Lord Liar Part 9

near forgot--what about Turold of Swanlea Farm? " " Turold. " Aldyth repeated as a face came to her mind of the youth who had been a frequent visitor only this summer. Turold was a year or two older than she, a fair-headed young farmer with guileless blue eyes and a perpetually sunny expression. He was perhaps two inches taller than she, stocky rather than lean, but well muscled and not paunchy. " Turold of Swanlea? I liked him well enough," she heard herself say.

"Perhaps if I spent more time with him... if he hasn't already taken a wife, of course. Give me a day or two to put the hall to rights, then perhaps we could invite him to dine with us."

Sir Nyle, smiling again, reached out a hand and stroked his daughter's cheek.

"That's the spirit, Aldyth. I won't demand you wed anyone you cannot like.

Just give the lad a chance to charm you, that's all I ask."

Turold of Swanlea. It was good that, physically, he was as different as possible from Ranulf, so that when she looked at him she would not be reminded of the Norman knight's lithe physique, dark features or intense expression. He was English, so he would speak to her in that tongue, not French--even the words he used when they went to bed would be different, she thought wryly.

All at once she thought of something.

"Father, will you have to ask the Carol's permission if I wish to marry Turold?"

Sir Nyle's piercing eyes bored into her again.

"Of course. He is my overlord. Any betrothal I contract for you is subject to his approval, and I will owe him a fee. And of course he and Countess Nichola would want to come to your wedding, no matter whom you marry. You're practically a daughter to them."

Ranulf would be bound to hear of her marriage when she wrote to tell Warin.

Which did she hope for--that Ranulf's parents would tell their son afterward of her wedding, and how radian fly happy she had looked, or that he would learn of her plans in time to stop the marriage?

Was she foolish enough to think he would try to prevent her from marrying Turold? And then what? Would he be cured of his wicked ways and marry her himself? Don't be a silly moon ling Aldyth! she scolded herself as she rode along, with Sherborne still leagues away. Ah, /f only my heart could work in tandem with my brain.

Chapter Five

After Aldyth had been home a week, laboring feverishly to make the hall presentable and get the servants started on the seasonal tasks, she told her father she was ready. An invitation was conveyed to Swanlea, summoning a very surprised Turold to dine with them.

He came dressed in his best Norman-style robe. Aldyth could see at a glance that his usual smile was, if it was possible, broader, as though he understood the significance of the invitation.

Aldyth herself had dressed with more than the usual care, as befitted a young woman whose father was about to offer her in marriage to an eligible landholder. She chose neither the green bliaut nor the russet. Though she knew they were her best, she had worn them for Ranulf with such hope.

Perhaps she would never be able to bear looking at them again. In the end she chose a bliaut of soft royal blue wool that complemented her gleaming chestnut tresses, which she wore loose, confined only by a thin gold fillet.

The soft draping of the fabric and the narrow gilded girdle accentuated her tiny waist and lushly curving bosom.

Sir Nyle had arranged that the two should share a trencher during dinner, so that Aldyth could get to know the young freeholder better. He wanted her to be sure of her choice, he told his daughter before Turold's arrival. There would be time enough later to take Turold aside and conduct the dowry negotiations necessary before a marriage contract was finalized.

When Aldyth had first greeted Turold in the bailey, his greeting had been genial and courteous but restrained under Sir Nyle's watchful eye. Now, as he offered her a delicate portion of the venison in pepper sauce, he allowed his eyes to meet hers.

"Lady Aldyth, I must confess my astonishment at receiving this invitation. I thought... that is to say, I was under the impression this summer that you did not look upon my suit with favor."

Aldyth lowered her eyes as if the slicing of the meat required all her concentration. She couldn't meet those innocent blue eyes and lie.

"I... reconsidered, Turold. I found I had been, uh, overhasty in dismissing you. Can you forgive me?" And can you forgive me for the lie, sweet Jsu ?

