St Benedict’s Day, July 11, 1067,
in the first year of our King William’s reign.
To Johan de Vaux, my loyal friend and honored seneschal,
from Alaric, Seigneur de Tutbierrie.
King William gave the castle at Dover and all of Kent to his brother Bishop Odo of Bayeux, and the western shire of Hereford to Guillaume fitz Osbern, who is rebuilding the old castle at Ewyas. Both rule in William’s absence. Dreux serves Bishop Odo and oversees the garrisons at Dover and I serve fitz Osbern along the southern shires.
Archbishop Stigand, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, and others who might stir trouble are in Rouen with William—in gilded captivity. William has yet to distribute the southern lands and titles once belonging to the Godwins. The deposed English lords of lesser standing may not endure the new charters and settlements. Gilbert must expect resistance. Finish the fosse.
Lose not your heart to a wealth-bearing countess. The avaricious believe all others to be thus and use riches to bribe the innocent and seduce the unwary. Guard your sympathies. Remember that Eustace could send someone to contact her.
Send Marguerite to me.
July 1067, Tutbury, Staffordshire
Hortense did not tell Elise what she’d learned about Marguerite. Instead, she looked beneath Marguerite’s incessant anger, saw how she stirred discord between Johan and Gilbert, and noticed that cats, thunderstorms, and ravens frightened her as much as did the English. Saxon speech is filled with incantations, Marguerite once told Johan, crossing herself.
One morning, Hortense braced her back against a wagon to make room for the foot soldiers heading toward Northgate, her arms ladened with clean, folded linen. Across the road, she spotted Marguerite and Johan arguing. As he limped away, Marguerite’s gaze followed him until two maidservants approached her. She chided them and pushed one ahead as all three crossed the bailey.
Hortense followed at a distance, pondering the look in Marguerite’s unguarded face. Skirting the rigging and ropes for the well-diggers, she saw Marguerite and the maidservants enter High Tower. Since Elise’s marriage, Marguerite had never been to the tower. Assured by a quick glance that Elise and her guards were at the stable, Hortense hurried after Marguerite.
She found her crouched before one of Elise’s coffers, reaching to open it as the servants looked on.
“I’m surprised you have come to see us,” Hortense said.
Startled, Marguerite turned. The maidservants jumped back.
“I’m here,” Marguerite said coolly, rising slowly to her feet, “to ensure that you and your niece have not stolen from his lordship.” She gestured to Elise’s chests.
Hortense walked over to the table beside Marguerite, making the servants step aside, and set down the linens. “Does his lordship claim for his own Lady Stafford’s undergarments? Her chemises and blood rags?”
The maidservants giggled but sobered at Marguerite’s glance.
“Everything belongs to his lordship,” she said. “Even this.” Marguerite gestured at an open chest and reached for the blue samite, a rare silk interwoven with gold thread.
Hortense slammed the chest lid shut, nearly catching Marguerite’s hand. The servants gasped.
“Everything in our possession has been approved by Johan, despite your attempts to remove them,” Hortense said. “These chests are for Lady Stafford’s exclusive use. If you want to join his lordship with new gowns, there is no need to take cloth and furs from her ladyship. Ask Johan for access to his lordship’s treasures—if you dare.”
“What do you mean?”
Hortense smiled, tempted to reveal her suspicion that Marguerite harbored a private love for Johan. “What do you think I mean?”
Marguerite frowned at Hortense. Looking around the room, her gaze settled on the rare book. “I doubt Johan meant to leave this with your niece. Lord Stafford—not Johan—will determine who reads them.” Marguerite lifted the large tome and turned to leave.
“A quean with talons steeped in fornication should take care when touching sacred texts,” Hortense said. “Be warned, Marguerite d’Hesdins. God sees your soul. Think you will remain unscorched by His judgment? Flames already surround you.”
The maidservants recoiled from Marguerite and hurriedly crossed themselves.
“The Scriptures,” Hortense said, reaching for the book, “stay with her ladyship until her husband or Johan request them.”
“Hortense?” Elise asked, entering the chamber.
Marguerite suddenly released the book to Hortense. “You foam,” she said to Hortense. “A snail wallowing in salt. I have remedies to cap your spume.”
“Is there anything else you wish to . . . see?”
Marguerite looked again around the chamber, and without another word, she brushed past Elise, her servants following.
Hortense held a finger before her lips, signaling Elise to silence. She put the book on the table and followed the women until they had left the tower.
“Take care, Aunt,” Elise said, placing the book in its tooled leather case. “She may be more dangerous than she appears.”
“Nought vera harmish.” Hortense said in Saxon.
