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  Aye, she thought. Severin was sorely tried. The poor man—marrying an heiress was the very devil.

  He was gone, his boots sounding loud on the stone floor. He had still been garbed in his gray clothes.

  She lay there, her legs still sprawled wide, feeling as though she’d been ripped inside, which, she thought, she had, since he’d torn through her maidenhead. She hurt. She lay her hand on her belly. She was no longer herself, no longer just Hastings.

  No gentleness from him, no soft wooing, just the cream, which cost him no kind words. She had been married for six hours and she had no kind thoughts for the man who was her husband.

  4

  “SHE IS GONE.”

  Severin blinked down at the old woman. “What did you say? Who is gone?”

  “Hastings. My lady, your wife, is gone. What did you do to her? Hastings is never imprudent, yet I cannot find her. She is not within the keep.”

  “What the devil is this?” Graelam demanded as he strode to Severin. “Hastings is gone?”

  “Aye, my lord Graelam. There was blood on her bed and bloody water in the basin. The lord broke his word to her. Her father is to be buried today, surely he should have left her whole last night.”

  Severin said, “It was not possible. Richard de Luci nears. He will try to take her. Now you say she is gone.” He cursed. “I should have locked her in her bedchamber. You say she is never imprudent. If she has tried to leave the castle, he will take her. That is stupidity beyond anything I can fathom.” He hit the heel of his hand against his forehead. “I expect wisdom from a woman? I am a fool. I believed she understood. I believed her cowed. Well, Graelam, all is changed now. I must find her before Richard de Luci does. Damnation. I will punish her for this. Never again will she go against me.”

  Graelam turned to Dame Agnes. “It is only seven o’clock. Did you only go to her bedchamber?”

  “I have looked everywhere. If anyone has seen her, then they are lying fluently.”

  “Did you go to her herb garden?”

  “Nay, I have looked just within the keep. I will go there now.”

  “I will go,” Severin said. “I told her she was to remain within the keep. She must be taught obedience.”

  He felt more relief than he was willing to admit when he saw her on her knees, garbed in an old woolen green gown, sweat between her shoulder blades, working the soil in her herb garden that stood fenced in beside a small pear orchard. All around the fence were blossoming flowers. He recognized the blood-red roses, tall, the blooms incredibly large. And the daisies, with their bright yellow centers and stark white ray flowers. And so many more he couldn’t begin to put a name to. As for her herb garden, it was neatly plotted, the different plants carefully set inside a rectangle, all of them looked healthy, many ready to harvest.

  He shook his head. Who cared about her herb garden? The storm had blown itself out. The morning sun was brilliant, the sky clear. She hadn’t heard him. He supposed with all the noise surrounding her nearly every hour of the day, it wasn’t surprising. Ah, but she would learn to hear him. Soon, when he came to her, she would be on her feet, her eyes lowered, ready to curtsy when he drew near enough. Her hair was braided into a thick single rope that hung down her back. He stepped over the protective wooden fence and stood over her, his shadow cast long and dark. She looked to be working furiously.

  Hastings loved the damp earth on her hands, the feel of it, knowing her precious herbs would thrive. She sat back on her heels for a moment, looking at her patch of thriving rosemary. The pleasure she felt working in her garden helped just a bit to ease her soul-deep anger at the blow he’d dealt her. It was absurd, this excuse of his that Richard de Luci could somehow sneak into Oxborough and take her.

  She heard movement behind her and said without turning from what she was doing, “Is that you, Tuggle? Please bring me Marella. I would ride out in an hour or so.”

  “I think not.”

  She whipped about so quickly, she fell on her bottom. “You,” she said. And if that was too much, she quickly added, “Watch where you step. That is rosemary beside your foot. Don’t crush it.”

  He moved away from the rosemary. “I care not about this rosemary. It is a silly name, a female’s name. Why is the rosemary so valuable?”

  “It makes your marten’s pork very tasty. If you have a cramping belly, it will ease you. A man should drink it for nine days if he has debilitated himself with venery. Perhaps you would care for some right now?”