"Then... you are willing to be my wife?" Turold's face beamed with joy in the torchlight. Forgetting the restraint still considered proper between a couple before the betrothal ceremony had been conducted, he grasped her hand in a transport of delight. Her pearl-hilted eating dagger thunked as it fell among the rushes at her feet.

As if in a dream, Aldyth saw herself nod, unable to find her voice to confirm her words. Turold must have taken this for maidenly shyness, for he only seemed more pleased. Sir Nyle, on the other side of Turold, smiled approvingly.

It was done, his expression said. His precious daughter's future was a.s.sured.

"Tomorrow is Sunday, sweetheart," Turold told her. "We can have the betrothal ceremony before the ma.s.s, so that the priest can begin to call the banns!"

The folk at the lower tables became merrily noisy, pleased at the prospect of a wedding for Sir Nyle's daughter. Most had grown to respect and even admire the independent, forthright Aldyth, but they liked a holiday even more. They would fill their bellies to the bursting point at the wedding feast.

With the bride ale that would be flowing freely, they'd toast the return of a more free-and-easy life at Sherborne. Only one became more sour as the celebrating escalated-Maud, Aldyth's tirewoman and the daughter of Helwise the cook. She sat in the shadows at the far end of one of the trestle tables, watching with growing fury as Sir Nyle's daughter claimed the man she thought of as her own.

She and the young farmer now sitting at the high table had begun walking out together during the past summer, soon after Aldyth had discouraged his earlier attentions. Turold had never made her any promises whenever they met in the wooded glen between Sherborne and Swanlea Farm, but that hadn't kept Maud from a.s.suming someday they'd wed. As she walked back to the keep in a rosy haze after their trysts, it had always seemed to Maud that the handsome Turold was meant for her. Surely that was why he sought her out so often for their impa.s.sioned sessions of lovemaking. He was only walt hag for the harvest to be over, when he would not be so busy, she told herself. Then his mother had been very ill for a time, and surely one could not expect him to suggest a wedding during that time, though he managed to keep his trysts with her just as frequently. Now that the weather had turned cold, they met in a deserted charcoal burner's hut.

Turold's mother had recovered and still he said nothing about making an honest woman of Maud. She worried ofttimes that he would get her with child, though she faithfully drank the foul brew that Helwise promised would prevent such a disaster. She had refused to tell even her mother the ident.i.ty of her lover.

And now Turold had been accepted by Aldyth of Sherborne, and Maud faced the wreck of her dreams. It would be the knight's daughter and not she who would rule Turold's hall and bear his babes, it seemed.

Well, that remained to be proven. She had not talked to Turold yet.

He was merely dazzled by the idea of marrying a knight's daughter, she told herself. It did not occur to Maud to be angry with her lover or that he had merely been using her plump young body to vent his l.u.s.t. She'd dress provocatively when she met him and would let him make love to her in that odd b.e.s.t.i.a.l way he liked, which hurt her but seemed to give him such satisfaction. He'd remember how much he loved her; after that, Aldyth of Sherborne would seem but a whey-faced ghost.

The date for the marriage was set for the third of December. The days pa.s.sed in a blur for Aldyth, and she slept little. Every waking moment was taken up with the wedding. From before dawn till after dark she chivied the eastie folk in their cleaning tasks. There would be guests occupying every spare room and every inch of s.p.a.ce in the hall, she reminded them, and she ordered every room newly whitewashed, every rafter swept free of cobwebs--as if she expected the guests to roost up there, the scullions up on ladders grumbled.

The swineherd, after hearing how many of his charges would be slaughtered to feed the guests, fretted that there wouldn't be so much as a suckling pig left after the mistress's nuptials. After talking to the shepherd, the cow herd and the wench who minded the chickens and the dovecote, he swore they would be living on vegetables alone through the winter. Aldyth spent days in consultation with Helwise the cook until the woman dreaded the sight of her young mistress "with her fancy ideas of cookin's f the Pope himself was comin' to bless the wedded pair." Helwise was secretly impressed that her kitchen would be serving the Earl and Countess of Kingsclere, but she had to be cajoled into promising to make any of the fancy sauced dishes that Normans prized.

