A Servant's Security

Chapter 1

                                                       July 1452, Glynval, England 

Isabel sat in the kitchen shelling peas into a bowl on the table. A bead of sweat trickled down her face while barely any wind was coming through the open door.

"Isabel!"

Her brother called from the front room. As she hurried to finish shelling the pea pod in her hand to see what Thomas wanted, the pot over the fire began to boil over. She jumped up, banging her leg against the table.

Snatching a cloth from the table, she used it to pull the boiling pot away from the fire. As the pot swung forward on its hook, the cloth slipped and her finger touched the pot. She jerked back. Spying the bucket of water she used earlier to wash the vegetables, she plunged her hand into it.

"Isabel!" Thomas yelled again.

He thinks he doesn't have to help with the work, but I should abandon my task and come running whenever he calls. 

She blew on her burning thumb as she ran from the kitchen.

Thomas stood propped against the wall in the spacious front room in their stone house, picking at his cuticles. When he lifted his head, his green eyes fixed on her with a stern look. "Mother was summoned this morning to appear before the court."

"I know that." The court was being held today and a jury of 12 men from their village would decide the penalty for her family's neglect of their duties. 

"The new lord is coming to Glynval. Even if the court is lenient, I've heard he is far from forgiving. What would happen to us? To you?" He says.

Isabel bit back annoyance at her brother's tone. For the past three years, he had stood by, just like the rest of her family, refusing to do any of their required work in the fields, putting them all in this situation.

"I've decided to help with the harvest this year." She crossed her arms as her brother moved closer to her. "We should all help."

"Do you want to end up in the ditches and begging for food? Help with the harvest? It's too late now to start doing your share, little sister." He flung the words at her. 

 Isabel's back stiffened as she prepared for whatever offensive thing her brother would say next.

"We have to fend for ourselves. You're seventeen years old now and well beyond the age of accountability. Maybe you know of someone who might marry you. Do you?"

"No, I do not." She glared back at him.

He continued picking at his fingers, smirking. "But there is someone. Someone who is prepared to smooth over our troubles with the new lord and pay the fines so we don't have to work in the fields."

She knew her brother wasn't concerned for her, he wanted to solve his own troubles by throwing her to the wolves. But which wolf was he planning to throw her to?

A pleased smile spread over Thomas's lips. "I am speaking of Bailiff Richard."

Bailiff Richard?  "He's as old as Father! If you think.... for one moment that I-" She clenched her jaw to stop herself.

"He has been widowed for the past seven years. Surely you've seen him look at you with the eye of someone who is looking for a wife." 

She had seen the bailiff once or twice with a sneer on his face and had been disgusted that a friend of her father's would stare at her that way. Marry Bailiff Richard? She would rather sleep in a ditch and beg for food than marry him.