The Lode Stone Read online

  I had misjudged Charles badly. He was a proud man, had been a proud boy, too proud to play with his little brother and the blacksmith’s daughter. I had hoped he would reconsider after our argument, that his guilt would win out and make him give me Simon’s horse. I had thought when he calmed down he would realize he had got the better bargain, a quarry was worth a great deal more than a war horse. Instead his pride had won. I had spurned his generosity, and if he gave me Simon’s horse now it would be because I had ordered him to.

  I had condemned my children to a life of hardship and want instead of a life of ease and comfort. I should have accepted Lord Charles’ quarry for their sakes.

  I had refused it in anger. In pride, Maman would say. But mostly I had refused it out of fear. Look where gifts and favors had got Simon. Lords did not forget the gifts they gave; they wanted a return on their investment. I thought I was keeping myself and my children safe, but what would safety matter if they starved to death?

  Well, it was done, and somehow I would feed them. Perhaps Maman could help me. She had very little extra since Papa had died, but I would pay her back.

  And how would I do that? Even with renting the smithy out this year I could not pay my own rent. We would both be out of our homes in a year unless I thought of something...

  The bag of coins Lord Charles had offered the families who lost a man that went crusading with him. A pittance compared to the plunder he had no doubt brought home. But it might save us from homelessness for another year, if I could bear to tell Marie I was willing to take it now. I gritted my teeth. Like it or not, I would do it.

  I gave the place where my neck and shoulders carried the burden a last rub and settled the yoke back onto my shoulders. The large baskets at either end hung empty and swaying. Alys would have filled the pot with water from the town well and hung it over the fire to heat by now. There were carrots in the garden and turnips, and a heel of the last loaf I had baked still left. Tomorrow we would have the soup without any bread.

  One day at a time, I told myself as I continued homeward. Sufficient onto the day is the evil thereof. I would do what I must to pay this year’s rent. Anything might happen by next year.

  I heard the horse before I turned down my street, snorting and stamping its great hooves against the cobblestones. Only a huge beast would stomp so loudly; only a warhorse. I quickened my pace, my weariness falling away. How often had that noise greeted me when Simon returned from a ride—training, he called it, since he put the horse through the lessons he had taught it, or exercise, a horse like that needed to run as much as it needed to breathe. For a moment all I could think was, he has come home! One more corner and I would see him turn to greet me, perhaps with Alys and Guarin in his arms, the three of them laughing at my confusion.

  I rushed round the corner—

  And stopped dead. “L...Lord Roland.”

  He looked up from the child in his arms—Guarin, I realized, who he was holding up to pat the great horse’s nose.

  Guarin laughed, his eyes bright. “Regard, Maman! I am patting Papa’s horse!”

  “I sat in the saddle, Maman!” Alys cried, dancing from one foot to the other beside Roland.

  “I held tight to the reins,” Roland assured me quickly.

  “I want to sit in the saddle!” Guarin exclaimed.

  “When you are older,” Roland said. “Your legs will not reach across its back yet.” He looked to me for confirmation, as he so often had when we were children playing together. What other lord’s son would look to a commoner thus?

  I nodded, still unable to pull my gaze from his face. His eyes were dark like his mother’s, and frank. Windows to his soul, as they had been when he was a boy. But his cheekbones were sharper where they showed above his close-trimmed beard; it was a man’s face, not a child’s, that I gazed at now. I had nursed a few dreams about him when I was younger, until my father, noting our closeness, had reminded me of my place, and Roland’s. When I became a woman I had to stay home with my mother and learn a woman’s work, and not long after that Simon spoke to my father. I seldom saw Roland after that except from afar as he rode by. Nor did I want to, for Simon was all I wanted. I had almost forgotten my childhood infatuation until two days ago when he tried to intercede at the castle gate, to both our embarrassments. Remembering that I finally looked away, flushing. With my head turned sideways I was immediately reminded of the yoke on my shoulders with its laundry baskets dangling at my sides. I blushed further to have him see me this way.

  He saw that I was flustered and put Guarin down at once. “I...I am sorry, Madame Melisende.” Was he stammering? “I do not mean to intrude...upon your grief...”

  I nodded again, unable to meet his eyes at all now as I removed the yoke and lowered the baskets to the ground. It had not been grief he had seen on my face.

  “But I must talk to you...May I talk to you?”

  I glanced up, saw his earnest face and looked away quickly. If it had been possible to refuse I would have, for grief had returned to me, and shame, that I could have forgotten Simon for even a moment. But Roland was a lord, no matter how humbly he spoke.

  “Children, run and play,” I said quietly. “Alys, watch your brother.” Not that she needed reminding, but I meant to let Roland know I had responsibilities and could not set them aside for long. Roland tied Simon’s horse to the post at the smithy and followed me inside the house.

  I had nothing to offer him, but he produced a skin of wine he had tied to his saddle. I turned over two mugs of the three on the table, embarrassed anew by the meanness of my home. At least it was clean, with a meager but fresh sprinkling of straw on the dirt floor, and all the laundry had been washed and returned to its owners. This thought made me aware of the lingering unpleasant scent of lye filling my home, and I hurried to open the window shutters, not only to let in fresh air but to give us more light. I had run out of oil for the lamp days ago.