As soon as she had set the household staff to their ch.o.r.es, Aldyth went to her solar, for the light was best in the morning for st.i.tching her wedding gown. It was to be a wine- colored velvet, with Englishwork embroidery at the neckline, hem and wide, flared sleeves, and she was determined to do every st.i.tch herself. Her mother had been a skilled needlewoman, Aldyth recalled, and had taught her the elaborate Saxon embroidery style. If only the long hours bent over her needle near the window did not give her so much time to think!

Turold had been the perfect swam, coming to Sherborne frequently, often with some small gift such as a pair of newly weaned kittens from Swanlea farm, one black, one white, which Aldyth promptly fell in love with and named Snow and Soot. The kittens would become valued mousers at Swanlea after the wedding, he told her, smiling in a pleased fas.h.i.+on at her pleasure, but for now they could amuse her with their antics.

When it was fair, they spent the afternoons walking or riding the countryside. between Sherborne and Swanlea.

Turold was an amusing companion, telling her funny stories about his childhood on the farm. They spoke of their future life together, laughing as they named the dozen children Turold claimed he wanted, the first six to be boys, of course, to help their father about the farm, the last six to be girls, to comfort him in his old age. Aldyth had laughingly told him that after providing him with six sons, she would be much too fatigued to bear him daughters, and he would doubtless have to comfort her, for she would be an old woman long before he was an old man!

Within a fortnight of the betrothal, he had taken her to Swanlea to meet his mother, Gundreda, who was a widow.

The Englishwoman, whose thinning braids hinted at the flaxen color she had bequeathed to her son, was taciturn but civil, seemingly neither pleased nor displeased at the prospect of her son taking a wife. Aldyth hoped the woman would warm to her later; the prospect of living many years with such an uncommunicative presence was daunting.

Perhaps after she had presented her with her first grandchild? Then she remembered what must precede the babe's appearance.

It was not that she found Turold's wooing distasteful; his kisses, as they walked over the countryside or sat on the settle before the fire of an evening, were gentle and loving, and he never sought to deepen the intimacy beyond what was appropriate to a betrothed couple. Of course, he let her know that the touch of her lips on his stirred the fires within him and left him sleepless on his bed, longing for their wedding night.

No, she did not shrink from his touch precisely, it was just that she was dismayed to feel--nothing. No pounding of her pulse, no trembling, no breathless desire to go further than the restrained embraces and kisses he gave her.

In Ranulf's arms she had been at the center of a fiery whirlwind. His touch had seemed to spread the burning wherever it roamed, and to places deep inside of her where his lips and hands had not strayed. Even though her brain had told her he offered her only dishonor, there had been moments in which later shame had seemed a fair exchange for the temporary bliss of being his.

Turold would not shame her. She would be his wife in all honor and the mother of his babes. If his kisses did not drug her with pa.s.sion, neither would his actions clothe her in disgrace.

She would be content as Turold's wife at Swanlea farm, and the devilish lure of that velvety Norman voice and Ranulf's seductive charm would soon wither and die.

"You have a new bauble, my lady?" queried Maud, breaking into her reverie.

Aldyth looked up to see her servant pointing at the garnet-and-freshwater-pearl necklace that adorned her bodice.

"Yes, a betrothal gift from Turold--it is beautiful, is it not?"

replied Aldyth, noting the sullen cast to her tirewoman's features. It was a familiar sight these days. What ailed Maud? The black-haired daughter of Helwise the cook had always been of a rather sour disposition, but Aldyth had seen her brighten in midsummer. Maud's sallow complexion had blossomed and her temperament had become cheerful.