The Lode Stone Read online

  I did not mention my suspicions to Jean-Louis, but when he asked, hesitantly, whether I might consider approaching Lords Etienne and Geoffroi again and take Lord Roland with me this time...

  “No,” I said. “This is my quarry, not Lord Roland’s.” Whatever game Lord Charles was playing, I would not entangle Roland in it. He and Charles had always been as prickly as chestnuts in their shell rubbing against each other. Besides, if Lord Charles had suggested to Lord Etienne and Lord Geoffroi that they need not rush to pay for their stones—he would not have to give more than a gentle hint—his friends were not likely to change their behavior at the request of his younger brother, who had never gone on crusade nor fought beside them.

  No, it would be no use to involve Lord Roland; it would more likely make everything worse. But I had to have those payments soon in order to pay my rent and keep my promise to the men. Who could I turn to...?

  I looked up at Jean-Louis with a smile. “I will speak to Lady Celeste!”

  I sent word at once to Marie. She had been Lady Celeste’s maid and companion since she was a child; if anyone could get me an audience with the matron of the family, it was Marie. I had not been a good friend to her recently. Over the past year I had been so busy with my quarry and managing my new larger household that I had only seen her a few times. And now I wanted a favor of her. I sighed. Well, either she would refuse or forgive me and agree.

  “In the meantime, we must go over all our records,” I said to Jean-Louis while we waited for Marie’s answer. “Is there any note we have forgotten? Any other contract we can call due? Perhaps we can promise a contract next month to someone who would pay us an advance this month?” He shook his head gloomily, but he opened the box with our records and together we went over every note and contract in it.

  Marie had always been a good-hearted, loyal friend. Within a short time my messenger returned to say Lady Celeste would see me in two days’ time. I rode home with a lighter heart than I had had all week.

  ***

  Maman must have been watching for me, for the stable boy opened the gate as soon as Lucien and I arrived. It had started to rain, a heavy downpour that would not last long but had unfortunately caught us riding home. I swung down from my horse as wet as a fish, the bottom half of my kirtle spattered with mud, my hair soaked through my cap and streaming water down the back of my neck. I tossed my reins to the stable boy and hurried inside, eager to warm myself at the fire which was sure to be crackling in the stone hearth of the hall. How fortunate I am to have my mother living with us and managing my household, I thought, rubbing my hands to warm them as I crossed into the main hall.

  I nearly bumped into him. Lord Roland must have heard me enter and come to meet me, not expecting me to be in such a rush. He laughed and caught me as I tripped trying not to run into him. He was nearly as wet as I was, his clothes steaming a little as though he had been warming himself at my fire. His dark hair fell in wet curls around his face. The scent of wet wool and leather and woodsmoke and a strong manly smell rose from him. I breathed in deeply, as though I was catching a scent I had nearly forgotten.

  “I was caught in the rain,” he said, “and thought to stop in here until the worst of it passed.”

  I nodded, barely hearing his words, only thinking that he was here in my house, which suddenly did not seem too strange or too large or too lonely.

  “But you are soaked through and through.” He brushed strands of wet hair from my face and gently pulled me toward the fire.

  What a sight I must make! I pulled away from him, gulping in embarrassment. “I must get out of my wet clothes,” I murmured, blushing as I said it. My blouse and kirtle clung to me, dripping. I glanced down and blushed further to see the lines of my body revealed as though I were naked. I turned and ran up the stairs to my chamber.

  Maman had insisted on having two silk kirtles made for me, ‘in case a lord came to call’. I had told her it was a foolish waste of money; I did not expect many lords coming to visit anytime soon. Then I had thought of Lord Roland and demurred. Little had I thought he would really come!

  “Quickly!” I urged my maid Elise as she unlaced the back of my dress. What if he dried himself and left before I got back downstairs? The sound of pounding rain at my window reassured me.

  I was wet to the skin and trembled as she dried me with a cloth, reminding me firmly that a lady did not hurry over her toilette.

