Page 62 of Wed By Proxy

“Good morning,” she murmured, and the cat started to purr.

The sun was shining through the kitchen window, and Mathilde sank down onto the small stool and basked a moment there in the warm rays. Robin and Prudie must have gone to Wickhamford as they had said they would, Mathilde thought. Briefly, she thought of the carter. They must have put him back in a cell the previous night she thought with a frown, or he would surely have died of exposure. He would be having a miserable time of it and no mistake. Then she thought of poor Destrian and the many years he must have suffered at his previous master’s hands and hardened her heart. Maybe he would learn a valuable life lesson, though in truth she doubted it.

A knock on the window, made her jump, and looking up she saw it was Temur. She gestured to him to come around to the door and made haste to open it. He had a cart with him and seemed to be unloading some apparatus from the back.

“What is that you have bought with you?” she called.

He looked back at her over his shoulder. “Wait and see!”

She watched as he slung two pieces of a large wooden frame over his shoulder and picked up a sack. It was a tapestry loom! Mathilde clapped her hands together. “Where did you get it?”

“Guy sent me to Helesport to buy it for you. He wanted the very best money can buy.” He swung the bag he carried up in the air. “All the threads are in here. Every color you can imagine.”

Mathilde caught it clumsily. How thoughtful her husband was. He must have bought it to keep her busy while he could not visit her.

“Where do you want it set up?” Temur asked, looking about him.

“Not down here, it’s far too big,” said Mathilde. “The sitting room upstairs would be better suited.”

He nodded in agreement and carried the two pieces he had up the stairs. “I’ll be back down and collect the other parts next,” he called over the bannister at her.

“Can I help carry anything in?”

“No!” he shook his head. “Guy would have my guts for garters!”

He ran back down the stairs two minutes later and collected the other pieces. “You can direct me how to set it up though,” he said scratching his blonde beard. “It looks a lot more complicated than the one Lettys has at home.”

“Yes of course,” enthused Mathilde, following him back up the stairs. It didn’t take them long to set up the loom in one corner of the room.

“It’s a fine one,” she said admiringly, and peered into the bag of threads. “You really did get every color.”

“Where’s young Robin?” asked Temur, looking about him.

“He’s gone into Wickhamford to pelt a wrongdoer with rotten vegetables,” she admitted. “Do you remember how we told you about the carter who accused us of being horse thieves?”

Temur’s eyes grew wider and wider as she told him Guy had exacted his revenge on the previous day.

“He’s in the stocks? The man you fought with?” spluttered Temur. “Are you in earnest?”

“Absolutely in earnest,” she assured him. Temur sprang up out of the chair he had been sitting in. “Where are you going?”

“To take Lettys to Wickhamford,” he told her, as he disappeared out of the room. “She would not miss this for the world! It sounds as good as a day at the fair!”

“I’m sure it isn’t!” she called after him, but hearing the door slam, realized he had already gone. She turned to Mabel the cat and sighed. “I may as well sort through these threads, I suppose.”

Mathilde spent an agreeable couple of hours separating all her dyed yarn into heaps. Then she fetched a wooden tray from inside the trunk in her room and arranged them into it in a way that she could easily put her hand to the color she wanted. Then, fetching a sheet of paper and a pen, she set about drafting an intricate design.

The picture she drew was a rustic scene of a large hunting lodge in the middle of a green wood. Outside the lodge were five hens, a cat, a boy, two women, one with black and one with short hair and two horses. She couldn’t add Guy as strictly speaking he did not live there. Then she decided to add Old Helga with her long gray hair and pale blue dress. In order to show she lived nearby she added the plume of smoke from above the trees. Then she had an excuse to add Guy, for Old Helga did not live with them either. She took great pains to draw out his tall powerful figure with broad shoulders and long legs, adding in his short black beard to make him unmistakable. Then she drew in Waldon with his slim, wiry frame and hint of gray at his temples, and Temur with his blonde hair and youthful face. She would have liked to have added Temur’s wife, but she had not yet met Lettys, so she had no idea how to depict her. The design took her the best part of three hours, as she added meticulous color codes for each detail.

Suddenly, a noise below stairs startled her out of her absorption. Mabel perked up and jumped down off the chair she had been curled up in. Mathilde set down her pen and sat up. Could it be Rob and Prudie returned already from Wickhamford? Hastily packing her pen and paper away, she made her way below stairs. Finding no one about, she hurried through to the kitchen and came to an abrupt halt. At the kitchen table Prudie was busily chopping mushrooms, but that was not the startling thing. Her maid was not alone. Waldon stood behind her, his arms wrapped around Prudence’s waist, nuzzling her neck. Prudie’s head was angled to allow him access.

“Oh!” Mathilde started on the threshold. “I am sorry…”

“Nay, don’t apologize, lass,” said Waldon, taking a step back. “I’ve to head back to the manor now. Was just taking my leave of this one here.”

“Of course!” Mathilde half-turned to give them some privacy. She fancied she heard the whisper of a kiss, a murmured promise and then the slam of the door.

“Sorry about that milady,” said Prudie, who was wiping her hands on a cloth and looking a little flustered.