  “Do not mock me again.” He came down on his haunches beside her. “The other women were days ago. I took you only once. I doubt I’m debilitated. I told you to remain within.”

  “I am within. Look about you. There are scores of my people.”

  “My people. I am lord here now.”

  “Very well. There are scores of people who would yell down the heavens if someone came too close to me.”

  She should be safe enough here, he thought, yielding the point since there was a much meatier bone to pick. “You thought I was Tuggle. You told me to ready your mare. You were going to leave, weren’t you?”

  “Aye, but just for a short time and I would have asked Beamis to send several of his men with me. I must go to see the Healer, a knowledgeable woman who lives deep in the Pevensey Forest. I have learned nearly everything I know from her. Even she could not save my father.”

  He threw up his hands. “Then send a man to bring her to the castle. Have you no ability to think?”

  “She won’t come here. She never leaves the forest. I have asked her many times.”

  “Then you won’t see her for a while.” He reached out his hand and cupped her chin. She stilled instantly. “You will listen to me now, lady. You will remain here, in this garden, or within the keep. You will go no place else until I have taken care of Richard de Luci. Do you understand me?”

  “Since you are near to yelling, it would be difficult not to.”

  “Nay, that simply means that you hear me, but not necessarily that you understand me. I will have no more disobedience from you. Why did you wash my seed from your body? I told you not to.”

  She reached for the trowel. She wanted to strike him as hard as she could. She wanted to smash his head. His gloved hand hit the trowel hard, her fingers just inches from the handle. “How do you know what I did?” she said, staring at that handle, at his fist covering the trowel.

  “Your old nurse told Graelam and me. There was blood in your water basin.”

  She watched him rise. Her fingers closed over the trowel handle. “Aye, I scrubbed myself clean of you.”

  He said even as she raised the trowel, “You dare to raise a weapon to me?” He made no move toward her. He remained utterly still. It was that same stillness that had made her want to cross herself when she’d first seen him standing in the great hall, the sun framing him through the wide doorway. He was again garbed all in gray. She felt the rage pouring from him.

  It happened so quickly neither had a chance to react. A shadow fell, then there was a blur of movement. It was Hastings who saw the dagger in the man’s hand and it was but moments from Severin’s back. She yelled, and threw herself against Severin, knocking him off his feet and onto her patch of thyme. He fell onto his side. The man’s hand flashed down and the knife sank into Severin’s shoulder.

  She didn’t think, just jumped to her feet, flinging herself at the man even as he raised the dagger again to strike. She knew he wouldn’t dare hurt her else his master wouldn’t gain her in marriage and would thus lose all. She struck his head as hard as she could with the trowel, but it just seemed to bounce off his skull. Her fingers went to his eyes. He managed to jerk back, but not in time. He screamed in pain. She felt ribbons of his flesh wet beneath her fingernails.

  He covered his face with his hands, groaning. She threw the trowel at him and kicked him in his groin, sending him to his knees. Two men were running toward them, but they weren’t Oxborough men or Langthorne men. She grabbed th
e dagger from the man’s lax hand and rose to meet them even as she yelled as loud as she could, “Graelam! A moi! A moi! Beamis!”

  They were on her in a flash, but she kept slashing that dagger in front of her. “Filthy cowards, are you afraid of one woman? Come on, my fine warriors. Come.”

  “Aye,” a voice came from behind her. “Come and let me cut your gullets.”

  It was Severin. She almost whirled about to see him, but knew she couldn’t. If he wasn’t wounded badly enough to stand, then he could save both of them. She saw the flash of his sword, heard the scream of one of the men, saw the blood spurt from his chest even as he lurched forward to fall not an inch from her feet. The other man wasn’t a fool. Oxborough men were coming, and soon he wouldn’t have a chance. He turned on his heel and ran.

  She turned to Severin, who stood there, sword dripping the man’s blood onto his hand. He was holding his other hand against his shoulder, blood seeping through his fingers.

