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that makes men weep. The Lady Marjorie surpasses all
ladies. She is a goddess. She is a beautiful creature
that will make men dream throughout eternity.”
Hastings wanted to scream. She looked at Severin, who was staring fixedly at Marjorie. Could he not tell that the jongleur’s rhyme hadn’t rhymed?
Marjorie was laughing, waving her hand in dismissal to the troubadour.
The jongleur bowed deeply to Severin, then to Hastings, and finally, he fell to his knees before Marjorie, but she was just laughing at him, waving him away, shaking her beautiful head.
Hastings wanted to die.
But first she wanted to kill that beautiful creature who made men dream throughout eternity.
But even before that, she would kill the damned jongleur.
Severin came to their bed very late. She was still awake. She said nothing, just listened to him strip off his clothes—she heard every movement he made. She saw him in her mind’s eye. He was naked, beautifully naked, hard and lean. He did not touch her.
She felt Trist snuggle against her back.
Just before dawn, she awoke to warmth, a man’s warmth. She sighed deeply. He had come to her. She opened her eyes, expecting to see him over her, but Severin was lying on his side, still deeply asleep. She was pressed against his back, Trist against hers.
She eased her hand around his flank and pressed her palm against his belly. Then lower until she held him in her hand. He turned onto his back, arching up slightly.
He kissed her even as she continued to caress him. He said into her mouth, “Ah, Marjorie.”
Hastings dropped him, leaned close to his face, and yelled, “You whoreson! You kiss me as I caress you and speak her name? May you rot in hell, Severin!”
She jerked the blankets off him, sending Trist scampering to the foot of the bed, and rolled off the other side. She wrapped herself tightly in the blankets and ran from the bedchamber.
The jongleur was in the great hall, leaning against one of the stone walls, eating MacDear’s fresh black bread, doubtless writing a poem to Lady Marjorie’s exquisite ears. She ordered him to leave Oxborough after he had chewed that last bite of bread. She didn’t believe she could bear seeing him fall again on his knees in front of Marjorie.
She was thinking hard. She must be patient, that’s what Dame Agnes had told her. How could she not do something when he whispered that woman’s name into Hastings’s mouth?
She looked up to see Severin standing at her elbow, looking down at her.
“You pulled the blankets from me and ran away. Why?”
“If I had a sword, I would have sent it through your belly.”
“I have told you before, Hastings, before you had bent your will to mine, that a wife doesn’t threaten her husband.”
“Nay, you did not ever say that.”
“If I did not, then I should have. I will say it now. Never threaten
me, Hastings.”
“Even when you whisper another woman’s name into my mouth?”
Severin picked up her goblet and drank the rest of Gilbert the goat’s milk. He set it down and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. He shrugged. He had the gall to just shrug, as if what he had done was nothing at all.
“It makes no matter if I yelled the Virgin Mary’s name. You will not act the shrew again with me. Fetch me bread and cheese. Ah, and some of that beef MacDear made last night. I am hungry.”
Trist poked his head out of Severin’s tunic, one of the tunics Hastings had made for him. He stuck his paw toward her and Hastings, smiling in spite of herself, shook his paw.
She rose from the trestle table bench. She tightened the blankets around her. She leaned down to pat Edgar the wolfhound’s head. She accepted the lick on her palm. “I do not think so, Severin. However, I will tell one of the women to serve you.”
