“Father lied,” Hastings said, sipping the new wine. “The wine comes from Aquitaine. I faced him with it several years ago after speaking with a wine merchant.” She laughed. “Anything and everything from William the Conqueror or Normandy, Father wanted to claim as his own. Just look at all our names.”
“It is a tradition of long standing,” Lady Janet said. “Mayhap it is written of somewhere at Oxborough and we will find it someday. It is time for dinner. I hope you will enjoy our cook’s food, Hastings. She isn’t MacDear, but I have taught her well.”
All the Oxborough men-at-arms were on their best behavior. There was no spitting into the rushes, no pummeling the dog, whose place was beside the fireplace, no belching. The meal was quite good. But conversation was difficult. Hastings was relieved when it was over.
The four girls were delighted to give their chamber to their sister and her husband. All of them wanted to sleep with their mother, a treat rarely granted.
“This is all very strange,” Severin said as he stripped off his clothing. The bedchamber was small but beautifully furnished with four trunks, each one covered with a thick brocade with a girl’s name on it. There were rugs on the floor. There was a screen in the corner and behind it a bathing tub. The bed was narrow, covered with a thick bear fur.
Severin was so self-sufficient, Hastings thought, watching him. Most men must have their page to assist them. He was also beautiful. She wondered if he was also thinking of what Rosehaven meant to him and his future.
“Aye,” she said, her fingers on the laces of her gown. “I have four sisters.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Shame? Mayhap he believed all would think him weak if they knew he hadn’t really killed his wife, but took her elsewhere and stayed with her.”
“It teases my brain, Hastings. But he must have realized that I would learn of this.”
“I must suppose that he believed a dead man wouldn’t care if he were reviled or praised. Shame would not be able to touch him.”
He grunted and climbed naked into the sweet-smelling bed. She pulled her gown over her head. “Where is Trist?”
“With the girls. I hope he does not swoon with all the adoration he is receiving with those four.”
She slipped into bed beside him.
“Why are you wearing your shift?”
“Your mind is far away from carnal thoughts, Severin. I did not wish to tempt you.”
He laughed and helped her pull the shift over her head. He threw it onto the floor. He was always very neat with his own clothing, but with hers—she sighed and curled up next to him.
“Tell me what we are going to do,” she said, kissing his shoulder.
“Rosehaven,” he said, even as he began to stroke her hair. “She named it Rosehaven because of her flowers. She gave you her joy and ability with herbs and plants.”
“Aye. Tomorrow she wants to show me the rose she named after me.”
“It has thorns, I doubt it not. Big ones.”
“I would not want to be a boring, placid sort of flower.”
“A thorn in my side,” he said, turning to face her. “Your mother has lived here for nearly ten years. It is her home. It is well protected. I have no idea what to do, Hastings.”
“We will ask her,” Hastings said. She didn’t stroke her hands over her husband. Indeed, her fists were against his chest. “My mother never cried when she heard my father was dead,” she said. “She did not even seem to care.”
“You do not know that. Today everything is too new to both of you. It will take time for you to know each other’s hearts again. Fret not about it now, Hastings, and love your husband.”
She did with pleasing enthusiasm.
“I have four sisters,” Hastings said against his throat before she fell asleep some time later.
And I will have to dower all of them, Severin thought, then smiled. He had never before had sisters and now he had four of them. He decided then that he wanted them to come back to Oxborough. He wanted to be surrounded by family. He wanted to be responsible for them, to protect them. Aye, he liked the thought of four little sisters.
“This is my home. I cannot leave Rosehaven.”
Lady Janet was serene, calm, all those tranquil and even-tempered qualities Hastings didn’t have and would probably never have.
She sat forward, saying earnestly, “Mother, we cannot allow you to remain here. I have found you after nearly ten years. I have found my sisters. You must come back to Oxborough. It is your first home.”
“I do not want the memories that would be there, lurking, waiting to hurt me.”
“There are no more bad memories. Severin cast them all out when he came.”
