Unbidden (The Evolution Series) (2 page)

Chapter Two

Rochelle hadn’t intended to ignore Marian’s advice. Heaven knew she had enough other important issues on her mind with this unplanned trip to Aix-la-Chapelle
. Thoughts of Samuel’s dalliances ranked far down the list.

She’d gone to see Bertrand only to give him instructions regarding the winemaking, and since the vineyard was the closest of her operations to the house, lying to the west on slopes above the floodplains of the Ill River, it made sense to visit him first
. As she rode her trusted gelding, Denes, across the public road and up the gentle climb, she noticed Samuel working among the vines.

He raised a hand at her when she called out a greeting, but kept his back turned and his head down
. He was carefully checking the vines for fruit missed during the September harvest. Normally his movements would be rapid, with one hand lifting leaves while the other managed his harvesting basket. Today, he lacked his habitual grace. He was sluggish, wasting time.

She stopped to watch him for a moment, noting that he held the basket on the wrong side, making his work even less efficient
. With an exasperated sigh, she dismounted to walk down the narrow aisle toward him. He noticed her approach and ducked his head between his shoulders as he continued his work.

She loved the vineyards, and nothing made her happier than the empty vines, evidence that the juice of the grapes was safely stored in a nearby building adjacent to Bertrand’s small house
. Letting her hand trail through the leaves already changing color, she approached her young worker.

Samuel was usually friendly and gregarious wi
th her, almost to a fault. Today, he just kept laboring. And it looked like labor, his movements awkward and stiff as he made his way across the sloping ground. She had to say his name to get him to stop, and even then, he did not turn to her.

“Face me when I am speaking to you,” she ordered
. Authority over her tenants was absolutely essential. She had learned at her father’s side to immediately and judiciously address even the smallest infractions.

Samuel turned reluctantly, keeping his head hung so low she couldn’t see his face
. A mild alarm sounded in her brain as she said his name again.

“Samuel, look at me.”

When he obeyed her, she struggled to keep her expression smooth and hide the hitch in her breathing.

His left eye was bruised and his lower lip puffed around an oozing split
. She assessed the damage to his face, then noted again how he held his basket.

“If you come to talk to my father, I told him myself last night,” Samuel said grudgingly, his eyes downcast.

Rochelle’s heart sank as she looked away, across the top of the vines, just able to spy the roof of her house and, much further beyond, the trees marching along the course of the river. She didn’t know what to say, but finally gathered her words. “That showed great maturity.”

“I wouldn’t tell him who I was with though.”  His tone asked – no
, begged – her to keep Ruthie’s identity a secret.

“Some things are private,” Rochelle agreed
. They shared another moment of abject misery before she turned back to him.

“Is it the arm or the ribs?
” she asked softly, indicating his right side.

He flushed
. “Just a stitch in my side, my lady, from toting this basket.”

“Y
ou do not require care?”

“No, my lady, it is just a stitch,” he insisted.

“Very well. You may continue with your work.”

She walked back down the row to where Denes waited patiently
. She stood for a long time, collecting herself, all of last night’s pride ashes in her mouth. What was the use of all her work and care and organizing if she couldn’t protect one teenage boy from a brutal beating?  Her threats to Samuel on his prior moments of…temptation…had been real. He’d known the consequences of his own actions, but still?  The order she demanded on her estate came at a high price at times, and she was not always the one paying the toll.

Her father had told her many times to avoid interference in their tenants’ personal lives
. Whether a man abused his family, or a woman wasted her paltry coins on worthless trinkets at a festival, or a child ran about naked and dirty due to his parents’ slothfulness, it was best to not meddle in their private affairs. This was a line not crossed. Was the line the same for her father as a man as it was for her as a woman?  She did not know.

I
t galled her on occasions like this nonetheless.

She led Denes toward the cask building, relieved to find Bertrand rolling a barrel along the racks
. He unbent with a smile, not appearing to be a monster, just tall wiry Bertrand with thinning hair and a slight paunch pushing out the front of his homespun tunic. When she looked closely, she could see the reddish eyes of too much wine and the slightly scabbed knuckles of a well-used fist.

Yes, it galled her indeed.

“Have you been able to repair the leaking casks?”

“Yes, my lady, all taken care of,” he said pleasantly.

“I am called away on some business. I could be gone for several weeks.”

His bloodshot eyes widened at the notion of his mistress disappearing during the harvest, but he nodded his head in understanding.