  “The blue kirtle,” I said, hurrying her as much as I could. The blue was my favorite. My seamstress had told me it brought out the blue in my eyes. Of course, she wanted to keep her employ, but I hoped she was right just the same. I had Elise pin up the strands of hair that had escaped rather than let my hair out and braid it up anew. At last I was hurrying down the stairs again.

  Lord Roland had left the fire and was sitting with Maman at the big wooden table, drinking mulled wine. I accepted the cup Maman poured for me and drank it gratefully, feeling the warmth flow down into my body.

  “You have not caught a chill?” Roland asked, staring at me—tenderly, I found myself hoping—and a little wide-eyed, as though he had never seen me before.

  I smiled, certain it was the effect of the blue silk kirtle. “I am quite healthy,” I assured him.

  He said nothing for a moment, only looked at me. Then he seemed to catch himself. “You were riding back from your quarry, I assume? Is all going well?”

  “Yes,” I said quickly. “What took you out riding on this dismal day?”

  “It was not dismal when I left. I was returning from Lyon where I was visiting...” he trailed off.

  I let it go, glad I had turned the conversation away from my quarry. I had decided not to involve him in my dispute with Charles’ friends and I would keep to that decision. Roland had been visiting a duke or an earl, very likely, and did not want to embarrass me with the difference between his peers and mine. But his mother was not noble, I reminded myself, only a wealthy commoner, like me.

  “I believe the rain is stopping.” Roland set his mug down on the table.

  “But you must stay to dinner,” Maman said firmly. “We cannot send you away hungry. I have already sent word to the kitchen.”

  I could have kissed her. Instead I demurely sipped my mulled ale, doing my best to act like a lady in my silk kirtle, which felt cool and light upon me as though I was not wearing a kirtle at all.

  Lord Roland kept us laughing through dinner with tales of misadventure he had read or heard jongleurs sing about and sly stories of foolish nobles and their daughters which he refused to name. I was giddy with drinking too much wine and trying not to laugh too loudly, but as I looked across my table at Roland eating heartily and talking to Maman and I as equals, for the first time I could see myself being happy in this large house. It felt, suddenly, like a home.

  When Lord Roland pushed back his chair and said he must leave I walked with him out to the courtyard. He crooked his arm so I could hold it and smiled down at me as I walked beside him.

  “You are very beautiful tonight,” he said quietly as we waited alone together for his guardsmen to saddle up their horses and his.

  The wine had gone to my head, for I said in a rush, “you would not take my quarry from me, would you, Lord Roland?”

  He drew back, startled. “Why would you think such a thing?”

  “Oh, I do not think it, Lord Roland, I know you too well. Only some men would, if their—”

  He put his finger on my lips to stop me saying more. “I have always loved your strength and resourcefulness, Melisende. No man deserves you who would make you less than you are.”

  It was all I needed to hear, my last concern dissolved. I leaned toward him. Simon had kissed me outside once, in front of everyone. I had not been kissed for four years. I raised my face, my eyes closed. I felt Roland’s fingers brush across my cheek as tenderly as a breath of air.

  “Dear Melisende, there is something I must say to you,” he murmured.

  I opened my eye
s and gazed up at him. I had not thought to love another man, or to be loved again. I could see he felt the same way I did. A woman is not wrong about such things. I slipped my hand into his boldly, to encourage him to speak.

  A horse whinnied behind us. Lord Roland let my hand drop and stepped away quickly. I saw his men approaching with the horses. Roland bowed to me as though I were a lady before he swung up into the saddle.

  “Thank you for rescuing me and my men from the rain, Madame Melisende.” He tightened the reins and urged his horse into a trot.

  I watched until he passed through the gate and out of sight, and still I stood staring after him, happier than I had been in a long time.

  Chapter Eleven: The Wrong Lord

  Lady Celeste received me graciously, as I knew she would. We sat in the same room where I had asked Lord Charles to tell me of Simon’s death. So long ago. And yet, despite all that had been given me, I still felt that something was being kept from me. Perhaps because of all that had been given to me. I watched Lady Celeste carefully but caught no sign of any veiled emotions in her. I had expected as much; Charles had never been one to show his hand. Which would make it all the more difficult to convince her that he was involved in my debtors’ refusal to pay me.

