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the hall. There was an exuberant bounce to Stephan's step. Several of the dogs followed at his heels.
    "Teenagers," Jane muttered after him, an affection-ate glow permeating her exasperation. Off to rescue fair maidens and terrorize the neighborhood. Odd, she thought, she'd known the kid a few hours and already she was feeling maternal. And a good thing that was, too, considering the kid's looks. The script read virtuous widow, she reminded herself sternly. And he was engaged—in looting and pillaging, proba-bly. No, he was a nice boy. She chuckled.
    She folded her arms and stared once more into the morass of damp and dirty rushes. She wasn't crossing that again without immunization. She returned to her chair, where she pulled her cloak back around her shoulders and tried to organize her thoughts.
    She didn't have long to consider her situation in private. Servants soon shuffled in and began rear-ranging the hall. She watched them carefully in the dim light, fighting the impulse to toss back reassuring smiles at the few furtive looks thrown her way. She remained carefully still and neutral as she tried to assess how to play the role Sir Stephan had thrust on her.
    The dogs were shooed aside long enough for a pair of trestle tables to be set up for the household and Stephan's men-at-arms. Wooden trenchers clattered onto the tables. Stephan, his sergeant, and his men came into the hall soon after the tables were ready, bringing with them the heavy aroma of horse manure.
    Supper was served soon after. The food was late-winter fare, fish in a sauce of dried herbs, cheese curds, boiled dried beans and a bread made of a mixture of roughly ground grains. The ale was plentiful, and a sour wine was served to Stephan and Jane in tar-nished silver goblets. He gave her a pleased look when she fingered the dirty silver dish.
    She kept her acknowledging chortle to herself. Okay, she conceded silently, maybe she could make a good housekeeper for the kid. She ate sparingly, drank not at all, and tried not to suggest sending out for

    pizza.
    During the meal Stephan introduced his household to their new chatelaine. She got a few openly curious and surly looks after the announcement and glared them down with as much Norman arrogance as she could fake. It helped that she had a long nose to look down. She'd had a boyfriend once who'd described it as "elegant" and "aristocratic." She'd kept him for a long time.
    Most of the people below the salt concentrated on wolfing down their evening meals, probably not caring who gave the orders as long as they got fed. The dogs wandered around begging and snatching food shamelessly, most people just shoving the big deer-hounds out of the way without paying them any mind.
    Melisande sat regally by Stephan's chair. Jane was happy to slip the hound and her pups much of her own dinner.
    It was well after sunset when the few dishes and trestle tables were taken away. The room emptied, but for a few servants who settled by the banked cen-tral hearth to sleep. The dogs found places with the humans, all the bodies melding into a warm heap.
    Stephan rose from his chair and took Jane's hand to help her up. "The hour of coverfire," he told her, voice soft as though not to disturb the sleepers. "Time to be abed. There's a sleeping space behind the tower storeroom. Bertram will show you."
    The old servant approached, a sputtering oil lamp in one gnarled hand. "I've left your bags and bedding for you there. Lady Jehane," he told her as he led the way up the tower stairs.
    She followed his bent figure, suppressing the urge to grasp him by the elbow and help him along. She wondered how old he was. Forty, maybe? The thought was not a pleasant one, and she quickly put it aside.
    He led her to a curtained alcove at the back of a big, dusty room on the first of the tower's two floors.
    She got the impression of many barrels and chests occupying the room's shadowed depths.
    He handed her the lamps and the heavy iron key he'd