“I am confident in your ability to make the wine. I only wanted to warn you about the monks.”

“Yes, my lady, the monks,” he repeated.

“Their barrels were empty before August and the bishop will undoubtedly come to pester you to fill them. As you know, the wine is not ready,” she said pointedly, hoping he would understand the wine wasn’t ready for him either. “The bishop will try to make you feel guilty and sinful for denying him. You will bow and tell him I have forbidden you to dispense any of the vintage until my return.”

“No, my lady, I will not dispense any of the wine.”

“Good. You know I depend on you with the vineyard and the wine, Bertrand.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“And you are very conscientious with your work,” she added.

“Thank you, my lady,” he blustered, delighted with the compliment.

She should have left it at that and kept her toes behind the imaginary line separating the concerns of Alda from Bertrand’s private life. But she could not swallow the angry lump in her throat.

“I wish you could be as careful with your son,” she said softly, knowing as his jaw clenched and his mortified eyes rose to meet hers that she had not just stuck a toe over the line. She had leaped foolishly across it with both booted feet.

And for what?  Her comment would certainly not help Samuel nor further her standing as a woman doing a man’s job.

She nodded curtly to him as she left, not sorry
. She still found it difficult to keep her tongue behind her teeth when vexed. She would have to work on that.

Chapter Three
 

“David, your prayers have been answered.”

David regarded Theophilus, his best friend and lord of the town of Ribeauville, with a critical brown eye. Theo dressed the part of a dandy when he wasn’t out killing the Carolingian emperor’s latest enemies. Theo wore the colors of a spring duckling today, tomorrow it might be a summer sky. His dark hair was perfectly trimmed and topped with a slouchy tasseled concoction of fabric you couldn’t even call a hat. David would doubt the man’s masculinity if he hadn’t seen him kill many a soldier with his bare hands.

Theo turned away to look across the large courtyard within the walls of palace, clasping his hands behind his back
. They stood on the tall wooden gallery that ran the length of the palace and connected to the octagonal chapel opposite them. The ground below swarmed with the men who held power in the empire built by Charlemagne. Beyond the outer walls of the palace stood the city of Aix-la-Chapelle filled to bursting with the families and servants of noblemen here for a special royal convention. Important issues were discussed and decisions announced amidst days of drinking, eating and hunting.

David’s elder brother, Doeg, was here somewhere
, though David had not had time to find him. Doeg represented their family now that their father could not travel. David had never attended such an event since he was neither important nor landed. He had no idea why Theo had asked him to come to Aix.

David knew Theo well enough to see the news he intended to share was troubling to him
. It was time to get to it.

“Are you finally going to reveal why you summoned me to this pit of aristocratic vipers who dress nearly as badly as you?”  David’s harassment about Theo’s outfit would normally lift  ob
viously dampened spirits. Not today. What answered prayer of his own would set Theo so low?  He placed his hand on a shoulder clad in cloth the shade of daffodils. “Theo. What is it?”

“Things are complicated in the empire, with Louis being deposed and just regaining his throne from his elder sons a few weeks ago
. The emperor is tense. He feels vulnerable, though he would never admit it. There are few people he trusts, but I am one of them and he wants to place similarly loyal people in geographically strategic locations to protect Alamannia.”  Theo gave David a halfhearted smile. “The emperor wishes to see you married.”

David could only blink for a few seconds
. “The emperor has talked to you about me?  About a marriage?  Why?”

“Your intended wife comes with an estate in Francia, near the Alamannian border
. He is concerned about holding Alamannia for his youngest son, Charles. Alamannia, you certainly know, was promised to one of the three sons borne by his first wife. None of them are taking this change to the succession plan lightly.”

“So
, in exchange for this marriage, I am promising what?”  David asked cautiously. At the word
estate,
his heart had begun to pump harder in his chest, but nothing in the empire came easily to a soldier, even a highly respected one.

“Marry her, take ownership of her estate, make your home there, defend Louis’s interests if the older sons make it necessary.”  Theo recited these expectations flatly, nodding as though trying to make himself agree with his own words.

“That is it?”

“That is it.”

David grinned at his good fortune. “Theo, this is exactly what I have been hoping for, for a year or more!  We have talked of it many times!”  He paced in a circle, unable to curb his growing excitement. “Now my father’s estate will not need to be split in half again.”  He clapped his hands together with one loud smack, causing several men below to stare up at him.

“Glad you are pleased.”

