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Tom with his hands on his hips, facing Lord le Wyse.
    “This maiden is intended to be my bride. Her brother has arranged for her to marry me in exchange for paying her censum.”
    She’d been right: he might pay her censum and her fine, but he wouldn’t help the rest of her family, and either Edward or Durand would end up indentured to Lord le Wyse.
    Lord le Wyse turned on her, his lips a dangerous, thin line. “Is this true? Did you promise yourself to this man?”
    “Nay, my lord, I never did.” Her face heated again as she realized all the people who were listening to this exchange. But at least she would have witnesses to her refusal.
    The bailiff stared at her with murder in his eyes.
    “Are you willing to marry him?” Lord le Wyse’s voice was hard, and he squinted his eye at her, as if she was suddenly even more distasteful to him.
    “I am not, my lord. I want to be your servant, to pay for my family’s neglect.” She made sure everyone could hear her, even as her hands shook.
    He turned back to Bailiff Tom. “She will not have you, apparently.”
    A low titter of amusement erupted around the room. As Lord le Wyse resumed walking toward the door, he muttered gruffly to the bailiff, “Count yourself fortunate.”
    His words felt like a slap. A couple of gasps went around the room at the insult as Lord le Wyse exited and Bailiff Tom followed him out.
    As the rest of the workers went back to their tasks, Eustacia frowned but didn’t seem surprised by the lord’s rude behavior. “Pay no heed to the master. He’s grumpy this morning.” Her focused gaze started at Annabel’s feet and slowly took her in, all the way to the top of her head. “You don’t want to go to the fields in that dress, that’s certain. It’ll be mussed from here to Lincoln. Put on your worst clothing and tie up your hair. Come.”
    Eustacia took Annabel’s bag and walked to the far corner of the large, open chamber to a much smaller partition than the one around which Lord le Wyse had appeared. “You can change behind here.” Eustacia smiled, revealing a broken front tooth.
    Annabel ducked behind the screen with her bag while the mistress spoke to her on the other side.
    “Not much privacy here now, which makes the master a bit quarrelsome, but once he gets his new castle built, that will change.”
    Annabel took off her dress. When she pulled her oldest and worst-looking kirtle over her head, she remembered to retrieve her knife from her other dress and slip it into her pocket. It reminded her that she might see Bailiff Tom again at any moment.
    She imagined his mocking smile when he saw her working in the fields or found her in the kitchen cooking and cleaning for Lord le Wyse.
    Holding her hand over the knife, she clenched her teeth so hard her jaw ached. Bailiff Tom will never touch me again. Never.

Chapter
3

    The house servants, all except Eustacia, quit their various tasks that morning to join the villagers, including children, in the demesne fields. The barley was ripe and needed to be gathered quickly, and no one, except the very old or very sick, was exempt from working the harvest fields.
    A foreman, a stranger like Eustacia who had accompanied Lord le Wyse from Lincolnshire to Glynval, handed Annabel and three other women scythes so they could start mowing the stalks of barley. A thin-shouldered man with a weather-worn face, his hose rolled down below his knobby knees, was assigned to follow behind them to gather the stalks and bind them into sheaves.
    The three women, one old enough to have grandchildren and the other two a bit younger, bent forward at the waist and began to slice the barley stalks close to the ground. Annabel drew back the unwieldy instrument, her arms feeling weak. Why hadn’t she eaten breakfast? That might have helped.
    She tried to imitate the women’s motions, but the blade of the scythe bent the lithe stalks instead of cutting them. Hoping no one had noticed her blunder, she hurried to