The Mercenary's Claim (7 page)

“What do you mean? I’m a fair and just mistress of this manor.”

“Treating Neslin like the meanest peasant, from what I hear. I had a little talk with her earlier today. She told me a few things.”

Kirsten tossed her scarf aside and reached for the door. “I don’t have to listen to this.”

“Oh, yes, you do, my lady.”

She glared daggers at him but could not pull the door one inch, because he was leaning against it, his face inches from hers. She could feel the anger coming off of him in waves. “Why are you taking her part against me? I’m your wife. You should be instructing her to be more careful and to work faster.”

“Did you, or did you not,” he asked, ignoring her complaint, “call her a lazy cow?”

“I may have.”

“In front of her daughter?”

“It’s possible. I don’t pay much attention to the brat.”

“Ilse is as well-behaved and hard-working a girl as I’ve ever seen. Of all the dreck you’ve apparently given Neslin over the weeks, I do believe she would have put up with anything, without complaint, except the insult to her child.”

“Why are you suddenly so angry? I treat them as I’ve always treated them. They are servants. That’s how servants are treated by nobles.”

“Not in this house, they’re not!” So saying, Gustav snagged Kirsten up by the waist and hoisted her unceremoniously into the air. Pushing her skirts up over her waist, he applied the crop to her bare backside, five times on each cheek.

Kirsten squealed, her bottom on fire as if she had sat on a pincushion and stayed there. “Ow! OW! OWW! Please, no! No!”

He laid her over the edge of the bed, trapping her there with his strong left hand at the small of her back. Again he swung the crop, this time across her behind in long stripes that left pink lines in ranks up and down her from the tops of her thighs to the middle of her rounded bottom. “You may be teaching me how to be civil, but I’m going to teach you when to be civil. You will be polite to one and all, do you hear?”

“Yes, ow, yes! Please stop! Pl-please!”

“Are you going to be good?”

“Yes, I promise!”

“Are you sorry you were rude?”

“Yes, I’m sorry!”

“Prove it. Show me you’re sorry by obeying me now.” He paused for a moment.

When her breathing returned to normal, she asked, “How? What do you want from me?”

“Part your legs. Spread them wide. Wider. There.”

It made her blush bright red with embarrassment to think of him seeing her most intimate parts. Even in their most intimate moments, the candle, if one burned at all, was placed far away so that they were in deepest shadow. Now, here in the sunlight, she lay with all her womanhood on display along with her now thoroughly reddened and throbbing backside. She turned her head away so she did not have to look into his eyes, but she knew better than to try to get away from him. He was too strong, too quick, and had an arm reach like a striking cobra.

He used the head of the crop to rub her backside for a moment, as if inspecting his work. “Not nearly red enough yet,” he murmured, as if to himself. “Got to make more of an impression than this.” He put the crop down, and then returned to his work, this time with his hand, which on her already tender flesh felt like fire. In only a few minutes, she was bouncing on the balls of her feet, unable to stay still.

“Ow! Ow! Ow!” she squealed. “Please, st-stop!”

“Are you going to behave?”

“Yes, yes, I promise.”

He waited for a moment, his hand still on her back, pressing her into the soft mattress. When at last he released her, he said, “We’re not done. I just want to see my progress so far. Over by the mantel.”

There was no fire in the grate on this fine spring day, but the light from the window fell across the room to illuminate the hearth where she stood, blushing bright red with shame. She had so wanted to please him, had been so proud of how close they had become the last few days. Now, he seemed to hate her.

“Three more and we’re done.” He had the riding crop in his hand once more. “Count them out.”

She wasn’t sure what he wanted, but she could guess. When the first stripe fell, she forced herself to say, “One.” The second fell beneath it, on the crease between her thigh and her buttock. She gasped. “Two.” The third stroke, hard, burning, fell above the others. “Three,” she said and stood there panting.

Then, to her amazement, he took her in his arms. “There’s my good girl. You are going to be a good girl, aren’t you?”

“What?”

