Chapter Eleven
There was nowhere to go but up.
That was what Mattie decided the day following her arrival at Gleann na Fola. All she knew was that she couldn’t live in the castle in its current state—and since Gar had told her the castle was her domain, she took him literally.
She was going to take on the daunting task of cleaning it.
God help her.
The rest of yesterday after her arrival had been dedicated to meeting more family and touring more places around the castle.
Everyone had seemed more than happy to show her around and teach her about the place she would now call home.
Lady Warenton, or Jordan as she asked to be called, was at the head of it all, making sure Mattie had all of her questions answered.
Caria, too, stayed by Mattie’s side and Mattie had to admit that it was a far warmer welcome than she had expected.
She didn’t mind Caria, even if the girl was a little clingy. She was sweet and helpful.
Mattie appreciated that.
But the next day, the real work began.
Since Jordan knew the villages along the borders, on both sides, the first thing she helped with was bringing on more women to help clean.
There was a small parish to the south of Gleann na Fola, with parishioners almost all farmers and tradesmen, and she was able to bring ten women to the castle by midmorning.
They were promised a decent wage, as Mattie had made that clear, and they all gathered in the hall as Mattie and Jordan decided how to handle the situation. Plans were laid. Duties were given.
Meanwhile, the men were confused.
Gar watched all of it with some concern even though he’d told Mattie that she could do as she wished with the keep.
He wasn’t going to go back on his word, but he honestly hadn’t thought she was going to start her management the very next day after her arrival.
But she was. In a castle where there were usually no women, suddenly, there were more than a dozen and they were all armed with buckets of water mixed with vinegar.
He could smell it. But then, he began to discover something.
The way she went about cleaning this atrocity of a castle was quite methodical.
Brilliant, even.
When Gar should have been focused on the plans of Westerkirk, he found himself watching that slip of a woman he’d been forced to marry.
Last night, they’d slept in the same bed, in his great chamber, but they hardly said two words to one another before Mattie was fast asleep, exhausted from the travel and from the day’s events, and this morning, he’d risen while she was still snoring softly upon the pillow.
The first chance he’d had to see her was when she’d gathered her army of women in the great hall, an army that included his mother and grandmother, and as he watched with fascination, the army went to work.
It started with sweeping. So much sweeping.
The dogs were chased out by the brooms, running outside, which was where Mattie wanted them.
As three or four women swept, the rest of them followed with mops and brushes, scrubbing the floor behind them.
More vinegar water was splashed across the floor and before Gar could get away, Mattie commandeered him for furniture moving.
He sent servants to fetch Tor and Atreus and Andreas, and between the four of them, they moved the tables around so Mattie and her ladies could clean years of grime and filth off the floors.
But along with the cleaning women, there was also another addition.
Perseus.
Perseus de Norville was three years old, blond-haired and wild.
He was a great-grandson of William, who took delight in the child’s antics.
Perseus’ mother, Mariane, was a lovely woman, unafraid of hard work, and she was more than happy to pitch in and help the cause, but Perseus kept her distracted from any form of cleaning or sweeping.
In fact, Perseus himself wanted to sweep, so Jordan gave him a broom and he went to work mimicking the other women.
He made more of a mess rather than actually helping, but it was sweet to watch.
Until Atreus took offense that his son was doing women’s work.
After that, Atreus ran off with Perseus, taking the child to attend to more manly pursuits, leaving his wife and the other women to finish with the great hall.
However, it was clear that it wasn’t something that was going to be finished in a day.
There was so much filth on the floor that it required more scrubbing and scraping to break it free.
At some point, Gar finally departed, as he had duties to attend to now that he had returned, but his thoughts were with that lovely young woman in his hall, trying to clean it of all of the man and animal filth.
It was ironic, truly—well did he remember the conversation with his grandfather that had forced him into making the journey to Hensingham to collect his wife.
I do not want to focus on my wife, he’d told his grandfather.
Funny how things had changed.
Mattie had been fully aware of Gar standing near the hall entry, watching everything that was going on.
