HUNTINGDON CASTLE
IT WAS JUST BARELY possible that Arable had died several years ago and was now trapped in some wicked hell, forced to repeat her own mistakes again and again.
Every visitor to Huntingdon Castle was assembling for a welcome dinner in the Elder Hall’s main room. It boasted a tall ceiling but a relatively slim width, allowing for one extremely long line of tables that would not have been continent enough if all the invited guests had actually arrived. That was by design—or by the countess’s design, at least.
“It is a careful line,” Lady Magdalena had explained. “If we appear too wealthy, then our proposal to refuse the king’s ransom will read as greed. But if we appear too poor, then the decision would appear to be born from desperation, rather than political acuity. The image we project must be one strong enough to warrant respect, but also humility. We must strike an exact delicate balance of unsustainable comfort.”
Such was the plan, at least. Arable had worked side by side with the countess for two weeks to prepare for the event. They needed to accommodate the guests and their retinues, as well as entertain them, impress them, and feed them … just enough. The delicate balance might have been perfect, if not for the embarrassingly poor turnout.
Instead of a proper complement from each invited house, there had arrived only a single servant per invitation, or a duo or trio at best. No house demanded more than a single room, and the Elder Hall’s modest banquet qualified as a magnificent feast for their paltry number. Two full tables had been removed from either end of the hall and still there were unused seats and a glaringly empty void that could have fit a crowd thrice the size now gathered.
Arable had somehow fallen into a familiar role of a castle servant, though that was not the hell that had come back to haunt her. In many ways, it was comfortable. Her time working for Roger de Lacy in Nottingham Castle had been stable, at least, compared to much of her life in the decade prior. No, her hell was the Lady Margery d’Oily and her husband, Waleran de Beaumont, Earl of Warwick. Margery was the countess’s sister, and Arable had effectively been in hiding ever since their arrival.
“She once called me an insipid little cunt,” she complained of the Lady d’Oily to John Little, whose size was an absolute advantage to hide behind.
“My goodness!” he grunted. “I don’t think you’re insipid.”
He gave her an elbow and a wink, with a tongue in his cheek to hide a smile. They were in the corner of the room, mumbling beneath the hubbub of the growing audience. None of their group would have been invited to this welcoming dinner at all if the countess had not—at the last moment—demanded their attendance to increase the size of the crowd. They had all done their best to bathe and clean up, which is to say they were slightly less dirty than normal.
“There was a time when I thought Lady Margery considered me a friend,” Arable continued. “But she was only using me for information, and she turned on me the moment I failed to deliver. I was meant to follow her to Warwick and serve there, had she not been so cruel to me. She’s the reason I’m here.”
“Well then I aim to thank her for it,” John said, with a heavy kindness. “As should you. Would you have really wanted to serve a family as wicked as all that?”
Family.
For the third time in the last hour, Arable’s gaze lingered on a particular girl—a servant to the countess’s father, the Earl of Hereford. She was somewhat thin and mousey, which reminded Arable a bit of herself, but that was not the comparison that so consistently drew her attention. The servant was obviously pregnant, her swollen belly making a challenge to her duties, and she would often hold her hands to her back for relief.
Arable tried not to think about it.
She had thought the changes in her own body had been a result of their starvation. The weakness, the coldness … the absence of her normal cycle. She had simply thought it was the body’s way of dealing with their perpetual emergency. But life had settled in Huntingdon, while her body had not. She absently touched her own belly, wondering if it was just her imagination that she felt a bit of roundness there. It was because she was finally eating again, she convinced herself. She was still recovering.
But still, she counted the months backward. To the last time she had been with William.
No, she pushed it aside, forcing herself back into conversation with John.
“If you want to stay in a bed tonight,” she said, “let me know. We cleaned out every room in the Elder Hall and the Heart Tower, and barely a quarter of them are being used. I could sneak you into one where no one will think twice on it. You deserve it.”
John Little’s lips turned into a straight line. “I think my sneaking days are over. We had one last chance at it with Lord de Senlis, which was ever shy of useful.” But Arable sensed a droll disappointment in his attitude of late. Planning parties was a comparably pale task to their adventures in the autumn, and he probably felt as if he was being domesticated. There was a dangerous sense of retirement to it all.
“I’m having trouble keeping track of what we are,” she said absently. “Am I a thief? A refugee? A servant?”
A mother?
“I don’t see a need to define it.” John’s face warmed. “You’re Arable, and I’m tired.”
She smiled. “Then sleep in a bed tonight, tired,” she urged him. The dwellings they had built by the Cook’s Backwater still had a great amount of work to be done before they could be called a home.
