She held out her hand. “Come, Eloise, Lord Graelam is going to leave. I wish to say good-bye to him.”
Very slowly, faltering, Eloise finally put her small hand into Hastings’s.
Graelam looked down at the little girl, drew off his gauntlet, and laid his huge hand beside her cheek. “You will be a good girl. Hastings will take care of you. When you are older, perhaps you can come to visit me in Cornwall.”
Hastings watched this with a smile.
She also noticed that Eloise was too terrified to move. She stood there, her eyes wide with ill-disguised fright on the warrior who was leaning over her. It was as if Graelam noticed it as well. He sighed, smiled, patted Eloise, and straightened.
He said quietly to Hastings, “Her father brutalized her. Her mother evidently treated her like she was the spawn of the Devil, which she is, I suppose, but it isn’t her fault. Several of the servants told me Lady Joan had the child on her knees for hours every day before her prie-dieu. The Sedgewick people are glad their master is dead. I could see very little mourning for Lady Joan either. Did her husband poison her so he could kidnap and wed you? There is no doubt. But that is all in the past now. I don’t think Sir Alan will have any difficulty with any of the servants or the men-at-arms. Severin probably told you that there were several cheers when the people realized he was to be in charge. Even some of the farmers were cheering. Richard de Luci was a despicable man.”
Severin said as he strode up to them, “I have tried to find where they buried Richard de Luci. No one could or would tell me.”
“That seems odd,” Hastings said. “Since the Sedgewick people had no love for him, why would they not tell you? Why would they care?”
Severin shrugged. He looked down at the little girl who was, in truth, a scraggly little crumb. When she grew up he imagined she would be the kind of heiress a man would have to take to wife to gain her holdings. Unlike Hastings. He frowned at that. “You will send me a message when the king decides what to do with the child?”
Graelam nodded. He hugged Hastings, saying against her temple, “Be patient, Hastings. He is young. You will help him become as he should be.”
“And what would that be, my lord?”
“A man who cherishes his wife, a man who looks upon her and sees peace and love and lust.”
She tried to laugh, but it caught in her throat. “You speak of yourself, Graelam. This is very different. I am not Kassia, and Severin is nothing like you.”
“I see similarities. At least between Severin and me. As I said, be patient. You might consider holding your tongue on occasion, just to surprise him and throw him off guard. For the most part, a man needs a woman’s sharp tongue. It keeps him in good form.”
This time she did laugh. She hugged him. She didn’t want him to leave. Graelam was known to her, loved by her, and now he would leave and it could be years before she saw him again. She felt tears swim in her eyes. “God go with you, Graelam.”
“Aye, God and my man Northbert.”
Hastings, holding Eloise’s hand, watched Graelam and his men ride out of the inner bailey, Severin and several of his men riding with them.
“It is time for her prayers.”
Hastings turned slowly to face the woman Beale. “What did you say?”
“It is time for Eloise’s prayers. She must pray for three hours before she can eat her evening bread. It is what her mother wanted. Come, Eloise.”
The child was leaning one way and then the other. It took Hastings but a moment to figure out what was wrong. “First, Beale, Eloise must visit the jakes.”
It was in the jakes that Hastings saw the raw sores on the child’s knees.
“Hold still, Eloise. This won’t hurt. Indeed, it will make your knees feel cool.” Very carefully, Hastings laid the soaked bramble blossoms on Eloise’s raw knees. She hadn’t felt such anger in a very long time. Well, she had, but this was a very different anger from the sort she felt at Severin. She wanted to hurt someone. She wanted to hurt the child’s dead mother. How could a mother do such a thing to her child? Severin had said it—Lady Joan believed her own daughter to be the Devil’s spawn.
Eloise didn’t make a sound. Hastings wrapped her knees with strips of soft white wool. “There, you will be doing no praying on your knees for a good long time. Try not to bend your knees so that the bandages will stay tight.”
“But I must pray. My mama said I would go to hell if I didn’t purify myself each day.”
