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“Ah, that is a relief.” Lady Moraine fell back again, and in but a moment she was breathing low and even in sleep.
Severin pushed into her again, he couldn’t help himself. He stayed within her, looking at himself joined into her. He leaned over to fondle her breasts, to knead her belly.
He had given her no pleasure. But he would. He was regaining his manly vigor. He pushed again, slowly, and was pleased that he was hard again. He withdrew, pulled her onto her back, and came over her again. He lay flat on top of her, his hands cupping her face, gently smoothing her hair from her forehead and eyes.
“I wish I could see you clearly. Do you want to hollow out my guts again with your fist? Do you believe me selfish? Do you believe Alice would find me unworthy?”
“Nay,” she said, and brought his mouth down to hers. She felt his fingers smoothing over her belly, felt those fingers of his become damp with her as they stroked her. When she would have cried out in her pleasure, no thought of her mother-in-law twelve feet away from her, Severin covered her mouth with his and took her cries deep into him.
He said on the edge of sleep, “I will fix Langthorne on the outside if you will fix it on the inside.”
“Aye, I will do that,” she said, bit his shoulder, kissed the salty flesh she had bitten, and curled tightly against him. She said against his chest, “Haven’t I brought you to heel very well, my lord?”
But Severin was asleep, at least she thought he was, at first. But was not that snore a bit too loud? Perhaps a bit contrived? Was his hand squeezing her buttock a bit hard?
He was a man she could get very used to having close by, she thought, and settled even closer. Her palm was splayed wide on his belly.
The following morning when Severin awoke, Hastings was gone. He saw that his mother still slept. It worried him until he lightly touched his fingertips to her throat. The beat was strong.
When he entered the great hall, his chair was seated at the trestle table, there was white linen covering the wood, and a pewter plate set in front of the chair. The hall was filled with men. There were at least four women serving dozens of loaves of bread, the smell rich and yeasty. There was butter and flagons of ale. There was even cold capon for him. He had told her to fix the inside of Langthorne. Evidently she had. But this quickly? Was she a witch? Where was she?
He ate, Gwent and Thurston on each side of him. Sir Roger sat beside Thurston, his look determined. Severin said nothing. He saw Glenda serving the men. She did not look happy but she was moving quickly, her movements graceful and efficient.
Where was Hastings?
He was nearly finished breaking his fast when there was a sudden silence in the great hall. He looked up to see Hastings standing beside his mother—aye, it was his mother, but he would not have believed it except Hastings was there as well. She was clean, her hair was combed and braided loosely about her head. She was wearing a gown fitted at the waist, the arms fitting tightly to the elbows, then flaring out so that they touched the ground when her arms were lowered. There was a set of keys on the gold chain about her waist. She was smiling. Then she looked up at Hastings and laughed at something she said. It wasn’t a mad laugh, but a sweet, bright laugh.
She didn’t look at all mad.
He felt a spurt of optimism, then shook his head. No, he remembered that she could be like this following those deep, long sleeps of hers. It was just a matter of time before her mind faded again and she would look at him as she would look at a stranger. He noticed she was limping slightly.
His mother smiled at everyone until she saw Glenda. She shrank against Hastings. Severin rose and strode to them.
“Mother?”
“Aye. My Severin. Is it really you?” She raised a thin, white hand and lightly stroked his face. “All the others are dead, your father, your brother, but you are not, thank the gracious Lord. You are very handsome, my son. I am glad you are home.”
He hugged her, saying in her ear, “Don’t be afraid of that plump wench over there. I will see to it that she never comes near you again.”
“She is not a nice girl,” Lady Moraine said, and hugged her son. “I am very hungry. Have you eaten everything or is there a heel of bread left for your poor mother?”
She was jesting with him. He looked over at Hastings, whose expression was unreadable. Why wasn’t she smiling like a loon? What was wrong?
He escorted his mother to the high trestle table and sat her in the lady’s chair beside him, a chair she had sat in her entire married life. He himself served her. He looked down and saw that Sir Roger was staring at her as if she were a ghost come to plague him. Clearly his mother had not done well here under his care. Had he never allowed her to eat in the great hall?
As for Glenda, that wench didn’t seem to be paying any attention at all to the high table, her eyes on her wooden plate, her knife stabbing at the thick slice of bread. He would ask Hastings to get to the bottom of this. What had Glenda really done to his mother?
He himself found out the answer to that question that same afternoon when he chanced to leave the men who were working on the western outer wall to have Hastings bathe and bandage a cut he had on his thumb. Actually, it was Gwent who had told him to seek out his wife. “Aye, my lord,” he had said, looking at that bleeding thumb, “your wife would have my toes for mulch were I not to send you to her.”
And so here he
was, standing in front of the open door to the lord’s bedchamber. He heard voices from within. He started to open the door and stride in when he recognized his mother’s voice, but not her voice from the previous evening. No, this voice was low and thin, a thread of fear in it, and it raised the hair on the back of his neck.
“I knew Sir Roger as a boy. He was sweet and slow and his father forced him to learn to be a knight. He had no chance against you. You have made a fool of him. You shan’t have him. My son will not allow it. You thought I would die, didn’t you, when you forced me into the forest with no cloak and no slippers?”
“Aye,” Glenda said, and she didn’t sound a bit scared. Indeed, there was venom and resolution in her voice. “I’ll be rid of you again, you mad old woman. You don’t belong here. As soon as Lord Severin and that bitch wife of his leave, I will take over again and you will see who is the real mistress of Langthorne. Until then I will bide my time. Aye, I will continue to sew more of my gowns for you since I have no choice, but when we are alone again, you old crone, then you will wear what you deserve to wear: rags and naught else. To waste clean water on the likes of you, it turns my belly. Aye, you’ll see. It won’t be long until your son leaves. You believe anyone will heed you? No, all wait for you to sink into your stupor of madness again. No one will believe you if you say anything against me.”
Then he heard the sound of a hand slapping flesh. He opened the door to see Glenda over his mother, his mother sitting in a narrow chair, Glenda holding both her arms, leaning close to his mother until she was pressed against the back.
