Chapter 10
Tristan knocked the arm away that was shaking him. He knew someone was trying to wake him, but he was having a very good dream and didn’t want it to end yet. The last evening at supper, Lady Fay had acted completely well and normal, just as she had during their clandestine rendezvous by the fishing stream. They’d agreed to meet again the next morning and she’d giggled with excitement. He found it enchanting and endearing. And he wanted her so badly that he thought he might burst.
She was the featured player in his very good dream, running her fingers up and down his arms, then across his chest, much as she’d done when he was in the bath. What had been a terrible memory could now be something he could return to and savor, since she’d forgiven him. He also had the few stolen kisses by the stream and he intended to add many more of those types of memories.
“Sir Tristan, wake up.”
Brom. Tristan already owed him a beating. He cracked open his eyes and saw it was still pitch dark. Something better be on fire for Brom to be waking him up like this. At that thought, he sat straight up. Brom wasn’t nearly the idiot Tristan made him out to be. If his squire was waking him in the middle of the night, something was wrong.
“What is it?” he asked, now fully awake.
“Word’s just made it to us,” Brom said. “We’re under siege. We must leave at once.”
“How can we leave if we’re—oh.” He flung away the bedclothes. “Dernier Keep is under siege. What bastards, what damnable fools would try such a thing? We need to leave at once.”
“Yes, indeed,” Brom said patiently. “The horses should be ready. Latham is waking the men. We only need to bid our farewell to Sir Walter.”
“We cannot wake the man from a sound sleep with worries of war. Let’s leave a message and by the time he gets more news from us, it will be settled.”
He could almost see Brom’s teeth gleaming in the darkness. Had it been only a week and already he was hungry for another battle? Tristan felt much the same. If someone threatened what was his, they would pay dearly.
As he and Brom tossed together his things, Lady Fay crossed his mind, fleetingly. He was supposed to meet her in the morning, but by the time she came down, he’d be halfway back to his keep. He made a promise to himself to return as soon as he sorted out the fools who thought they could take his land by a siege.
“We’ll go north and cut them down from their own direction,” he said. “They won’t know what happened.”
He picked up a trinket he carried with him for luck, a small metal medallion with an imprint of a lion. It wasn’t valuable, but he’d gotten it from one of the few priests he’d met that didn’t seem corrupt. He’d been ill—not injured, but feverish to the point he could no longer ride—and had been left at a monastery on the way to a battle. He’d been ashamed to leave his men and scared out of his wits that he would die so ignominiously. But he’d recovered shortly after the priest blessed the medallion and then pressed it into his weak grasp. He wondered if it was too fanciful to leave it here, to prove he’d return. Perhaps Lady Fay would find it and keep it safe for him.
“Ready?” Brom asked, at the door.
A candle was lit in the hall and he could see both the eagerness and the worry on his squire’s face. They made light of this siege, assumed the soldiers to be fools for trying it. But any battle, no matter how inconsequential it seemed, could be their last.
“Yes, always ready,” he said, leaving the medallion.
*
Fay woke up with the sun again, scrambling out of bed. The cold floor under her feet barely registered as it felt like she was floating on a cloud of happiness. Another secret date by that enchanted stream, more kisses, more gazing into those blue eyes she loved. She threw on her clothes and twisted up her hair loosely. Yes, she could at least admit to loving his eyes. That wasn’t difficult to do. And she found it wasn’t that difficult to admit she might be falling for the rest of him as well.
She was running a bit later than she wanted. There were no clocks, but she could tell by the level of natural light in the room that she was at least twenty minutes later than she’d been the day before. He’d wait, wouldn’t he? They’d had a good conversation at supper the night before. It wasn’t as if they could speak completely freely, but she’d learned he was knighted at fifteen. She told him she wanted to learn to shoot an arrow, which he’d promptly promised to teach her one day. She managed to “drop” her spoon on the bench between them and brush his thigh with her fingers while she retrieved it. It was so much fun being a seductive minx and she hurried down the stairs and outside, eager to get back to it.
