Hilde #3
Still, they were the lucky ones. Villages closer to the border were subject to even larger tithes at the whims of their lords who resided in Neck most of the year, well away from the view of their tenants’ suffering, and wanted to curry favor with the king.
It was no wonder, then, that the broadsides also wrote about people who questioned the rule of lordship.
She read about the Grazers, who risked imprisonment to advocate that all people should have the same rights to the land they lived upon, and should therefore be able to raise livestock for their own nourishment and benefit rather than that of a liege lord and an endless war.
She read about the push for communal ownership of lands and the overturning of power structures that filled the coffers of lords and ladies to excess but left common folk to starve.
The more she read, the more she realized that, as Lady Croft, she was living on the wrong side of her own convictions.
When Thorgoode’s middle brother had inherited the family’s dukedom upon their eldest brother’s death a few years before, her certainty about the matter grew.
For two decades before he became the duke, everyone, including Hilde, had known him as the Western Harrier, so called because of the ruthless attacks he had led on the Relancian front.
Public opinion seemed to hold that his approach was warranted if Eldmere was to finally win the war, but Hilde was of the opinion that if it was going to work, it would have done so by now.
On the rare occasions that the Harrier had come to Croftholde, it had been to bully Thorgoode and show Hilde just how bad a lord could be.
She had quickly understood that her true purpose in this life was to protect Croftholde and its tenants from the Harrier.
The staff at the Croft, the folk in the village—she cared intensely for them, each and every one.
They were her people, and now they were her responsibility as well.
Carefully, she had begun to discuss the political broadsides with Thorgoode as they readied themselves for bed.
Wasn’t it true that he always consulted with his tenants to know how best to run the estate?
Wouldn’t the people who worked the land understand it best of anyone?
Shouldn’t they make decisions for themselves, working together to ensure that the best interests of Croftholde and its people would be prioritized, and the rewards fairly distributed?
At first, he had called her his brazen Grazer bride and slapped her ass with a chuckle.
Then, as time passed, he began to listen.
He thought about her questions, and as she found the courage to frame her thoughts as statements instead, he thought about those, too. Eventually, he began to agree with her.
So together they had made a plan. They would arrange it so that when Thorgoode died, the estate would become freeholds, entrusted to the hands of their tenants.
She would have preferred it happen sooner, but when she tried to discuss it with him, Thorgoode had found that suggestion so baffling that he’d guffawed until he’d choked on his wine.
Thorgoode was always saying that on his next trip to Neck, he would arrange things with his lawyer.
But something always seemed to get in the way.
Either his lawyer was in the country and not available, or business had required his time and there was no opportunity to make the arrangements, or he had to cut his trip short to get home in time to help with the harvest. He always apologized and promised that he’d make time on his next trip.
Only now he was dead, and the arrangements remained unmade.
She briefly contemplated attempting to forge the documents herself and sign them with her best imitation of Thorgoode’s hand, but she’d never even met Thorgoode’s lawyer, and he’d have no reason to help her commit what he would undoubtedly think of as a crime.
The fact was that no matter how hard Hilde tried to come up with a new plan, her mind kept catching on the old one.
It had been perfect. Except that Thorgoode had never enacted it, and with him dead, Croftholde would pass to the Harrier.
She had seen his cruelty and contempt firsthand and knew with certainty that Croftholde’s tenants would never be safe under his rule.
No doubt he would immediately round up everyone of fighting age and send them off to die at the front, wagons full of all Croftholde’s hard-won resources at their heels.
If only there were some way to make Croftholde disappear, for it to vanish out of the Harrier’s memory like smoke spiraling up into the night sky.
Then they could all live in peace, and maybe she could say a final goodbye to the husband she ought to be mourning but was beginning to resent.
The longer she stared at him and found no answers, the more bitterness simmered up inside her—that he’d failed to keep his word and follow through with their plans, that he’d gone and died at all, even that he’d married her in the first place.
It was as if the rot that would have consumed his flesh if not for her Charm were slowly eating away at her heart instead.
“Lady Croft, the Western Harrier is here and demanding to see you!”
Hilde looked up from her sketchbook, where she had been drawing a design for a new byre. Ed the footman was standing in the doorway of her study, nervously twisting at his waistcoat.
Her heart hammered in her chest. “What?”
“He’s in the yard. Han’s talking to him about his horse.”
Oh, no. Han loved horses more than anything, which meant she was often rude to people she didn’t think were taking proper care of theirs—and the Harrier most certainly wasn’t living up to her standard. Hilde suspected the king’s own master of the horse wouldn’t stand up to Han’s scrutiny.
It would do nothing to soften the Harrier’s mood.
“Shall I bring him here to your study?”
“No. No, no, no.” The anxiety must have slipped into her voice, because Ed drew back, a grimace spreading across his open face. She forced herself to take a deep breath. “I only mean that it isn’t proper for me to see him here. I must receive him in the Hall.”
Ed brightened, relieved to have a clear action to take.
“Of course, Lady Croft. I’ll fetch him there immediately.”
“Yes, please get him away from Han. Offer him Cook’s spiced ale, and tell him I’ll be there momentarily. And for mercy’s sake, don’t call him the Harrier! Address him as Your Grace.”
Ed scampered off, and Hilde glanced down at herself in dismay.
She was wearing her plainest work dress, as she’d spent the morning digging in the garden and preparing the beds for spring planting.
She had dirt under her fingernails like a farmer’s daughter, which was precisely what she needed to not look like.
What was the Harrier doing turning up at Croftholde unannounced, and why did it have to be now of all times?
“Francie!” she yelled.
She raced through Thorgoode’s retiring room—between her study and their bedchamber—which was crowded to overflowing with the stuffed trophies of several centuries’ worth of hunting expeditions undertaken by past generations of Crofts.
She’d found it macabre when she’d started working as a maid in the house, and she had avoided dusting all the poor creatures for as long as she could get away with it.
But over time, she had grown accustomed to them, and now she paused to give the largest piece—an ancient, moth-eaten stuffed bear that stood near the door—a pat, for luck.
It was a habit of Thorgoode’s that she had picked up, and she reckoned that she would need all the luck she could muster.
After a few minutes of frantic grooming under Francie’s supervision, she was as presentable as she was ever going to be in her best day gown.
She’d made it up when Thorgoode took her to Neck for his brother Germain’s funeral more than a decade ago, then dyed it over so that it was a dark plum rather than a mourning violet.
It was woefully out of fashion now, but it suited her, and there was no way that the Harrier would remember it, given the number of dresses he undoubtedly saw and the years it had been since he’d seen this one.
No amount of scrubbing would get all the dirt out from under her nails. She only hoped she could keep her hands from shaking with nerves and avoid drawing attention to them.
Thorgoode seldom spoke of his brothers, and when he did, it caused a particular crinkle to appear in his brow.
Once, on a harvest day shortly after their wedding that had involved more imbibing than Thorgoode was generally wont to do, he told Hilde a story from his childhood about when he and his brothers were in Neck for Wintertide celebrations at the king’s palace.
His brothers locked him in a cupboard for so long that he wet himself, then they sent the royal princesses to find him.
He had told her this as though it were a funny story, and expected her to laugh, but she could not see anything amusing in it at all.
After that, he had not shared any other remembrances of his brothers with her, but it was not until he took her to Neck to meet them as his wife that she realized he was afraid of them.
She remembered the Harrier reluctantly taking her hand when they were introduced, as if he thought commonness might be catching.
“Well, brother,” he’d said to Thorgoode, “I know you’re set on the absurd idea of being some sort of farmer, but I didn’t expect you to dive right into animal husbandry.”