“What did your mama say when she saw your knees?”
The child hung her head. “She didn’t know. I never told her. She wanted me to pray, she wanted it so much.”
“Beale must have seen them when she helped you to dress and bathe.”
Eloise just nodded, her face still down. “Beale told me it was God’s punishment because my heart had black spots on it, black spots from my wicked father.”
Hastings turned at the sound of her chamber door opening. Beale was standing there, peering into the room. “The child must be at her prayers, my lady. I have come to get her. We will be in the chapel.”
Hastings slowly rose. “I don’t think so, Beale. I have seen Eloise’s knees. I have treated them. They will heal but she will do no kneeling for a very long time.”
“You have no say in this, my lady.” Beale came closer. The black mustache on her upper lip quivered. “I am the child’s nurse. It is I who must see to her soul now that her mama is dead, poisoned by that devil. Eloise carries his blood and his foulness. She will be cleansed. It matters not if her knees are a bit scraped.”
Hastings turned to see Eloise standing tall and straight beside her. “I will come with you, Beale. I don’t want Mama to suffer if I am wicked.”
“Your mama is in Heaven,” Hastings said. “She suffers no more.” She turned again to Beale, who was looking at the child as if she would beat her. “No, Eloise, you will stay with me. I will teach you about herbs. You will learn how to use them to help people. Beale, have you ever considered that Eloise is Lady Joan’s child, that she has the goodness of her mother and not her father, that she has no need for all this purification?”
“She looks like him, just like him, with those sly blue eyes and a tongue that twists with lies. She must be purified or she will become like him, evil and remorseless. She will die and none will mourn her.”
That did it. Hastings said even as her hands fisted in the folds of her gown, “I have decided that you will no longer tend to Eloise. I will see that you are returned to Sedgewick.”
“You cannot do that, lady! Your lord said I would see to her as I always have. He will see that you do not go against me. All know that he had to marry you, that he had no choice in the matter. He will protect me.”
Would Severin turn Eloise back to this wretched woman? If he even considered it, she would simply have to talk him out of it. “You will leave tomorrow morning, Beale. Your very presence offends me. You will have no more sway over Eloise. God doesn’t wish for children to be tortured.”
“God allowed my sweet lady to die in agony. God allowed her swine of a husband to murder her.”
“That is quite enough.” Hastings turned to Eloise. “ Listen to me, here is Dame Agnes. I wish you to go with her. She will show you my flowers and my herb garden. You can meet Gilbert the goat. You can help feed the chickens. She will show you the armory and you will meet Giles. He will make you a bow and arrows. I will teach you to shoot.”
Dame Agnes didn’t wait. She strode like a conquering warrior into Hastings’s chamber, took Eloise’s hand, and led her out. The child was clearly uncertain. She looked up at Beale. The woman said, “If you do any of these godless things, you will burn in hell, Eloise. Your mama will see to it. God will show you no mercy, for He will listen to your mama. God will listen to me. God always listens to me.”
Hastings waited until she heard Dame Agnes’ and Eloise’s footfalls on the solar stairs. She then walked to the woman and slapped her hard, making her head
snap to the side. She grabbed her skinny neck between her hands. “Listen to me, Beale. You are the wicked one here. You will never speak to Eloise again. Go now to your chamber and ready your clothes. You will leave early on the morrow.”
“Your lord will not allow this,” Beale said, Hastings’s handprint stark on her cheek. She was panting, not from the blow, Hastings was certain, but from rage. “You will pay dearly for this, lady. All men are the same. When he hears ill of you, he will believe it, and he will strike you down. I could see it in his face. Even though he is young, he is debauched and hard. He will grow harder and more brutal as he gains years. You will learn that you have no power. You will learn that you cannot treat me as you have. You are young and foolish. You will die young and foolish.”
“I suppose you will see that I die?”
“God gives us tools to help ourselves. I will see that you pay.”