“Naw,” he rolled his head, “no need. ’Sides, last thing I want to do is get Marion in any trouble.”
Arable nearly scoffed, but hid it. Wouldn’t want that, would we?
Perhaps she had spent too much time with the countess in the last few weeks, but her opinion of Marion had only grown worse in their time in Huntingdon. Most of the group, like John, still saw Marion as some sort of savior who had plucked them out of the forest and found them a new life. But it was Lord Robert who had done this, and he alone took all the consequences of that decision. Marion, as usual, took no risks on their behalf. Lord Robert and the countess absorbed enormous responsibility by housing them openly, but never expected to be thanked for it as Marion did.
They stood for a bit in silence, and Arable found herself actively looking for the pregnant servant. Busy, she needed to keep herself busy. Spying a glimpse of the countess, Arable excused herself to see if there were any tasks that needed tending.
Lady Magdalena lingered at the edge of the foyer, speaking with her father. Henry de Bohun was an old man, though not a withered one. There were yellow spots in his face and the small amount of hair he had was long past silver and gone to white, but his eyes were sharp and his jowls took quicker to a smile than a scowl.
Magdalena granted a curt nod to Arable, but was midconversation. “I thought more would come,” she said sadly.
“Would that you were right,” the earl answered. “I think perhaps it was the messenger, not the message.”
The countess was slightly taken aback. “You mean to say this is my fault?”
“Only insomuch that you were born a woman. Which I suppose is my blame, or your mother’s, but not yours. You are lucky to have Robert, who sees you as an equal, but you forget yourself outside of these walls. To the world, you are an outspoken wife with dangerous ideas. I wish you had spoken to me first, that I might have sent these invitations myself.”
“It shouldn’t matter that I’m a woman,” she scoffed.
“I agree,” he answered, his voice catching. “But that is a great deal further down on our list of things we hope to improve of this world.”
Lady Magdalena composed a smile and gestured for Arable to join them. “Father, this is Arable, one of our guests from the Sherwood. She has proven herself in character and fortitude. If you still wish to get a sense of them as a people, you should look no further than her.”
“Ah, yes.” Henry’s eyes squinted to understand what an Arable was. “A pleasure. I would very much like to speak with you, though not tonight. I’m curious as to the conditions you’ve been enduring.”
Arable was barely sure how to react. “Oh?”
“I am fortunate to have been successful in this life,” the Earl of Hereford continued. “At the expense of an unfortunate detachment. It is difficult to improve the quality of the commonfolk if I am unfamiliar with their details, you can understand?”
Arable gave a curtsy, hiding her surprise. She had rarely heard anyone of the earl’s prestige give such consideration before. “I’d be happy to speak with you.”
“I’m grateful for it. There ought to be enough time. I should think this council may be over before it has begun. Shall we?”
FOR THE THOUSANDTH TIME, Arable felt like an impostor in her own skin. But this particular disguise got to eat at the table. There was quail and duck with sliced parsnips, and she was benefitting far more from the countess’s delicate balance than the others were suffering. They sat at the farthest end of the long feast, helping to fill out a visual lie, thankfully far from the only truly notable guests at the other end.
“My third carriage needs a new silver axle,” John Little joked, with affected snobbery. “I shall have my manservant Euphestio attend to it at once!”
“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you,” Tuck added, “I have too much gold in my ears!”
Admittedly, he didn’t have a lot of practice at humor.
The Delaney brothers snickered and joined in, eating their food in increasingly “fancy” ways, pattering their lips together and hum-humming in delight.
“Where’s Charley?” John asked after choking down a laugh. “He would enjoy this!”
“He was here for a second,” Nick answered, “then left.”
“Huh.” John’s eyes widened. “He ought to eat.”
Arable swallowed a bite of duck. “It’s probably me.”
“Hm?”
“The boy’s never said two words to me, nor I to him,” she explained. “I think he belongs to those of the mind that I’m to blame for all our woes. Avoids me at all costs.”
“Charley?” Peetey balked. “Surely that’s your imagination.”
“It is not.” Though both of them had kept to themselves outside the rest of the group, Arable had noticed that the frogman would always leave any circle upon her approach. “And he wasn’t the only one.”
“That’s yesterday’s problems,” John said, making a point of it with his fork. “Yesterlife. I’ll have a word with him on it.”
“Please don’t. I understand it. We were on the run,” she said, almost unable to recall the misery. Perhaps they had all just shut off, locked themselves away to wait for an inevitable death. “Was no point in making friends that you were like to lose.”
“Well here’s to changing that,” Nick Delaney said, raising a goblet of wine. His eyes were on her, and his small smile seemed to be just for her as well. She suddenly blushed, wondering what other friendships she had missed out upon. Nick Delaney was a man handsome beyond measure, and she could not recall the last time she’d been comfortable being looked upon without feeling anything but fear.