  “I had believed you safe here,” he said. “I do wonder how they managed to get within the keep. Are your men so slack?”

  She had no time to answer. There was yelling, a man’s scream. Then Graelam and Beamis were there, men piling behind them. Beamis was pale, his eyes on his new master. “I don’t know how they got in. I don’t know, but it won’t happen again, my lord.”

  “If it does, I’ll flail the flesh from your back,” Severin said. “I want the other man alive.”

  “He’s alive.”

  “Good,” Severin said. “I will question him.” He looked at Graelam, then down at the blood oozing between his fingers, opened his mouth, looked astonished, and fell right on top of her rosemary and horehound. His right boot landed on the small patch of mugwort.

  Severin felt the deep twisting pain before he opened his eyes. But it was pain, nothing more, and he knew from long practice that he could control most pain. He’d fainted. Like a damned female, he’d fainted. He’d had to be carried and laid on his bed. He felt shame curdle in his belly. He couldn’t help it. Then it wasn’t shame curdling in his belly. He lurched up and vomited in the basin she held for him. He drew a deep, steadying breath and said, “You will go away. I don’t wish you near me.”

  “Why not? Had I not been here, had I not known that your belly would probably rebel, you would have puked on yourself.”

  He wanted to kill her.

  “Do you still have that trowel?”

  “Nay, I threw it at the man I felled.”

  She had saved herself, damn her. And she’d saved him as well, curse her to hell and beyond. A girl who was half his size and she’d hurled herself at him, knocking him to the ground. If she hadn’t knocked him off balance, perhaps he would have seen the man in time. Perhaps. He’d seen her rip the man’s face with her fingernails, kick him in his groin. Who had taught her that? A lady would have swooned, surely, not knocked him out of danger and flung herself upon the attacker. His voice was sour as he said, “What are you doing to me?”

  “Ah, a reasonable question. It’s about time. But your mood is foul as your breath.”

  “Don’t mock me, lady.” He felt the bed give when she sat down beside him. She wasn’t looking at his face, but at his shoulder.

  He reached up and grabbed her wrist. “What are you doing?” He sucked in his breath at the pain. He closed his eyes a moment, gaining control. He had to, she was watching him.

  “Drink this.”

  She held a goblet to his lips. He tasted the sweet, crisp liquid, felt the foulness ease in his mouth and through his body.

  “Good. Now hold still.” She added in a matter-of-fact voice, “I’m cleansing the wound with a paste I make of eryngo root, and bandaging it. You will survive, my lord.”

  “What is this eryngo root?”

  “Many call it sea holly. It grows just above the tide line. I mix it with pearl barley and water boiled with just three leaves from the gentian plant. Don’t fret, my lord, it won’t kill you.”

  “Finish your bandaging and leave me be. I must question that other man.”

  “Keep on your back for a bit longer, Severin,” Graelam said from just beyond Hastings. “She has got the bleeding stopped. I have spoken to the man.”

  Severin felt a movement on his belly. Trist poked his head from beneath the covers that were pulled to Severin’s waist. He realized he was still wearing his breeches, but not his boots. He said gently, as he brought his hand to lightly touch the marten’s head, “I am all right, Trist. Don’t fret.”

  The marten made a strange, soft purring sound, then flattened his chin on Severin’s belly, staring up at his master’s face.

  “He wouldn’t leave you,” Hastings said. “He did leap away when you vomited, but you felt too wretched to notice. Then he crept back. He wasn’t with you this morning when you came to my herb garden. When Graelam and Beamis and your man, Bonluc, carried you in, he leapt onto you, yowling, sort of. I could not make him leave and I did ask him very politely.”

  This damned wit of hers. Where had it come from? Why had she hidden it from him? It annoyed him. He looked at her then and said, “This would not have happened had you obeyed me.”

  “No,” she said, surprising him, “it would not have.”