  She asked after my health, and Maman’s, and my children, and listened as I stumbled through a few sentences of gratitude for what Lord Charles had done for us. I saw nothing in her face to indicate her opinion of her son giving a quarter of their family holdings to a commoner. I had not thought to wonder about this before, but I wondered now, and felt all the more awkward coming to complain to her. Perhaps I would not. Perhaps I would just thank her once more for her family’s generosity and...

  “Marie told me you wished to speak with me. Your husband meant a great deal to me, even before he saved my son’s life. What can I do for you, Madame Melisende?”

  Caught in her direct gaze I could not think of a false answer. “I...I cannot pay my rent, my Lady.”

  She hesitated. Something crossed her face but was gone before I could interpret it. “I understood the quarry was given to you.”

  “For the house, my Lady. The rent is half the annual profit of the quarry.”

  She leaned back in her chair. “Surely that is between you and my son.”

  It is not my fault, I wanted to cry. Instead I stuck to the facts. “Two of my debtors will not pay me for the stones they have received.”

  She did not answer. It was not up to her to run my business for me, to collect my accounts. I had to tell her the rest or go home looking foolish and incompetent. She might not receive it well; she loved her sons too much. I could see it in her face when she said ‘my son’ as though the very word was a miracle. I should not have come. But I had come, and I was not incompetent.

  “Lord Etienne and Lord Geoffroi.”

  She understood at once. She nodded slowly but the warmth in her face cooled. I was glad I had not said more. She rose, forcing me to rise quickly. I should have curtseyed, but instead I faced her directly, waiting for her answer.

  “I will speak to my son.”

  “He will deny it.”

  “Then I will know you are wrong.”

  I curtsied then, much lower than I had to. “Lady Celeste.” I emphasized her title. She had been a commoner; she knew how it was between commoners and nobility.

  Three days went by and I heard nothing from Charles or Lady Celeste. Nor did Lord Etienne or Lord Geoffroi send their payments for my quarry stones. I supposed I was fortunate. Another noble might have had me whipped for even insinuating a fault in someone above my station.

  My rent was due in two weeks. I had done everything I could think of; Jean-Louis had no more ideas either. If we did not receive the money owed us, I told him I would offer my woods to Lord Charles on rent day, though it would break my heart to do so. And I would be at his mercy as to what he would pay to have them back—he might accept them as my rent and give me no more, and how would I pay my workers over the coming year? I had promised the men a bonus and they had earned it—how would they respond to the news that I could not even pay their regular wage? They had rents due, also, and families to feed.

  We both knew I would do better to sell the woods to someone else before rent day, but Jean-Louis did not suggest it and neither did I. If Charles was doing this in order to humiliate me for demanding Simon’s horse, or in order to reclaim his property, who knew what he would do if I sold it to someone else? I dared not risk his wrath again. We would have to pray that Lord Etienne and Lord Geoffroi had a change of heart in the next two weeks.

  I rode home from the quarry slowly, Lucien tactfully giving me some distance. The woods were particularly beautiful in the autumn sunlight. I stopped by the stream to let my horse drink. We startled a doe and her half-grown fawn. With a flash of white tails they bounded over the stream and into the woods on the far side. Two long-winged patrincoles swept disdainfully into the air from further up the river. Overhead in the treetops I heard the hauntingly sweet song of a calandra lark.

  I wept, with my back to Lucien, as my horse calmly drank the cool water, but I brushed my tears away when he raised his dripping muzzle to look at me. I have had far worse things to weep about than the sale of a woods, and no doubt will again. I mounted my horse and resolutely turned him toward the house I rented from Lord Charles. Best not to think of it as anything more. Had I really imagined it might come to feel like a home? I had heard nothing from Lord Roland since his unexpected visit. Best not to think of that any more, either.