  Roland sat on one of the two benches at my table as though unaware of the meanness of his surroundings, and poured wine into the two mugs. I hesitated briefly before sitting on the other bench across from him. This was my home, after all.

  I took a sip of wine. It was sweeter than the one Charles had given me, warm from the wineskin and rich, like liquid sunshine in mid-summer. I had to resist the urge to drink it all at once. I took a second sip, holding it in my mouth to enjoy the flavor longer while I waited for him to speak. He looked into his cup pensively. Outside I heard Guarin’s chortle and Alys’s joyous laughter, mingled with the sounds of other children playing with them. I took another drink of wine. At last Roland looked up.

  “I admired you when we were children.” His eyes searched mine. “You always seemed to know exactly what you wanted.”

  I swallowed the wine and set my cup on the table. “Knowing and having are not the same thing.” My throat closed as I saw Simon’s face leaning down for a last kiss before he left.

  “Did you not get what you wanted?” Roland asked softly.

  Between the wine and the strangeness of the conversation I began to feel a bit dizzy. I should have said ‘keeping’, not ‘having’, I thought, but I felt tears trembling against my lashes and did not answer. I would not weep in front of a lord, even if he had once been my friend.

  “The past is past.” Roland stretched his arm across the table to lay his fingers over mine. “What do you want now, Melisende? If it is something in my power to give, I will see that you have it.”

  I turned my head away, hiding the tear that fell to my cheek and blinking away the others. No one could give me what I wanted, but I was touched by his concern.

  “My brother has empowered me to make this promise,” he said earnestly.

  My tears dried at once. I took a drink of wine to steady my voice. “You came on behalf of your brother?”

  He leaned back. “I am not my brother,” he said, his voice as cool as mine. “I came because of our friendship, which I have never forgotten. I do not agree with
all my brother’s doings, but he does not wish you ill. He asked me to find out what he could do for you, and he will do it.”

  After he has taught me the cost of refusing his help, I thought. “Did he tell you to ride Simon’s horse here?”

  “No.” Roland looked puzzled. “But the horse must be ridden. It cannot stand in its stall all day, and Charles will not go near it now. I... I think it reminds him of the war.”

  “It reminds him of Simon.”

  “We all remember Simon.” Roland’s voice trembled. I remembered how he had followed Simon about the stables when we were children. Simon had taught us both to ride, before Roland was old enough to join his brother and learn the skills a lord must have, riding and warfare. I felt again Simon’s strong hands on my waist, lifting me up onto one of the smaller mares, and Roland behind me, leading us around the stable yard when his blacksmithing work was done. I closed my eyes.

  Sufficient onto the day is the evil thereof. Roland had taught me those words, for he could speak Latin and understood the Holy Readings. He had progressed to a gelding, but we still rode together sometimes in the field beside the stable. One day I took the mare over a hedge. Roland kicked his gelding after us, but he was a cautious boy; the horse sensed it and refused the jump.

  “I am the better rider!” I crowed over my victory. “I should learn to be a knight, not you!” It was a mean thing to say, but I was bitter that he should be riding freely and playing with swords while I was only allowed to trot a mare around the stable yard.

  “Sufficient onto the day is the evil thereof,” Roland muttered, ducking his head. Immediately he leaned forward and patted his gelding as if worried he might have hurt its feelings.

  I snorted in laughter. Then I caught the look on Simon’s face as he watched Roland pat the unconcerned gelding.

  “I want you to have Simon’s horse.” The words surprised me as much as they did Roland, but when I had said them, they felt right.

  Roland was silent so long I looked up. His cheeks were wet, his face twisted with the effort to control his emotions. I reached my hand out to him this time. We sat without speaking, our fingers interlaced, until both of us were calmer.

  “You must ask something for yourself. I cannot accept your gift otherwise.”

  Your gift, he had said. Simon’s horse was mine to give. And because he knew that, because he acknowledged it, I allowed myself to consider his offer. His brother’s offer. He spoke on behalf of his brother, I reminded myself. But Roland had been my friend and he had loved Simon. Despite that love, his face wore a stubborn expression I remembered well. I knew he would not take the horse otherwise, so I said, “Your brother offered me his stone quarry. I will take it if you will accept Simon’s horse.”

  I sighed after I had said it. Roland had done what Charles could not, because I sensed no future threat from Roland. But Charles would not forget his gift, or our obligation. Still, my children needed to eat.

  Then I heard myself add, “And I will take the woods adjoining the quarry as well.” Because Charles had taken Simon’s horse. Whether or not it was offered, he had taken it when he should not have, and I wanted to take something from him, something more than he had wanted to offer.

  “The quarry and the woods?”

  I looked at Roland, but he quickly turned his face aside. So he had known of his brother’s earlier offer—and my refusal. I felt a pang of disappointment and stood up. It was a long time ago that we were children together. I drank the last of the wine in my cup.

  “You may tell Lord Charles that is what I want of him. In exchange for my husband’s life.”

