“The packet you carried was addressed to Rosamund, the lady of Friarsgate, who is my mother,” Elizabeth explained. “Friarsgate was her inheritance, and my eldest sister, Philippa, was to be her heiress. But Philippa is a creature of the court, and married into the aristocracy. She did not want Friarsgate. Nor did my second sister, Banon, who is our uncle’s heiress to his estates at Otterly. But I did want Friarsgate, and so when I was fourteen my mother conferred these lands upon me and my descendants. I am Elizabeth Meredith, the lady of Friarsgate. When I saw my mother’s name on the packet I assumed it must be for her, although she is no longer the lady. But it had come from those strange to us in Scotland. They could not know of the changes here, and I am not Rosamund.”
“Have you read the message yet?” he asked her. “Can you read?”
“Of course I can read!” Elizabeth said indignantly. “Can you?”
“Aye.” He began to spoon the oat stirabout in his trencher of bread into his mouth. The hunger was beginning to gnaw at his belly again.
She poured him a goblet of ale. “It was too late last night to be bothered with reading your message,” Elizabeth said. “Do you know what is in the packet?”
“Aye.” He reached for the cottage loaf and the butter. “Is that jam?” He pointed to a bowl near the butter.
“Aye,” Elizabeth replied. “Strawberry.”
He pulled the bowl over and, dipping his spoon in it, smeared the buttered bread with the jam, a smile of pure bliss lighting his features as he ate it.
“Well?” she demanded of him.
“Well, what?” He had finished his porridge, and was now filling the bread trencher with jam and devouring it.
“What does the letter to the lady of Friarsgate say?” Elizabeth wanted to know.
“I thought you could read,” he said, popping the last bit into his mouth.
“I can! But if you know you can satisfy my curiosity before I read it in detail,” Elizabeth almost shouted. “I cannot believe you are that much of a dunce, sir.”
He burst out laughing, and his laugher echoed through the hall, startling the servants who were busily cleaning. “My father wants to buy some of your Shropshires, if you are of a mind to sell any,” he said.
“They are not for eating,” Elizabeth replied stiffly. “You Scots are much for eating sheep, I am told. I raise Shropshires for their wool.”
He chuckled. “My father sells his wool.”
“We weave ours into cloth here at Friarsgate,” Elizabeth told him.
“You do not send the wool to the Netherlands?” He was surprised.
“We send cloth to the Netherlands,” she told him. “Our Friarsgate blue cloth is much sought after. We regulate how much we will sell each year in order to keep the price high. The Hollanders have tried to copy it, but they have not succeeded. It is shipped in our own vessel, so we are able to control the export completely.”
“This is very interesting,” he said seriously. “Who does the weaving?”
“My cotters, during the winter months when there is no other work for them,” Elizabeth explained. “By keeping them busy they earn a bit of coin, and do not grow lazy. Come the spring they are ready to go into the fields again. In the old days there was nothing for the cotters to do in the dark days and long nights. They drank too much, grew irritable, and beat their wives or children. They often fought with other men, causing serious injuries to the otherwise able-bodied. Now everyone is busy the winter through.”
“Whose idea was this?” he asked her.
“My mother’s, and then my uncle decided that we should have our own vessel, so he had one built,” Elizabeth said.
“How long have the duties of Friarsgate been yours?” he wondered.
“Since I was fourteen. I will be twenty-two at the end of May,” Elizabeth said.
“My dearest girl, a lady never reveals her age,” Thomas Bolton said, coming into the hall. “I was told the Scot was back.” His amber eyes swept over Baen MacColl, and he sighed most audibly.
“You have broken your fast, of course,” Elizabeth said. “If you have not there is no jam left, I fear. It has all been eaten up.”
“Will and I have been up for at least two hours, dear girl,” he told her. “We have been discussing your hair and the state of your hands, Elizabeth.”
“What is wrong with my hair?” she wanted to know.
“It hangs,” he told her. “We need to decide upon an elegant style for you, and then Nancy must learn how to do it. And from now on you must sleep every night with your hands wrapped in cotton cloth after they have been properly creamed.”
