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Payne gave him a lopsided smile. “Dunna worry yerself,” he said. “I’ll take yer congratulations and be grateful for it. I suppose time will tell if this is tae my liking or not, but for now, let’s simply say that I’m not unhappy.”

“Good,” St. Sebastian said. “And I mean that sincerely. You are well liked, Payne. No one wants you to be unhappy in this mess of your mother’s doing.”

Payne chuckled. “It is not quite a mess—yet,” he said. “Ask me again in a week and we’ll see what I say.”

“I hope it does not come to that.”

“As do I.”

Several feet away, the swordplay exercise was beginning and the sound of metal against metal rang out. St. Sebastian waved Payne off, heading back the way he had come with a message for his father. Payne returned to the swords and, selecting one, headed over to the group.

Though Payne and Fox and Kristian were fully fledged trainers, they took a secondary role in the instruction, since it was Sinclair’s class.

They were there to show techniques and to let the recruits test what they were learning, and that went on most of the afternoon.

Only when the sun began to wane did Sinclair dismiss the recruits, who headed off to the large dormitory on the east side of the Blackchurch property.

The trainers headed home.

Payne couldn’t help but feel some anticipation for the night ahead.

It was natural that he did. But he was trying very hard not to feel excitement, mostly because he didn’t want to be disappointed.

He had no idea how this was all going to go, so he kept his expectations low.

Astria looked at this moment between them as a duty, so he would too.

Or at least try to.

It was growing dark by the time he entered the village.

He could see Fox far up ahead, entering his cottage where his wife and children were waiting.

He’d lost track of Sinclair, but surely the man was already home by now.

He caught sight of his own cottage, near the edge of the village, the windows in the front facing west. None of the cottages had precious glass in the windows, only shutters, which could be closed against the night.

As he approached his home, he could see light emitting from the closed shutters.

I always thought my wife would make a nice, warm home for me.

He paused before opening the door, feeling stupid that he’d even said that to her. Somehow, it made him feel vulnerable because if she didn’t want the same thing, or was incapable of creating the same thing, then he was in for a big disappointment. It had been a nice dream, anyway.

Taking a deep breath for courage, he opened the door and stepped in.

*

It had been a hell of a day.

Asteria felt as if she’d been a trainer today, teaching an exhausting class much like her husband was, because that was how weary she felt. Weary down to her very bones.

It hadn’t been easy.

For someone who had been trained as a chatelaine, and every noblewoman was, the knowledge she had was mostly theoretical.

A princess of the royal house of Portugal was not expected to scrub floors or know how to prepare a meal or even wash linens herself.

The theory was that she knew how those things were done so she could direct the servants.

She knew how to manage a household budget, what were appropriate cleaning products, how puddings were made, how livestock should be housed, and things of that nature.

Therefore, she wasn’t a complete novice when it came to a household.

But she was, indeed, a novice when it came to actually applying that theory.

That was where the exhaustion came in.

Her new friends, Athdara and Elisiana, had left their children with another Blackchurch wife, a lovely and very pregnant woman named Gisele.

With Gisele managing the pack of wild animals, as Payne had called them, Athdara and Elisiana were freed up to help Astria with Payne’s cottage, from top to bottom.

And what a cottage it was.

It was unfortunate that he hadn’t been kidding when he had told Astria how slovenly his cottage was.

It was actually quite depressing. The three women stood in the open doorway, looking over the large common room that faced the town square, and attached to that was a chamber used for a kitchen.

There was a big hearth and a table and nothing else.

The whole thing looked as if it had been abandoned for years, as if nobody lived there, because there wasn’t a scrap of food or rubbish, or any other signs that the place was inhabited.

Until one went upstairs.

Upstairs, there were two large bedchambers and then a small alcove that was supposed to be used for storage or bathing.

One chamber had nothing in it, and the small alcove had a couple of big trunks with clothing and shoes along with various weapons that were clearly carefully tended.

The chamber was an armory more than anything.

The largest room, which faced away from the street, had a mattress that was stuffed with grass that Athdara speculated must have come from the last century.

The mattress itself was made of canvas, which was stained and dirty, and there was just a single blanket to indicate that someone was actually sleeping there.

Once the women finished their sweep of the cottage, they at least knew where to start.

Athdara suggested they begin in the living chamber downstairs and then move to the kitchen before doing the floor above.

As the women gathered their cleaning instruments of choice, Athdara summoned a servant by using a bell that all of the cottages possessed.

The big iron bells were attached to the rear of the homes and, when rung, summoned servants from the neighboring outbuildings.

Across the road from the village were the facilities that helped keep Blackchurch running smoothly, including a laundry, kitchens, a large dining hall, and the stables.

When the iron bell at the rear of Payne’s home was rung, a servant appeared within a few minutes and Athdara directed the man to bring a wagonload of fresh hay for the mattress.

Fresh stuffing in the works, Athdara summoned a second servant, this time from the laundry, and sent the woman on a mission to hunt down bed linens.

Since Blackchurch housed a good many people, bed linens were in supply, and they were excellent quality.

Athdara also had the woman send for any unused or old kitchen implements that might be available in the large Blackchurch kitchens.

She was hoping for a few pots and perhaps bowls and even spoons if they were available, anything to help stock a kitchen that was completely empty, but as she told Astria, she would have to take what she could get until they could go to the merchant’s stall in Tiverton, to a man who bought and sold household goods, and purchase what they needed.

After that, the real education for Astria began.

Watered ale mixed with ashes, vinegar, and two bars of precious soap from Castile had been brought over from a neighboring cottage along with buckets of hot water, scrub brushes, and a mop made out of water reeds collected from Lake Cocytus.

As Athdara cleaned out the hearth, Elisiana took the hot water and vinegar and started scrubbing the floor of the front chamber.

Astria was directed to scrub the kitchen floor and table with the watered ale mixed with ashes, and she showed confidence in doing so until it actually came to scrubbing.

She had to watch Elisiana and Athdara first to see how they were doing things, and even then it took a few tries before she became comfortable with it.

The scrubbing went on all morning.

Around the nooning hour, the ladies paused to rest and share some food that one of the servants had brought.

The same servant had been the one who scoured the main kitchens for anything that Astria might use to set up housekeeping.

She brought back three iron pots of different sizes, two fire pokers, spoons of various sizes, four wooden cups, and six wooden bowls of different shapes and in various stages of wear.

It was enough to get started.

The servant also brought knives, four of them in total.

To help start the stores for the new earl and his wife, she brought various raw ingredients from the kitchens, including flour, salt, dried carrots and beans, fresh onions, butter, milk, and about a dozen eggs.

Asteria was overwhelmed with gratitude, of course, but forced to admit that she’d never done any cooking in her life.

Her new friends were happy to help, explaining how bread should be made and reminding her that some portion of the dough from the previous day should be held out and used in the next day’s bread so the dough would rise.

It was a great change for Astria to be the one supervised as she mixed warmed water and flour and salt, and some fermented dough from Athdara’s kitchen, into a bowl.

After setting it aside and covering it up with a cloth, she was instructed to bake it in one of the iron pots about an hour before she intended to serve Payne his supper—and she had no idea what she even intended to feed the man.

Athdara suggested that she bake eggs, which were easy, and showed her how to do it.

Beaten eggs with onion and salt placed in one of the iron pots and then baked in the hearth along with the bread would make a good supper.

Astria certainly hoped so.

Eventually, the ground floor was completely scrubbed from top to bottom by three very diligent women.

The hearth in the large common room was lit, as was the hearth in the kitchen.

With those fires going and warming up the bricks to make everything nice and cozy, the women turned their attention to the floor above.