  I stepped back from the table, holding myself stiffly against the emptiness growing inside me. Simon was dead. I had acknowledged it out loud, at last. I would never see him again, never hear his quiet laughter or feel his hands caress my body, or his kisses heating my skin. What did Lord Charles’ riches matter? They would not bring Simon back. Nothing would ever bring Simon back to me. For a moment I could not breathe.

  Outside my window Alys’s sweet voice rose above the other children’s in one of the chants they sang at their play. Guarin’s thin lisp joined hers a beat later.

  I breathed in, felt the tightness in my chest easing.

  “The quarry and the woods,” I said. For Simon’s children.

  Chapter Six: Eviction

  Nine days went by with no word from the castle. We had no oil for the lamp nor wood for the fire, nor flour to bake bread if we had had a fire. I added what I could to my mother’s pot and we took our dinners with her, breaking our fast the next morning with the heels of her bread. Two families still gave me their laundry. Simon had done them good turns and they remembered it. Simon had helped most of the families in the village at one time or another, accepting less than his work was worth, or nothing when they could not pay, but he was gone and so was their gratitude. I was lucky two families remembered, now that word was out I no longer enjoyed the favor of our masters.

  Lord Charles must have refused my demand. Once again my temper and my pride had undone me. Lord Roland would not return to negotiate me down, not after he had told me I could have whatever I asked. He would be furious with his brother for letting him tell me that and then not honoring it. I imagined him arguing fiercely with Lord Charles on my behalf.

  Or would he? The quarry and the woods? he had asked, his face betraying his thoughts before he looked away. He was a second son, he could not expect to inherit. I had asked for more than he himself might get, I realized now.

  So I had asked too much. So be it. Lord Charles had asked too much of my husband. Simon must have known that. The more I thought of it, now that my initial anger had cooled, the less I could believe that Simon had thrown his life away with no thought for me and Alys. There was more to the story than Charles had admitted. Whatever secret he guarded, I did not think Roland privy to it. Roland could not have kept it from me, his face was as open as the sky.

  I had spoken to each of the village men who came back with Lord Charles, not telling them of my suspicion, only that I wished to hear how my husband died. Did he pray at the end for his immortal soul? Did he give them any last instruction to pass on to me? I made my inquiries in the guise of wifely duty, but none of them could help me. They had been separated on the battlefield, none of them part of the deadly circle around their lords. Only Lord Charles had survived of that group; only he could tell me of my husband’s death. I did not admit to having asked him and not being satisfied with his answer. I simply nodded and thanked each man for the pity and the horror in their eyes when they spoke of the battle.

  “The priest spoke of forgiveness today,” My mother said as we took our Sabbath dinner at her house a week after Roland’s visit.

  “Who do you have to forgive, Maman?” I asked without looking up from my soup.

  “Stop it!” she said, her low voice fierce enough that I did look up. “Do you think Lord Charles is unaware that you are asking about Simon’s death, as if you did not believe his story?”

  The children stopped fidgeting and chattering and sat as still as statues staring from their Grandmaman to me.

  “Not now, Maman,” I hissed.

  “You think they do not know? Half the village will not speak to us. Not just you, Melisende; to us. Your mother and your children. I understand your grief, but it is enough.”

  “What do you want me to do?” I cried. In one week Lord Charles’ overseer would come to the town square and the heads of each household would line up to pay their rent. I was strung as tightly as a bow.

  “You know what to do. It is time you did it.”

  “He is—” Alys and Guarin were staring at me, wide-eyed. I could not mention my suspicions about Lord Charles in front of them. “You are right, Maman,” I said, dropping my eyes to my lap to hide the anger in them. “He is the Lord of the region and we must obey him.”

  “Your husband knew what he was doing.”

  Guilty on both counts: defying my Lord
and my husband. I gritted my teeth and kept my head bowed. Alys and Guarin must know their duty, even if it chafed me. We finished our meal in silence.

  I would settle now for my previous livelihood, I thought, entering my cold hut and undressing the children in the dark. Did my presence at the castle once a week to do the laundry shame Lord Charles? How much more ashamed he should be of my present straits!

  And what about Lady Celeste? Did she know that the family of the man who had saved her life and her son’s as well, was starving in her village? Marie would have told her, but Marie had not come to town lately and I could not go see her, not since I had been tossed outside the castle gate like a beggar or a thief rather than the wife of the man to whom the lord owed his life!

  My thoughts went round and round and my emotions followed them, first anger, then regret, then bitterness, then fear and remorse as I heard my children’s stomachs rumbling with hunger and considered losing my home. I would have to sell our bed, the bed Simon had carried me to on our wedding night. He would not marry me until he had made it and saved enough to buy a fine, soft, down-filled mattress for us to lie on together. And then his table. Even if I sold them both, next week when Lord Charles’s man came to collect our tithes I would not be able to pay my rent on our house, let alone Simon’s smithy. We would be put out on the street.

  ***

  “You must speak to the priest,” my mother said quietly several days later. Her eyes were sad, for she had loved Simon like a son.

  I looked at her in shock. “I am still in mourning.”

  “He will give you a dispensation, given your need.”