Free Love's Ransom by Gwen Kirkwood Page A

known him so short a time. She and Anna worked with the women in the kitchens, making bread and ale, churning butter from the milk cows, taking a turn at milking. She was pleased and proud that her mother had taught her well. Even Eliza grumbled less at the young maids who came from the village to help and to learn. In the afternoons there was spinning and weaving to do, garments to make, or to mend. Above all Isabella was delighted with the area which Henry had set aside for her garden. He had not only built two walls for shelter from the wind, but he had repaired the wattle fence on the other side and designed a stone seat big enough for two where she could rest. He had devised pillars to hold up a small roof so that she could shelter from a sudden shower. He instructed two of the men to clear thorny branches and an area overgrown with weeds, but the days were growing shorter and cooler and she knew she must wait until spring before she could grow plants for food. Sometimes travelers passed through and stayed a night but none of them brought news of Zander and none ever ventured over the marshlands in the direction of her family. There were so many things she longed to ask her mother. There were several bee hives and she helped Henry attend to them and asked him if he could mend the two rickety ones so they could keep more.
    ‘We can never have enough honey,’ she said.
    ‘I will do better than that. Old Hubert is good with wood. I will ask him to help me make two new ones.’
    ‘That would be lovely. We might entice a new swarm of bees to occupy one of them.’ She would have hugged him in gratitude but she knew now that he did not like close contact. So long as she was content to sleep with the long pillow between them and she made no personal demands on him, Henry was eager to do anything which made her happy. She was pleasantly surprised at the things he had learned from the elderly monk who had taught him and Zander to read and write and count. He knew more about bees than she did herself and he even understood that saving barm from the ale, or a piece of dough from the last baking, helped the bread to rise and made it lighter, though neither of them knew why this should be. He showed her where the wild raspberries grew and asked one of the men to dig some up for her to plant in the garden so she could cultivate them and have them nearby. He brought her plants of wild garlic and thyme, sage and mint.
    It pleased William to see his son at ease and chatting amiably with Isabella. Sometimes he saw shadows in her lovely eyes and supposed she must miss her family, though she was usually content in her new surroundings and never complained. He saw how much the garden meant to her and made up his mind to take a couple of men and travel south to see what he could buy, or order, from the captains of the boats which came in from France or Holland.
    ‘I hear we need more salt to preserve the beef and lamb before winter sets in,’ he said at breakfast one morning. ‘Now the grain is gathered in I shall journey to the port of Annan. There is no word to say when Zander will return so I shall leave you in charge here, Walter. Don’t let the guards be idle.’
    ‘Father, I would like to take my spinning wheel with me if I may, when I marry Walter,’ Anna said. ‘Isabella is very quick with the spindle and distaff but she was used to having a spinning wheel of her own. I’m sure she would like to have another.’
    ‘I will see what I can get. I must contact the French smugglers and bargain for more brandy before your wedding. It is a good thing the wool merchants gave a fair price for our wool this year.’
    Isabella knew that reivers were more active on moonlight nights between Michaelmas and Martinmas, at the end of November. The days were already shorter so she was relieved to know Walter would stay behind to organise defences if they were needed. She was developing a warm affection for Henry, as all the women around him