She scurries into the stall with me, her braids almost dragging in the warm straw as she scoots to the side to avoid the warm brazier full of embers that I’ve set to keep the stall warm. Her eyes are bright with excitement and tension. At nearly eleven summers, the whole world is still full of possibility for her.
“Soldiers rode in,” she whispers in my ear, reaching into one of the reed baskets I’ve woven and bringing out a patch-blanket to pull around herself. I’ve made it plain that any castle children who visit my kennels are welcome to cuddle in the straw just like the puppies. “A dozen of them and a boy. Lady Fliad and Lady Stepha are speaking with their commander. You’re bid to come and join them.”
“Me?” I’m surprised by that. I work in the stables. I sleep in the back with the ostlers and dog handlers of which I am one. Most of my time is spent with the dogs – breeding and training them for the king’s hunts, but I work just as often with the horses. Maybe that’s it. Maybe they need their horses tended and the usual groom who meets visitors is not available. “Is Brona not here then?”
“Brona has the horses,” Gretsha says. “Don’t you hear her settling them?”
Now that I’m paying attention, I do hear low voices and hooves on boards, nickering, and snorting. The sounds of horses. But there are always horses here and quiet, well-trained dogs. No one is baying or barking.
I fix Gretsha’s braids and pull a strand of nettle-vine out of one of them before offering her a scone from my pocket. She’s been busy hauling water. I can tell by how she shivers. It’s work too hard for a girl her size, but I was busy with the whelping when I should have been assisting her.
“They all have weapons,” she whispers. “They look like they’re here to fight. They look like the wild dogs that linger on the edges of the fields when the sheep are birthing.”
Maybe they are here for hunting dogs, then. I look worriedly at Fern. She’s in no condition to be sent to the king and neither is Ash with his cough nor Willow with her torn paw. That leaves just three others – good breeding stock and well trained, but only three. The king hasn’t wanted dogs in years, and we’ve allowed breeding less and less to keep the numbers down. Dogs are expensive to feed. I have to ride with them on the hunt at least once a week just to keep our meat stores high enough to sustain them.
I nod and whisper, “Did Lady Fliad have a task for you?”
Fliad can be harsh, but she’s forgetful enough that the younger vassals get off lightly. Even when we were girls and she enjoyed ordering me about she would grow bored easily and I could escape. But now that her mother is ill, her father dead and her grandfather at the war front, she has the managing of Castle Fairfield.
Gretsha shakes her head and I pat her gently on the shoulder.
“Stay here,” I whisper. “Watch Fern. Don’t touch her or the puppies unless you have to, but someone has to make sure that none of them touch the hot brazier, and if Fern is having trouble you need to call for help. Can you do that?”
She nods happily, already settling into the straw. She’ll probably nap and that’s fine, too. We get little enough sleep with all the menfolk gone. The castle still needs keeping even if there are half the hands to do it.
I slide a shawl around my shoulders and hurry out of the barn and into the courtyard, wary at first. There, in the center of it, spaced around the well and taking turns drinking from the dipper, are a dozen men and one boy. They hang back as their leader speaks to Lady Fliad, his helm tucked under one arm respectfully. His eyes are cast down in a mild way. Gretsha was wrong. They aren’t here to fight.
I wait for a break in Fliad’s words to suggest feeding them. The soldiers are as grey as their clothes under those worn blue coats, half-frozen out here where ice frosts every post and knoll.
“This letter is in my grandfather’s hand,” Lady Fliad says sharply to their leader. She’s dressed in some of her finest clothing, her hair caught up in a delicate net and the thick outer robes she wears are trimmed in white rabbit.
Her mother, the lady Stepha stands at her right shoulder, wavering with the effort of standing outside. We will be lucky if she sees the spring. The cough is deep in her lungs, and she is losing the battle to it.
Fairfield’s last living counselor stands at Lady Fliad’s left. Somehow, he managed to find a chain of office, though the soldiers can’t have been here for long. His rheumy eyes sweep over them sightlessly. He’s too old for his place, but there is none other to take it up.
Fliad flicks a hand at the open letter as if she has forgotten he cannot read it. “Its contents make no sense. You’re certain it was put into your hand by Lord Huldric?”
“Mmm,” the man she speaks to says.
He’s wearing a tabard with a blue eagle stitched on the breast. That makes him a knight, though he’s young for one. Twenty summers, perhaps. A bare summer more than I. At his side is a dog. I’d guess the dog to be perhaps six years. Not a hunting dog. A mutt. But she watches me with clever eyes and her lines are sleek and fast. He’s been feeding her. Maybe more than he feeds himself.
The knight hasn’t noticed me, so I study him carefully. He’s thin – too thin – like all his men. Just as hollow-cheeked but with their same stringy muscle as if that’s all that’s left of him – a set of bones and some rope keeping them moving. His looks are plain: his nose too large, his hair cut very short for war, rather than allowed to flow over his shoulders. His short beard is dirty, just like his clothes and the backs of his hands. How long have they been traveling? They look as though you could push them over with a finger, and once they toppled, they’ll fall into an enchanted sleep.
My fingers itch to mend their tears and feed them cook’s soup. They need to sit a spell and be tended.
I clear my throat, keeping my voice deferential. Fliad doesn’t like raised voices. She’s been known to dock pay for a tone that’s too high or too loud. Not that we’re paid more than food and shelter these days. Docking that would be devastating.
“Would you like me to take the men away to eat, my lady?”
At the wordeat, their eyes get too bright. It almost hurts to look at them – especially the child. I offer them a welcoming smile, letting my gaze drift over their hunched forms. Every hand is on a weapon, and I don’t think they even realize it.
It almost hurts when I catch the gaze of the knight. There’s a terrible sadness behind those eyes and an emptiness like a granary at the end of winter.
His hand flexes and the dog under it whines slightly. To my surprise, she leaps and before I can blink, she has her face buried in my hands. I can’t help my smile at her silky fur and gentle nuzzling. She must smell puppy on me. Must know what that means.
I look up, wondering if anyone is upset, and for just a moment, I meet the sad knight’s eyes. For the barest gasp – long enough for my heart to beat once – he flickers a smile. It’s gone the next moment, but it was present. I saw it there. There is something about how fleeting it is that makes me think it’s more precious than stamped gold coins.
“Away?” Lady Fliad says, and I don’t know why she looks at me with fury. Her jaw trembles the way it did when her father died. Have we received news of tragedy? Her grandfather, perhaps? I swallow. Fliad – sometimes I still think of her as my childhood playmate – presses her lips firmly together before speaking again. “I hardly think so. Come here.”
