Eseld turned and watched the young woman’s flight before closing the door carefully and turning her questioning gaze to Glayer.
“A hanger-on,” he said with a dismissive wave of his cup. “I’m positively harangued of late by women hoping to attach themselves to me.”
Eseld’s wrinkly face relaxed and her smile was prideful. “What maid with any sense wouldn’t wish to get herself in your good graces, my lord? You must choose carefully your next bride.”
“Indeed,” Glayer said, lighting from the bed and slipping his arms into his silken gown. He tightened the belt and then walked to Eseld to take Glander from her. “She will not only need the finest pedigree but be of meek and gentle nature to be worthy enough of the title stepmother. I’ll not consider anyone seriously until Henry signs over the deed to Benningsgate; the addition of the estate shall open up a higher tier of nobility to choose from. Good day, Glander.”
“She won’t take my place though, will she?” Eseld pressed worriedly. “You’ll still retain me as nurse.”
“Yes, yes. Of course,” Glayer said in an irritated fashion, walking away from the annoying old woman. “We should have our answer any day, I expect. Henry is covered over with contemporaries of the Younger and their demands this week. I believe the tournamenting has addled them all with political ambition but no sense of strategic alliances.”
“Not all men can carry the blood of such strong sires,” Eseld said, once more with pride in her voice, but this time Glayer ignored her. “Certainly Glander will be of such stock as his father and grandfather,” she continued in a happy, musing tone. “Great-grandfather.”
Glayer pressed his lips together, his neck stiffening, and walked toward the window to look down upon the unclean street below.
“I thought we agreed you would no longer mention that,” he said through his teeth.
“I don’t see what harm it could bring you,” Eseld said, walking about the room and picking up discarded articles of clothing. “It’s much the same with any royal family.”
“You weren’t a royal family,” he pointed out. “Your father was a lecher who lay with his daughter because he was too lazy to leave the farm and find a proper wife after his had died.”
Eseld turned to face him, her chin held high. “He wanted to keep the line pure.”
Glayer winced. “The line of what?”
“Our family was powerful in the north before the sickness destroyed the tribe. Your father provided well enough for you to go on Crusade, did he not? And look what you’ve made of yourself. If that doesn’t show breeding, I don’t think anything would.”
Glayer felt the rage boiling up inside him, but he fought to keep control of his temper while he held the child. He was a different man now. He was titled, respected, with an heir and a wealthy estate.He was a guest of the king of England.
But he would not allow this woman, little more than a peasant, to think she could ever talk down to him again. To think herself free to discourse on the sordid facts of their earliest years with some sort ofpridewhen it had been the thing that had nearly meant the ruination of Glayer’s mind.
It was a miracle he was still sane.
He walked past her calmly toward the bed, where he reached out with one hand and made a careful nest for Glander. He tucked the baby into the sumptuous coverings with a smile and a tweak of his nose and then turned to walk back to Eseld.
Glayer drew his left arm across his body. The old woman had no idea what he meant to do as he swung with all his might, the back of his hand striking the side of her face and spinning her on her feet before she fell to the floor. He straddled her body and put his left hand around the loose folds on her skinny neck, and even though she struggled with both her hands on his wrist, it did not cost Glayer much effort to cause her face to purple.
Behind him on the bed, Glander whimpered.
“Your lascivious sire,” Glayer said calmly, looking down into her face with as little expression as he could train his face, “did not provide me with shite.When I asked him for my earnings to depart that desolate spit of land and seek my greater fortune, he laughed at me.Laughed at me.” Here he shook her neck so that her skull banged against the floor. “Said he wouldn’t let loose free labor and that anything I ever earned would belong to him.” Glayer leaned close to her face, now clammy and pebbled with sweat, Eseld’s eyes bulging. “That was the day he fell. Only he didn’t fall—I killed him.”
He released her throat and stood, stepping back and watching her as she writhed onto her side with a wheeze.
“The only reason I didn’t kill you, too, is because I was in too much of a hurry to leave. But I have all the time in the world now, Mother. You’ll do well to remember that.” He turned and walked to the bed to pick up and hopefully quiet the child, who had begun to cry in earnest.
“That’s quite enough, Glander,” he soothed. “It’s over now.”
Eseld had gained her hands and knees but moved no further, crouched there on the rug, rocking herself.
“You’re dismissed until I send for you,” he said to her. “Show yourself out.”
“No,” she rasped and looked up at him, her expression stricken atop her swelling face. “Please—don’t send me away. I’m sorry. You needed to teach me, I see. Please don’t take him from me—my grandson. Glander. Please, don’t take him.”
She was crawling toward him now, and the sight so disgusted him that he felt his stomach lurch. And so he met her halfway across the floor, moving the still-crying Glander to his left shoulder while he grasped the back of Eseld’s faded black kirtle. He dragged the old woman to the door while she cried out in a wheeze and dropped her in a heap before he opened the door.
“Quiet!” he barked at Glander, who startled into silence, his fist in his mouth.
Glayer regained his hold on Eseld long enough to toss her into the corridor. “You’d also do well to consider the limitations of your station. There are all too many nurses eager to take your place,” he warned in a cold voice and looked up to see a noble couple pausing on their way down the corridor. He met their gazes directly, almost hoping one of them would challenge his actions.