Severin looked back and forth between mother and daughter. He knew what Hastings would look like now in her older years and it pleased him. Ah, but he prayed she wouldn’t become the placid woman her mother was. No, he wanted her passion, her laughter, her yelling when she wanted to kill him. He wanted their children.
He prayed he would never see Marjorie again. He would never tell Hastings that he had once come close to taking her. It was that second night when he’d tied Hastings by that damnable rope to Edgar the wolfhound. But he hadn’t gone with Marjorie. He had looked over at his sleeping wife, her head against Edgar’s neck, and had managed to deny himself. The next morning it had been easier. Then Hastings had seduced him.
A wife seducing her husband. Surely it did not happen all that often. But she had. He swallowed, remembering that afternoon spent in the forest. It had left only her in his mind.
“I know!”
He was jerked out of his thoughts at Harlette’s shout. Trist was wrapped around her skinny neck, but she was grinning widely.
“Mother does not want to leave her gardens.”
“But we want her to,” Marella said, rubbing Trist’s chin just as Severin had showed her.
“That’s right,” Matilda said, sidling up to Severin. “We don’t want Mother to give all her time to her flowers. We want her to give her time to us.”
Normandy stood there, arms folded over her chest. She was a beautiful girl and would soon grow to be a beautiful woman. She would, Severin thought, grow to look just like Hastings.
“Mother,” Normandy said very slowly, very calmly. Completely unlike Hastings, Severin thought. “I agree with my sisters. You spend too many of your hours plucking at your blooms. We learned that we only have you in the winter. This isn’t good. We have spoken of it and would like to return to Oxborough. Our brother”—she nodded to Severin—“has agreed to let you have two gardens within the inner bailey.”
Severin had agreed to no such thing. He said without hesitation, “It is true, my lady. Your blooms are welcome next to Hastings’s. She must needs still learn from you. I saw that her columbine wasn’t what it should be. Her lupine isn’t as vivid as yours.”
Lady Janet looked at each of her daughters in turn. Then she frowned at Hastings. “You, my daughter, are the mistress of Oxborough. I fear I could not settle to be an adjunct to your household. I have controlled Rosehaven entirely for nearly ten years, since your father was not often here. Even when he was here, his mind was not on castle matters. I am used to doing things as I wish them to be done. I am needed here.”
The four girls sighed and looked wistfully at Severin and Hastings.
Two days later a compromise was reached. Lady Janet and her daughters would spend the winter months at Oxborough. “After all,” Harlette said, “we all flourish in the winter, unlike the flowers. We will have her all to ourselves.”
“I want to be with Trist,” Normandy said, rubbing her cheek against Trist’s chin.
“What about me?” Hastings asked to no one in particular.
“You will have your husband,” Severin said. He added to his mother-in-law, “You will wish to be with Hastings when she births our first child this winter.”
Lady Janet’s eyes widened. She clapped her hands and shouted
, “I will have a grandson or granddaughter who will not be named after William the Conqueror or his wife or his mother.”
“Mother,” Marella said. “I am named after a horse. But I have accepted it. It was William’s favorite mare. Father once told me that not only did William love that mare, he always rode her when he visited Matilda. He said that William would say that the mare’s scent reminded him of Matilda’s.”
“How very odd,” Hastings said. “Surely he didn’t mean it like that.”
Marella shrugged. “Father said that Bishop Odo wanted the mare but William would not give her up.”
Lady Janet flung out her hands. There was, Severin saw, dirt beneath her fingernails. “Enough, Marella. I just wish Severin to promise me that he will not name his son Odo or Rolf or Grayson, the young man who was William’s groom. He came to a very bad end.”
“I swear it,” Severin said. “What do you say, Hastings?”
“I was thinking more of calling our son Lupine or perhaps Foxglove.”
Severin grabbed her and kissed her hard in front of her four sisters and her mother. When he allowed her a breath, Hastings grinned up at him and said, “How do you like Primrose, my lord, if we have a daughter?”