David slapped his friend on the back. “Pleased?  I am ecstatic, you popinjay!”  Again his teasing elicited no reaction. A frisson of unease tempered David’s excitement . “What is wrong, Theo?”  He waited for an answer that after a full minute still hadn’t come. “Is it a poor estate?”  Nothing. “Indefensible?  You and I can think through that!”  Nothing. “The lady then. Is she ugly?  Lazy?  Pockmarked?”  David laughed almost giddily. “I had hoped my wife would be pretty. In fact, I imagined picking her myself, but if the emperor wants to hand a fat estate and a lazy bride to me, so be it.”  He suddenly sobered. “She is not old, is she? Old and dried up and past breeding?“

Theo turned on him
. “You bastard. She is young and pleasing to the eye. She has grace and poise and gold to match. Her estate is rich with grapes and grain and happy fat peasants who work the land for one of her smiles. Or so I have been told.”

David scoffed
. “Such a woman does not exist.”

Theo harrumphed as he faced the courtyard again
. David considered the unexpected reaction as he rubbed the stubble on his chin. His eyebrows lifted slightly. “You know this woman,” he stated. His excited heart dropped into his belly. “You wanted her for yourself.”

His friend’s sigh told him everything
. David had no wish to steal a woman from his best friend. In fact, the idea appalled him. “Did you tell the emperor?  You deserve any estate you wish to have!  You can certainly defend it as well as me!”

“He wants a man from another region
. A new man. A strong, loyal, fighting man.”  Theo pressed his fist in his hand. “The only thing he wanted from me was a suggestion, the name of that man.”

“And you named me.”

“I did.”

“You gave away the woman you love without even asking for her?”

Theo whirled, the flash of anger in his eye at odds with the orange tassels dangling from his hat onto his forehead. “I do not love her!  I have not seen her in years!  If you must know, I did ask him for her. Bah!  I thought her a logical, intriguing match. Her late father was a friend and she has grown into a rather marriageable lady. I asked for her, but the emperor is too embroiled in his own schemes to give much weight to what his vassals might want.”  He poked his finger at David’s nose. “She needs a protector. So I had a choice to make. Give her away, as you say, to someone I know. Or let the emperor choose some drunken stranger who might beat her, or waste her money, or kick her mother out of the house.”

David crossed his arms across his chest
. “Does she know of your interest in her?”  The answer meant everything to him, and relief surged through him when his friend’s head shook in the negative.

“She has not laid eyes on me since burying her father three years ago.”

“No secret letters?  No messengers?”

“Do not be ridiculous
. Since when have I had any secrets from you?”

His own e
state!  It was within his reach. Still, the idea of this woman having a history with his friend didn’t sit well. “I do not know, Theo.”

Theo
threw his hands up. “What do you not know, David?  I have just spelled out the next several years of your life. Marry pretty girl, live on pretty estate, kill your fellow countrymen in cold blood when Louis tells you to. Which part do you not understand?” 

“The part where I marry the pretty girl you want to marry
. What kind of man does that make me?”

“An imperial subject, David, like the rest of us.” He sighed
. “This is not a choice. Louis is already set on this course. His advisers spoke most highly of you once I mentioned your name.”

David bridled
. “Of course there is a choice. I can say no, she can say no.”

“Then you will expose yourself and her to dire consequences
. Louis is settled on you, and is not in a mood to tolerate resistance. Rochelle needs a protector. The emperor has taken notice of her little bit of land. She has no living male relative and a mother with a less than impeccable bloodline. By God and by our ruler, Rochelle and her estate are being handed over to someone on a platter. I would consider it a great personal favor if you would take her hand in marriage so some fat rutting pig does not get hold of it.”

David studied his friend
. “Her name is Rochelle?”

Theo nodded
. “Rochelle of Alda. The estate lies near the Ill River, just 13 leagues south of Ribeauville. We would practically be neighbors.”  He put his hand on David’s shoulder. “You must make this marriage. You will be lord of your own estate and have a fine wife. You are an honorable friend, but do not worry about me. I have no claim on her at all, most certainly not one of the heart. In fact, I have my heart set on a woman who can sew. I would save a fortune.”  His face cracked into a genuine smile.

David grinned back
. “My wife’s name will be Rochelle,” he said, full of wonder at the idea. “I never imagined I would learn
that
bit of information this morning. When can I meet her?”

“In a few days
. My men are escorting her and her mother to Aix as we speak.”