The Brat Page 0,70

all already decided you could not be the brat you are reputed to be, else his lordship would never have married you."

Murie raised her eyebrows slightly. "Not even to save you from the winter ahead?"

"Not even then," Gatty assured her. "He would have continued to hunt game and done what he had to, to keep us all alive, and waited until he found someone he felt he could deal well with. Balan is smart enough to know that a lord's marriage affects the castle and its inhabitants as much as the couple themselves. A battling couple can bring about divisions in the people beneath them as each takes sides."

Murie's was taken aback by this bit of wisdom, but she asked,

"Then there is sometimes food other than fish?"

"Aye, but not often. There's too much to do around here to take the time for hunting more than once every couple of weeks. And there hasn't been anything but fish since his lordship and his cousin left for court. That left us with even fewer men to work, and no one could take the time to hunt."

"I see." Murie glanced around Juliana's room one more time, then headed for the door. She would begin to make this room more hospitable first thing on the morrow, right after she tended the great hall.

"The master's bedchamber is the only room left above stairs," Gatty commented as she pulled the door closed behind them. Nodding, Murie followed along the hall to the last room and managed not to gasp in horror when the woman pushed the door open for her to enter.

"This . . . This is ..." Murie shook her head, unable to give words to how horrible the room was. The rushes here - as in the rest of the castle - had not been changed for quite a while, perhaps not since before the plague. They were a stinking, soggy mess. And whereas the rest of the castle had shown the neglect of the last year or better, this room had obviously been neglected much longer. Cobwebs strung the ceiling overhead; a huge, heavy, framed bed was the only furnishing; and its curtains hung in tatters around it, no protection at all from the draft allowed in by the open and broken window shutters. A fireplace sat cold and empty.

"The old lord insisted on keeping the room exactly as it was when Lady Gaynor died ten years ago," Gatty explained quietly.

"He would not allow us in to clean."

"But..." Murie shook her head.

"We only managed to change the rushes when he was away from the keep, and then we all pretended, including he, that it had not been done."

"Aye, but why has Balan not - "

"Lord Balan has been sleeping in the garrison with the soldiers since returning from France."

"Oh," Murie said weakly. It seemed obvious she could not join her husband in the garrison, but they could not possibly sleep here. Yet, it was late in the day to make other arrangements. Obviously moved to pity by her hopeless expression, Gatty suggested, "Mayhap with some fresh linens and furs it shall not be so bad for one night, and then on the morrow we can perhaps do something with the room to make it more comfortable."

"Aye," Murie said weakly.

"I am sorry," Gatty said with a sigh. " 'Tis a poor homecoming to be sure, but with so few of us left, we are kept running from morning till night and simply did not have the time to - "

"Nay, of course not," Murie interrupted, straightening her shoulders. " 'Tis fine. If you would send Cecily up and have someone bring along my chests, she and I can set to work preparing it for the night."

"I could help," Gatty offered.

Murie shook her head. "I have taken enough of your time. You go about whatever you would normally be doing. We shall tend this."

Nodding, the woman turned and left the room, and Murie spun in a slow circle, her eyes roving over everything as she tried to decide where to start.

The bedcurtains were the biggest eyesore; not just dirty, but ragged. In the end it was those she decided to tackle first. Hitching up her skirt, she marched across the room to the side of the bed, grabbed two handfuls and gave a firm tug. The next moment she was bent over, coughing up the dust and debris that had billowed around her in a gray brown cloud from the musty old cloth.

Finally able to