30
THERE WASN’T A CLOUD IN THE SKY WHEN DISASTER struck. The air was warm and the breeze from the sea some five miles distant was balmy when the first man fell off his horse, crying out as he clutched his belly.
It was over in minutes. Gwent was the last man to fall, his face contorted, his huge body heaving with pain.
Only Hastings and Severin were left.
The horses neighed, stomping, some of them rearing in fright.
Severin leapt off his horse, running to Gwent. “What happened? What is this, Gwent?”
“I do not know,” he said, struggling with the pain, “I do not know.” Then his head fell back over Severin’s arm. Severin cried out. Hastings was beside him in a moment.
“He’s not dead, Severin. Just a moment.” She checked the other men. “None are dead, but all are now unconscious. It has to be some sort of poison. It makes no sense. How could they be poisoned and not us?”
Severin sat back on his heels. “I know,” he said slowly. “Aye, I know. When we stopped at that village fair, the men all wanted ale. You and I wandered about for a little while and then you wanted to visit the forest nearby. Neither of us ate or drank anything. Just the men.”
“But who would do this? Do you think everyone at the fair was struck down?”
“I don’t know, but now I am concerned that it will be fatal.” He rose, grabbed his horse’s reins, and led him off the rutted road, tethering him to a tree. “We must get them all comfortable. Will it hurt the babe if you help me move them, Hastings?”
“Not at all. Let’s move quickly.”
He let Hastings carry the feet of two men who were too large for him to carry. The others he simply slung over his shoulder. They set up a camp not far off the road beside a small meadow filled with daisies and daffodils.
Hastings came down on her knees to examine Gwent. She raised his eyelids, smelled his breath, felt his heart, pressed her fingers against the pulse in his throat. “I just don’t know what it is, Severin.”
“I’m certain that my dear Marjorie could tell you, Hastings.”
Severin’s sword was out of its sheath in an instant, his muscles tensed, ready to fight, but he didn’t have the chance. They were surrounded by a dozen men all armed with swords and bows and arrows. In their center was Richard de Luci, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked about at all the unconscious men. He looked amused.
“You’re dead,” Severin said, staring at the man. “Lord Graelam de Moreton told me you were dead. You slipped on a rabbit bone and struck your head.”
“But you never found my body, did you? I heard about that and laughed and laughed. I have wondered what to do about you, Severin of Louges—”
Severin raised his head unconsciously. “I am now the Earl of Oxborough as well.”
“Aye, you got to her first.” Richard de Luci turned his attention to Hastings, who was kneeling beside Gwent.
“On the contrary,” Severin said, his hand tightening about his sword handle, “her father wanted me. Had he wanted you, doubtless he would have asked you. You were never meant to be anything other than what you are.”
Suddenly, without warning, de Luci was panting, his face suffused with rage. “You damned whoreson! That’s a lie. The old man was witless. I know that Graelam de Moreton pushed him to select you, aye, I know it well. You, Hastings, should have been wedded to me. I should have become the Earl of Oxborough. All that property, all the farms and villages that belong to you now, Severin. Was that filthy old man as rich as believed?”
“Aye, even richer,” Severin said, not moving a muscle, eyeing de Luci closely, seeing the rage diminishing slowly, thinking, thinking.
“Whoreson,” de Luci said again, his hand going to his sword. Then he stopped. He shook his head. He appeared a different man now, calm, still, his eyes no longer hungry and dead. He said in a thoughtful voice, “I have thought and thought about this. I reasoned at first that even with you dead, I would gain naught. The king would take Oxborough and all its properties and possessions. He would wed Hastings to another man of his choosing. Even if I were to wed Hastings after I killed you, the king might be angered beyond reason. He might seek retribution. Ah, but I have found the solution to the problem.”
“There is no solution. I won Hastings. All is mine. All will remain mine. Everything you reasoned is true. You poisoned my men. Will they live?”