She came out onto the training field at last and looked around for him. A few rogue chickens ran past, followed by Mrs. Merrick, the master of the horses’ wife. Normally, Fay would have been glad to see her. She was the only other woman at the castle besides Anne, Batty, Marjorie, and herself, and was out-to-there pregnant. She’d met her during her week of hiding, on one of the few times she’d slipped downstairs for fresh air, certain Sir Tristan was eating in the great hall and she wouldn’t have to face him. She was two years younger than Fay, but shockingly looked ten years older. It was going to be her first baby and Fay was almost as excited about it as she was.
This morning, however, she’d hoped for secrecy, not running into the second gossipiest person in the castle.
“You’re up and about early,” Mrs. Merrick said cheerily, pausing in her chase to rub her massive belly.
“Er, yes, came to watch the training. Now that Anne’s feeling better I can get outside more.” There, that would prove she hadn’t been hiding, just in case anyone suspected it.
“Oh, you didn’t hear, then?” She stopped rubbing her belly and grinned, revealing a gap near the back.
“Hear what?” Fay asked. If anyone knew every little thing about the place, it would be Mrs. Merrick. From what Fay knew of her, she honestly liked the woman, but feared her a little as well.
“Sir Tristan and his lot had to leave in the wee hours. Their keep is under siege.”
“Siege? Will they be all right?”
“Most certainly. If you’d been down here every day you’d have seen what marvelous fighters Sir Tristan and his men are. Oh, dear, come and sit down. I didn’t mean to shock you with the news.”
Fay was, indeed, shocked and let Mrs. Merrick lead her to a low stone wall, meant to keep the chickens in order, but no one had ever told the chickens. They sat down and Mrs. Merrick heaved a huge sigh of relief. She didn’t seem concerned about the siege or Sir Tristan tearing off in the middle of the night without so much as a goodbye. Maybe this really was as mundane as she was making it out to be. Fay let out her held breath, disappointment flooding in where her fear for Tristan’s life had been a moment before.
“When will we know something?” she asked.
Mrs. Merrick pressed on her back and Fay heard a series of cracks and pops. “We’ll know as soon as we know,” she said, then gave her a sly look. “Were you sweet on Sir Tristan?”
Fay was honestly surprised she had to ask that question, but decided she was being polite and not assuming. Still, Fay didn’t want to verify just yet.
“When is the baby due?” she asked, thinking she’d diverted quite seamlessly until Mrs. Merrick laughed at her.
“Not until spring, if you can believe it,” she said kindly, letting Fay have her privacy. “I don’t know why I’m so big already.” She grabbed Fay’s hand. “You don’t know anything about it do you? Giving birth? I mean, have you ever seen it, or perhaps assisted?”
She looked so hopeful, Fay felt bad. “No, not at all. Not even a little bit.” The very thought of it, especially in this time, terrified her.
Mrs. Merrick nodded, her shoulders slumping. “I was hoping you might. When we got married, I thought Mr. Merrick would leave the castle and we’d be in the village. Closer to the midwife. But your father couldn’t let him go, as he’s so good with the horses. I do love living here, don’t get me wrong, but I worry she won’t be able to make it in time when the baby wants to get here.”
“Well, what about the physician?” Fay asked.
She pulled a face. “No offense meant, since he’s your great-uncle and all,” she started. Was he? Good to know, she supposed, and gestured for Mrs. Merrick to continue. “He’s good for fevers and whatnot, but I don’t think he knows much about babies.”
“Well, maybe we can have the midwife move in here when it gets closer to time,” Fay suggested. “Don’t women stay in labor for hours and hours anyway? Especially the first time? We’ll make sure to get her here for you.”
Mrs. Merrick’s face went pale at the thought of hours and hours, but she patted Fay’s hand. “That’s kind of you, Lady Fay. You and your sister have made me feel so welcome since Mr. Merrick and I wed.”
Fay wished she could ask more questions and really get to know her new friend, but she was afraid of arousing suspicions if she acted too ignorant. She was lucky she got away with as much as she did, since, apparently, the original daughter had her head in the clouds most of the time. But it hurt her pride to come across as too dimwitted.