  “The man,” Graelam said, looking from one to the other, “won’t speak of anything to the point. He won’t even admit to being Richard de Luci’s man. He just keeps whining that he’s from the village, here to trade furs. Indeed, he did have four or five pelts fastened to his belt.”

  “I will rise soon. I will make him speak. I learned much in the Holy Land.”

  “As all of us did, Severin.”

  “You needn’t torture him,” Hastings said. “I will have him willing to tell you his deepest secrets within minutes.”

  Severin grunted, making Trist raise his head and stare at Hastings. She reached down without thinking and lightly stroked the marten’s head. To Severin’s shock, the marten closed his eyes and lowered his head again to Severin’s belly, stretched out his short legs to Severin’s navel.

  “Just how will you do this?”

  “I will give him some sweet ale to drink that will cover the bitter taste of the mandrake and the yarrow root. Within a few minutes he will begin puking up his innards. No man can withstand it. I will offer to give him the cure for it if he will speak the truth.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Severin said. “What would you give him to cease the vomiting?”

  “Columbine and just a bit of gentian. I grind up the flowers and mix the powder into sour beer. The gentian seems to add calm to the mind and thus to the belly. Aye, you just had a bit of gentian to calm your belly.”

  “Ah,” Graelam said, “you mean bitterwort. My Kassia uses that. She was complaining when Harry had a bellyache that her recipe wasn’t effective enough.”

  She smiled at him. “I will send her mine. I learned it from the Healer last year.”

  Severin cursed. Both turned to him, Graelam’s eyebrow arched. “Calm yourself, Severin. Because Hastings is seeing to you, you will be well much sooner than you deserve to be. Now, Hastings, would you like to mix up your belly poison for our prisoner?”

  “Gladly. I must do some grinding and boiling. It will take me a while.”

  “No! I forbid that you do this. I wish to see him and—”

  “And what? Pull out his fingernails? Lash him until he bleeds? Mayhap kill him without finding out anything?”

  “It is none of your affair, damn you. I am lord here. I will do just as I deem right. I will have nothing more out of your mouth and—”

  Suddenly, Trist inched up Severin’s chest, rubbed his chin on Severin’s chin, then laid himself over Severin’s mouth, his long tail curling around Severin’s ear.

  “Drink this,” Hastings said to him. “It is more gentian to calm you.” But it was Graelam who gently moved Trist and held the goblet to his mouth, not moving it until Severin had drunk it all down. “The witch will poison me,” he said, then clos
ed his eyes.

  “No, I shan’t poison you. I would rather hit your head with the trowel.”

  His eyes closed. His breathing deepened.

  Hastings said, as she stared down at him, “He’s a very big man, Graelam. That first bit of gentian I gave him wasn’t enough.”

  “Aye,” Graelam said slowly.

  The man retched violently for five minutes before he begged for her to cure him. He lay on his side in pools of his own vomit, clutching his belly, whimpering. “Please, lady, please save me. I will tell you what you wish. Please.”

  Hastings smiled at Graelam and Severin. She motioned to the pathetic man and rose.

  She prepared the gentian flowers, smashing them into a fine powder, then mixing them slowly with warm ale that had sat in the sun. She swished it about in the goblet as she watched Severin stand over the man, careful not to step in his vomit. There were at least another dozen men forming a circle around them. The sun shone hot overhead. The stench was bad.

  It had been Graelam’s suggestion that they haul the man outside. Why befoul the dungeon?

  “You are no villager as you’ve claimed. Tell me where your master is and what his intentions are.”

  The man paled. His eyes flew around the circle of men. He started to shake his head. His belly cramped viciously and he vomited, dry heaves for there was nothing left to come up. When he caught his breath, he whispered, “My lord Richard is just beyond with two dozen men in the Pevensey Forest. The three of us disguised ourselves as villagers. Since it is market day, it wasn’t difficult to come into the castle gates. We saw her and took our chance.” He turned miserable eyes toward Hastings. “Give me the cure, my lady, I beg of you.”