  Wonderful smells from the kitchen greeted me as soon as I walked through the door. My mouth watered. I was not one to lose my appetite with bad news; rather it tended to increase. This had embarrassed me on a few occasions, when a woman should clasp her breast and swoon and instead I had reached for a chicken leg. Strangely Maman, despite her efforts to refine me, had never criticized this. “One needs one’s strength to face adversity,” she said.

  I breathed in deeply of the enticing smells. Fish and pork and sauce seasoned with herbs... I looked around in surprise. This was more than our usual mid-day meal. The great wooden table at the end of the hall was set up for the first time, and the small one we normally used had been pushed against the side wall. Two of the house servants bustled around the long table, laying down mugs and jugs of wine. Maman looked up from calling out orders to them and rushed over to me.

  “Lord Charles is coming to dinner,” she said, looking from my mud-spattered riding kirtle to my disarrayed hair.

  “Lord Charles? To dine with us?” All thought of food left me, at least momentarily. “But my rent is not due for two weeks,” I whispered, low enough for her ears only.

  She gave me a look as anxious and mystified as my own. “I have sent your maid upstairs with a bowl of rose water,” she said. “Put on one of your new dresses. And wash off that mud—you look like a peasant.”

  I am a peasant, I thought, but this was no time for irony. “What shall we offer him?” I asked out of old habit.

  She laughed lightly, shaking her head. “Roasted pigeon and pork, fish pies, summer berries in marzapane, and fruit pastries. The kitchen staff have been preparing our meal all morning while you were out riding.” She frowned at me.

  “I was going over my accounts with Jean-Louis at the quarry,” I said defensively. “Marzapane?” I turned toward the kitchen.

  “Go upstairs now! Quickly!” She turned me back toward the stairs and gave me a push to emphasize the urgency. “Have your hair redone,” she added, as though I would greet the Lord of our region all disarrayed and wind-blown. I might have, actually, I was so disturbed by the thought of his unexpected visit.

  I washed my face and hands in the rose water and allowed Elise, the lady’s maid Maman and I shared, to undress me before splashing more water over my arms and neck. When I was done she washed the spatters of mud from my legs and feet before sending the now-brown rose-water to be tossed out the window. She lifted a fresh shift ove
r my head, and a white blouse over that, then my green silk kirtle embroidered at the sleeves and neck.

  Elise tightened the lacing at my back and tied it. I accepted being dressed though I still did not like it. My children needed an example of what was expected of them in this life we had fallen into, as Marie had so clearly told me when we moved here. Truth be told, Elise was a bit intimidating. She tied my kirtle more tightly than I was used to, despite my protests. I suspected Maman had told her to ignore them, as I ignored Alys’s.

  I had, however, come to enjoy having my hair brushed out and braided up for me. I sat before the glass with Elise at my back. She could not help but feel me trembling as she brushed my hair out, but she did not comment. I closed my eyes and tried to relax. The strokes were soothing.

  What would I do if Lord Charles demanded his rent at once? Without the two outstanding payments I would have to offer him my woods. Tonight. My throat closed on a sob. I had thought to have two more weeks. I blinked away the moisture that filled my eyes.

  “Madame, I beg you be still,” Elise murmured, starting over on my braid.

  I took a deep breath and willed myself to be calm. Perhaps Lord Roland would be in Lord Charles’ party. Maman had said there would be six in all. Perhaps Lord Roland had asked his brother to come? To gain his approval for a wedding, perhaps? I smiled, then quickly smoothed my brow, afraid Elise would notice the heat that gathered in my face or hear my stuttering heart. Surely I would have heard from him. Surely he would have spoken to me first of his intentions. No, it was impossible.

  Anything is possible, my heart whispered.

  Through the window I heard horses and men’s voices. “He has come,” I said, my voice cracking on the last word as I started up from my seat.

  “He will wait,” Elise said, her hands on my shoulders pushing me back into my chair. I struggled to rise again, wanting to see if Roland was with him. She pushed me back down once more. “You will not gawk out the window at him with your hair all undone!”