Once He Loves (Medieval 3)

“You should be thankful for such a gift.” Mary sounded disapproving, and not at all like her usual meek self.

Briar looked at Mary. Now that she thought of it, Mary’s behavior had been odd recently. Mayhap there was something wrong? Mary was always so biddable and quiet that Briar hardly noticed her. Had she been too intent upon her own problems to notice Mary’s?

“I am thankful for it,” she said matter-of-factly. “It has helped to keep us alive.”

“Sometimes…” Mary hesitated, setting down her comb. “Sometimes, Briar, I think I do not do enough.”

Briar was surprised. “You play your harp, Mary.”

“But there must be more I can do! You and Jocelyn coddle me as if I were still a baby.”

“You are a baby to us,” Jocelyn retorted, mopping the milk from Odo’s gray-flecked beard while he continued to stare vacantly before him.

“If our father had not died, I would be wed now.”

Briar smiled grimly. “If our father had not died, we would all have been wed now, Mary.”

“Do you think you would have been happy with Filby?” Jocelyn asked her curiously. “Mayhap you would have had the good fortune never to have learned what he really was.”

“How could I not have? I would have grown to hate him, I think.”

“Well, at least you discovered the truth about him, before it was too late.”

“Not quite too late.”

Jocelyn looked stricken, but before she could answer, another of the maidservants came hurrying into the kitchen. It was young Grisel, her small round face almost wild. Her voice burst out in a high-pitched whine.

“There is a man.”

The sisters looked to each other, startled. Mary giggled, and covered her mouth with her hand. Jocelyn frowned. “Speak more slowly, Grisel.”

The maid took a deep breath. “There is a man.”

“And?”

“He demands to speak with Briar, with the songstress.”

“He wants to speak to me?” Briar ran nervous hands over her hair, still uncombed and hanging tangled down her back. “Did you tell him I was not here?”

The girl shifted from foot to foot. “I tried to tell him you were not within, but he said you were. He was so big and so stern…I was frightened to say him nay! And he had such eyes…I think he could read inside my head, lady.”

Briar felt the floor tip beneath her own feet.

“So you told him she was here.” Jocelyn answered for her, with evident disgust.

“Aye.” The girl mumbled it apologetically.

“And has he a name, this frightening man?” Jocelyn asked, glancing sharply at Briar.

Grisel nodded. “He says he is Ivo de Vessey, of Lord Radulf’s household.”

Briar feared her face betrayed her. He had come to see her! She felt very peculiar, as if she were made of colored glass—that precious stuff that some of York’s newly built churches displayed in their windows. It was beautiful, there was no doubt, but so easily broken. Briar wondered if she too might shatter with disappointment, if it turned out that Ivo de Vessey was here for some other, more prosaic purpose.

“Grisel, go and tell this man the songstress will see him. And then take him to the alcove off the hall. And bring him some wine.”

Grisel ducked a curtsy, and reluctantly retreated.

Briar snatched the comb from Mary and began to work on her hair, tugging through the painful knots with her usual stubborn determination. But her hands were trembling, and that made her angry.