Chapter Seven
“He should not believe anything against her, however reliable the source. Instead, he should say to those men or women who bring him the news that their words were foolish and that they never saw a more virtuous woman, that she has never ceased to do good and that therefore no man should suspect her.”
- Le Roman de la Rose, 13th c.
Below, in the bailey, Gilbert the Steward bowed to Hugh. “Welcome to Blystoke, Sire,” he said. “Your solar is at the ready and your servants are welcome in the kitchen.”
“My thanks,” Hugh said, curtly. He glanced upward at the castle’s small windows. Was Eleanor looking down at him? Pah, he thought. He was not here to see her for her own sake, but to settle this matter of the poachings, once and for all.
Gilbert the Steward proceeded to the Great Hall, where serving men were setting up the planks for the tables. He had a few messages to convey to two people, messages that he hoped would ease the way for his beloved and steadfast mistress, Lady Eleanor. ‘Twas the least he could do to repay her for her trust in him lo these many years. His arms folded, he surveyed the scene, looking for the first person he needed to speak with.
“Would that I could sit where Lord Hugh sits tonight,” he heard a bulky man comment to his helper as they lugged a plank to its place.
“Aye,” his companion answered. He grinned. “All the better to gaze at her bosom.”
“Hmph,” the other replied. “Speak not so of our gracious lady. Besides, she’s but almost bedded and wedded to William of Litchfield. Poor lady. She was ill-used by our most ungracious late Lord and now she’ll suffer anew at the sword of William.”
“Hah. A scabrous sword he hath, indeed,” the man snorted, “with all the wenches he’s tumbled, some not as clean as others. ‘T could be an ugly sight for our poor Lady Eleanor.”
“Aye. Her father would be sore vexed to see what a pretty pass will have come to his dear daughter. Honor et fides, indeed. She hath been faithful and loyal to her marriage vows even with that cur Edgar, and deserves far better than to have to service that lecher William.”
“Enough,” Gilbert remonstrated them. “Tend to your business at hand, and leave the gossip to women.”
Shamefacedly, the men hoisted the plank up on the trestles. Gilbert made his way to the kitchen, where dozens of servants, kitchen boys, and cooks hurried to and fro, busy with the meal preparations for over two hundred diners. At the entrances to the kitchen, a few knights idled, leaning against the stone walls, goblets of wine in their hands, teasing the servant girls and various ladies, who tossed their heads in false indignation, trying to hide their smiles as they waltzed past the knights. Some cooks stirred great steaming kettles suspended over blazing fires tended by naked kitchen boys, and others watched whole pigs and sides of beef turning on spits, crackling and hissing in the flames.
Ah, there she was. He spied Agnes through the crowd.
Gilbert beckoned to her, and she hurried to him, wiping her hands on her gown. “I was just readying some drink for Milady,” she said. “What ‘tis ‘t?”
Putting his hand on her shoulder, he steered her away from the crowd in the midst of the kitchen, toward the door to the buttery.
“I shall not dissemble. I have heard word that you are sweet ‘pon Osbert,” Gilbert began.
Agnes blushed to the roots of her hair, barely covered by her cap. She caught her lower lip in her teeth and looked down at the ground.
“We cannot have this in the household of the Lady Eleanor,” Gilbert said, firmly. “You know, as well as I, that such longings are not meet for you, as a servant girl, e’en though you serve the countess herself.” He held back a sigh. No, these feelings were not meet, nor were such feelings meet for Osbert, about whom he heard talk regarding Osbert’s unseemly longing for the Lady Eleanor herself. He needed to keep all in hand for Lady Eleanor, for she had enough to worry her head with. She was true and loyal to others who deserved such, and he did his best to do the same for her.
“I, I will see to ‘t,” Agnes promised, wringing her hands. “I am heartily sorry.”
Gilbert inclined his head. “My thanks,” he said.
Agnes curtseyed, and retreated toward a gaggle of other servant girls. He shrugged, knowing full well how the best of intentions fled when a heart was filled with longing, and more urgently, when the possibility of a tumble in the hay with the object of longing was close at hand.
As he walked through the doorway to the Great Hall, he saw Lady Anne, laughing with one of the Strathcombe knights. By the rood, she was a clever one, but seemingly insouciant at the same time. Her dear husband, away on Strathcombe business, was no doubt plying some lady at court with attentions, as well. How few seemed to adhere to any kind of a motto as did Lady Eleanor. Honor et fides seemed to be in short supply in most quarters. Shaking his head, he continued into the Great Hall, hoping to deliver his other message.
“What was Gilbert the Steward saying to you?” one of Agnes’s friends asked her, eyes wide with curiosity, as she watched Gilbert leave the crowded kitchen. “Surely not about the mulled wine, was ‘t? He seemed more urgent than such a task would call for.”
Agnes sighed and shook her head. “Gilbert the Steward feels he must needs care for all of us, as if we were his children,” she complained.
“Have you done aught that is wrong?” her friend asked, putting a hand on Agnes’s shoulder.
“Nay,” Agnes said. At least, not yet, she thought.
“What think you of this Lord Hugh who came today?”