Hastings wanted to strike her again but she didn’t. Beale was the first person she’d ever hit in her life. No, she remembered poking Tim the blacksmith’s son in the arm when she’d been all of ten years old and grown so quickly. He’d called her a maypole.
“Get away from me, Beale, before I vomit. Stay out of my sight until you leave in the morning. Aye, I will watch you leave to make certain it is done.”
After Beale had finally left the bedchamber, her venom still hanging in the still air, Hastings replaced the bramble blossoms in their marked drawer. She ground hyssop and savory. She worked slowly, careful not to spill any of the precious herbs. She began humming. Time seemed to slow and the very air around her seemed to become softer and warmer. She calmed.
She worked until the door opened and Severin looked in. He looked healthy, strong, his face and arms darkened by the bright sun. He was dressed all in gray, as was his habit. For the first time she saw him as a man, a young man in his prime, his body as solid as the keep walls. He was not at all displeasing to look at. She remembered that first time she saw him, the utter fear she’d felt when he’d stood in that bright shaft of light, large and mysterious, hidden, really, perhaps not really a man, but the Devil’s messenger.
She smiled at him.
He stopped short, staring at her as if she were a stranger. He looked down at her neat piles of ground herbs and frowned.
Her smile fell away. No, he wasn’t like Graelam and she wasn’t a bit like his Kassia. She was herself and it was obvious she didn’t please her husband. “How is your shoulder?”
As he walked toward her she noticed a tear in the sleeve of his gray tunic. He merely shrugged, saying, “It is sore but healing well. You saw it yourself this morning. What is happening, Hastings? That sour woman Beale with her black mustache accosted me and accused you of interfering in the child’s religious lessons. She said she was the only one to take care of Eloise, that Eloise’s mother had placed the child in her hands.”
“I wish you could have seen the child’s knees, Severin. They were raw from all the hours she’d been forced to kneel on the stone floor to pray. You’re right. I interfered. I gave Eloise over to Dame Agnes, who will begin to teach her about how to run a household. She will also teach her to play, perhaps even to smile eventually. I told Beale that she was leaving on the morrow.”
“She said you struck her.”
“Aye, I did. I slapped her as hard as I could and I did take her scrawny neck between my hands. I wanted to strangle her and I wanted to hit her again, I really did, but I managed to gain control. She is a frightening woman, Severin. I cannot trust her around Eloise.”
To her immense relief, Severin nodded. “I have two men going to Sedgewick on the morrow. They will escort her back.”
“Thank you.”
He paused a moment, looking down at the row of wooden drawers. “I remember my mother picked daisies at the full moon, crushed them, mixed them in some kind of oil, and laid them on her face. I remember that my father just laughed and told her that her freckles wouldn’t fade. But you know, I remember that they did.”
“Were the daisies white?”
“I do not remember the color. How much longer do you bleed, Hastings?”
How quickly she had become used to his frank speech. “Four more days.” A day longer than she’d known him. A day longer than she’d been wedded to him.
“My shoulder is nearly healed now. I do not like waiting. It isn’t wise.”
“Richard de Luci is dead. Who else is there to fear? I am your wife and no one can possibly know that you aren’t with me ten times a day.”
He laughed at that. “Your ignorance is piteous. You claim to be a healer, yet you know nothing about men. A man can’t take a woman that many times in a single day. Four times, perhaps five, if the woman is sufficiently skilled and enthusiastic. Beauty helps as well to stir a man’s passions.”
She was shaking her head. “Nay,” she said. “Nay, it would be too great a punishment. Five times?” She actually shuddered. “Even you would not force me that many times.” She saw him over her, felt him shoving into her, felt the grinding pain. No, it wasn’t possible.
“If five times is too many in your ignorant mind, then why were you braying about ten times?”
Her hands fluttered and fell to her sides. It was difficult to face him. “I don’t know. It was just a number I lifted from the air. I meant nothing by it, not really. I just said it. Besides, even five times would not be possible for you.”