“Eyo hopan ye spake troth,” Elise answered.
Hortense smiled. Elise was learning the language quickly. Knowing Saxon and keeping her knowledge secret would help her niece either ascend to her rightful place or help her escape. Preferring the latter, Hortense had assessed the prospects. Escape would be difficult. It could be done, although she had yet to propose it to Elise. But for now, speaking in Saxon, Hortense told Elise the village gossip.
A few days later, Marguerite climbed into her cart, gloating that Alaric had sent for her, not his wife. Watching her departure, Hortense prayed that a rash would fester on Alaric’s privates and make large pustules ooze between Marguerite’s legs. Elise, on the other hand, hoped her husband would forget his wife entirely.
August 1067, Tutbury, Staffordshire
On Lammas Day, Elise and Hortense observed their first English festival: the annual Blessing of the Well, completed more quickly than Elise had imagined possible. With grand ceremony, servants dressed the well house with bouquets of colorful flowers, leaves, and moss. Elise understood enough Saxon now to hear a few servants grumbling: freed from hauling water up from the river, they complained about hauling buckets up from the well.
As Brother Derrick prepared to bless the well for continued water, Norman soldiers, believing it a pagan ritual, chided him for denigrating the Feast of Saint Peter’s Chains. To Elise’s surprise, Gilbert calmed his soldiers by asking Derrick to bless and dedicate bread from the new wheat for Saint Peter and allowed the English to bathe in the river. After the bathing and blessings, some villagers grumbled about being forced into hard labor. Soldiers whipped them and made them sing praises to their Norman masters. Afterward, nearly everyone descended to the village to feast and dance, while Elise and Hortense returned to High Tower.
There, they found Jeoffroi d’Ardain in the common room. Elise greeted him and introduced him to Hortense before climbing to the ramparts to enjoy the festivities, leaving Hortense and Jeoffroi alone.
“You old goat! I did recognize you,” Hortense said gruffly. “Don’t you dare put your filthy boot on that table,” she warned.
Jeoffroi d’Ardain, sitting on one of the benches, suspended his leg in the air for a moment before lowering it back to the floor. “Then, why did you never deign to acknowledge me? It was only . . . what? Thirteen, fourteen years ago?”
“I’ve been busy.” Hortense did not want to remember those chaotic days. Besides if Johan or Gilbert knew about their past, they might remove him from Elise’s retinue. “It was a long time ago.”
He chuckled. “It’s a mark of true nobility: the lower one falls the higher the airs they adopt.”
Hortense leveled her eyes on Jeoffroi, choosing carefully the exact words she would use to slice him into shreds. As she remembered, his eyes were hazel, and they twinkled now, anticipating her attack. Her anger vanished. She took a deep breath and shrugged. Well, he had been her great lover once, and their liaison had healed her heart. He had taught her the pleasure of coupling and how to laugh again after Eustace had her husband murdered and confiscated her fortune.
“We never saw each other again after Mortemer,” she said softly, remembering his wife and all his children had been killed.
“No,” he answered, looking away from her to the past. He turned again to her. “But, I was glad to see you alive and well when you came to Tutbury with Lady Stafford.”
She grunted.
“Have you missed me, Tensa?” he asked, using the name he had given her one night as she lay in his arms. He reached across the table to take her hand.
She looked at his dark brown hair, his gray sideburns, and his lips, still sensual after all these years. He must be in his mid-sixties, she thought, looking at the lines in his face accentuating his lean, rugged features. Hortense did not want to talk about the past they had shared.
“His lordship,” she hissed, pulling her hand away, “has given us great pleasure by sending for his mistress.”
Jeoffroi smiled and cautiously raised his boot to the table. She watched his impudence with a twittering heart. “My niece tells me you are kind, Jeoffroi. I thank you for that.”
“She loves you dearly,” he said, patting the bench beside him in invitation and leaning lazily against a timbered wall.
“I have yet to discover,” Hortense said, sitting down across from him, “why Lord Stafford keeps his wife a prisoner. Do you know the reason?”
“No. Lord Stafford is a fair man, and once he has time for his wife, things will change. Her beauty reminds me of you.”
Hortense glanced at his relaxed body. “Still the Thief of Hearts, Jeoffroi?”
He shrugged. “Truce?”
“Friends and nothing more,” Hortense said firmly.
“Nothing more?” he teased with a smile.
“Psssh! I am old, and fat, and gray. You are—”
“—Old, and brittle, and gray. We suit.”
She laughed and shook her head. “No, Jeoffroi. And I mean no,” she said, with a smile twitching at the edges of her lips. He’s doing it again, she thought, her heart tripping.