Chapter Four
It hadn’t been a week since Lord Stanley’s dinner and already the castle was much changed.
Yet, as if to stifle Dermot’s meagre hope, his days were more arduous.
Their betters became increasingly daring, and neither Béchard nor Mrs Aisling protected against this tyranny. In fact, both affected ignorance.
Scrubbing the kitchen’s floor, Dermot came to understand the hell he’d inflicted on himself.
Far be it from punishment, the Stanleys suffered no repercussions whatsoever.
Their change was noted only by scullions and maids.
And all this for the sweet touches of some faerie boy.
He was no better than the lascivious fellows lying dead beneath foam and sea, carried down by mermaids, or perhaps he was worse, having taken an active role in his destruction.
Having been forced awake at dawn and strung about like a marionette, he was sorely tempted to throw himself from the ramparts.
Wringing wet cloth onto the floor, Stephen having dropped a bag of flour, he realised he couldn’t bear another day.
Only a few hours of sleep prevented collapse; body verging towards the precipice, mind already gone.
He was in danger of complete lunacy himself but had no poison to justify it.
Scrubbing as he was, footsteps hardly made an impression.
He cursed Béchard, ever watchful over the kitchen, and thought no more of it.
Boots trailed towards him, surefooted and sturdy, perhaps Will itching for some game but, glimpsing them over his task, he realised they were too grand a make.
Polished and tightly laced, golden filigree buttons climbing to the sturdy knees of their master.
‘Lord Robert,’ Dermot choked out. He tore himself away from the floor, ever the doleful servant, and lifted his head to meet the other man’s.
If every member of their nest grew fractious, Robert became more serene. Eyes of a viper, skin white as a banshee. Were Robert’s tongue to be a thin strip of red cut like Lucifer’s trident, Dermot wouldn’t be surprised. The man looked fit to swallow him whole.
‘My dear fellow,’ Robert said airily. ‘I have something to ask of you. Or are you quite busy, tearing the floor apart as you are?’
Dermot’s fist curled around the cloth, precariously held over a bucket. He itched to throw it over, to blot Robert’s noble indifference by dousing him in water. Staying quiet and watching for his master’s next move, his hands shook with rage.
Robert glanced about. First at the wood precariously nestled against the fireplace, then to the rabbits and pheasants strung over their heads. A smile played at his lips, but the source of his amusement served only to unnerve.
‘I don’t believe we’ve ever spoken. But of course you know me, even if I was not aware of your presence until this morning,’ Robert said.
‘Indeed, Lord Robert,’ Dermot said. Oftentimes he made the man’s breakfast, Béchard needling at him all the while, had even tidied his desk when deemed worthy.
‘Oh? You speak quite well for a man of your standing.’ Robert managed a few sharp exhales for, it seemed, he wasn’t capable of laughter. Dark eyes shining impassively down, he said, ‘There is something I require of you. Get up. Follow me immediately.’
Robert strode out the room, black cloak billowing behind him like a reaper. It was all Dermot could do to push himself up, hands pressing against the sodden floor, knees aching as he followed Robert like a concubine.
‘A foreigner, how singular. My boy, I hadn’t any idea we had one such as you.
How strong you are, how dark your eyes,’ Robert drawled.
His legs, muscled and finely made, carried his haughty stride well.
But it was his towering height and foreboding countenance that terrified men and women downstairs.
Even Dermot was dwarfed by this Saxon but, accustomed to labour as he was, a fight between them might’ve been fair.
They were no more than a few years apart.
‘Quite fascinating. And your father, one of my countrymen. Your mother… perhaps of an ill repute? For no man of good family intermarries. You don’t have the titles or lineage required.
So they cannot be married, you are a bastard.
’ Those rough exhales sounded again. ‘And I had thought my father kept our cellars free of rats.’
Dermot could always conjecture what Robert, or indeed any of the family, thought. But to hear it said out loud was another matter entirely. His mother, if she received the tutelage Lord Robert was freely given, would have all the superiority of Rome over their sad island.
‘Do you see those clothes over the settle? They are for you. Put them on,’ Robert said, gesturing to a plain shirt and trousers. ‘Or is it that you do not want to change in the middle of the corridor like a child, with me watching all the while? Begone then, into that room.’
Shrinking away from the man, Dermot hurried towards the settle and threw the clothes unceremoniously over his arm.
For all Robert’s favour, the fabric was worn, and the room one of the servant’s privies.
