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“Aye, I will wed her,” Severin said. “I thank you for selecting me.”
Graelam said, “I have told you she is comely, Severin. She will please you just as you will please her.”
Fawke of Trent sensed the young man freeze into stone when he said in that damnably weak voice of his, “All I ask is that you take my name. I have no son. I do not want my line to die out. You will own all my lands, all my possessions, collect all my rents, become sovereign to all my men. You will protect three towns, own most of the land in the towns, accept fealty from three additional keeps. I have nearly as much coin as King Edward, but I have told him I am barely rich, for I don’t wish him to tax me out of my armor. Aye, you will wed my daughter.”
“I cannot take your name, Fawke of Trent.”
Graelam said, “Severin, you need not efface your own name. It is long known and you will continue to wear it proudly. Nay, what is to be done is that you simply add the family name of Trent to yours and the earl’s title to your current one. You will then become Severin of Langthorne-Trent, Baron Louges, Earl of Oxborough. King Edward agrees and has given his blessing to this union.”
It would serve, Fawke thought, wishing again that he could see the young man clearly. His voice was deep and strong. Graelam had assured him that he was of healthy stock. He said, “My daughter will be a good breeder. She is built like her mother. She is young enough, just eighteen. You must have sons, Severin, many sons. They will save both our lines and continue into the future.”
Oddly, Severin thought of Marjorie. He remembered clearly the glory of her silvery hair, her vivid blue eyes that glistened when she laughed and darkened to a near black when she reached her release. Then her image dimmed. He had not thought of her in a very long time. She had long since been married off to another man. She was buried in a past that he would no longer allow to haunt him.
He said to Fawke, “Graelam has told me her name is Hastings. Surely a strange name for either a male or a female.”
Fawke tried to smile, but the muscles in his face wouldn’t move upward. He felt the deep weakness drawing on him, pulling him toward bottomless sleep, but he managed to say low, “All firstborn daughters in my line since the long-ago battle have been named Hastings in honor of our Norman victory and our ancestor, Damon of Trent, who was given these lands by William in reward for his loyalty and valor, and, of course, the hundred men he added to William’s force.”
His eyelids closed. He looked waxen. He looked already dead. He said, voice blurred with pain and weariness, “Come to me when you are ready. Wait not too long.”
“Two hours.”
Graelam motioned for Severin to follow him from the chamber. He nodded to a woman who went in and sat beside Fawke of Trent, to watch over him whilst he slept.
“Aye, if we can find Hastings, it will be done in two hours,” Graelam said. “She is usually working in her herb garden. Aye, it must be tonight. I am afraid that Fawke won’t survive until the morrow.”
“As you will. Trist is hungr
y. I would feed him before giving my name to this girl Hastings.” Severin reached his hand into his cloak and pulled out the marten. He raised the animal to his cheek and rubbed his flesh against the soft fur. “No, don’t try to eat my glove, Trist. I will give you pork.” He raised his eyes to Graelam’s face. “No other of his species eats much other than rats and mice and chicken, but when I was captured near Rouen last year and thrown into Louis of Mellifont’s dungeon, he had more rats on his dinner plate than a village of martens could eat. He didn’t have to hunt them down. All he had to do was wait until one came close, kill it, and eat. After I escaped, he wouldn’t hunt another rat. I believed he would starve until he decided that he would eat eggs and pork. It is strange, but he survives and grows fat.”
Graelam said, “He poked his head out a few moments ago. It seemed to me he didn’t like being in Fawke of Trent’s bedchamber. He quickly withdrew again.”
“He remembers the smell of sickness and death from the dungeon. Not many of us survived.”
“Aye, well, now he will eat all the pork he wishes.” Graelam paused a moment on the winding stone stairs. “Severin, I have known Fawke and Hastings for a goodly number of years. Hastings was a clever little girl and she has grown up well. She knows herbs, and over the years she has become a healer. She is bright and gentle. She is not like her mother. As the heiress of Oxborough, she will fulfill her role suitably. I will have your word that you will treat her well.”
Severin said in an emotionless, cold voice, “It is enough that I will wed her. I will protect her from the scavengers who are already on their way here, just waiting for the old man to die so they can come and steal her. That is all I promise—that, and to breed sons off her.”
“If she were not here to be wed, then you would have to become another man’s vassal. You would still be Baron Louges but you would watch your lands turn hard and cold with no men to work them.”
“They are already hard and cold. There is naught left there.”
“You will have the money to make things right. You will have Hastings as your wife. She will oversee the management of Oxborough when you are visiting your other estates.”
“My mother wasn’t able to oversee anything. When I arrived at Langthorne, she was huddled in filth, starving, afraid to come into the sunlight. I doubt she even recognized me. She is a woman with a woman’s mind and now that mind is mired in demons. She is quite mad, Graelam. She could not hold Langthorne together. She could not do anything save whine and huddle in her own excrement. Why would I expect anything different from this Hastings? From any woman? What do you mean she isn’t like her mother?”
“Her mother was faithless. Fawke found she had bedded the falconer. He had her beaten to death. Hastings isn’t like her mother.” He thought of the girl Severin had wanted to wed, this Marjorie. He had spoken of her long ago, with a dimmed longing. Did he think little of her also?
“We will see.”
Severin was a hard man but he was fair, at least he was fair to other men. Graelam knew there was nothing more he could do. He missed his wife and sons. He wanted to leave as soon as these two were married. He rather hoped Hastings would approve her father’s choice, though that didn’t particularly matter.
2
Sedgewick Castle
RICHARD DE LUCI STARED DOWN AT HIS WIFE’S VOMIT-stained night shift. He wished it was a shroud. When would she die, damn her? She moaned, her back bowing upward. Pain rippled the slack flesh of her face. Her mouth twisted and opened.
He wished he could just throttle her right here and now, but the priest was standing at his elbow, four of her women hovered next to her bed, and his steward hadn’t left the odorous chamber for three hours.
