Miggins stood in the doorway of the weaving hut, her arms crossed over her scrawny chest. “Ye wish to see Merry, my lord?”
He nodded. “You came out here quickly. To protect her from me, I wonder?”
Miggins scratched her head. Garron wondered what lived amongst those scrawny braids. “There is no need, for Merry is a warrior.”
Garron was beginning to think those words would haunt him to the grave. “Tupper said she was within.”
“Aye, she is, trying to fix the spindle on one of the looms.” Miggins crossed her arms over her sunken bosom. “Ye’ll not hurt her, my lord.”
“You believe me angry at your little pigeon, Miggins?”
The old woman didn’t move. She tried to stare him down. She scratched her armpit, then yanked on her old gown. He looked past her to see Merry sitting on the straw floor, her face shiny with sweat because it was so hot in this small, airless room, trying to fix the spindle that looked ancient and far beyond repair to him.
“My little Merry is near to screaming blasphemy to the heavens, or mayhap drinking more ale than she should”—she gave him the eye—“but then how could she when you and the chancellor swilled it all down your gullets, sots, the both of you, and here there is a traitor to find. Oh aye, I have eyes in my head, I see everything.” She pressed her fingers to her temples and stared at him. “I see a man whose loins are heavy with lust, a man who better not relieve his lust on the priest’s sweet bastard.”
He lifted Miggins under her armpits and set her away from him. She weighed nothing at all. He hated it. “Go eat some more dinner,” he told her, “and stop looking at my loins,” and he walked into the room, past three women sewing, none of them looking at him.
Merry was on her hands and knees fiddling with a wooden bar that obviously should attach to something, what that was, he had no idea. He laid his hand lightly on her shoulder.
“Come,” he said.
She jerked up, hit her head on the wooden bar, and yelped. She sat on her bottom and frowned up at him. “What, you have come to tell me the earth will end in two hours and you wish me to fetch you more ale so you may be unconscious when the final hour strikes?”
He eyed her. “You said quite a lot there, most of it insulting. If doomsday arrives, you may be certain my sword and I will attack it and drive it into the sea. Now, keep your mouth shut and come with me.”
“You are so sodden with ale you fell on your face in the mud, didn’t you? Just look at you—what have you done?”
“There isn’t any mud yet, but by the looks of the clouds, it might begin at any moment. I poured water over my head.”
“Good. You need sharp wits to deal with me,” and the witch gave him a full-bodied sneer.
“Have Miggins fetch Borran, he should be the one to fix the loom.”
“Borran asked me to look at it. He claims he is flummoxed.” She got slowly to her feet, dusted her hands on her skirts, placed her hands on her hips, and gave him another sneer. “Are you really so insulted, my lord?”
“Nay, but the chancellor is. He believes you need discipline and I am to see to it.”
“Discipline? What does that mean? I did not insult the chancellor—” She frowned. “Mayhap I could have selected more mealymouthed words. Shall I apologize to him? Mayhap he won’t remember since he is so drunk. It is disgraceful.”
“The chancellor was right. He many times is. You are sorely in need of discipline,” and he nodded to the other women, all of them busily sewing, weaving, and listening. “Come,” he said, and held out his hand to her.
21
D
iscipline,” he repeated, savoring the word, not looking down at her as he strode through the inner bailey, pulling her behind him. “It has an interesting sound to it, does it not?”
“It is a man’s word that holds only threat.” She took a double step to keep up with him. “At least you do not sound like a drunkard any longer. What is so important that you must speak to me this very moment?”
He stopped suddenly as one of the three dogs dashed into his path. She nearly ran into him. “Do you know, I was thinking about all the noise in the inner bailey. Everyone will work until it is too dark to see, or it rains. Listen to the hammering, the sawing, all the cursing, the arguing, all the insults that turn the air blue.”
“There is also laughter and two men are singing at the tops of their lungs. I must give them better rhymes to go with their tunes. Mayhap I can sing a duet with them. It is going to rain, very soon now.”
“Do not forget the families to arrive within the sennight, with children. All must be put in the great hall, I suppose. Speak to Bullic, tell him we will have at least two score more mouths to feed.”
