particular Lady of Langumont. I vow, my mouth puckers less at the taste of a lemon than at her wit.”
“You dare to speak of my mother in such a manner?” A little giggle escaped from her lips, and she looked up at him, her eyes dancing. “I should toss you out on your ear for taking such liberties!”
A thick strand of hair blew in her face and caught at the corner of her mouth. She brushed it away and sobered. “In truth, Sir Dirick, your sincere interest is unfamiliar to me. More oft than not, men of your ilk turn tail or the subject, rather than hear the extent of my duties at Langumont.” She brushed her heavy cloak over her torso, “And, now, ’tis well past time for me to tend to those duties. I have kept you from your own work long enough.”
“Nay, my lady, you have kept me from naught,” Dirick was quick to respond, tightening his hands deep in the warmth of his tunic. It was quite frigid on this side of the bailey, where the slightest breeze seemed to catch and swirl brazenly about.
Maris smiled. “Very well, sir. But I am off to Mass and then about my duties.” She turned to make her way toward Langumont’s tiny chapel.
“My lady.” He was in her footsteps as if pulled by a rope. She turned and he felt foolish. “Lady Maris, I do not know where the chapel is and I am in need of absolution,” he said.
She gestured him forward, “Come, then, to Mass and Father Abraham will see you after.”
“Aye, my lady, and thank you.”
~*~
Verna crept up the dim, cold steps that led to the upper chambers of the keep. The sounds of busyness from below drifted up to her keen ears. And though she listened for the sound of her mistress’s voice, she knew that Lady Maris was gone about her work in the village and would not return for several hours.
On the floor above the great hall, several chambers were set into the tall stone walls. There was Lady Allegra’s solar, where the seamstresses worked, the private chamber of the lord and lady, several smaller chambers for important guests, and, finally, Verna’s destination.
Lady Maris’s chamber was the last along the narrow, dimly lit hallway. Attached was an antechamber where Verna slept when she was not with a man, for Maris did not require that she attend her every night as Lady Allegra would.
Verna passed silently through the small antechamber, skirting the small pallet piled generously with three pillows and an array of blankets, and opened the heavy door into the main chamber.
A large bed sat in one corner, its curtains drawn back to show a thick fur coverlet and many more pillows than Verna’s meager pallet. To the left of the bed, along the wall, was the narrow slit of a window—just wide enough to pass a hand through. A second window was staggered at the other end of the room. Both slits were covered with heavy tapestries to keep the harsh winter from entering the chamber.
A fireplace carved itself into the corner opposite the windows, and a small blaze crackled within. One of Verna’s many tasks each night was to build the sparks to a roar just as her mistress mounted the steps to her chamber. A large trunk rested at the foot of the bed, and a second one acted as a table near the fireplace. A stool and a straight backed chair completed the room’s furnishings.
Verna padded across the chamber, her feet rustling through the soft rushes that covered the stone floor. She poked briefly at the fire, adding two small logs to the protesting flames, then turned to the trunk at the foot of the bed.
Kneeling, she raised the lid of the heavy wooden trunk. Inside mounded piles of silks and velvets, wools and linens of the brightest colors and the most intricate embroideries. She passed a hand slowly over them, crushing an emerald silk bliaut in her fingers. A strange curl twisted her mouth and she stood, pulling the bliaut with her. It fell in a cascade of silk to her feet. She knew the green would complement her pale blonde hair and catlike green eyes.
For a moment, she stood thus, smoothing the silk down the front of her body, imagining how she would look garbed in the riches of Lady Maris of Langumont. Then, the twist of her mouth deepening, she carefully refolded the garment and replaced it in the trunk.
Now Verna dug carefully through the piles of clothing to the very bottom of the trunk and rummaged gingerly there. Holding a candle close to the shadowy depths, she peered into the depths of the fabric, mindful of dripping wax, and at last extracted the object of her search.
It was a headdress, woven of cloth of gold that often confined Lady Maris’s thick locks during the summer months. Verna examined the snood closely in the candlelight and was pleased to find several strands of rich brown hair trapped in the intricacies of the headdress. With a small sound of satisfaction, she folded the cloth carefully and pushed it up into her sleeve.
Maris had an audience as she peeled the dressing off Raymond of Vermille’s shoulder. Her father’s squires watched closely, hoping for a sign of the gore they’d been told they’d see. Unfortunately for them—and quite happily for Sir Raymond—the green pus that had oozed from his wound a mere two days earlier was gone, and the swelling had decreased greatly.
“See you, Sir Raymond,” she began for what seemed the hundredth time, but in this case, with the intent of teaching the young boys as well, “it is no great feat to keep soil from an open cut and ’tis much easier on the skin, so it heals nicely. If you keep mashing dirt and wool and lice from your tunic into the wound, it swells greatly as the humors grow.” She was finishing with a clean wrap around his shoulder.
“My thanks, my lady,” Raymond told her, winking at the squires.
“I saw that,” she remonstrated, pulling the binding tighter. At his exaggerated grunt of pain, she released it slightly. “If you do not listen to me, Sir Raymond, and cease your jesting, you’ll soon be without your sword arm.” Then she smiled and patted his good shoulder, “But if you listen to my commands, you’ll be wielding a lance in a week’s time.”
“Thank you my lady,” he said again, this time seriously.
She urged him off the stool on which he’d perched. “On the next you ride with Papa, I will send some of my green salve with you to put on a cut such as this until you are home for me to treat.”
She gathered up the rest of her medicines, packing some dried leaves and berries into a pouch to carry in her basket. “Off with you before cook puts you to work,” she said, shooing the young boys out of the herbary.
Outside, the air was just as brittle as it had been early that morning. The sun was so bright that Maris found herself blinded at the change from the darker chamber, and walked full faced into a warm body.
“Do you not watch where you are going?” came a deep, amused voice. “Lady Maris?”
“Sir Dirick,” she was beginning to make out shapes now. She looked up where his face would be and her eyes immediately watered from the brightness of the sun. Blinking the tears back, she looked back down and saw his scuffed brown boots in the compressed snow of the bailey. “I’m sorry, it was so dark in the herbary and the sun is so magnificently bright, I could not see for a moment. I trust your confession was well received?”
He grinned. “Aye, my lady, and well deserved, also.”
“And did you manage to obtain absolution for all your great sins?” she teased.
This time he laughed. “Aye, but for that I had to work a bit harder.”
“Indeed. I hadn’t expected to see you emerge from the chapel so quickly,” she returned, now able to look up at the face that blocked the sun. “Father Abraham is not known for his simple penances—and with a confession such as yours, I should think you’d be saying paternosters until Judgment Day and selling your fine Nick to pay for all your pardons.”
“Nay, lady, my penance is much heavier than you could think.” His eyes twinkled like the brilliant snow, “Father Abraham bade me accompany a headstrong lady healer on her visits to keep her from getting trampled under the hooves of any more horses.” Before she could react, he relieved her arm of the herb filled basket and asked, “And since I myself have nearly been flattened by a lady healer, ’tis fitting that I take up my penance now. Where are you off to, Lady Maris?”
“Do you not have aught to do but dog along my footsteps?” she asked, yet unable to keep back a smile. “Does not Papa have work for you?”
“Aye, lady, ’twas he who sent me to find you—and ensure that you are back to the keep for this evening’s meal. He says you have missed too many suppers as of late. Now, again, where are we off to?”
“To visit the cooper,” she told him automatically. Her father had sent a strange knight to be her chaperone? A chaperone in Langumont?
