“She came to me when my youngest, Edgar, was born. Oswald played with her own son, a handsome dark-haired boy, right on the floor of the mill. They were of an age.” She chuckled. “Amidst the grist, if you can imagine. The baron’s own son.”
“I can,” Bartholomew admitted softly, remembering the very day.
Esme cast grain at her chickens, which pecked the earth around them with enthusiasm. “I was yet abed after the birthing and felt it disrespectful to remain thus when the lady herself came to visit, but she insisted that I rest. She fetched the child and admired him greatly.” Esme shook her head. “It was Father Ignatius blessing Oswald, his wife and son yesterday that put such old memories in my thoughts, to be sure.”
“To be sure,” Bartholomew agreed, wondering whether there was more to it than that.
“And now you are away, perhaps not to return,” she said.
“Again, you surprise me, Esme.”
“You dismissed both boy and dog, and you must know they both would follow you to Hell itself. What do you mean to do this day?”
“My comrade is yet imprisoned inside Haynesdale. If I am right, the baron’s men are yet in pursuit of my fellows. The keep may be as lightly defended as it will be in the foreseeable future.”
“Yet your course is not without peril,” Esme said. “So, you would go alone.”
Bartholomew smiled into his porridge, not feeling it was necessary to agree. They sat in silence for a few moments and the porridge warmed his belly as he ate it. The chickens continued to peck the earth and Esme continued to cast them grain.
“How do you have grain?” Bartholomew asked.
Esme smiled. “I took all that was mine from the mill when we fled. The flour is gone, and there is little seed left but the birds must eat. We cannot till the seed, but we can eat the eggs.”
Her words made Bartholomew think of how much labor would be required to rebuild the village and the prosperity of the holding. Where would he find so much coin?
“Did she tell you of the child?”
There was no doubt who Esme meant, and Bartholomew chose to be as direct as Anna. “Only that she felt responsible for Kendra’s demise, for she believed the infant consigned to the forest because of her deeds.”
Esme snorted. “And there is but a part of the tale, to be sure. Not even half, by my measure.”
Bartholomew was intrigued. “How so?”
“Did she tell you of Kendra’s father?”
He shook his head before he recalled her blindness. “Nay.”
Esme sighed anew. “He was a boy of an age with Anna. I call him a boy, although of course, he grew to manhood and it was a man’s deed that put that babe in Anna’s belly. They were as thick as thieves, they two, always together, always in mischief as children, always daring each other to new feats. They fairly ran wild, but their hearts were good. He was the eldest of Wallace the plowman and his wife, Erna.”
“Are they here?”
“Nay, they sent the boys but stayed in the village. Wallace wished to see the fields tilled, but he no longer has either horse or ox to pull the plow. Royce sold them a year ago, as if Wallace had not enough to bear.”
“How so?”
“Kendrick and Anna resolved between them to see Anna’s mother freed when she was arrested by the baron.”
“Just over two years ago?”
“Aye. I do not know what they planned or how much havoc they managed to wreak, but they were captured instead.” Esme frowned. “Kendrick was executed, his head hung upon the gates of Haynesdale as an example to us all of the price of treachery.” She shook her head. “He was but a boy to me yet, though he had seen twenty summers.”
Bartholomew set aside the remainder of his porridge.
“It was a month before Anna returned to us, bruised and filthy. She escaped that foul keep, naked, in the midst of the night. Perhaps they left her untended for they believed her near death. Perhaps another would have died or fallen broken in the road, but she is not one to surrender.”
“Nay, not Anna,” Bartholomew murmured.
“She crawled to the village, without being detected, and truly the elements were with her, for it was a foul and stormy night. She knocked and then collapsed outside my door. Oswald gathered her up, then declared that he could tolerate the cruelty no longer. We were all so fond of her, you know, and to see her in such a state was more than we could bear.”
