Ruefully, Annabel turned her head toward the voice coming from the cot to her right, her hopes of sinking into sleep crushed.
Beatrice leaned toward her, resting her elbows on her knees. “I came from Lincolnshire with Lord le Wyse, along with most of us here. My mother was a milk maid and my father’s dead. What about you? I heard you tell Lord le Wyse that you didn’t want to marry that ugly bailiff.”
Annabel sat up, trying to sound friendly instead of exhausted and lonely. “My father’s dead too, I’m afraid. As for the bailiff, that was simply a … misunderstanding.” She hoped the girl wouldn’t press her further.
Beatrice eyed her with a shrewd expression. “You have a very pretty face, although you’re a little skinny. Why haven’t you married yet?”
Annabel swallowed. “I …” She probably shouldn’t say that she had yet to meet someone she would want to marry, so she shrugged.
Someone called out from the corner behind Annabel, “She thinks she’s too good for Glynval men, that’s why!”
Her face burned as a few snorts erupted around the room.
A slow smile spread over Beatrice’s face. “Perhaps she is too good for Glynval men. But maybe one of the Lincolnshire men has caught her eye.” A few protests rang out from the Glynval maidens.
Annabel shook her head. Just smile, she told herself.
“No? Why not? We have handsome men. More than one, I’d say.”
Maud came through the door and slipped over to the bed on the other side of Beatrice. Annabel realized she hadn’t seen either of them after supper, and fleetingly wondered where they could have been.
“Eh, Maud, you met the new girl?” Beatrice flicked her head around to Annabel again, her pale brown hair clinging to her neck. “What was your name again?”
“Annabel.”
“Of course I know her.” Maud’s voice sounded harsh and cross. “She’s from my village, isn’t she? Are you addled, or just simple?”
A couple of guffaws were joined by ooohs from several points in the large room.
Beatrice stared back at Maud. “So you’re the smart one? I suppose you already know her life’s story, then.”
“Of course.” Aiming her eyes at the ceiling, Maud went on. “Her father died three years ago of the pestilence. He was once a rich merchant, but he lost all his money and ships. She and her two precious brothers were never made to do their share of the boon works or harvest work, so when Lord le Wyse came, the jury told her mother she had to send one of her children to work for him. Since Annabel’s two brothers are too lazy to soil their soft, white hands, Annabel had to do it. What of it?” Maud threw herself onto her bed and turned her back on Beatrice.
“Well, if I ever need information, I’ll certainly know who’s full of it.” Beatrice casually strode over to the candle nearest her and blew it out. On the way back, Beatrice whispered to Annabel, “So you’re the one whose ma got you sent away from kith and kin.”
“I suppose you could say that,” Annabel whispered back. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping the other girls were ready to go to sleep. She tried to pray, but tears came before any thoughts were able to congeal into words. She kept her eyes closed, hoping anyone who looked at her would think she was asleep. Someone blew out the rest of the candles and the lamp and plunged the room into darkness.
God, why have you put me here? Do you truly care? If only she had a Bible, she would be able to find guidance. She had dreamed of becoming a nun because as a nun she believed she would be allowed access to a Bible. Not only that, but in a nunnery she wouldn’t have to be around Bailiff Tom ever again. But unless God gave her a miracle, she’d never be a nun.
She reached down from her low bed and fumbled in her bag. She fished out her prayer beads and small cross, clasped them to her chest, and felt a measure of peace. Praying for sleep, she closed her eyes and blocked out the shadowy figures of the other maidservants.
The maid in the bed beside her, a villein’s daughter from Glynval, whispered loudly, “So what happened to our lord to cause him to be maimed?”
An unfamiliar voice answered, “I know that story well. When he was sixteen he came to the aid of a servant girl who was being attacked by a wolf.”
“A servant girl? Truly?”
“He fought off the animal. Mistress Eustacia’s husband shot the wolf through the neck with an arrow, but not before it had clawed out the lord’s eye and mangled his hand.”
Annabel’s chest ached at her lord’s fate.
“Some say he’s part wolf now, that he prowls the woods at night.”
Several low hoots and a couple of gasps went round.
“Some say they’ve seen him.”
“Could be,” a voice chimed in.
More offensive comments, punctuated by laughs, swept through the sleeping quarters.