“I did. He said he will be ready. Aleric assigned a detail of men to hunt each morning. When do you think the king’s men will return from Radstock and Furly?”
“In three days, if all goes well. I pray the keeps were not attacked. They would not have stood a chance, for their defenses are meager in comparison to Wareham’s, and just look at what happened here.” The three dogs were barking madly and he turned to see Ivo throwing them each a bone. “The great hall smells good.”
She nodded. “I had rosemary and lavender strewn on the fresh rushes. A great deal of lavender, actually, to soak up all the foul smells that have seeped into the stone floor over the years. As for the sweet-smelling jakes, since you drank so much ale, you will probably visit them soon, you and the Chancellor of England. Mayhap between your two brains, you can determine that Sir Lyle is the traitor. I cannot believe you actually assigned him and his mangy men to question the men we brought from Winthorpe.”
He smiled at the meaty sneer in her voice.
She grabbed his sleeve. “Listen to me, Garron—the man who attacked you didn’t have a chance against you. You are a warrior, you are brave and strong. You do not hesitate. But Sir Lyle of Clive, I simply know it to my bones, he is a very bad man.”
He studied her, his eyebrow arched. “You do not know that. I pray he is not bad because I need him and his strong arm. I find it odd that our very astute chancellor still believes you the priest’s bastard. It is so very obvious that you are nothing of the sort, that you are obviously a lady born.”
“He sees what he’s meant to see. Most do.”
“Discipline,” he said, “our chancellor wants me to see to your discipline. Come with me.” He took her hand and pulled her behind a newly rebuilt shed that held building tools. He pulled her close and placed his finger on her mouth. “Listen to me, Merry. As I said, the chancellor believes you should be disciplined. He has instructed me to see to it. I believe he wants me to thrash you.”
“You would not!”
He smiled. “No, I would not, but let me tell you this. If the chancellor continues to believe you a nagging fishwife, he could easily insist you return to London with him, to accept punishment from the king himself.” This wasn’t at all in the realm of possibility, but Garron saw she looked uncertain now, not quite so sure of herself. Good. “The chancellor is also a very intelligent man, a man I trust above all others. Let him drink away his woes, even only for a single night. His duties for the king always weigh heavily on him.”
“You would not let him take me back to London, would you?”
He hated that she was afraid, but he needed her agreement. He shrugged. “I would not have a choice. What would the king do to you? I do not know. So here is what we must do. When we emerge from behind this shed, I want you to rub your bottom, as if I’d walloped you but good, all right? You will tell anyone who asks you that this walloping was deserved discipline. And rub your bottom again. The chancellor will find out, and he will be pleased. He will leave you here with me. Can you do this?”
He watched her chew this over, and wanted to smile. Finally, she nodded. “Oh aye, I will not accuse him of idiocy anymore. I do not wish to be forced away from you, Garron.”
“You will mind your tongue?”
She nodded.
“Good. All right?”
When they walked back into the inner bailey, he smiled to see her vigorously rubbing her bottom.
“Ah, one other thing, Merry. Try your best not to sneer again in the chancellor’s presence or even behind his back, for I have learned the man sees everything.”
Both were aware of the silence around them, no hammering, no yelling, no little boys’ voices, not one of the dogs barking. One of Garron’s newly purchased cows mooed. He looked up to see nearly every one of his people staring at him, and Eric the goat stood not six feet away, chewing on an old leather strap dangling out of her mouth. And here came Miggins striding toward him, her ancient face seamed and set, her meager shoulders pulled back, mumbling to herself. This was all he needed. At least she wasn’t carrying a weapon.
Merry quickly rubbed her bottom again and tried to look pitiful.
Miggins waved her fist at him, “Ye whipped her, didn’t ye, my lord, ye, a big man, strong, used to violence, but this one here, she is only a dainty little mite, soft and yielding. Aye, ever so yielding. Be ye like yer brother, Lord Arthur? Be ye as rotten as he was?”
“Yielding? Where is such a girl, Miggins?” He made a show of searching the inner bailey.
“She’s wrong about that, Garron, I’m not this fragile useless creature. I am a warrior. I am a hero.”
