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Graelam smiled and shook his head. “Nay, I begged her to forgive me. If I had ever struck her, why, it would have killed her. Certainly you know that you cannot strike a woman, Severin. A woman is slight, weak, helpless. Nay, Severin, tell me you have never struck a woman.”
“Damnation, Graelam, this is all nonsense. You are weaving a fine tale. I believe you not. No, I have never struck a woman. All I have known have obeyed me without hesitation, without question. But now I am married and what I fully expected I did not get. My wife is ordered by God to obey me. She ignored God’s will. Will I discipline her? Aye, I doubt that not. The how of it, however, I have not yet decided on that as yet.”
That was something, Graelam thought.
“What am I to do now that you have taken my manhood and hunted down de Luci yourself?”
“You will take your men to Sedgewick Castle and put Sir Alan in charge. He is a good knight, a fair man, and more than that, you can trust him. He can be your castellan until the king decides what is to be done with de Luci’s daughter and his property. I would also suggest that you remove the girl child and bring her here. Hastings can look after her. I think that King Edward might make you her guardian, to protect her from greedy men, just as you married Hastings to protect her. On the other hand, the king might well appoint himself as her guardian and send his own man to control Sedgewick.”
“Aye, it depends on the wealth of the property. The king is no fool. Did you kill Richard de Luci yourself?”
“Actually, he slipped on a pile of rabbit bones and fell, striking his head against the rock upon which he’d been resting. He died right there. We left some of his men alive to see to him and the others that we killed.”
“I would not have let him slip on a rabbit bone. I would have fought him, knife to knife, and I would have slid it into his belly.”
Graelam just smiled. “I suppose these things happen and we must swallow our wounded vanity and be relieved that we are alive to tell the tale of our dead enemy. Think you, Severin, do you believe this Richard de
Luci is pleased to be in hell, dispatched by a rabbit bone and a rock rather than fighting to the death with an equal?”
There was no hope for it. Severin grinned. Then he laughed. He righted the fallen trestle table. He looked up to see the servants talking again, not in whispers now, not since they heard his laugh. Edgar snored again on the hearth, his huge head resting on his folded paws, paws the size of bowls. The silver laver was dented. He frowned at it. She said it had belonged to her grandmother. It was old and now it was dented. He would ask the armorer if he could pound out the dents.
His shin hurt.
Yet he laughed until Graelam said, all sober and cold behind him, “You lied to me, didn’t you? You wouldn’t have really forced her here in the great hall? You wouldn’t have really hurt her so that she bled?”
“No,” Severin said, and turned on his heel. He said over his shoulder, “It was the only threat I could think of that would bring her to heel. I would not have wounded her. The blood is hers. It is her monthly flux.”
“Ah. Your threat to bring her to heel. It worked. I had wondered why she fled. How is your shin?”
7
HASTINGS DIDN’T TOUCH THE LITTLE GIRL, JUST CROUCHED down in front of her. “What is your name?”
The child just stared up at her, pale as a bolt of undyed cotton, her blue eyes wide and unblinking.
“My name is Hastings. Come, what is yours?”
The child’s lashes fluttered. “My name is Eloise,” she whispered, her eyes on Hastings’s neck, no higher.
“A lovely name, much nicer than mine, but Hastings is a good name, the name of the firstborn girl in my family since Lord William’s famous battle.”
“I know about that,” Eloise said. “Mama said that Lord William was sent by God to redeem the savage Saxons.”
Hastings had never before heard that particular opinion on God’s use of William. Her knees hurt. She rose and held out her hand to the little girl. “Would you like a cup of milk? Gilbert the goat has blessed us today. And you can taste some of MacDear’s almond buns. They’re quite delicious, you know.”
The thin little girl with large blue eyes just stared up at Hastings and slowly shook her head. Her skinny brown braids didn’t move. “My mama said gluttony was a special sin.”
St. Osbert’s elbows, what was this? “I won’t let you eat more than just one of MacDear’s almond buns. No, just a small bite of one, all right?”
The child looked very worried. She tugged on her ugly, faded green wool gown that was several inches too short on her, showing small scuffed slippers and baggy woolen stockings that had been mended many times. “I can’t ask my mama if it is all right. She went to Heaven.”
“Aye, I know, and I am sorry, Eloise. I don’t think she would think just one almond bun would be gluttony.”
“Aye, your mama would quickly pronounce it gluttony, and you know it, Eloise. I’ll thank you, my lady, not to tempt the child.”
Hastings turned to the older woman who wore a very ugly black gown, her black hair pulled back in a severe knot at the back of her head. Her face was severe, a black mustache on her upper lip, her expression cold. She gave the woman a look she would give to a servant who had spoken out of turn. “You are?” One of her eyebrows arched up. That was always a good effect, one her mother had taught her so many years before.
The woman fidgeted. That was a good sign. She fidgeted some more, saying finally, “My name is Beale, my lady. I am Eloise’s nurse and was Lady Joan’s nurse as well.”
