Rosamund’s grandfather had freed them. While a few families had departed Friarsgate to seek their fortunes, most had remained to be treated as free men and women.

Friarsgate was not the holding of a great family, but it was considered a very large manor and its young mistress an heiress of value. Its land was well-watered and always lush. Rosamund learned to move her flocks and herds so her acreage did not become overgrazed and barren. It had never been a poor place. Over the past few years they had become very prosperous. Not one family among its peasants was without a cow, or some pigs, or poultry. And while free to make most of their own decisions, the men and women of Friarsgate were fiercely loyal to the Boltons, going even so far as to give them three days a week of labor, as they had in days of old. The free men and women of Friarsgate also had their own strips of field as their serf ancestors once had. Here they raised their own produce to feed their families and sold what was excess. And it was in the manor court that Rosamund, with Hugh and Edmund’s guidance, had learned to settle disputes among her people.

Owein Meredith, raised among the powerful, had forgotten that such manors as Friarsgate still existed. His childhood, prior to entering the household of Jasper Tudor, was a memory mostly forgotten, if he indeed remembered it at all. And so as the summer progressed he watched in fascination as Rosamund went about her duties as mistress of this prosperous manor with such seeming ease that she almost made it appear simple. But that he knew it wasn’t. Early each afternoon after the main meal of the day had been served and eaten, he schooled the king’s new ward, teaching her French and proper Latin, the kind spoken and written in the court.

It was difficult for her, he saw, as foreign tongues were not easy for Rosamund, but she struggled to learn with such a fierce determination that he was forced to admire her. The only women he had admired prior were the king’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, the Countess of Richmond, who was known as
the Venerable Margaret
; and the king’s wife, Elizabeth of York. These were women of a certain age and vast experience, yet this
young girl put him in mind of them both. Like the queen, she was dutiful and gentle. Like the Venerable Margaret, she was determined and loyal. Owein Meredith found himself worrying how a country girl like Rosamund, born without a great name or powerful relations, was going to fit in at the court of King Henry VII. And then it dawned upon him that other than delivering her to her guardian, he was not responsible for Rosamund Bolton.

The summer was drawing to an end. Lammas came and with it the harvest. Lammas was a holiday in which bread played the chief role. At sunrise Rosamund exited the house with a dish of crumbs she had made by breaking up one quarter of a year-old loaf. She scattered it for the birds. Her tenants were all invited into the hall for a meal, most of the dishes consisting of bread or flour. There was a piggling stuffed with bread, nuts, cheese, eggs, and spices; entrails—a sheep’s stomach stuffed with bread, vegetables, eggs, cheese, and pork; mortrews—a meat dish made with beef, eggs, and bread crumbs; barley bannocks—a bread made from barley, flour, salt, and buttermilk; a large wheel of cheese, and frumenty pudding made from wheat and milk, spiced with cinnamon. Lamb’s wool, a spicy cider with floating apples, was also served.

And when everyone had eaten their fill the games began. Outside the men played a game in a meadow that involved kicking a stuffed sheep’s bladder about from one end of the field to the other. There was an archery contest. Then men shot long bows at straw butts that had been set up in front of the house. The winner was presented with a large mug of ale. And as the afternoon wore on they returned to the hall where the married women played a game called Bringing Home the Bacon. Each in her turn was given a negative and hypothetical situation that involved her husband. It was up to each woman to negate this unfavorable state and turn it into something positive. The wife who could accomplish this while amusing her listeners was declared the winner and rewarded with a blue silk ribbon. At day’s end everyone was presented with a small baked loaf made from the newly harvested grain. They departed to their homes with the loaves, each of which had a lit candle embedded in it.

The day after Lammastide Owein spoke with Rosamund about their
departure. “You must consider a date for our leaving, my lady,” he said. They had been sitting in the hall practicing her French, and he spoke to her in that language.

She looked up startled, and so he knew that she had comprehended his words, but she said, “I am not certain of what you said, Owein Meredith. Please speak to me in our own good English tongue.”

“You are a little fraud,” he gently teased her, still in French. “You understand me quite well, Rosamund.”

“I don’t!” she cried, and then clapped her hand over her mouth, realizing that her answer had confirmed his suspicions. “The day after Michaelmas,” she said in English.

“That is almost two full months, Rosamund,” he told her.

“You said the king did not need you back, sir. That you were not important. Neither am I. The king but fulfills a debt to Hugh Cabot. Why should we have to go at all?”

“Because if we do not your uncle may petition the king to regain custody of you, Rosamund,” he explained quietly. “Such a petition might not even be seen by the king, but rather one of his secretaries, who would squeeze monies from your uncle in exchange for his cooperation. Voila! Your wardship would once again be in the hands of Henry Bolton, and Henry the younger would be your spouse. If this is what you truly want, then I shall return south, tell the king, and it shall be done. But if you choose to honor your husband’s wishes for your future, you will cease being afraid of the unknown, and come with me.” The hazel-green eyes looked directly at her, questioningly.

“But Michaelmas is when I rehire my servants for the coming year and pay them,” she half-whispered.

“Edmund will do it,” he said. “September first, Rosamund.”