“Mrs. Merrick, may I call you by your given name?” she asked, instead of the hundred other things she wanted to know. Mrs. Merrick seemed to have such a wealth of information, but she’d have to weasel it out of her slowly.
“Certainly,” she said, acting surprised and pleased. “It’s Catherine. It would be nice to hear it again. Sometimes I think my own husband has forgotten it.”
“That’s very pretty. Regal. So, Catherine, why are you so sure Sir Tristan and his men will be safe?”
She rubbed her belly thoughtfully. “I think it because Sir Walter’s spread the news of the alliance standing the same as when Sir Andrew held the property. Only fools would dare attack, knowing that.”
“But aren’t fools the most dangerous? Nothing to lose and all that?”
“That might be so,” she agreed, pulling no punches. Fay appreciated it, though it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “But they are also usually ill-equipped and poorly led. Also, it happened so quickly, it couldn’t have been well planned. Sir Walter has so many spies, if anyone of import was behind the attack, he would have had word of it before anyone broke ground for the first trench.” She patted Fay’s hand in a motherly way and, once again, Fay couldn’t get over the fact that Catherine was younger than she was. “Don’t be overly afraid for him. He’s capable.”
“Oh, it’s not for him, especially. I was worried about all of them,” she said quickly, feeling her face heating up. She slumped when she saw Catherine’s knowing look and knew she’d given herself away.
“It wouldn’t be a bad match,” Catherine said offhandedly. “I believe your father would take your interests to heart if it came to it.”
“No, it’s not like that at all …” Fay groaned and shrugged. She couldn’t talk about these things with Anne, her eyebrows would give out from dismayed furrowing. And Batty was a dear, but she’d only giggle and swoon and then start talking about how handsome Brom was as if it were all a game. And for Fay, it was life or death. “Maybe a little bit like that,” she admitted. “Do you love your husband?”
“He’s a good man, and it was a good match,” she said. “Yes, I’d say I do.”
“A good match,” Fay repeated. “That’s what I need.”
“Oh, you’ll get one. Your father will see to it, especially since Anne…”
Fay jerked to attention. “What about Anne?”
Catherine shook her head so hard, she frightened a chicken pecking innocently behind them. “Nothing. Just that it seems she doesn’t want to get married. She’s twenty-five after all.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s true.” Fay had to suppress her disbelief at that, but knew it was the common opinion. In her time, many people would try to talk Anne out of getting married so young.
“Sir Tristan will return. Or else there’s always Lord Drayton.” She smiled widely at the mention of that name. “Your father seemed extremely pleased after his last visit. Enough to arrange another, anyway.”
Who on earth was Lord Drayton? Was he someone who might be a contender? And who visited whom? If it was Sir Walter who’d gone there, then she wouldn’t know him, but if he’d been here at Grancourt Castle, she should know all about him. Frustration boiled as she couldn’t think of how to ask anything without giving herself away. It only piled on top of her disappointment at not being able to see Tristan again, sandwiched in with her new anxiety over his safety.
“Could I love this Lord Drayton?” she pondered. “Instead of Sir Tristan?” She felt like a traitor thinking it, but she’d only known him for one week, most of which she spent hiding from him. She looked desperately at Catherine. “I really need to fall in love.”
Catherine burst out laughing and stood, stretching her back again. “That’s how I used to think before I got married. You will, in your own time. It may be sooner than you think since Lord Drayton will be here in a fortnight, remember?” She grinned wickedly. “You can comparison shop.”
That had to be the most scandalous thing a medieval woman had ever uttered, because Catherine’s face grew bright red after she said it and she crossed herself. “I must catch some of these chickens now,” she said apologetically. “But I will pray for Sir Tristan’s safety. If Lady Anne is feeling better, perhaps I will see you in chapel later. It’s been a while.”
“Yes, she’s loads better. I’ll ask her about it.”
Fay nodded her goodbye and hurried back upstairs. She had a lot of things to ask Anne, if she could figure out how to do it without appearing dafter than usual.