Chapter Eleven
Amabella watched Markus lead his knights, Atlas, and a few soldiers from the hall.
“Curious,” she muttered. “I wonder where they are going?”
The only person in earshot was Aleanor, who had stuffed herself silly on the fig pastries and was wallowing in gluttonous misery.
“Who, Mama?” she asked.
Amabella’s gaze lingered on the hall entry, peering through the smoke and the heat of the hall, before turning away. “Your brother and Viscount Ravensdowne,” she said. “They have all departed.”
Aleanor was uninterested. She yawned. “I would like to leave, too,” she said. “Mama, may we?”
Amabella looked around the table. There was really no reason to remain now that all of the men had left. Alfie was yawning and Ambra was seated on her mother’s lap, rubbing her eyes. Amabella finally stood up.
“Come along, then,” she said, cradling Ambra in her arms. “To bed, everyone.”
Alfie was too tired to argue and Aleanor simply followed in silent obedience. They made their way out of the hall and out into the crisp night, heading towards the keep. By the time Amabella hit the stairs leading up into the structure, Ambra was already fast asleep.
The three maids that had been sent from Berwick were in charge of the keep and having the extra help to manage it had changed the keep dramatically.
Usually, it was only Amabella and Savia tending to the keep – cleaning and sweeping, tending the children, making sure the chambers had enough peat for the fire.
With the additions of the maids, however, the chambers were spotless.
The women had scrubbed the entire building from top to bottom and fresh rushes were in every chamber, bed linens had been washed, mattresses re-stuffed, hearths lit, and any number of details that needed to be done and seldom were.
Therefore, Amabella entered the keep that smelled like fresh rushes and was blissfully warm because the hearth in the entry, which was almost never lit, had been cleaned out and stoked.
For the first time in years, it felt like a home.
As soon as Amabella came through the entry door, Savia was waiting to take the younger children and Amabella handed them over.
Savia would not eat in the hall, given that she was a servant and servants did not sup with their lords.
But she diligently waited for her charges to return, and Amabella watched the old nurse take the two younger children up the stairs.
“Mama?”
Amabella turned to Aleanor, standing next to her. She smiled, reaching out to smooth errant hair from her daughter’s face.
“What is it, querida?”
Aleanor went to her mother, putting her arms around her waist and holding her tightly. It seemed to Amabella as if Aleanor needed to be held, so she put her arms around her and kissed her head.
“What’s wrong, Allie?” she asked softly.
Aleanor sighed heavily. “I don’t know,” she said. “I feel… I feel as if everything is so different now that Father is gone. Don’t you feel that way?”
Amabella had been thinking the exact same thing in the hall. “I do,” she said. “Things are different. Atlas is going to make a magnificent lord. Lord Ravensdowne and his knights are going to see to it. Life will be better for us, I promise.”
Aleanor lifted her head, looking at her mother. “Must I marry soon?”
Amabella grinned at the unexpected question. “Why do you ask?”
“Because Ambra said so,” she said, somewhat annoyed. “She told Lord Ravensdowne that I need a husband. I don’t have to marry soon, do I?”
Amabella laughed softly and turned her daughter for the keep entry. She put her arm around the girl’s shoulders.
“Walk with me,” she said. “Let us speak of your future while Savia puts your brother and sister to bed. It is a lovely night to walk and talk. I do not think we have done much of that.”
That was true because Aleanor didn’t like to leave her chamber, or the keep for that matter.
She had been a sickly child, and immature in her behavior, but she was growing up now.
Things like marriage would be on her mind.
Amabella led her daughter back out into the crisp night, with a million stars overhead, spread across the black sky.
“Don’t you want to marry, Allie?” Amabella asked softly as they headed to the southeasterly part of the bailey. “You should not let it frighten or intimidate you. Marriage is nothing to fear.”
Aleanor pondered that statement in direct contrast from what she had witnessed with her own parents. “Are you glad you got married?”
That was a question with many answers. Amabella gave her daughter a gentle hug. “I am very glad I had you and Atlas and Alfie and Ambra.”
Aleanor looked up at her. “But Father was not kind to you.”
Amabella didn’t reply for a moment. There was some embarrassment in her own daughter commenting on the issue of her marriage to Roget, but it wasn’t as if it had been a secret.
