Chapter Thirteen #2
He wasn’t sure where it was coming from, but he happened to glance at one of the servants who was filling a feed bucket, and the man pointed to the eastern side of the stable block. Thor didn’t even ask him why he pointed because he already knew.
There was someone in the stable who shouldn’t be there.
Therefore, he headed off to the eastern portion of the stable block, where he immediately caught sight of a slight, white-haired child.
Her hair was to her knees, matted and dirty, and she wore tattered clothing that was too small for her frame.
There were several horses at this end, including his own warhorse, and the child seemed to be standing just in front of his stall.
The horses were facing inward as they munched on their grain, but that didn’t stop the little girl from talking to big horse arses.
She seemed quite intent.
“And that is why Christ has saved you from your sins,” she was saying. “Whenever you disobey your master, you are disobeying God. All creatures need salvation, and I am here to make sure you understand the spirit of God.”
Thor couldn’t help the confused furrow of the brow.
He thought he hadn’t heard right with the first sentence he was able to make out, but then he realized that the child was trying to preach to the horses.
She seemed quite serious about it. Given that she wasn’t hysterical at the moment and screaming about devils, he took the opportunity to approach her.
Carefully.
“My lady?” he said, trying to catch her attention. “My lady, are you Lady Jane?”
She stopped looking at horse buttocks and turned to him.
Thor hadn’t gotten a good look at her before, when she’d run through the bailey, but now he could see that she was the exact image of Caledonia.
She had the same dark, dark green eyes and white hair, the same upturned nose, the same lips.
It was like looking at his wife when she’d been a child, such a beautiful, ethereal child.
A child who was looking at him curiously.
“Would you like me to teach you the word of God?” she asked.
He smiled, gesturing to the horses. “Is that what you were doing?” he asked. “Teaching them the word of God?”
She nodded. “Even the animals must know,” she said. “How else are they to get into heaven?”
“How else, indeed,” Thor said. “But you are Jane, are you not?”
The child eyed him before nodding and turning away. “You can listen to me as I teach them,” she said. “Do you know that God loves you but if you disobey Him, you will go to hell?”
She was going back to the animals. Thor watched her closely. “Do you know that if you disobey your mother and father, you will go to hell also?”
Jane stopped and looked at him. “I have no mother or father,” she said. “My father is dead.”
“But your mother is not,” he said. “Before you start screaming that she is the devil, who told you that? Because saying that your mother is a devil when she is not is a sin.”
Jane’s eyes widened. “But she is wicked! She is the devil!”
“Who told you that?”
“Madam Madonna!”
Thor already knew that, but he wanted to hear it from her. He knew it wouldn’t do any good to deny it. He wondered just how bright she was and if he could possibly reason with her, because they certainly couldn’t have her running all over the castle screaming that Caledonia was the devil.
He crooked a finger at her.
“Come here,” he said. “Sit down.”
He was indicating a clean spot of hay near one of the empty stalls, but Jane was confused by the request. “Why?” she said.
“Because I am asking you to. Please, my lady.”
“Who are you?”
“I am the new Earl of Tamworth and Stafford,” he said. “Your father held the title before I did. Now it belongs to me because the king granted it to me. Do you understand?”
She nodded, but he wasn’t entirely sure she really understood. Still, his explanation had her moving over to the spot he had indicated. When she sat down, he sat a few feet away from her, facing her.
For this conversation, he needed to get down to her level.
“My name is Thor,” he said, looking into those dark eyes. “As I told you, I am the new earl. That means you will be living in my home from now on. Do you understand me so far?”
Jane nodded. “All of us?” she said. “Me and my sisters and Madam Madonna and the servants?”
Thor wasn’t sure he should tell her about Madam Madonna yet, but on the other hand, he wanted to be completely truthful with her from the start. Lies or hiding information wouldn’t do well when building trust, and he wanted to build that very much.
“Lady Jane, do you know what a lie is?” he asked, avoiding her question.
She nodded solemnly. “Aye,” she said. “Lies displease God.”
“But what is a lie?”
“When you say something that is not true.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Well done. Now, do you think God is displeased when people are cruel?”
“Aye.”
“I think so, too,” Thor said. “My lady, how old are you?”
Jane shrugged. “I am not of age yet,” she said. “Madam Madonna said I will be of age in a few years and then I will marry someone of her choosing.”
That was an interesting bit of information, but he didn’t pursue it. “May I ask if Madam Madonna is good to you?” he asked.
She nodded without hesitation. “She prays for us,” she said. “She prays that God will let me go to heaven. My sisters will not go to heaven, but I will.”
“Did Madam Madonna tell you that?”
“Aye.”
“Do you love your sisters, my lady?”
That was a question Jane had never considered before. Perhaps no one had ever asked her. It seemed to confuse her.
“They are my sisters,” she said.
Thor phrased it another way. “I know,” he said. “But if they were to get hurt or die, would you be sad?”
She had to think about that. “I would miss them.”
“Because you love them,” Thor said. When she still looked rather blank, he elaborated. “If they were to become ill, would you help them?”
“I have helped them when they are ill.”
“Because you are the eldest, you must protect them,” he said, watching her still-blank expression. “If someone was trying to hurt them, would you protect them?”
She cocked her head thoughtfully. “Once, a soldier tried to take Joan,” she said. “I screamed and he was stopped.”
Thor smiled. “You see?” he said. “You are a very good sister because you love them, and that makes God very happy.”