“Aye, why not? Marjorie said it would just bring them low for a day or so. I asked her how she knew so much about poisons. She told me that she read many of Hastings’s herbal manuscripts. Well, she read about poisons. I nearly strangled her when I learned from one of my men that she had poisoned you, Hastings. But you escaped death and so did Marjorie.
“You two were to be unconscious as well. Actually, nearly everyone in that village will be vilely ill for a day. We didn’t know which ale stall you and your men would visit, so Marjorie had to poison all the ale. It wasn’t difficult to do, yet you two escaped. How?”
Hastings looked him straight in the eye. “You are a wicked man. You will gain naught from this save my husband’s enmity for the rest of time. I suggest that you flee like the coward you are. King Edward will never allow you back at Sedgewick. You will live and die an outlaw.”
“She is right,” Severin said. “Why have you attacked us? As you said, it will gain you naught. As for your solution, you haven’t one. Why?”
Richard de Luci crossed his arms over his chest. He looked beyond Hastings to the dozen men stretched on their backs, all unconscious, some snorting, some moaning and twitching. They were all covered with their blankets.
“It is difficult,” he said slowly, his eyes on Severin again, hatred deep in them. “My Marjorie wants you, Severin. But not just you, of course. She wants Oxborough as well as you. She wants to be a countess. She fears poverty, for her second husband left her with nothing. I have led her on, for she is a fine piece in my bed. Ah, but you, Hastings. I have determined that there is but one road for me to travel, and it will be my solution and my salvation. I will kill Severin, wed you, and take you into hiding until you are with child. I ask you, what would King Edward do then? Kill me, the man who sired the brat in your womb? I don’t think so.”
“He would kill you,” Severin said. “Even if you could weasel your way out of the king’s wrath, Lord Graelam de Moreton would kill you.”
“Not if I had Hastings, Severin. She is the key to everything. She and her womb.”
“You are too late.”
“Shut up, Hastings.” Severin spoke low, but one of de Luci’s men heard her and shouted, “My lord, I don’t understand, but she says you are too late.”
“Too late for what, Hastings?” Richard de Luci walked toward her, smiling at her, sheathing his s
word. “What?”
“I will kill you if you harm Severin. That is why you are too late. I love my husband and I will kill you.”
“Ah, so that is it. Well, we will see.” De Luci nodded to his men. Their sword tips were on Hastings in but a moment. “Now, my lord Severin,” de Luci said, “throw down your sword and your knife and let my men bind your hands.”
There was no hope for it. He saw the tip of one man’s sword pressed lightly against Hastings’s throat. He would kill that man. But now, he couldn’t do anything. Severin hated it, but there was no choice. There would be another time. He would see to that. But not now. Now, de Luci held control. De Luci took Hastings’s arm and pulled her away from Severin.
“You harm her in any way and I’ll kill you.”
“My lord Severin, both you and your wife are so taken with each other. Am I to believe that you want her for more than the wealth she brought you?”
Severin stared at the man, saying nothing. He wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. De Luci raised his hand. In the next instant, one of his men brought the butt of his sword down on Severin’s head. He collapsed where he stood. Trist mewled loudly and slithered from beneath his master.
The men jumped back.
“What is it? It is a weasel!”
“Mayhap it is a Devil’s familiar.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Hastings said, all the contempt and scorn she could muster in her voice, for she didn’t want Trist to be harmed. “He is a marten and a pet. Trist, come here.”
Trist ran to her, climbed her gown, and settled himself on her shoulder. He raised a paw toward Severin. “It’s all right, Trist. Severin will be all right. Just stay with me.”
Trist turned and rubbed his whiskers against her chin.
De Luci said, “Hastings, you may ride your own palfrey. Let us go.”
They left the Oxborough men lying unconscious.
When Severin regained consciousness a short time later, he found himself tied facedown over his warhorse, his hands bound behind him. De Luci saw he was conscious immediately and merely raised his hand to acknowledge him.