She relaxed, but not totally. “What do you wish, my lord?”
“I want maybe answers to some few questions. I try to ask Lady Roxanna about them, but she is averse to give me straightaway answers. Would you help me, please?”
“I’m not very learned, my lord. Even my parents were servants. Perhaps my husband could give you better help than I.”
I could see that I wasn’t going to get much out of a woman who was worried about getting raped on the spot, so I said, “Good. Go now and send back husband.”
I moved from the chair over to the bed, to forestall any further misunderstanding. These people lived by the sun and it was getting dark as the man arrived, a spoon-shaped clay oil lamp in his hand.
“I hope you’ll forgive the light, my lord, but my wife felt you thought the matter urgent.”
“Not really a hurry, but I don’t hate you the price of oil. Put a lamp on the table and sit down. There are some things I am about curious, and that Lady Roxanna doesn’t not want it to talk about.”
“Uh, as you wish, my lord.”
“First, what is you name?”
“Jacques, my lord.”
“Good, Jacques. First time, about the lady herself. I guessing that she was used to be married. Who was man and what happened to him?”
“You mean the Baron Roland, my lord. He was a fine young man, he was. He ruled the Barony of Avalon as well as anyone had ever done before him, he did.”
“And he dead now?”
“Yes, poor man. Dead and in Heaven, if there’s any justice. There was a fight in a tavern between a gardener and a merchant. Drunk, the both of them, they was. The baron went to break it up, as was his duty, and the merchant hit him on the head with a full pitcher of beer. Killed him dead on the spot. They hung the merchant for it, of course, but that didn’t make the Lady Roxanna any less of a widow. It happened almost a year ago, it did.”
“I see. My friend Adam was put with young widow like me. Just the coincidence, or was there some one good reason behind them?”
“Well, it’s not for such as me to second-guess my betters, my lord, but don’t you see that it just made sense? I mean, somebody had to nurse the two of you back to health, and teach you how to speak properly and all, so why not put you with some people who needed you as much as you needed them?”
“Oh. I see. No one has asked me for money yet, but I intend to pay for good services rendered. From what Adam say, I can afford it.”
“Afford it? My lord, you are one of the two richest men in all of the Western Isles, and your partner is the other one. I mean, I wouldn’t pry, you understand, but I was one of the men who was called up to help salvage your ship. There were tons of iron and steel and copper on that ship! And gold and silver, too, and other metals I don’t even know the names of! There was stored food by the ton that the Warlock said would last forever, and you could see him looking just greedy at all the boxes of magic stuff we brought ashore. Yes, my lord, you can afford just about anything you can dream of!”
“Now, that’s hard to me believe, but then maybe again I can probably dream a bit higher and broader than you can. So the Lady Roxanna is in need of money? Well, I’ll be glad to oblige her.”
“Yes, my lord, she needs cash, and don’t we all know it. Not that I’m speaking on my own behalf, you understand. I mean, the wife and me will make out some way or another, no matter what happens. Even if the lady loses her lands and apartment, why, we’d probably go right with the land, so to speak, unless the new baron had some other servants that he wanted in our stead. Not that we’d want to stop serving the lady, of course, but if she really lost the land, what could we do for her? I mean, me being just a gardener and all.”
“Relax. I don’t think you lose a job, nor will the others either. Like I will say, I’ll see that Roxanna is good paid.”
“Thank you, my lord, and that’s from all of us. And maybe we’d all be eating a little higher on the food chain if you could see fit to pay her something real soon,” he said.
“Certainly. But if urgent things were now, why she say anything didn’t?”
“Because she’s a lady, and used to be a baroness. She’s got her pride, she has. And mostly, I think, because what she really needs is more than money alone, if you get my meaning.”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t get meaning yours at all,” I said.
“Well, confound it, I’m talking way out of line here, my lord, and if you want to have me whipped for it, so be it. But somebody has got to talk some common sense into you!”
“I’m not going to have you whipping, and I’ve punished never a man for speaking the truth. So if you have something to say, go out with you!”
“Yes, my lord, since you put it that way. The Lady Roxanna needs what every young widow needs. Namely, a new husband! And here she’s been serving you and tending your wounds and even bathing you like a helpless baby, and you’ve not so much as patted her on the butt! You haven’t kissed her, let alone pinched a tit, and what’s a woman to think about that? I mean, what is it? Are you some kind of a pervert that likes to fondle little boys, or some such unholy thing?”
“Damn you, I’m not a fucking queer!” I had to say it in English, since if there was a word for those people in Westronese, Roxanna hadn’t taught it to me. After a bit, I said, “Look. I am `lost’ my own wife not too long ago, and, well, I just haven’t felt like it, that’s everything.”
“Sorry, my lord, I didn’t know. How long ago did it happen?”
“A year ago. Just over a year from now.”
“Again, sorry. But the time of mourning is long passed for you. Any priest would tell you that. You need a wife. Every man does, and you’ll not find one better than the Lady Roxanna. A fine lady, she is.”
“I’m . . . I’m not sure that I’m to be ready for that gross of a commitment.”
“What commitment, my lord? You’ll always need someone to manage your household, and there’s none better for that than Lady Roxanna. And if you tire of her, or see another that you like better, why, with your wealth you can always take on a concubine or two. God’s Hooks, my lord, you could afford dozens!”
“Dammit, I don’t want dozens of concubines! One woman was everyone I ever need. But the you talk way about it, you’d tell me they for sale were. Or, I mean, they aren’t, are they? You don’t own people here, do they?”
“Slaves? No, my lord. Not for a thousand years and more. But there are always more servants than people to hire them, and many who would settle for a room and the food they eat. And not the best food at that. There’s never been enough land to feed everybody, even with the three crops a year a good gardener like me can grow. But as to women, why they’re mostly just like men under the skin, if you get my meaning. They like a little extra loving now and then just like most men do. And what with your wealth, why, if you see one you like, just tell her so, and the odds are fair she’ll be in your bed that night.”
Like most poor men, he was convinced that money is the most powerful aphrodisiac. Having been well off, once, I can testify that it just isn’t so, but there was no point in spoiling his dreams.
“You mean to tell me that around here is everybody into free love?”
“Well, of course, my lord, everybody isn’t into anything. I mean, people are all different, you know. A lot of us commoners, we married the women we wanted and are happy with them. Me and the missus, we’re both well content with just one another. The nobility and the wizards and the clergy, though, well, the law says that they have to breed the best that they can, so marriage to them is more like a business contract, if you get my meaning. So as long as all the children born are from the married husband and wife, well, the husbands have their friends on the side and the wives do the same. They do it on the quiet or in the open, as it suits them.”