She even waved to him once or twice, being rewarded with a smile.
In truth, she was a little disappointed when he finally left, but she knew he had duties to attend to.
Still, the mere thought of him left her with a smile on her face.
She had duties to attend to, also.
One of those duties was to leave Jordan and Rhoswyn in charge of the hall cleanup while she went down to the kitchens.
She had some questions for Brickie, hoping they wouldn’t have to duel with wooden spoons again for her to get any answers.
Hesitantly, she made her way down into the steamy kitchens and it smelled heavily of bread.
She could see Brickie and a couple of kitchen servants over by the bread oven, built of heavy stone next to the big hearth.
Brickie was taking bread out and putting it in, scolding the servants when they didn’t move fast enough or efficiently enough or something. She couldn’t quite understand him. But he caught sight of her near the entry into the kitchen and he scowled.
“What do you want?” he demanded.
That had Mattie doing some scowling of her own. “You will address me with respect or I will tell my husband,” she said. “I’ve not come to fight with you, but I’ll give you a fight if you do not settle down.”
Brickie was still scowling, but at least he wasn’t trying to fight her with the bread shovel. In fact, he stepped away from the oven and leaned the shovel against the wall before brushing off his hands.
“What do you want, my lady?” he asked.
It was only marginally more polite than the way he’d said it the first time, and it was still more of a demand than a question, but Mattie wanted to make peace, so she didn’t confront the tone. She simply gave him an answer.
“Last night, I noticed that food was served upon trenchers,” she said. “I also noticed that some men did not have anything at all to eat off. They just took food from the bowls and ate it with their hands.”
Brickie nodded. “How else are they supposed to eat it?”
“Do you not make enough trenchers for everyone?”
Brickie looked back at the bread oven and it was then that Mattie noticed the stack of flat bread slices on a table nearby. “I have enough for those who matter,” he said. “Sometimes the soldiers bring their own plates and cups to be served from.”
“No utensils?”
“What’s that?”
“Spoons and knives.”
Brickie shook his head. “If they want a spoon, they bring it,” he said. “If they want a knife, they’ll bring it.”
Mattie pondered that. She could see a stack of unwashed bowls near the trenchers, big bowls that food was served in, and even more on the floor.
There were also platters on the floor, wooden ones, and she found herself looking under the tables as Brickie followed her around.
He wasn’t belligerent any longer, but he was curious.
Aggressively curious. She’d pull something out to look at it and he wouldn’t wait until she was finished until he was shoving it back where it belonged.
When they reached the last platter that Mattie looked at, one with a chip on the side, he tried to put it back before she was done and she slapped him on the wrist.
“Cease,” she hissed. “This is my kitchen and I can inspect it as I please. If you do not like it, then—”
He cut her off. “I can get out,” he said. “I know. But I have a system and you’re disrupting it.”
Mattie frowned. “I am doing nothing of the kind,” she said. “Unless your system is chaos, in which case, I am openly contributing to it by putting these back where I found them.”
He frowned at her and she frowned back. “This is a castle of men,” he said. “They don’t care if they have spoons or knives or even bowls. As long as there is food, ’tis all they care about.”
That was probably true. Gar had told her that Gleann na Fola was strictly a battle castle, not the refined palace that she was accustomed to.
But her purpose in coming to the kitchen was to discover just how barbaric the feasts were.
Men bringing their own bowls and knives wasn’t unusual, but it all seemed so… uncivilized.
She wanted to know more.
“What about food?” she asked. “Do you serve more than one meal a day?”
Brickie shook his head. “One meal only,” he said. “In the night. All they can eat.”
“What do you usually serve?”
He was calming by this point, not so entirely enraged that she was in his kitchen, and actually answered the question.
“The lord likes to feed the men well,” he said.
“Always bread, and lots of it. Always something like beans or peas or carrots, something of substance. And always meat—pork, mutton, or beef. The lord has his own pigs and cows. Sometimes he trades them for sheep.”
“And you roast the meat here? In this kitchen?”