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“And what? Pull out his fingernails? Lash him until he bleeds? Mayhap kill him without finding out anything?”
“It is none of your affair, damn you. I am lord here. I will do just as I deem right. I will have nothing more out of your mouth and—”
Suddenly, Trist inched up Severin’s chest, rubbed his chin on Severin’s chin, then laid himself over Severin’s mouth, his long tail curling around Severin’s ear.
“Drink this,” Hastings said to him. “It is more gentian to calm you.” But it was Graelam who gently moved Trist and held the goblet to his mouth, not moving it until Severin had drunk it all down. “The witch will poison me,” he said, then clos
ed his eyes.
“No, I shan’t poison you. I would rather hit your head with the trowel.”
His eyes closed. His breathing deepened.
Hastings said, as she stared down at him, “He’s a very big man, Graelam. That first bit of gentian I gave him wasn’t enough.”
“Aye,” Graelam said slowly.
The man retched violently for five minutes before he begged for her to cure him. He lay on his side in pools of his own vomit, clutching his belly, whimpering. “Please, lady, please save me. I will tell you what you wish. Please.”
Hastings smiled at Graelam and Severin. She motioned to the pathetic man and rose.
She prepared the gentian flowers, smashing them into a fine powder, then mixing them slowly with warm ale that had sat in the sun. She swished it about in the goblet as she watched Severin stand over the man, careful not to step in his vomit. There were at least another dozen men forming a circle around them. The sun shone hot overhead. The stench was bad.
It had been Graelam’s suggestion that they haul the man outside. Why befoul the dungeon?
“You are no villager as you’ve claimed. Tell me where your master is and what his intentions are.”
The man paled. His eyes flew around the circle of men. He started to shake his head. His belly cramped viciously and he vomited, dry heaves for there was nothing left to come up. When he caught his breath, he whispered, “My lord Richard is just beyond with two dozen men in the Pevensey Forest. The three of us disguised ourselves as villagers. Since it is market day, it wasn’t difficult to come into the castle gates. We saw her and took our chance.” He turned miserable eyes toward Hastings. “Give me the cure, my lady, I beg of you.”
Hastings looked to Severin. He looked thoughtful. If she didn’t know of the deep wound in his shoulder she wouldn’t guess there was anything wrong with him at all. She waited, swirling the liquid about in the goblet. It smelled foul but tasted sweet, the flower mixed with the ale. The man was staring at that goblet. She didn’t blame him. Still, she just waited. It was Severin’s decision. She wondered if he would simply slip his dagger into the man’s chest.
Severin said, “Give him the potion, Hastings.”
She came down on her knees and gently tilted the goblet into the man’s mouth. “Drink slowly,” she said. “Very slowly. Then the men will carry you into the shade and you will sleep for a while. When you awake, your belly will be calm.”
When the man slept propped up against the side of a pigsty, Severin said to all the men, “I am releasing him. He will take a message to Richard de Luci. Graelam, come with me whilst I write the message.”
He knew how to write. She wasn’t really surprised. She supposed nothing he did could surprise her. Actually, she was relieved. It meant that she wouldn’t have to keep a close eye on her father’s steward, Torric. Her father had also known how to write and he’d been proud of that fact, telling her that a man shouldn’t be at the mercy of another man, particularly when it came to goods and money.
She trailed after the men into the great hall. She wondered if she would have released the man or stuck a dagger in his gullet. Her father would have killed him with great relish, denying him the curing potion, very probably taunting him with it until he stuck his sword in his chest.
It was late that day when they released the man. He looked toward Hastings, his eyes bright with gratitude. Had he already forgotten that it had been she who’d brought on his vomiting in the first place?
“I expect an answer from your master on the morrow,” Severin said. “If he refuses to exercise his reason, I will kill him and then I will raze his castle.”
Graelam said, “Before Severin dispatches Richard de Luci to hell, our lady here will force a potion down his throat that will make him vomit until his head bursts open.”
The man paled and nodded. After he rode from Oxborough, they buried Lord Fawke of Trent, Earl of Oxborough, in the plot beside the wife he’d had killed eight years before. Father Carreg spoke the words. The men were silent. Chickens squawked in the background, pigs rutted in the midden, cows mooed from beyond the wall.
Then Father Carreg raised his voice. “I hereby give Lord Fawke’s sword to his heir and successor, Lord Severin of Langthorne-Trent, Baron Louges and third Earl of Oxborough.”
Severin drew the sword from its sheath. He raised it high over his head as he spoke in a loud, clear voice, “I accept my responsibilities and hold them as dear as I will hold my possessions. I will accept fealty from all my men before the end of summer.”
There was loud cheering, not just from the men but from the women as well. She could even hear shrieks from the children. Several dogs barked loudly. The entire inner bailey pulsed with sound and life. And acceptance. Of him.
For the first time, Hastings realized to the very depths of her that her life would never be the same again. Everything had changed. There was no going back. There was a new master. He was her master.
All owed fealty to him now and to him alone. She knew he would travel to her father’s three other castles—now his possessions—accepting oaths of fealty, determining which men would act in his stead during his absences. She wondered if any of her father’s vassals would object to Severin’s rule.
