“Mayhap they are just worried about Godric,” Wilfrid offered unconvincingly.
“We all are, but I know there is more. God’s Bones, did you hear the lame excuse Eadyth gave for being gone from the keep while I was away? I never heard so much stuttering and stammering and outright lying in all my life.”
“So you do not believe she was lost in the forest?”
Eirik made a snorting sound of disbelief. “I am furious that Eadyth left the keep against my orders. The woman’s willfulness staggers the senses. But, even worse, there are no forests close to the keep and none so thick that a person could not soon find a way out.”
“Eirlik, I know you are angry, but there must be an explanation.”
“There is no excuse for lying. None. Eadyth knows how important honesty is to me, and still she deliberately deceives me, again.
Wilfrid sat up straighter. “I just thought of something else. The Lady Eadyth has been behaving strangely in other ways since her return. She has been buzzing about the keep in a most frantic fashion—”
“She always buzzes,” Eirik said, “or ‘nags, or orders, or ‘manages.’ ”
Wilfrid waved his hand dismissively. “Nay, I mean that she was making odd lists for one and all. A calendar of chores for each and every Ravenshire servant to complete for the next year. A list of repairs needed in the keep and the cotters’ huts. Items to be ordered from Jorvik. Instructions on how to care for her bees and her bee products. ‘Tis almost as if…” Wilfrid’s eyes widened with shock.
“What?”
” ‘Tis almost like a dying person putting his affairs in order,” Wilfrid said.
Eirik laughed mirthiessly. “Eadyth is as healthy as a mule. A mean, stubborn, braying mule.” With the morals of a snake. He considered Wilfrid’s words, nonetheless, as he stroked his upper lip, deep in thought. “I am sure there is some connection here betwixt her and Britta conspiring, Godric’s absence, her list making, and… I hate to say this… Steven of Gravely. You can be sure I will get to the bottom of this puzzle, but I will never, never, trust the woman again.”
Wilfrid nodded gravely.
“See what you can find out.”
Eirik was about to go up to his bedchamber and confront Eadyth once again when Wilfrid signaled him to come over to the door leading to the bailey.
“Bloody Hell!” Eirik exclaimed as he saw Jeremy, Eadyth’s stoneworker from Hawks’ Lair, driving an overloaded wagon through the gate. He and Wilfrid descended the stone steps and walked up to the building where the cart had stopped. There were enough woven bee hives, pottery containers for honey, straining cloths, candle molds and kitchen supplies to last Ravenshire for a year. “What in the name of all the saints is this?” Eirik demanded of the startled servant.
Jeremy shrugged, backing away from Eirik’s stormy countenance. “My lady sent me to Jorvik yestermorn with a long list.”
“A list!” Eirik and Wilfrid both said, giving each other speaking looks.
“And you drove all through the night to get here just past dawn? What prompted your haste?”
Jeremy shook his head uncertainly. “My lady said there was urgency.”
“For honey pots?”
“My lord,” Jeremy said impatiently. “I do what my lady orders. ‘Tis not fer me to question.”
Eirik told Jeremy to unload the cart, but not before the servant handed him a large, linen-wrapped parcel.
“What is this?” Eirik snapped.
“More fabric fer beekeeping veils. Wouldst you give it to the mistress? And tell her that her agent sez this be the last of it he could find in all of Jorvik. And he is sore angry with her fer demandin’—”
Eirik turned away rudely from the servant in mid-sentence, too angry to be polite. He headed toward the keep. Her agent was not the only one “sore angry” with Eadyth. He intended to confront his lady wife once again and get some answers this time.
“Here comes trouble,” Abdul squawked when Eirik entered the bedchamber. In no mood for shrewish carping, whether from a parrot or his wife, Eirik threw a mantle over the cage. But the damn bird got the last word in, muttering, “Loathsome lout! Awk!”