“My dear wife. My darling, Kirsten. I know it will take time for you to learn to love our people as I do, to treat them with affection and yes, respect, for their hard work and loyalty which is worth as much as noble blood, if not more.” He stroked her back, then leaned away to look in her face. “I love you too much to let you go on shaming yourself and me by mistreating the very people who are our greatest joy and blessing.”

“But they’re just servants,” she sniffled. “I don’t know how else to treat them.”

“I’ve seen you treat hawks with respect and affection.”

“Yes, but they have great worth and must be handled carefully or they could turn on you. Even when they are wild, they are beautiful.”

“The same thing can be said of the folk, Kirsten. Think about it. Then rest. I’ll bring you a tray for your dinner.”

She knew better than to argue. She was being punished and as she considered it in the new light of her husband’s insights, perhaps she did deserve it. She did have much to consider. It was embarrassing to think that her cousin would know she was in disgrace, but at least Frena would know what she now was beginning to believe: her husband loved her, too.

* * *

The summer months were passing all too quickly. Busy and active, Kirsten watched life on the manor grounds grow under her husband’s ambitious stewardship. He was everywhere, supervising everything, getting his hand in at every opportunity and seeming to thrive on early mornings in the fields and late nights in the public houses. She could only hope that he was indeed merely keeping up old contacts when he went on these outings. He certainly came home as eager for her charms as he had been from the first.

She asked Neslin about it one day when they were cleaning the deer Wern and Gustav had brought in for their supper. “You don’t think he has a woman in the village, do you?”

“Not my place to say,” Neslin chuckled. She was still stiff in her manner towards Kirsten, though both women had tried to put the unpleasant past behind them, after Kirsten had apologized to both Wern and Neslin. “But I can’t see what he could want in this village. Nobody of a female sort save Oma, the innkeeper’s mother.”

As if to herself, she continued, “There might be another thing that draws him. What takes a man to a public house? Can be the drink, but he’s plenty of that here, and better. Can be gaming, but the captain, or the master, as I should now say, he doesn’t go in much for wasting money he hasn’t got. Can be for the company of his own kind. That sounds more likely. Varin’s camp can’t be too far off. Might be he wants the sight of a friendly face or two. Faces with beards, that is. And the crowd. Gustav always was a one for the crowds. Loves to tell stories and laughs longest and loudest of all.”

Kirsten nodded. She could see that in him. Then she frowned. This Varin person was not the kind of man she wanted her fledgling nobleman husband to consort with. She had met him over the weeks and months she had resided here at Schoenfeld. Frena had met him before her departure and had been reserved in her judgments. Neslin of course had always been unstinting in her admiration, but Kirsten could not warm to him.

The man himself was one thing. What he represented was quite another indeed. She would have to ask Gustav about where he went and what he did there, though what she could do about it if she did not like the answers, she had no idea.

She was still puzzling over the problem after their simple supper of stewed venison and bread, followed by strawberries bathed in cream. Once Neslin and Wern had taken themselves off to the quarters that they used as often as not, since their children were well taken care of by Neslin’s mother and sister in their house in the village, Kirsten worked up the courage to begin her interrogation. “Are you going to the public house tonight?”

“I hadn’t thought to.”

“There’s not much moon, is there? Hard for anyone coming along the main road to see without carrying a lantern that could be seen for miles.”

“That’s true enough,” Gustav said, his ever-present smile lighting up his face.

Before meeting him, Kirsten would have expected a man who was hiding something to be uneasy or hesitant in his answer. She knew better now. “What are you not telling me?”

Gustav laughed. “What do you mean, my dearest?”

“That smile. You might as well tell me. You know I’ll figure it out eventually.”

“Your father warned me about you intelligent women,” Gustav groused good-naturedly. He picked her up and swung her onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing her soundly. “I’ve found there are two ways to deal with all that cleverness. This is one. The other has you not in my lap, but over it. Which shall it be tonight?”

“Why should it be either? Why not just answer my question?”

“Do you really want an answer? Or do you want to hound me for not doing what you want?”

“How can I know that until I know what it is you don’t want to tell me?”

Gustav barked with laughter. “Promise not to scold me, then. I fear your frowns as an owl fears daylight.”