“It is too soon!” Her amber eyes began to fill with tears.

Owein Meredith gritted his teeth and hardened his heart against her female wiles. Women, he had learned, always wept when they wanted their own way. “Nay, it is not. It gives you almost a full month to pack your belongings and delegate your authority to Edmund and the others. You have known this day was coming. I have been here almost four
months, Rosamund. I have been gone from court for almost five. It is time. Think of Maybel. She, too, must prepare. She leaves her husband in your service.”

“I have rarely been off my own lands in all my life,” Rosamund told him, and he nodded, understanding. “I am not really afraid, but I am not a girl who welcomes adventure, sir.”

He chuckled. “There is little adventure in a journey between Friarsgate and the king’s court, Rosamund. And for you there will be little, if any adventure, in the queen’s household. You will be assigned certain duties, and your days will be filled with them. It will not, I fear, be very exciting for you. The only difference is that you will not be the mistress there.”

“But when will I come home again?” Rosamund wondered plaintively.

“After a term of service the queen may release you to visit Friarsgate. Or you may return with a husband, chosen for you by the king. You do understand that eventually you will be wed again and probably to a man that the king wishes to do honor.”

“In other words my husband shall once again be chosen for me,” she responded, feeling not just a little irritated by the fact.

“That is the way of the world, Rosamund,” he answered her.

“I had hoped this time to marry a man I loved,” she said to him.

“Perhaps you will,” he replied. “Or perhaps you will learn to love the husband chosen for you, but no matter, you will do your duty, Rosamund. I have come to see that you are that kind of girl.”

“Aye,” she said, nodding, “I am. Still, it would be fun if I could follow my family’s motto,” Rosamund told him.
“Tracez Votre Chemin.”

“Make Your Own Path.” He nodded, too. “ ’Tis a good motto, and who knows, my pretty lass? Perhaps one day you shall make your own path. None of us knows what the morrow will bring, Rosamund. Despite our desire for sameness, life is always filled with surprises. I shall tell Edmund Bolton that we are leaving on the first day of September. Eh?”

She nodded, but he could see the reluctance in her agreement. “How many carts may I have for my things?” she asked him.

“We will take one packhorse,” he told her, and then he explained, “You will have no privacy, or very little of it at court, Rosamund. You and
Maybel will sleep in a large room with the rest of the queen’s women and their servants. Your small trunk will be all the space you will have for your possessions. Everything must be portable so that it can be moved quickly from place to place. The king and queen never remain in one house for long. They travel from their palaces in London to Greenwich to Richmond to Windsor and back. And come the summer the court will go on the annual royal progress, which involves visiting the great and small noble houses. You will have even less accommodation then for yourself or for your things, if you are invited to go. With luck you will be left behind. At least then you will have a bed.”

“It doesn’t sound very comfortable,” Rosamund noted dryly.

“It isn’t.” He grinned. “Bachelor knights have it the worst, I can assure you. If we are lucky we end up sleeping in the hall by the fire. If not, ’tis the stables or a dog kennel for us.”

“At least you’re warm,” she replied. “You are not married? No,” she answered her own question, “you would not be. You are like my Hugh and cannot afford a wife.”

“Aye,” he agreed. “My eldest brother inherited from our father. My next brother serves the church. I have three sisters. One is wed and two are nuns. I was fortunate to have obtained my place in Jasper Tudor’s household. My father knew his high steward. He was my mother’s kinsman, and he felt sorry for me.”

“Did you not miss your family?” Rosamund asked Owein.

“Nay. My father was angry that my birth took my mother’s life. I don’t think he spoke more than a dozen words to me before I left his care. My sister Enit was his eldest child. She was twelve when I was born. It was she who saw to my welfare until she wed when I was four. How I missed her!

“My eldest brother had no use for me, for he desired above all things to please our father. As our sire ignored me, so did he. And no sooner had Enit wed, than my eldest brother was married. By the time I was six, his wife had already birthed the next heir, much to father’s delight; my middle brother was in his monastery and my two other sisters in their convent. Only I remained. The loose end, my brother called me. Then Jasper Tudor’s high steward came to pay his respects to my mother’s grave. He
saw the problem I presented to my family. When he left, I went with him. There was a place for a page in his master’s household, he told my father. Of course my sire was only too glad to see me go.”

“How fortunate that was for you,” Rosamund noted. Why, his childhood had been even worse than hers. When she had children she would make certain they were loved and cherished.

Owein Meredith laughed. “There was no place, but my kinsman made one for me. Then he taught me my duties. He was more father to me than my own was. Without him I don’t know what would have happened to me. Because of his kindness I strove to advance myself.”

“You became a knight, of course,” Rosamund said.

“I served in Jasper Tudor’s household until his death. I was a page until I was thirteen. Then I became a squire to my master,” Owein explained to Rosamund.

“When did you become a knight?” she asked him. It was the first time he had spoken so openly and in depth about himself. She was absolutely fascinated. He was like Hugh, and yet he wasn’t. And he was handsome. Hugh, she remembered, had had a yellow streak in his white hair, which he had told her had been fair in his youth. Owein Meredith was a darker blond, but there were golden streaks in his hair, which she very much liked.