"Fulk says you have the capability to be a squire. Do you want to be one? You know the duties involved, but you will also have to go with me whenever I depart Ashlin. Are you willing?"
Pax smiled a smile that rendered his face almost handsome. "Aye, my lord!" he said enthusiastically.
"You have a month to learn your duties well," Ranulf said. "We leave on a journey for Normandy then."
"I will be ready!" the young man said.
"Can you speak any tongue but your own?" Ranulf asked, and was very surprised by the answer.
"I can speak the Norman tongue some, my lord. Enough to get about, and be of use to you. Actually, I understand it far better than I speak it," Pax answered. "My uncle taught me," he said, replying to the unasked questions he saw on his master’s lips.
Ranulf smiled a slow smile. "Understanding it better than you speak it will be of great use to me, Pax," he told his new squire. "You will, of course, gain a facility for the language when you must speak it daily, but no one need know that."
"Aye, my lord."
"You will serve me in the hall tonight," Ranulf said, then turned and walked away.
"Be loyal and suit him well, and your fortune is made, lad!" the sergeant at arms said, well pleased. "He’s a fair master."
"What am I to do in the hall to serve him?" Pax asked.
"You'll stand behind his chair, see that his cup and the cup of his lady is kept filled. In large households a page would do such work, but we are a small manor," Fulk said. "You'll have to eat early. Go to the kitchens, and the cook will feed you when you explain. Ah, lad, Ashlin is becoming a fine place. We'll be a castle someday. I hope I live to see it."
"Ashlin, a castle?" Pax was astounded. "How do you know such a thing, Uncle? Ashlin is just a little place."
"The lord was summoned to Worcester, lad," Fulk began. "He returns, decides he needs a squire, and says he’s going to Normandy in a month’s time. The lord does not need to go to Normandy on Ashlin’s business. He goes on the business of some great lord, and he goes very discreetly, for our master is certainly of no importance. If he is successful, he will be rewarded. If it were I, I would ask permission from the king to build a castl here at Ashlin to help defend the border. Now remember, Pax, I know none of this to be fact; but certain things happen in a certain order. You have but to keep your eyes and your ears wide open, boy, and your mouth shut. Do you understand?"
"Aye, Uncle. I'll not gossip."
"Not even to impress those wenches you're always chasing," Fulk warned him. "Your bright smile and your strong cock will keep the lasses content enough."
"Aye, Uncle," Pax said. His brown eyes twinkled, and Fulk laughed.
Pax served his master and mistress in the hall that night for the first time. His big hands were damp with his nervousness, but Ranulf praised him, and the lady Eleanore looked upon him favorably.
"Send your mother to me tomorrow," she told the young man. "You will need more clothing than I'll warrant you now possess. I will see she has what she needs to fashion what you will need."
"Thank you, lady," Pax replied.
"Serve my husband well," Elf told him, "and I will see your serfdom is lifted from you, Pax."
He knelt and kissed the hem of her gown. "Thank you, lady!"
"He is a good lad, I can see," Elf told her husband as they at last lay in their bed that night. "Fulk dotes on him, for he has no children of his own. He has seen that Pax and his other nephew, Sim, have been raised well."
"I'll want to see an example of his skills," Ranulf replied, nuzzling her neck. She smelled so sweet. It was a pity they could not cohabit until he was almost ready to leave for Normandy, but old Sister Winifred had come to him just before they departed the convent, and told him that Eleanore must have time to heal from the birth.
"Certain men, I am told, do not care if they harm their wives, poor ladies," the gentle nun said. "If you would have Eleanore healthy for many years, my lord, you will temper your lustful appetites." She looked at him with a stern eye, and he had actually felt himself blush. The elderly nun chuckled. "For just three more weeks," she amended.
His wife turned in his arms and kissed him slowly, pressing her body, more lush now than ever, against him. "My dear lord," she murmured in his ear.
"We cannot," he replied.
"Why not?" Elf demanded, quite outraged. She had been longing for his passion for several months now, and was eager.
"Sister Winifred says you must heal from the birth," he told her firmly. "I would take her advice and not injure you, petite."
"By the rood!" Elf swore, surprising him. "I am not in the convent any longer!"
He chuckled wickedly. "Do you want me as much as I want you, petite? It is torture knowing I must wait." He caressed her hair.
"But you will be gone in a month’s time!" Elf wailed.
"We may cohabit the week before I go."
"And then you will ride off to Normandy, my lord, and I am left behind longing for you," Elf said half angry. "You cannot even say how long you will be gone!"
"Would you rather we did not-"
"Nay!" she said furiously.
"Would you prefer that I sleep elsewhere until we may be together again, petite?"
"Nay!" She burrowed herself against his broad shoulder.
"I thought you had been taught self-denial as a nun," he teased her, tipping her face up. "It is much easier to be good when you don't know how much fun being bad is, isn't it, petite?"
"I hate you," Elf muttered, smacking him lightly on his cheek.
Ranulf laughed and caught her hand, kissing the palm. "Have you any idea of how jealous I am of our son?"
"Why would you be jealous of Simon?" she asked, then she blushed. "Ohh!"
"Go to sleep now, petite," he told her. "And be satisfied in knowing the waiting is no easier for me than it is for you."
"Good!" Elf told him, caressing him in a delicate spot before rolling over and turning her back to him.
Ranulf laughed again. "Witch," he said softly, and moving onto his side he drew her back against him, his big hand clamped firmly about one of her breasts.
"That’s not fair!" Elf protested.
"What?" He feigned innocence.
In reply Elf ground her buttocks into his groin suggestively.
He groaned as he felt himself beginning to seethe with desire. "That’s not fair!" he complained.
"Two can play at the same game, my lord," she replied dulcetly.
"Go to sleep, Eleanore," he said through gritted teeth.
"Yes, my lord," Elf replied sweetly. His hand upon her breast was both taunting and comforting. She longed for their bodies to be joined, but she knew Sister Winifred was right. Her body was still weak and sore from Simon’s birth. Where was the patience she had always prided herself upon in her convent days? She must surely regain it quickly or she would expire from her own desire. She felt Ranulf’s soft kiss upon the nape of her neck and, sighing, closed her eyes.
Chapter 13
During the next few weeks, their lives returned to a semblance of normalcy. Ranulf rode out daily to survey the manor. His great concern was for Ashlin’s safety, and in this he became more and more convinced that his lands would not be totally safe until Ashlin possessed a strong castle. The walls that surrounded the demesne were high, but they encompassed too open an area-his own house, the church, the huts of his serfs, and the cottages of his freedmen and upper servants. The assemblage was, in truth, a sprawling village. His walls could be breached by anyone with serious intent to do so, leaving his people wide open to the attackers.