“Now you insult my manhood.” He took a step toward her.
She said quickly, taking a step back, “Nay, I mean no insult to you. The insult is to myself. I have no skill, no enthusiasm, and I am not beautiful. You said that I was very ordinary.”
He did not like this quickness in her. This logic. He said with natural perversity, “I will teach you to be skilled. You are not ordinary. I said that simply because I did not want you to believe that since you are an heiress what beauty you possess places you above me.”
She’d never believed there was a vain bone in her body. She said, “You think I am beautiful?”
8
SEVERIN STARED AT HER A MOMENT. “NAY,” HE SAID slowly, wondering what was in her mind, “I would not extend myself that far, but you are comely for a wife. All know that wives are not meant to be anything above the ordinary. If they happen to be heiresses, as you are, then it is a joyous thing if they don’t have rabbit teeth, no more than one chin, and no hair sprouting off their lips like the woman Beale. In this, you have pleased me. It is not painful to look upon you. But still it doesn’t matter. Wives are not made for a man’s pleasure. They are made to bear a man’s children.”
“Lord Graelam loves his wife. He believes her beautiful. I believe he feels a great deal of lust for her. He told me that he missed her and their sons.”
“I do not understand why Graelam has fallen into this snare. I have met his wife. She is small, her smile is sweet, yet she jests with him and he smiles. She adores him. Perhaps it is this worship she has for him that has softened him toward her. Aye, that must be it.”
“That is ridiculous. You are ridiculous.”
He stared at her mouth. She knew he must be wondering how this mouth of hers could say such things to him. She wondered as well. She didn’t know him, she wasn’t stupid, and thus she took a quick step back.
“Aye, you’d best keep your distance, Hastings. I dare say that Kassia never spoke thusly to Graelam. None of this matters. I have told you how things will be between us. I will not tell you again. I will give you your four days, Hastings, then you will not leave my bed until I tell you that you may. You will bear a child in nine months. You will do it. I will not hear you say nay.”
“But becoming with child isn’t at all certain, Severin. Even I know that. There are women who never bear a child. Something is either lacking in them or in their husbands. No one knows what makes this happen, but you cannot be certain that we will be lucky.”
“You will become quickly with child. I know it.”
“How can you know
that? Have you sired many bastards? Nay, that isn’t possible. You are too young.”
He laughed. “A man can impregnate a woman each time he spills his seed in her. Years have naught to do with anything. But no, I haven’t sired many bastards. None here in England, but in the Holy Land, aye. All the women who came to me were skilled in preventing conception. Regardless, three of them became with child.”
There was stark pride in his voice. It amazed her. “What did you do about your children?”
“None of them survived. I was sorry for it. Two were sons. But there is all the proof I need. My seed is potent. Your belly will swell by the fall. Don’t argue further with me. You will have your four days.” He paused a moment, staring toward her herb drawers. “You will use nothing to prevent conceiving my child, Hastings.”
She could but stare at him. “I would have no idea how to even if I wished it. Do you think I have no honor, Severin?”
“You are a woman. Naturally you have no honor. Such a notion is beyond you.”
“Then why did I save your life? Why did I shove you out of the way of the assassin’s knife?”
He knew he was being unfair, but he didn’t care. He’d had to wed with her to gain enough wealth to bring Langthorne back. He had sworn to protect her from vermin like de Luci. What else could she expect from him? He said sharply, “You didn’t shove hard enough, did you?”
“Next time I will not shove at all.”
“There will not be a next time. Very well, you showed bravery, I will grant you that. And you healed me, but in all other things you haven’t pleased me. I ask not that much of you. See to the keep. See to the child. See to my shoulder. Obey me. There is nothing else for you to do.”
She actually smiled up at him. “And what will you do, Severin?”
“I? Whenever your woman’s perversity keeps you from me, I will take Alice to relieve my lust. She is comely and enjoys men. I have remarked several comely women here in the keep. They will see to me.”