The words still rankled. Right, not a prisoner. Yet every time I wish to do so much as relieve myself, I have to do it with a guard outside my door.
Della slept less than before. The smell of charred flesh brought with it a myriad of memories, all of Lady Strathfeld’s death—images she’d long tried to silence. They rushed forth to torture her like the giant waves of a thunderous ocean mingling amongst the sailors of a sinking ship. They united with the new image of the dead child and its mother, a new torture with the old. Why had the Vikings let her live all those years ago? She would’ve rather died alongside her mother as a child than live the life of agony she’d come to know as an adult.
It had taken her only a few days to realize through the clouding fog of pain that Brant was not at fault for the raid. The knowledge did little to ease her suffering. Her hate was unreasonable, but she couldn’t help it. The past was becoming too hard to fight.
Mayhap if her mother’s killers had been brought to justice, mayhap if she had seen them dead, then she could have healed. But they were still out there. She could only imagine the number of crimes they had committed over the years.
What am I to do?
Della cried inwardly as she looked about the dejected manor. It was clear everyone felt the discord of the married couple. The servants were not as cheerful, the men not so boisterous, and her heart did not beat as much as it should.
“You might as well be of use again this morn, Cedric.” Della gave a wry look to the young soldier ordered to follow her during the day. He was the same man who’d held up the leather satchel at the raid sight. Della was not pleased with the reminder his face brought, but said nothing when he had been assigned as her main guard. “I will teach you how to churn butter. No doubt your strong man-arms will be of some use to us.”
The soldier groaned. “Nay, m’lady, I beg of you. These past sennights I have helped you to dust the manor, I have picked herbs in yer garden, and I have e’en helped you to sew yer blankets. Do not make me tend to more women’s work. I beg it of you. It’s degrading as a man and as a loyal soldier who has done no treachery.”
“You can always leave your post.” She smiled pleasantly, though her eyes dared him to go. “I’m sure I would not mind.”
“Nay, m’lady, Lord Blackwell would have my head if he found out.”
“Then quit whining like a girl and help churn butter. Prove yourself a man and churn more than the women.” She stormed bitterly into the kitchen and the sullen soldier was quick behind her.
* * * * *
Brant raged throughout the dingy halls of Blackwell Manor in a rampage. After living in the luxury of Strathfeld, he realized how deteriorated his home was in comparison. Over the years, the neglect of his father and then of himself had taken its toll on the once proud keep. What remained was the shadow of a once majestic home.
The rushes along the floor were filled with rotted food. The stench of them, which had never really bothered him before, now stuffed his nose and made his gut twinge with their foul mix of human sweat and decay.
Mayhap the smell was not this bad last I was here, he reasoned. Yea, and mayhap I am too soft from Strathfeld’s comforts.
The tables in the main hall had been broken up into firewood. Tapestries rotted on the wooden walls where they hung neglected, their old designs hardly noticeable through the thick caking of dust that lay over every inch of the manor. Even the treated wood of the manor itself seemed to be infested with an unsightly green and black growth. Brant wrinkled his nose as he saw a nest of mice in the corner.
The servants had all but abandoned the care of the manor. Many of them slept on the cots meant for soldiers, their straw mattresses infested with lice. It was apparent they hadn’t thought Lord Blackwell would be coming back home after his marriage, but the neglect itself had been going on for much longer.
Brant missed the clean keep of his wife—the way her scented rushes kicked up a pleasing smell when walked across. It was the next best thing to the clean scent of the outdoors. He missed the way the servants attended every need of the castle, even before being asked.
At Blackwell, Brant had to command to even eat. The food he was served and the ale he drank was not of the quality that came from Isa’s pristine kitchen. He refused to look at Blackwell’s kitchen, not wanting to know what rodents ate the food on his plate before it came to him.
He’d spent too little time at Blackwell Manor in the past and he wanted to spend little more. The sooner the place was burned to the ground the better. He now had the resources to rebuild it.
“You,” Brant called to a servant leaning against a wall. “Clean something. Dispose of these rushes at once.”