The Falconer's Daughter - Liz Lyles Page 0,47
November.”
“One month,” he said, still considering her. “And you stay busy enough.”
“Yes, my lord.” She wiped dust off her cheek, aware of her old stained surcoat and her hair loosening from the braid. She hadn’t expected to see him this morning. He was supposed to be with the bailiff and his scribes in the solar, hearing complaints from the villagers and settling disputes.
“You are spending more time helping her ladyship?”
Of course she was, she thought, he had ordered it, saying that she was too old for lessons and games. “Yes, my lord,” she answered instead, keeping her gaze down, fixed on the floorboards between them.
“You will need to know how to run the affairs of a lord.” He turned to rummage in a trunk at the foot of the bed. “You weren’t brought up with responsibilities, living like a banshee in those mountains, and you need to work hard here, to learn a lady’s duty.” She was glad he couldn’t see how much she hated him. She had learned to hide the loathing and anger behind vacant eyes and an empty expression. He slammed the trunk lid down with a curse. “Damn all! I cannot find my riding cloak, the brown one, with the fur hood.”
She watched him turn around in his chamber. He looked helpless then, so small, almost lost. She wanted to laugh at him. She wanted to challenge him…to challenge his greed, his selfishness, his cruelty. Instead she swallowed, saying only, “Lady Eton is mending it. She and Elisabeth are sewing in the nursery.”
“Then go fetch it for me,” he said with a trace of impatience as he walked to the chamber door. “I will wait in the solar.”
The solar, the room where he meted out all discipline with the low stool and the switch. How appropriate, she thought, climbing the narrow twisting stairs for the nursery. She would forever associate him with his fist. She wasn’t even sixteen yet and she already knew that this was one of the ways men made women obey.
*
EVEN IF THE Earl hadn’t said anything, it was clear that Cordaella was being prepared for marriage. She now spent every afternoon in the kitchen, learning from the cook and the steward. They instructed her in cooking and recordkeeping, in planning a supper for twelve and a banquet for two hundred. She was taught the difference between sauces, how seasonings should be used, which fish to serve first, and the order of courses when there would be more than seven.
Mr. Russell, the head steward, sat her on a high stool in his cramped office, which was really only a corner of the scullery, teaching her how to record purchases and profits “There are columns for stags taken from the woods,” he said, flipping several pages, “and tallies for the birds—quail and pheasant, duck. But chickens go under a different column.” He also showed her how he kept record of the silver serving pieces, and how the scullion reported to him on the number and condition of plates and dishes.
The head cook, Mrs. Smith, who traveled from Buxton village every day, whispered that the young girls were often lazy and in need of constant watch. She told Cordaella that the head cook must make sure all vegetables were fresh and that the dairy produced sufficient milk for butter and cheeses. “You will have girls for every task,” Mrs. Smith explained, “and they should stay with the one task in order to know it well. Don’t let them jump from task to task or else they’ll always be pestering with questions and making mistakes, costing time and patience, and God knows, we’ve never enough of that in here.”
Cordaella followed Lady Eton through the Great Hall and corridors as the Earl’s wife detailed finer points to household staff: more oil polish for the paneling, fresh whitewash on the small solar’s plaster, hearthstones regularly scrubbed with soap and water. And gradually Cordaella knew what needed to be done, tending to the washing of the linens on her own, stuffing the mattresses with clean straw, plumping pillows with down and stitching the seams closed again. She felt more sure of herself, the muscles in her arms taking shape as she swept and scrubbed, cooked, stirred, chopped, and helped carry wood. There was little time now for play or talk, and it wasn’t until evening, when all retired for the night that Cordaella would relax, pulling a book from her trunk, grateful that Philip still loaned her his. Sometimes