“Aye, and now you’re a better disciplined warrior.”
Miggins shouted, “Mayhap not sweet and gentle, but she is innocent of men. Did ye jerk up her skirts? Don’t deny it, young randy lord that ye are. When I was young, my handsome Ulric always did the same to me. And then he licked me behind my knees.”
Garron stared at her, blanching at the picture forming in his mind. “It is difficult for me to see you as a young girl, Miggins.”
“That is because ye are a man with little enough brain. It is very sad. Ye must stop abusing her. Now ye’ve frightened her with yer lust.”
“He does not frighten me, Miggins. Look at him, he is getting scared because he knows I will make him pay for walloping me.”
She was enjoying herself, the little witch. She rubbed her bottom harder.
Garron heard a laugh, then another. Soon laughter filled the inner bailey.
“Gentle sweet girl,” he whispered in her ear, “by all the saints’ hairy knees,
yielding?
That is nearly enough to make me burst my guts laughing.” He patted her face. “Ah, what wonderful laughter. Just listen, everyone knows how yielding you are. Come now, Merry, ’tis time for you to show respect to the Chancellor of England even if he is in the sweet-smelling jakes puking up his guts with all the ale.”
She stared up at him. “Will you lick me like Miggins’s Ulric did to her?” Whilst he gaped at her, she turned to Miggins. “This licking behind the knees, do all men want to do it?”
Garron didn’t think the laughter could be any louder, but he was wrong.
“Aye, and a fine thing it be,” Miggins said, her scratchy old voice suddenly sounding girlish with memories.
That terrifying image undoubtedly flashed in every man’s mind in the inner bailey.
He grabbed her arms and pulled her up close against him, to every eye, a sign he was not through chastising her. “Do you know, if you like, I will allow you to visit my bed and we can see what this licking is all about.”
Merry sighed. “There is only one bed and it is for Robert Burnell.”
Garron realized he had no problem with kicking Burnell out of the master’s bed. “If I set the men to work, there will be another by nightfall. What say you?”
“There isn’t enough time.”
His eyes nearly crossed. Everyone was still laughing, listening for all they were worth. Everyone had misunderstood, which was the point, only not really. The point had changed remarkably in the past few minutes. He had to change that—and so he hammered in one more nail. He said, his voice hard and loud, “You are a nag. Even at your tender years, you have the rudiments of nagging down quite well.” He saw her purse her lips, but she understood. He then tapped his finger to her nose, and said, his voice perfectly serious now, “Did you learn it from your precious Lady Anne?”
“No, my mother left and went to an abbey.”
A small piece of the truth, and that was something. Her mother had become a nun? He waited, but she shook her head.
“You are stubborn as one of those mules,” and he turned on his heel and walked to the soldiers barracks, where ten men were alternately looking at the dark sky and sawing wood. No more laughter now, only fierce concentration on completing tasks before the rain came.
Miggins, thankfully deceived, petted Merry, straightened her hair, tucked in two small braids that had come out of the crown of braids on her head, smoothed down her skirts. “Do ye want to tell me who ye really are? Ye can practice on me, smooth out all the hillocks in yer story before ye tell the young lord.”
“The young lord is content to wait,” Merry said. She noticed the women standing behind Miggins, all of them leaning toward her, worry on their faces. Worry for her? Because they believed Garron had whipped her?
Miggins said, “Heed me, Merry, he is a man, a warrior, strong and fearless, just like ye said. Oh aye, ye are a warrior too, little mite.”
The women all nodded.
“Surely I did not say he was fearless. Did I?”
“Something close to that. Listen to me. Sometimes men need to drink ale so their brains will loosen their tongues so they may air their worries, their fears, their doubts. Aye, ale smoothes out all the boulders in their brains so they may begin to think again, to plan, and take action, once they are sober.”
“Evidently the chancellor had a great many boulders in his brain.”
Miggins nodded. “Aye. Now women fret in a different way.”
Elaine said, “My Eric never drank himself into a stupor, he ate.” She sighed. “Not that it mattered. He was thin as a nail, thinner than the arrows he shot.”