She didn’t look so blank any longer. Hearing that bit of praise from Thor made her smile. “And I will go to heaven!”
“Of course you will,” Thor said. “But that brings me back to what we were originally speaking of. Do you believe it is wicked when someone lies? Does it displease God?”
She nodded eagerly. “Aye, it does.”
Now, Thor had her understanding what he wanted to speak to her about. At least a little. He forged ahead.
“I am going to tell you a story because I want to explain something to you,” he said.
“Many years ago, a lady had a baby. A lovely daughter that she loved very much. God was very happy with the birth. But someone wicked took the baby away. Told the baby lies about her mother. The mother was not wicked, and it was very sad for her to be kept away from her baby. God was no longer pleased. He was displeased with the wicked person. Would you be displeased, too?”
Jane had to think about that. “But why would the wicked person take the baby away and lie?”
“Because she wanted the baby,” Thor said.
“The wicked person took the baby away because she did not want her mother to have her. She told the baby anything she could so she would hate her mother. That surely must displease God very much because it of the lies. One of the commandments is to honor your father and mother, after all.”
Jane nodded but wasn’t sure what to say to it all.
Thor could see that he was close to overwhelming her with his conversation because she was young and clearly wasn’t very adept in the art of conversation.
It occurred to him that everything she’d said to him about the word of God sounded as if she was mimicking someone.
Perhaps that was all she knew.
The only human contact she’d ever had.
“I am telling you this for a reason, my lady,” he said quietly. “You were the baby in my story. Someone very wicked has kept you from your mother and has told you lies about her. God is not pleased about that. He is not pleased that you called your mother the devil.”
Now, Jane was starting to catch on to what he was saying and why. Her breathing started to quicken.
“Where is Madam Madonna?” she said, her eyes welling. “I want to speak to Madam Madonna.”
Thor could see that he was about to lose her. “My lady, listen to me for a moment,” he said. “It is important. With Madam Madonna, all you knew was poverty and suffering.”
“Nay!”
“Are you hungry?”
“God wants us to suffer!”
“He does not,” he said. “Madam Madonna wanted you to suffer. She wanted you to be hungry and cold. But your mother has come to help you and you will never be cold and hungry again, I swear it. You will go to bed with a full belly and awaken to food and warmth. She will love you and you will be happy. Would that not be better than living in rags as you do?”
Jane was starting to weep. She lurched to her feet and ran off before he could stop her. But he let her go, standing up and brushing the chaff off his breeches, hoping he hadn’t made the situation worse with her. The child had clearly been conditioned to believe only what Madam Madonna told her.
It was a sad situation.
Pondering his next move, Thor wandered from the stable, heading out into the large lower bailey where soldiers and servants were gathered.
He’d brought around eight hundred men with them, and at this moment, his men were on the battlements, at the gatehouses, and guarding de Lucera and Madam Madonna in the vault.
Given that he needed to speak to those sworn to Stafford, he pushed aside thoughts of Jane and headed toward the gathering.
Truett was bringing in several more errant Stafford soldiers and saw him coming.
As his herd of soldiers mixed with those already gathered, Truett went to Thor.
“That is all we can locate, Thor,” he said. “We are fairly certain that this is everyone.”
Thor looked at the collection. “Excellent,” he said. “How many Stafford soldiers?”
“We can only find about seven hundred,” Truett said.
Part of the de Nerra family, he was big and dark and intimidating.
“It seems that there were twice that many, but after de Tosni died and his wife fled to London, no one wanted to remain under the de Lucera knights. I’m hearing tale that they stole from their own soldiers and treated them rather poorly. ”
Thor grunted. “Then that will work in our favor,” he said. “When was the last time they were paid?”
“When de Tosni was alive, from what I can gather.”
“What about the servants?”
“The same, I would imagine, but I’ve not spoken to any of them.”
Thor paused and turned to Truett. “It simply proves my theory,” he said.
“I said that it was possible de Tosni’s knights were ruling over Stafford as if it was their person domain, and you are the second person who has confirmed that theory.
I intend to have an honest conversation with these men about it, but one thing is increasingly certain. ”
“What is that?”
Thor cocked a dark eyebrow. “That de Lucera, his cousins, and Madam Madonna are to be exiled from Stafford permanently,” he said. “In fact, I see no reason to wait. True, will you see to it?”
Truett nodded. “Of course,” he said. “What do you want me to do?”
Thor turned in the direction of the gatehouse with the vault hidden below it.
“Take twenty of our men,” he said quietly.
“Escort them to collect their belongings, but they are to take nothing of value with them. No coin, no weapons. They can only take what they can carry, and you will have them escorted out of here and left at Penkridge. That was the village just south of here. Give them two pounds each and tell them that if they ever show their faces at Stafford or Tamworth that I will cut their heads off and feed them to the pigs. They’re damn lucky I’m not keeping them all in the vault for the rest of their lives.
But… I want to be fair. Fairer than they’ve treated anyone around here, from what I’m hearing. ”
Truett fought off a grin. “I will happily do it, my lord.”
“Do it today.”
“Aye, my lord.”
With that, Truett was gone, preparing to throw the de Luceras and Madam Madonna out on their ears while Thor went to the head of the gathering of Stafford soldiers and servants and told the entire group who he was, whom he stood for, whom he had married, and the fact that every individual who served Stafford was to listen to Lady de Reyne as if God Himself was speaking to them.
He left little doubt.
Some would say that Stafford Castle was saved that day.