Rosehaven (Medieval Song 5)

“The man you sent back to Richard de Luci, well, he was grateful to you for not torturing him—”

“Not torturing him? Christ’s bones, Hastings made him puke up his toes. He wanted to die. He was a pathetic scrap. All he did when he wasn’t puking was lie there on his side, his knees drawn up to his chin, moaning.”

“Aye, but then he was well again and his body was intact. No broken bones, no bashed head, no cracked ribs. As I say, he was grateful to you. He believed you would slay him after he told you what you wanted to know, but you didn’t. You sent him back to his master.

“It was Richard de Luci who nearly killed him since he had failed to dispatch you. But the man—Osbert is his name—he survived. When he had the strength, he came here, asking for you. When he heard that you were still abed, he asked for me. In short, Severin, I have done my best by you. You have one less enemy now.”

Severin felt the blood pound in his temples. “No, you would not do this to me, would you, Graelam? Tell me you did not kill that damned whoreson. You did, didn’t you? You dared to kill my enemy. He wasn’t your enemy, Graelam, he was mine, and yet you had the gall to kill him. And you said nothing to me about it. Nothing, Graelam, you bastard.”

Hastings heard Graelam laugh. She saw the fury on Severin’s face. She knew he was enraged even though his voice was low and steady and he did not move. Her father had always yelled his head off when he was angry, always. It gave everyone time to run because right after he yelled, he struck. But not Severin. Would he strike?

Northbert had told her what had happened. Men, she thought, were they born wanting to hack and maim and destroy? Well, mayhap it was wise to destroy Richard de Luci. She eased closer. Severin was red in the face, the pulse in his throat pounding so furiously she could see it, but that was all.

“He is dead, his holding is without a master, and he has a daughter, I am told, who is now his heir. There are no sons.”

Severin said, as he clutched the wine goblet so hard his fingers showed white, “You were wounded. There is a binding around your arm.”

“Aye, but ’tis nothing. I imagine Hastings has already seen to my men. I lost no men, but four were wounded.” Graelam leaned back in Hastings’s chair, drank down the rest of his wine, wiped his mouth, and grinned hugely. “Ah, it was good. We ambushed the whoreson with the information Osbert gave us. They were eating their dinner. There were naught but twenty of them. We took the guards, then the rest was easy.” Graelam rubbed his hands together. “Aye, it was good to exercise my arm. Bloodletting always clears a man’s brain and makes him forget any pains he has.”

Severin rose, calmly and slowly, took the end of the trestle table in his large hands, and upended it, sending it crashing into the silver laver that stood close by. The laver sent scented water flying on the sleeping wolfhound, Edgar, whose eyes flew open. He leapt up, growling, ready to tear out an enemy’s throat.

“Enough, Severin, enough! Hold your temper. I do not want you to destroy the keep.”

Severin turned to see his wife of two days on her knees, picking up the laver, that thick hair of hers cascading over her shoulder nearly to the rushes. She looked up at him even as she cradled the damned laver against her chest. “You have dented the silver. It belonged to my grandmother. I prized it. I polished it, I—”

He cursed long and loud, then shouted, something Graelam had never heard him do, “Shut your mouth, Hastings! This has nothing to do with you. Fetch my sword. I will gullet this mangy villain, this villain I believed my friend.” The wolfhound growled. Servants and men-at-arms were standing silent along the walls, wondering what would happen, wondering if they should do anything.

“Why?” she said, rising to her feet, righting the laver. “Because he acted without your lofty permission? Because he knew you would demand to fight and he feared you would become fevered again? Tell me, my lord, why are you angry? Are you not an intelligent man, a reasonable man?”

He was on her in an instant, his hands under her armpits, lifting her and shaking her. “You will hold your tongue else I will take you right here on this trestle table and that damned wolfhound can smell your blood and howl.”

She turned whiter than the soft bread she had eaten to break her fast. He shook her yet again.

“Let her down, Severin.” Graelam’s hand came down on his shoulder, his wounded shoulder, and squeezed. “Let her down. What mean you? Would you shame her here in the great hall amidst her people? Would you wound her so that she bled? Is that what is in your mind?”

Hastings couldn’t bear it. She would kill him. She went completely limp. The wound in Severin’s shoulder ripped pain through him at shaking her, that and the weight of Graelam’s hand on his shoulder. He lowered her slowly to the rush-covered stone floor.

She looked up at him, her eyes nearly black with rage. She kicked him as hard as she could in the shin. He sucked in his breath, jerking back, leaning down to scrub his hand over his shin. “You will pay for that, madam,” he said between teeth gritted so tightly she barely understood him.

She knew she probably would pay, she just didn’t know him well enough to judge the manner of payment. She turned on her heel and ran from the great hall.

“Severin, you will sit down now and you will close your eyes and think about your shoulder and your shin. She could have kicked you in your groin but she didn’t. She spared you.”

“She didn’t kick me in the groin because she knew I’d kill her if she had. Besides, I move quickly, I would have turned away from her knees in time.”

“Possibly, but Hastings is fast.” Graelam sighed. “You know you wouldn’t have killed her. I doubt you would have raised your fist to her, would you?”

Severin brushed his palm over his hair. He was tired. His shoulder hurt. Damn her, he had feelings. He was not a toad. “I would have made her believe that I would have crushed her beneath her herb garden. Sometimes she does believe that. However, as each day passes, she grows more brazen, more bold. And it has only been two days. What will she do when a fortnight has passed? I will not tolerate it, Graelam.”

“You are weaving where you stand. Sit you down, aye, that’s it. Now drink the wine. It will calm your ire. I wonder if I fell into rages as do you when I had six fewer years to my life?” Graelam paused a moment, then nodded. “Aye, I believe that I did act the outraged fool. And that was only three years ago. My dear wife left me, I was such a bastard to her.”

“Kassia left you?”

He had gained Severin’s full attention. Now was the time to deliver his small moral. The younger man was staring at him as if he’d found a snail in his broth. “Kassia? She truly left you? I do not believe that.”

“Aye. I had to go to her father’s keep, Belleterre, in Brittany, to fetch her home.”

“Did you thrash her?”