Chapter Three #2
Eiselle shook her head. “The knights that came to collect me offered to escort my parents as well, but they declined,” she said. “My father will not leave his business and my mother does not leave the house at all. She has not left the house since I was a young girl.”
Keeva looked at her, curiously. “Not even to see their daughter married?”
Eiselle was being forced into an embarrassing admission. She didn’t want to tell Lady de Winter how glad her parents were to see her married off, and how happy her father was to be rid of her.
“I am sure Sir Bric will permit me to visit them after we have been married,” she said, skirting the issue. “I know my father should like to meet him.”
Keeva didn’t push, perhaps sensing that the absence of her parents at the wedding was a sore subject. “As I am sure Bric would be happy to return to your home to meet your parents,” she said. “But for today, you have come to be married, and on the morrow, married you shall be.”
She said it in a tone that left no room for discussion, but there was a reason for that – the lady need not ever know that Keeva and Daveigh believed the sooner the marriage took place, the better.
Bric wouldn’t have time to run off, or delay it somehow, so they wanted to have the ceremony performed quickly for all concerned.
Eiselle, however, wasn’t so stupid that she didn’t see that something was afoot between Keeva and Daveigh. Like they had a secret between them. Not knowing these people, and having no idea why they were looking so shrewdly at each other, she simply pretended to be ignorant.
Suspicious, but ignorant.
While Daveigh begged his leave and followed Bric’s path from the keep, out into the coming dusk, Keeva took Eiselle companionably by the arm and led her to the spiral stairs built into the thickness of Narborough’s keep.
The keep itself was a massive structure, with the great hall and several chambers on the first floor and several more chambers, sleeping chambers, on the second and top floor.
Truthfully, Eiselle had never seen such a big building, even though Framlingham Castle had been quite massive.
But it didn’t have the keep that Narborough had.
Eiselle hadn’t had much chance to look over Narborough when she arrived, but what she had seen was impressive.
The huge keep, in the middle of hill-like earthworks, had a forebuilding around the stone steps that led up into the great hall.
The stonework on the exterior, from what she saw, was exquisitely carved, and that same craftsmanship carried into the interior.
The door frames and frames around the stairwells also had faces chiseled into the stone.
As they headed up to the floor above, she reached out to touch some of the stonework around a very small window.
“This is a beautiful keep, Lady de Winter,” she said. “I am sure you and your husband are very proud of it.”
Keeva ran her fingers along a face etched into the windowsill as they passed it going up the stairs.
“This is a very old keep,” she said. “It was built well over one hundred years ago by Sir Denis de Winter, a knight who came ashore with the Duke of Normandy. He was instrumental in helping settle the land, and this keep was built just for him by Savoy artisans. He brought them from France. He built three other castles along the great river, too. I am certain Bric will take you to see those someday. The House of de Winter has an impressive empire.”
They had reached the top floor, entering into a large room that had pallets and cots shoved up against the wall. It was where the servants and some retainers slept, but Keeva led her through the straw on the floor, and the scattered bedding, to a small corridor.
“I can see how grand it is already,” Eiselle said. “I… I am glad to be here, Lady de Winter. If I have not told you that already, I do apologize. I should have told you that the moment we met.”
They came to another elaborately carved doorway with a heavy oak panel set into it, and Keeva paused, facing Eiselle in the weak light.
“And I am very glad you are here,” she said, but she had that same expression on her face that Eiselle had seen earlier, as if the woman was keeping secrets from her.
“My husband is glad, also, and I am sure that Bric is glad, though he does not show it. My lady… Bric is my cousin and I know him well. He is a man of few words. He does not say what he thinks, and he can be rather quiet when one wishes to have a conversation with him. I tell you this because I do not want you to feel sad or disturbed if he does not express how glad he is to have you here.”
It seemed to Eiselle that Lady de Winter was apologizing for the man. “I am not sad nor disturbed, my lady,” she assured her. “In fact, he has been quite kind to me. We had a conversation when I arrived, and I asked him if he was agreeable to this arrangement.”
Keeva’s eyes widened; with fear, Eiselle thought. “You did?” Keeva asked hesitantly. “What… what did he say?”
Eiselle smiled as she thought on their conversation. “He told me that no one forced him into it,” she said. “He seemed agreeable.”
Keeva let out a muttered hiss. “Thank God.”
“What was that?”
Realizing she’d spoken too loudly, Keeva struggled to recover.
“I simply meant that… that I am most thankful you and Bric had a chance to speak,” she said, quickly opening the door and hastening to change the subject.
“Here is your chamber, my lady. I’ve had the servants bring your trunks up here and you should be quite comfortable. ”
The room was small, but lavishly furnished.
The bed was big, with a great drapey canopy and heavy curtains to keep in the warmth.
Her trunks were neatly stacked against the wall, and there was a small table, two chairs, a rather large wardrobe, and a dressing table filling up most of the space.
But it was lovely, far more lovely than her room at Hadleigh House had been, and she was quite pleased by it.
“It is delightful,” she said sincerely. “Thank you for going to such trouble to make me feel welcome.”
The truth was that Keeva was bending over backwards for the lady, compensating for what she was sure was Bric’s coldness towards her.
But the mention of a conversation with Bric upon the lady’s arrival made Keeva very curious, indeed.
So he said he was agreeable to the arrangement, did he?
She could only hope that somehow, someway, the man had changed his mind.
She intended to find out.
“It is my pleasure, my lady,” she said. “I shall have hot water sent up to you so that you may bathe, and I shall send Bric for you when supper is ready. I am looking forward to hearing more about your fostering at Framlingham Castle and more about your life in general. I… I do hope we become friends, my lady. I should like that.”
Eiselle thought that was nearly the first genuine and unguarded thing she’d heard from Lady de Winter since they’d met.
The lady seemed to have been uneasy since they’d been introduced, with long glances at her husband, and making apologies for Bric as if she felt she needed to.
There was something strange going on, but Eiselle couldn’t worry about that at the moment.
It wasn’t as if she could do anything about it, whatever it was.
She was forced into this situation as much as any of them and was determined to make the best of it.
“I would be honored to call you my friend, Lady de Winter,” she said. “I am looking forward to it.”
Keeva smiled at her, a genuine gesture, and shut the door behind her as she quit the room.
Eiselle simply stood there, near the window, wondering about the strange atmosphere she had entered into at Narborough.
Lady de Winter had made her feel welcome, but Eiselle received a sense of desperation about it, as if Lady de Winter was trying overly hard to make it so.
Strange, she thought.
But then, something occurred to her, something Bric had said. When she had asked him if he was agreeable to the marriage, he’d said something odd –
Did someone tell you I was not?
It hadn’t been the response she’d expected, and Lady de Winter’s apologies for the man told her that, perhaps, there was something behind it.
Perhaps, he hadn’t been agreeable to the marriage, after all.
If he wasn’t, then she would surely soon find out.