She braved a smile back for him, and his eyes danced. “Cheers.”
They ate as if they’d never eaten before, and for a short time she was almost able to forget the many terrible troubles that had brought them here. The hardest of their work was over, and though Arable feared for whatever the fallout of Lady Magdalena’s failed council might be, she was comfortable in knowing that—for once—the spotlight of immediate events was on people other than themselves.
As she licked her fingers clean, the phrase eating for two floated about her skull and refused to die, which soured her enjoyment of the meal a good deal.
Shortly afterward, a bell caught all their attention. Its bearer stood upon the raised dais of the head table, where Lord Robert and Magdalena had gathered with a small handful of the castle’s notables. They calmly awaited order in the room, that they may address their guests. Lord Robert dressed somewhat less grandly than Arable would have expected, well shyer even than the delicate balance. This meal was meant to be simply one of introduction rather than policy—that unpleasantness would wait for tomorrow, after a night’s solid rest. Arable had half a mind to stay in bed the whole day.
“Welcome, all!” Lord Robert announced, after his castellan had introduced him. His voice bloomed to fill every dark corner of the tall chamber. “I am most happy to share my castle with each of you, and hope you will call it home while you are here. We are humbled to have so many of you tonight. I never hoped to have the entirety of England beneath my roof!”
He went on, listing every visitor’s banners by name, excluding the obviousness of each liegelord’s absence.
“How’s it going?” came a whisper nearby, and Arable turned to see that Marion had joined them, squeezing into the bench beside John Little. Arable buried her attention in her plate.
“As well as possible,” John whispered back. “Where have you been?”
“Hiding!” she replied. “Robert had me greeting every guest this afternoon, and it’s altogether too much for me! I’ve only come to sneak a plate of food, then it’s back to my cave, thank you very much.”
John Little suppressed a laugh, for fear of distracting from the earl’s announcements. “I’d say you’re fine. Robert is very good at keeping things lively. By the way he speaks, you’d think this was a spectacular success.”
“Who is to say it isn’t?” Arable asked, giving Marion a cold stare. “After all, this turnout is better than a regiment of soldiers led by the Chancellor, come to arrest us all.”
Marion didn’t respond to that, but instead just eyed her. “You look healthy,” she said, as Lord Robert droned on with the requisite introductions. “Huntingdon has done you well, I’d say.”
Her fake smile said more. You ought to thank me, it boasted.
Arable almost rose to it, but again their attention was arrested by the far end of the room.
“—and to the Lady Marion Fitzwalter,” the name rang out clearly. Lord Robert and Lady Magdalena held their goblets high in praise as the entirety of the room craned their heads to the table where Marion suddenly stood upright, startled and alert.
Even from this distance, Arable recognized the smug smile that hid behind the countess’s politesse. She’d seen it in Lady d’Oily before, and it apparently ran in the family. It was the satisfaction of someone springing a trap.
Lady Magdalena continued, once the murmur of surprise rippled back her way. Her bright voice held no tint of derision. “Many of you have already met Lady Marion upon your arrival today, but she was gracious enough to allow me to welcome you to our dinner this evening. My husband and I are, after all, merely her hosts for this council.”
Arable’s eyes widened, while Marion was barely able to hide a gasp. Merely her hosts …
“We owe her a heavy debt of gratitude for her assistance in the last few months, but I hope we can consider that debt paid by availing our walls for this event of hers.”
Arable could do nothing but watch, stunned. They were throwing all of it, every last burden of responsibility for this misguided council, squarely on Marion’s shoulders.
“I deeply apologize to any of you who might be alarmed by her presence. I meant no deception in omitting her ownership of this council before now, although I think you can agree that fewer of you might have attended if you heard her name!” There were a few uncomfortable chuckles at the countess’s joke. “As always I would prefer to be straightforward with you all, but you know what they say about beggars and choosers. And for those who may wrinkle an eyebrow at her, you should know that Lady Marion has promised me she will refrain from killing any more Sheriffs for the duration of this council.”
Another round of awkward laughter came here, enjoyed in particular by the little muskrat man from Rutland who had come in the stead of Sheriff William d’Albini.
Magdalena angled her body sharply, like a predator before a pounce. “You all may depend on the hospitality of our house for the remainder of the event, but Lady Marion alone can answer in regard to the council itself. And while we will not begin those discussions until tomorrow, I am certain she will be happy to answer any of your questions, starting immediately.”
The Countess of Huntingdon raised her glass across the expanse of the dining hall, which had now officially become a battlefield. “Cheers.”
The room erupted.