Aleanor was a bright girl and she’d seen how Roget had treated her mother.
His inherent apathy was how he’d treated his entire family.
“Not all men are like your father,” she finally said. “There are men who are very kind to their wives and children.”
“Will you marry a man who is kind to us?”
It was a heartbreaking question, one that brought a lump to Amabella’s throat.
She could hear how starved her daughter was for a father-figure to be kind to her, just like the rest of her children were.
Even though Atlas pretended otherwise, she suspected he longed for such a thing, too. He was a sensitive young man.
She felt like a failure.
“I think you should marry a man who is kind to you,” she said. “I have been married; I do not need to marry again. But you will, someday, and we will make sure he is very kind and handsome. Ambra, too. We will select a kind and handsome husband for her, as well.”
Aleanor was still looking at her mother, still lingering on the subject of a kind husband. “Will you not be lonely when we marry and leave you?”
Amabella smiled. “Of course I will,” she said. “But you will bring your grandchildren to me and then I shall not be lonely.”
The very idea of grandchildren made Aleanor blush. “I am not certain I want babies.”
“Why not?”
“Because they will be like Alfie and Ambra, and they will run around and scream.”
Amabella laughed softly. “I assure you that they will be a joy,” she said. “It is different when it is your own children.”
“Mama, why do you not want to marry a kind man now that Father is gone?”
They were back on that subject again and Amabella thought she’d better give her daughter a reasonable answer or it might keep coming up.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to marry someone kind; she did.
But the shining example held up to her of male perfection since Roget’s demise was Markus and she wasn’t sure she’d ever find a man as handsome and flawless as he was.
Now that she’d seen what a man could be, she wasn’t sure that she could accept anything less.
Markus de Wolfe was perfection.
“I am old, Allie,” she finally said. “I was married to your father for twenty years.”
“How old were you when you married him?”
“I had seen twenty years.”
“But that does not make you too old, Mama.”
Amabella shrugged. “It makes me old enough,” she said. “I have had my time to be married and I am content to be a widow, watching watch my children grow and thrive. And I will be here to help Atlas manage Trastamara. I shall be quite busy with that.”
“Too busy for a husband?”
“Too busy,” she said, giving her daughter a squeeze to essentially signal the end of that subject. “You needn’t worry about me, querida. Please. I will be fine.”
Aleanor got the hint. They were over by the southeast tower now, casting shadows in the bright moonlight.
The southeast tower housed men, mostly, but the lower floor was also the armory.
They could hear voices of men inside the tower as they continued walking, men inside the tower, laughing and probably drinking. They sounded quite happy.
Since Roget’s death, everyone at Trastamara seemed… happier. Certainly, Amabella and her children were. The night seemed deeper, the stars brighter.
Everything seemed brighter.
Amabella was feeling content and grateful to be walking with her daughter and having a meaningful conversation, right on the cusp of Aleanor’s womanhood.
Amabella was glad that Roget wouldn’t be around to influence his eldest daughter’s marriage.
God only knew what kind of a husband he would select for her.
As they reached the end of the tower and Amabella turned them around to head back for the keep, they heard a voice behind them.
“Lady de Sauque.”
Amabella came to a pause. Three men were coming out of the shadows of the wall, heading in her direction.
A quick assessment of the men beneath the silver moonlight told Amabella that these men were part of the crew Roget had brought in when he’d taken command.
She knew at least one of them because he was missing an eye.
These men weren’t loyal to her. Only to her husband.
They were also rough, crude, and selfish. She’d always stayed far away from the army and particularly far away from Roget’s men, but tonight, that seemed to have changed. Her heart began to race, just a little. Something told her there might be trouble.
She didn’t want her daughter involved.
“Allie,” she whispered. “Run away. Find Lord Ravensdowne or one of the other knights and send them to me.”
Aleanor looked like a frightened rabbit. Her eyes were big and she was beginning to cower from the unfamiliar men.
“But… Mama…”
“Go. Hurry!”
Amabella gave her daughter a shove towards the keep and Aleanor nearly stumbled.
But she started to run, as fast as her shaking legs would carry her, because her mother told her that she should.
Somewhere, she had to find that courage buried deep inside.
She didn’t even really know if she had it, but she tried.