Medieval 01 - Untamed

brother.
    â€œNow the whole countryside will know what was in those chests they watched being carried into the keep,” Simon said neutrally.
    â€œIt’s a good thing for vassals to know their new lord isn’t so poor he will have to wring blood from them to keep his knights well fed and better armed.”
    â€œAnd for future brides?” Simon said. “Is it also a good thing for them to know?”
    â€œParticularly for future brides,” Dominic said with harsh satisfaction. “I’ve yet to see a female whose eyes didn’t brighten at the sight of golden trinkets.”
    â€œAlways the tactician.”
    Dominic smiled rather grimly as he thought of the emerald-eyed wench who had neatly outmaneuvered him in the mews.
    â€œNot always, Simon. But I learn from my mistakes.”

4
    A CRISP WIND BLEW THROUGH THE bailey, lifting skirts and short coats and sending smoke from the kitchen fires leaping up toward the gray sky. Although Meg usually enjoyed a brisk spring breeze scented by the first rush of growing plants, at the moment she was too irritated to notice anything but the gamekeeper who stood uneasily before her.
    â€œWhat do you mean, there will be no venison?” Meg asked, her voice unusually sharp.
    The gamekeeper looked away and twisted his hands nervously. “The pale, m’lady. ’Tis so fallen down in places a hare could leap it, much less a stag. The deer…they’re fled.”
    â€œHow long has the deer park been in such a state?”
    Looking only at his feet, the gamekeeper mumbled something.
    â€œSpeak up,” she said. “And look at me while you speak.”
    Meg rarely took such a tone with the keep’s vassals; but then, she was rarely lied to by them.
    That wasn’t the case now. The gamekeeper’s falsehoods were so great they were sticking in his throat like chicken bones.
    â€œI…the winds…uh…” he said.
    Pale blue eyes beseeched Meg, stirring unwilling compassion in her.
    â€œGood man, who told you to lie to me?” she asked gently.
    Hands roughened by bowstrings, snares, and skinning knives pleaded silently for Meg’s kindness.
    â€œThe laird,” whispered the gamekeeper finally.
    â€œHe’s too weak to leave his bed. Have you been to his chamber, then, to receive your orders to lie to the mistress of the keep?”
    The gamekeeper shook his head so hard his oily hair lifted. “Sir Duncan, mistress. He told me.”
    Stillness came over Meg. “What did Duncan tell you?”
    â€œNo venison for the Norman.”
    â€œI see.”
    And she did.
    It chilled Meg. She had been glad to see Duncan return from the Crusade, for his cousin Rufus wasn’t interested in keeping peace with Henry. No matter how little she liked the idea of being pawned to a strange Norman knight in order to keep peace in the northern marches, Meg liked the thought of bloodshed less. The constant chivvying and thrusting against the English king—and among ambitious Saxons while leaders such as Duncan were off pursuing a holy Crusade—had worn out Blackthorne Keep’s people, its fields, and its hope of a better future.
    The vassals blamed their ill fortune on their lord and on the revenge of a Glendruid witch mated to the wrong man. Meg blamed the ruined fields on the inattention of her father, a man obsessed with stopping the advance of the English by marrying his daughter to a thane known as Duncan of Maxwell, the Scots Hammer.
    Ah, Duncan. Don’t succumb to my father’s lures. They will lead to plague and starvation, bloody meadows and an early grave .
    â€œM’lady?”
    The gamekeeper’s voice was uncertain. The lord’s daughter looked pinched and drawn, far too old for even an unmarried maid of nineteen.
    â€œYou may go,” Meg said tightly. “Thank you for the truth, though it nearly came too late. Make plans to kill a stag. There will be venison at this wedding feast, even though it will be tough for want of hanging.”
    The gamekeeper’s dirty fingers touched his forelock, but he didn’t leave.
    â€œIs there more?” she asked.
    â€œDuncan,” he said simply.
    â€œHe is not the lord of Blackthorne Keep. Nor will he be. I, however, am the lady. And I will remain so .”
    The gamekeeper took one look at the narrowed green eyes watching him and decided to let the lords and ladies fight it out among themselves. He