It was Kirsten’s turn to laugh. “I promise. Just tell me. What are you hiding?”

“When I go to the public house, I meet old friends there. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

“Oh, Gustav!” Kirsten groaned and tried to push away from him, but he held her fast.

“Now, now, you promised not to scold.”

“I’m not scolding, I’m lamenting. Which friends, exactly.”

“There’s nothing exact about it. First one then another, that’s all.”

“Besides Varin, are there any others of your old mercenary band that come regularly?”

Gustav shook his head. “No, not regularly, and they aren’t a band. They’re an army.”

“Truly?” asked Kirsten, disbelieving.

“Truly! He just needs a bit of help persuading new recruits sometimes. For a brilliant tactician, he completely lacks tact. And persuasion.”

“And personality.”

Gustav nodded. “And personality, yes. But as a soldier, he’s top notch.”

“Top notch, I see. So he brings along any fresh blood he’s courting and you talk them into signing up, is that it?”

“Something like that, yes.”

“But this fresh talent. Where does it come from, I wonder? I mean, the peasants around here, they only have so many sons growing up and coming of an age to go off as fighting men, and only so many of those won’t be serving in their liege’s army. Namely my father’s army, for the most part.”

“For the most part.”

“Gustav!”

“I don’t only recruit soldiers. You know that. What about our new blacksmith? He’s working out well.”

“Oh, yes, definitely. He’s wonderful and his wife makes the best meat pies I’ve ever eaten. But you’ve got that smile again. What other kinds of workers do you recruit?”

“Nothing you need to worry about.”

“You’re hedging again. That means it’s something shady, but it’s not you doing it. It must be Varin.”

“Jumping to conclusions, aren’t you? You never did like Varin, did you?”

Kirsten rolled over him as if he hadn’t spoken. “Now, I know Varin’s been in the mercenary trade for quite a while. What has changed? Hmmm. The territory? The sense of security? The access to the nobility? No, they’re as corrupt as he is, maybe more so. The territory, then. There’s the hills. Growing something?”

“All right,” Gustav interrupted her reverie. “I’ll tell you. You’ll find out soon enough anyway. I’ve been looking into it and I think these hills will be ideal for growing grapes.”

Kirsten gave him a suspicious look. “Of course they are.”

“If that’s such a well-known fact, then why doesn’t your father grow grapes and produce his own wine? Most of the noble houses do.”

“My mother’s brother has something of a passion for viniculture. As a courtesy to him, my father stays out of the business.”

“But the hills around here are perfect for it, or so says old Hans.”

Kirsten gave a start. “You’ve consulted old Hans? I didn’t know you knew about him. My father seems to think he’s our family secret.”

“So does every other noble family in the realm. How do you think he fares so well? Each nobleman thinks he’s got a private line to the future and all wisdom through old Hans. They all come to him and all he requires is their silence.”

“And their gold,” Kirsten observed drily.

“The man has to make a living. His little trickery doesn’t mean he’s wrong. All I need is to find a master vintner. The best come from across the river, down south. It’s a long way.”

Kirsten, exasperated, shook her head. “That’s why you told me. You knew I’d find out anyway. Going on a trip like that, you know I’d realize you hadn’t just gone to a fair in the next parish.”

“You are your mother’s daughter,” Gustav commented. “Too clever by half.”

“You could take me with you, you know. I’d love to see wine country in a foreign land.”

“It does sound romantic, doesn’t it?” Gustav gave her a meaningful leer.

“You would think of that.”

“I’m always thinking of that.”

“Especially until I get you an heir.”

“That’s not the only reason and you know it. Why don’t I prove it to you?” He had his hand underneath her tunic and belt before she could stop him.

“You’re trying to distract me.”

“Is it working?”

But then he made sure she could not answer. Bearing her down onto the bench, he pulled her to the end and pushed her clothing out of the way. “What are you doing?” she asked, confused but intrigued.

He knelt between her parted legs. “A farmer ploughs before he plants his seed.”

“But not like that! That’s not—”

“Oh, yes it is.” He stretched up to give her that ever-present smile before he bent his head again to make her gasp and forget everything else.