“If we go to the front door,” I said, “Sir Stanley could go out the back. Or he could have the servants bar the entrance.”
“We should hide and wait,” Kevin said.
“The shepherds already know we’re here.”
I considered that it was unlikely that the lower servants would ever have been told why Sir Stanley was hiding here, or indeed that he was hiding at all. I turned off the path and moved through the grove. The first of the outbuildings was a woodshed, the second a stable with empty stalls, but with a scent of horse that had not faded. Past this was a paddock with sheep still in it, and beyond a brick creamery with a sagging thatch roof. I paused for a moment with my nose in the air, and thought I scented a whiff of warm, fresh milk. I walked to the door of the barn, looked in, and saw a young woman sitting by a milking stand, drawing milk from a sheep while other ewes, impatient for their turn, flocked around her.
“May I beg a sip of milk?” I asked.
At my unfamiliar voice, the dairy maid turned on her stool, though her hands remained at their work. She was about my age, and had a heart-shaped face under a blue cap. Her lips were full, her eyes dark, her complexion rosy. I felt my interest quicken.
I nodded at the grandly dressed Kevin standing uncertainly in the creamery door. “I’ve taken the young gentleman to the island in my boat,” I said. “And it’s thirsty work.”
She looked at the jug in my hand. “Have you emptied your own jug, then?”
“It’s variety I seek,” I said. “That and a few words with a lovely maid such as yourself.”
A few moments’ light conversation with a pleasing young maid, I thought, will do no one harm. Annabel Greyson was beyond my reach, perhaps forever. Surely, I had the right to seek a balm for my wounded heart.
The woman’s hands continued their work, twin streams of milk foaming into the pitcher. I eased myself through the sheep clustering about the milking stand, and leaned against the wooden gate to the pen.
“I’m willing to share my cider, if you like,” I said. “I imagine you see enough milk around this place.”
“I’m paid mostly in beer and cider,” said the dairy maid. “Cider is nothing to me.”
“I’d give you wine, if I had it.” There was a pause. “I could bring wine tonight, if you’d care to meet me.”
She gave me a look from under her cap. “You would come all the way from town to bring me wine?”
“I have a boat, so why not? I would bring you a moscatto from far Varcellos. A wine as sweet as the finest peach, as sweet on your lips as your smile.” At the compliment I saw the smile tugging at her lips, and I pointed. “There!” I said. “Sweetness itself.”
I am not, I think, handsome, though some I believe find my countenance amiable enough. Were I as pretty as my schoolfriend Theophrastus Hastings, say, I would scarce have to speak to women at all; they would simply tumble into my arms as they tumble into his.
But because I have no great share of beauty, I must call upon other resources, chief among them the art of conversation. I strive to amuse.
I also listen. It has been my observation that many who can declaim with the greatest actors of the age are not as facile when it comes to hearing what others are saying.
The dairy maid finished with the ewe and brushed the animal off the milking stand. The waiting ewes jostled one another in their eagerness to be milked, but one was quicker than the others and jumped onto the small table. The maid took the pitcher and prepared to empty it into a bucket standing by her feet.
“Ah,” said I, “and may I not have a drink? The milk drawn out by your own clever hands?”
“If it’s the milk you’re really after, you can have some.” She offered the pitcher. I took it and drew in several drafts of warm, foamy sweetness. I deliberately left myself a white mustache, and returned the pitcher. She laughed at the froth on my lip.
To use the tongue would be vulgar, I thought, and so removed the stain with a sleeve. She poured the remaining milk into the bucket, and then began to turn to the waiting ewe.
“May I know your name?” I asked.
“Ella,” she said.
“I am Quillifer.”
Ella looked thoughtful. “I’ve heard that name,” she said.
I leaned closer. “Will you share my moscatto with me tonight? I will bring it, but only if I don’t have to drink alone.”
Ella looked at me slantwise from beneath her dark brows. “Surely, you can find drinking companions in town.”
“But none so lovely,” I said. “None with such roses in her cheeks, hands so clever, or lips so sweet.”
The roses in her cheeks crimsoned. “If you will bring the wine,” she said, her voice a little throaty, “I will help you drink it.”
“The pleasure of the moscatto shall be thine. Where shall we meet, and when?”
She looked up at me, her hands jogging the sheep’s udders. “Here. The creamery is empty at night.”
“The hours till nightfall shall seem each a year.” I leaned over her and put on my pleading-lover face. “May I have a kiss to seal the bargain?”
“Not in front of the gentleman,” Ella said, tossing her head toward Kevin. “He’ll gossip.”
“If not your lips, like a lover,” I said, “and if not your cheek, like a brother; then may I kiss your hand like a suitor?”
Ella removed her hand from the teat, wiped it on her blue wincey dress, and held it out. I brushed the taut knuckles with my lips.
“Until tonight,” I said. I looked up at Kevin, still standing uncertain by the door. “My gentleman bears a message for Sir Stanley. Is he at the house?”
Ella resumed her milking. “Nay. He’s gone hunting, and won’t be back till the tide is out.”
“That will be soon, will it not?”
Ella’s lips twitched. “I know nothing of tides; I work in the creamery. But I know that my Master Golding will be here soon, back from scalding the curd, and that you should be gone before he arrives.”
“I will come back tonight,” said I, “with the wine, and without the young gentleman.” I darted a kiss to her cheek—she gave a cry of mingled delight and surprise—and then I rejoined Kevin. We two walked around the creamery and began the stroll to the ford.
“He will come at low tide,” I said. “And brother, I shall need to borrow your boat tonight.”
Kevin looked over my shoulder at the creamery. “You didn’t think to ask if she has a friend?”
“There comes a time,” said I, “when a man should shoot his own fowl.”
“Perhaps, then,” said Kevin, “a man should also own his own boat.”
“When I return,” said I, “I’ll bring you a cheese. Or a sheep. Whichever you like.”
Kevin sighed. “I shall have to content myself with a cheese. Yet now I am wondering why I came.”
“A pleasant sunny day on the water, and yet you complain. You should have talked to the girl yourself, an you liked her.”
We placed ourselves beneath a maple on the path leading to the ford, and applied ourselves to the satchel, and its bread, meat, and cheese.
Wind whistled in the high branches. Sheep drifted across the grass like foam on water. I began to feel sleep tugging at my eyelids, and then I was started into alertness by the sound of a hunting horn.
“A recheat!” said Kevin. He was more familiar with the vocabulary of the hunt than I.
I cupped my ears. The mellow call, rich as cream, came from the north. I rose to my feet, then jumped onto one of the lower branches of a quickbeam. Riding over the rich grass on the northern horizon I could see a party of horsemen.
“Ay, they come,” I said. “You might wish to take cover, stand at a distance; you are too brightly colored. And hand me the satchel.”