At least the door, near rotting as it was, separated them so he could change without being observed.
And he knew, throwing rags from his back in favour of a nobleman’s hand-me-downs, that Robert would’ve readily scrutinised him.
Truly these men subjected them to the fiercest of degradations, supposing their very bodies were property.
‘Are you quite finished, my boy? I’d thought to bring a man from the kitchens, not a mistress. Are you powdering your face in there?’ Robert called.
Dermot pushed the door open, changed but unused to the garb and how it was worn. His cheeks burnt with all the force of his ancestry, complexion turning as ruddy and poorly made as Robert supposed.
‘I can wait no longer,’ Robert said.
Mercifully their companionship lasted but another minute until they were safely out of doors. Dermot rarely ventured so far, eager to avoid cold and windburn, but to his great surprise the stableboys were gearing up for some outing. Three great horses had already been saddled.
‘Brother!’ Tristan called, quelling any hope for peace. Dermot stood stupefied, hot blood turning to ice.
Robert strolled leisurely to meet him, the veritable devil, then took a turn to examine his horse.
‘This is going to be fun,’ Tristan said, smiling.
His finely shaped lips were chapped, likely due to gallivanting outside.
‘I hadn’t taken notice of the manservants.
Why pick this one?’ He turned to their final companion, a young man who only last month would’ve brought such rapture that Dermot might’ve fallen to his knees.
‘Oh, I’m not sure… he came to mind,’ Aubrey murmured. He stood apart from the group for good reason. The horses loomed over him and his delicately made bones; any one might’ve killed him in a single kick.
‘Came to mind, did he?’ Tristan said. ‘How sweet. What is your name, good sir?’
‘Dermot,’ he said, legs quivering as he stood unable to right himself. Any of them might’ve ordered his execution before. Now they looked fit to hang him from the ramparts for an afternoon’s entertainment.
‘Dermot!’ Tristan mocked, twisting the accent on his tongue so it contorted, peculiar even to Dermot’s ear. This astonishment, to Dermot’s mind feigned, was ridiculous on account of Aubrey mentioning him. ‘Never heard the like. Foreign, very foreign. I don’t think I’ll be able to pronounce it.’
‘Quite detestable to the ear,’ Robert said, already having jumped onto his horse.
‘Have you ridden before? I wouldn’t think so.
Yet you’re going to keep our poor brother steady?
’ Tristan leaned forward, grasping the cuff of Dermot’s sleeve so they stood near touching.
‘Make sure he doesn’t fall off his horse.
Or else.’ The bastard separated them and made a feint with his fist, only retreating after Dermot recoiled, jubilant and laughing.
‘Well, off with you then! Help him get on.’
Blood thrumming as Tristan leapt onto his own horse, Dermot visualised thrusting a knife into him in perfect replay.
Only Aubrey, staring at him sadly, thwarted this burgeoning arousal.
He made his way to the lordling, needles teasing against his skin, and caught him round the waist as to best hoist him onto the horse.
‘You’re getting on too, aren’t you?’ Tristan called.
Dermot steeled himself. Unlike Béchard and Will, he had no desire to mingle with nobility, never being the sort of instrument that loved the man pawing at his hilt.
Grasping the saddle’s edge, Dermot pushed himself up in imitation, but as he stumbled and grabbed Aubrey’s hip for support, his hands burnt with all the shock of fire.
He barely caught his foot in the stirrup and latched onto the saddle, mouth agape with wonder like the savage they supposed him to be.
‘Stupid cunt,’ Tristan hissed, having lined himself up next to Robert. His braid, luscious as ink and twisting down his back, made him striking as any maiden.
‘Onward!’ Robert said. ‘We’re in for a rare hunt today, courtesy of myself and some associates.
I beg of you, do not ask where we go or what we shoot.
It is a surprise.’ Merely seeing him from the back, Dermot surmised his expression.
One side of his mouth turned into a smirk, the other unmoving as if undergoing a fit.
Robert and Tristan urged their horses forward in unison, and Aubrey grabbed the reins and made to do the same. His long, thin fingers gave a hearty tug, though even that exertion made his palms flush.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Aubrey said, having brought the horse to trot by way of a light kick. ‘I couldn’t think of anyone else when my brothers asked for a man to help me ride. They said the stableboys were too young, and Robert mentioned you might’ve learnt on account of your father. How selfish of me.’