Caught off-guard by the question, Nat was certain the pair had forgotten about him. He’d barely said two words to the woman that Tor seemed to be quite interested in, so her question surprised him.
He was certain that he was a ghost as far as they were concerned.
“I am,” he said. “My mother is a cousin of Tor’s grandmother.”
Isalyn’s brow furrowed. “But you cannot be much older than he is.”
Nat grinned. “I am the youngest of six children,” he said. “Tor is the second eldest of the de Wolfe siblings. We were born ten years apart.”
Isalyn looked between them. “I would not have guessed that,” she said. “Are you married, Sir Nat?”
He nodded. “I am.”
“Do you have children?”
“Seven.”
Isalyn blinked. “God’s Bones,” she said. “Everyone has big families but me. It is only my brother and me. I think my parents must have been lazy.”
Nat chuckled. Even Tor smiled. “Or brilliant,” he said. “Mayhap they knew that the more children they have, the more trouble there will be.”
“You think so, do you?”
“Ask my father. He’ll tell you. I’ve got three younger half-brothers who can bring about a world of trouble.”
The way he said it made her laugh. He had a humorous way about him at times, she noticed. Isalyn was thinking on how handsome he looked when he smiled, but the wind suddenly shifted and she caught a whiff of something rotten.
Her nose wrinkled.
“What’s that smell?” she asked.
Tor struggled not to react to the question. He knew exactly what it was because the wind was now blowing northwest, which took that putrid smell from the back at of his horse straight at her. Over on Tor’s left, Nat coughed loudly, endeavoring to cover up a guffaw.
“I thought I smelled that, too,” Tor said innocently. “It smells as if it is coming off the fields. Rancid water from the rains, I suppose.”
Isalyn pinched her nose shut, looking off towards the west, into the great fields. “God’s Bones,” she muttered. “It smells positively rotten.”
“It does.”
Suddenly, Isalyn was spurring her little palfrey forward, trotting past Tor and moving quickly down the road and away from the terrible smell that was blowing off the fields. She still had her nose pinched shut as she kicked her little horse into a canter.
As she ran by, Tor glanced at Nat, who shrugged his big shoulders, and spurred his horse forward as well. With both Nat and Isalyn trotting on ahead, Tor was left behind. He was the one carting the rotting corpse on the saddle behind him and he didn’t want to jolt it around in case something decided to fall off. It wouldn’t do for a putrid arm or hand or head to come rolling out of the horse blanket and fall to the road. Therefore, he picked up the pace as much as he could without jerking the body around and followed Nat and the lady towards the distant manse.
As they drew close, the wind shifted again and dark, puffy clouds began to blow in from the west. In this section of England, that was usually the direction that the weather came from, blowing off of the Solway Firth. The smell of rain was in the air and the very land around them begin to smell damp, signaling oncoming rain. Tor arrived at the manse just as Isalyn and Nat were crossing the bridge that led to the gatehouse.
Tor took a moment to look over the great house of Featherstone. It was much bigger than he had imagined for so remote a country house. It was built from the gray granite stone that was so prevalent to the area, the kind that turned mossy and green with age. While the front of the manse was built from stone, he noticed that the second floor was built from wattle and daub. He could see great crossbeams built into the walls, an architecture that was very common in England.
The gatehouse itself was three stories, but the rest of the house only seemed to be two. Surrounding this enormous house was a moat and as Tor directed Enbarr over the stone bridge, he looked down into a moat that was murky and full of green growth. For a country manse, it was an extraordinarily wide moat, meaning that no one could easily cross it. In fact, it was more of a lake than a moat with the odd feature being the permanent stone bridge that crossed it and led to the gatehouse.
A permanent stone bridge was not a wise safety feature, but it led to the gatehouse that had as many safety features on it as any military castle. The three-story gatehouse was protected by not only two enormous iron gates, but as he passed through it, he could see that it also had two portcullises as well. Anyone who could get across that stone bridge would face a monumental task of breaching the iron gates and iron grates.
A monumental task, indeed.
Now that he had seen it, Tor was quite impressed by the size and the architecture. Once through the gatehouse, they emerged into a large yard that contained a couple of trade shacks, a small stable, and a small stable yard. It had all of the function of a castle but on a smaller scale, and Tor was so busy looking around that he failed to see Gilbert de Featherstone emerge from one of the many doorways.
“Isalyn!” the man called, looking concerned with his daughter in the presence of two unfamiliar knights. “Is everything well? You foolish lass, I’ve sent Fraser out looking for you. Where did you go?”
Isalyn looked at her father, who didn’t look at all like the sickly man she’d seen when she had first come to Featherstone two weeks ago. In fact, he looked better than he ever had and she was coming to think that his illness had been faked purely to lure her back to Featherstone. He stood tall enough, his cheeks with color, his red hair blowing in the wind. The more she looked at him, the less patience she felt.
“Greetings, Father,” she said evenly. “I went into Haltwhistle. Where did you think I had gone?”
By Gilbert’s expression, it was clear that he wasn’t sure how to react to her. He was torn between being glad to see her and being angry that she had left in the first place. His gaze moved nervously to the knights, confused by their appearance. Isalyn’s defiant attitude wasn’t helping.
“You have my thanks for escorting my daughter home,” he said to Tor, who happened to be closer. “I am Gilbert de Featherstone. You are welcome in my home.”
Tor eyed the man before removing his helm. “I am Tor de Wolfe,” he said, gesturing to Nat. “This is my cousin, Nat Hage. Finding your daughter in town was a coincidence, I assure you. We were passing through because we were on our way to Featherstone. We have business with you, my lord. Is there somewhere we can speak in private?”
Gilbert looked rather confused by, and perhaps wary of, the request, but he nodded quickly. “Of course,” he said. “Come inside. I fear it is to rain soon, so permit me to show you my hospitality. Let us take comfort in my hall.”
Enbarr was tethered next to a trough, shoving his face into the water and alternately drinking water and blowing bubbles, but when a stable servant came to take the horse, Tor quietly snapped at the man and told him to leave the horse alone. He didn’t like anybody touching his horse but, more than that, he had a body strapped to the saddle and he didn’t want the servants getting wise to it.
The servant backed away.
Tor and Nat followed Gilbert through a door that led to a wide, curving stone staircase. The steps were long and flat, and they followed the man up the flight until they reached what was a small foyer. The foyer opened up into a large hall that spanned the entire front of the manse, from one end to the other, including the gatehouse. There were two wells in the middle of the chamber where the portcullises would sit when they were raised, as they were now. It was like having two big grates in the middle of the chamber, which made it quite strange, but the hall was big enough that it really didn’t matter.