“Where were you taken?”
“Stanton. I cared for its countess for her entire life,”
Elsbeth replied.
“Do you have a man?”
“Dead, thanks to yon borderer and his men,” Elsbeth said.
“Can you cook something other than porridge?” the laird wanted to know.
“I can cook anything you want, sir,” Elsbeth answered. This man looked decent, she thought. Pray God he was.
“There are no other women in my keep,” the laird said. “Our mother died, and since then every cook we have had has managed to get herself a big belly. Can you keep yourself from the men, Elsbeth?”
“I want no man but my Albert,” Elsbeth said harshly.
“I’d kill any who tried to have me, sir. I’ll work hard for you.”
“I’ll take her,” Conal Bruce said to William Douglas.
“What do you want for her, Willie? She seems a good woman who will do her duty and be obedient.”
“A silver groat would suffice,” came the reply.
“Half a groat, and you’re overcharging me. God knows how long the woman will live. She is a bit long in the tooth,” the laird remarked. “I’m doing you a favor.
Legally her term of servitude will only be a year. After that she could leave me.”
William Douglas closed his eyes a moment and sighed deeply. “Very well,” he finally agreed. “A half groat.”
“I can’t go with him,” Elsbeth said. She turned to the laird. “You seem a fair man, sir. I’m sure you would be a good master, but I can’t go with you without my lady.
I’ve hardly left her side since her birth, and I’ll not leave her now.” She stood straight, looking him in the eye, her hands on her hips. “Please, sir, buy my mistress.”
“Why would I need another woman in the keep?” the laird wanted to know.
“Well, sir,” Elsbeth said cannily, “if there’s no other woman in the keep, who has kept it clean for you . . . ?
Who has done your laundry? I can see from the color of your shirt ’tis not been washed properly in a long time.
Who makes your candles, your soap, your conserves?
Who makes the salves, the ointments, the syrups, and the other medicines necessary to keep you and your people healthy? And another woman would be company for me, sir. A lonely woman, no matter her resolve, can often fall prey to temptation.”
The laird and his brothers laughed at this none-too-subtle threat.
“She’s right, Conal,” Duncan Armstrong said. “The keep is a pigsty, and if Elsbeth is to spend her time in the kitchens cooking for us we could really use someone else to clean and wash and do all those other things she has mentioned.”
“Very well,” the laird said. “I’ll buy the other woman.
Willie, what do you want for her? And do not say three silver pennies, for I’ll not pay it, and if Elsbeth won’t come without her then I’ll take someone else, or seek elsewhere.”
William Douglas looked thoughtful for a long moment. Then he reached down among the seated captives and dragged a woman up. She was dirty like the others, her dark hair matted, but her face was swollen and bruised, and she was shackled at her ankles. She pulled back from him like a scalded cat, hissing imprecations at Douglas. “Her name is Adair, and I curse the day I took her,” he said. “She’s given me naught but trouble since that moment. If you take her you’ll not thank me, Conal Bruce.”
“Scurvy Scot!” Adair shrieked at him. “I’ll kill you if I can!”
“And she would too,” Douglas said. “She’s attempted to run away three times now, which is why she’s shackled.”
