Chickens scurried in alarm before her, squawking in protest of the flying skirts. She paused to laugh over her shoulder, and the sound rang through the hazy morning, teasing and ripe, like the girl herself.Ĭharles stepped closer to the embrasure to watch her progress. The vassal on the walk called out to Rica in some jest Charles could not hear. “On her morning rounds,” he commented to the bird, who cocked an eye toward the yard. Taking in the busy swish of her skirts, he half smiled, feeding his hawk a crust of bread. A vassal paced the walk in obvious boredom.Īs Charles lifted his cup, his daughter Frederica bustled from the kitchen, headed with purpose across the grass. Another girl gathered herbs in her apron from the garden close to the wall. Scullery maids washed pots in a tub nearby the open kitchen door. In the greening baileys, the morning bustle had begun. In the distance, beyond his eye’s reach, was a smattering of peasant dwellings and the fields with their new crops.
There was a forest, thick with game birds and animals, a vineyard where grew some of the finest Rhenish grapes in the empire, and an orchard where apple and pear trees flourished. Beyond was a meadow dotted with sheep, their newly shorn bodies oddly naked. There was the keep and the manor, the upper and lower baileys with their whitewashed walls. It was a glorious view, and all he surveyed belonged to him all had been won with his sword in his youth. Buttery May sunshine splashed into the room, warming the sweet herbs in the rushes beneath his feet. His solar filled the top floor in the keep of the old castle, and the builders had been generous with light so high, where arrow slits and protection were no longer necessities. All rights reserved.Ĭharles der Esslingen stood near the embrasure of his chamber and looked to the courtyard below.
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