“The mistress set me to this chore, m’lord. Dost want me ter leave?” Godric offered apologetically at Eirik’s frown. Eirik saw the tears brimming in the child’s wide eyes and knew he thought Eirik’s annoyance was directed at him.
“Nay, ’tis a good job you are doing, Godric. Continue, if you will. Where is the Lady Eadyth?”
Godric pointed to the open door of the kitchen courtyard.
Eirik had not been in this section of the keep since his grandmother Aud kept a fine herb and vegetable garden here years ago. Each time his father Thork or grandfather Dar had returned from a trading voyage, they had always brought her exotic plants from faraway lands, to her delight. The painful memory of his grandmother, long dead of a wasting disease, and the sweet hours spent in her company, weeding the precious thyme and rosemary and chives, held Eirik immobile for a moment.
He shrugged, bracing himself for the fine mess he fully expected to see in the long-neglected yard. Guilt nagged at him like an aching tooth. Like the rest of the keep, it would, no doubt, need a total refurbishing.
At first, the bright sunlight blinded him to the whirlwind of activity surrounding him, setting his head to throbbing once again. When the din of the chattering voices finally penetrated the pounding in his head, he stopped in mid-stride, struck speechless.
Everywhere he turned, his laggard servants had been transformed into vigorous, busy bodies of activity. And they were cleaner than he had seen them since his return. Even their tunics, shabby as they were, looked newly washed. Eirik stroked his mustache pensively. He hadn’t realized there were so many servants left at Ravenshire.
Some stirred boiling cauldrons of soapy water. Others removed clothing from those pots and dropped them into clean water. Still others wrung them out and hung them on nearby trees and bushes, which were as overgrown and uncultivated as he had expected. Eirik’s eyes almost popped out then as he recognized his own small clothes hanging ignominiously from a mulberry bush.
“Argh!” he choked out, then spied the cause of his distress. Lady Eadyth stood chastising a young housecarl, whose wet hair bespoke his recent return from the bathing pool. Pulling on his earlobe, she shrewishly ordered him back to the pond, exclaiming over the dirt remaining on his neck and in his ears.
“Dost think she will check our ears, as well?” Wilfrid asked dryly at his side.
Eirik shot him a look of disgust, then strode purposefully over to the outrageous woman. Gritting his teeth to gain control, fearing he might do her bodily harm in view of his servants, Eirik finally said with forced calmness, “Lady Eadyth, may I have a word with you?”
The skinny wench jolted to attention and turned. They locked eyes across the suddenly silent courtyard, and Eirik’s heart lurched oddly against his chest walls at the questioning vulnerability on her face which she quickly masked with its usual hauteur.
The servants froze in a tableau of frightened curiosity, but the dimwitted wench did not have the sense to fear him. Nay, she just stared brazenly back at him through luminous violet eyes. Witch’s eyes! He had not noticed their odd color yestereve. Mayhap they were just rheumy with age, as his grandmother’s had been before her death. Of course, that must be it.
Her cool, unflinching manner irritated him sorely. That, and his unexplainable, but undeniable, attraction to the older woman. Cursing himself disgustedly, he caught her by the arm in a pincerlike grip and steered her back to the keep, ignoring her sputtering protests.
“Sit,” Eirik ordered when they were in a small, private chamber off the great hall, under the stairs. Having no windows, the room was dark and musty with neglect. He lit a candle but could see little except the thick layer of dirt and grime that covered every object in the room. Eadyth apparently had not attacked this room yet. Bloody Hell! What had his servants been doing while he had been gone these two years?
Eadyth grumbled under her breath and rubbed her arm where he had grasped her. Then she pulled a small scarf from her girdle which she used to dust the chair with wide sweeping motions before sitting down obediently. He noticed that she studiously averted her face and fidgeted with her head-rail, as if she did not want him to look too closely at her face. No doubt because she was so ugly. She dropped her eyes under his steady gaze, but not with humility, he noted.