Rosehaven (Medieval Song 5)

“He is my husband.”

“I want you to put away your herbs. I want you to come and sit on your bed and listen to me.” There was a light knock on the door.

“Enter,” Hastings called.

It was Alice, and she was looking as unhappy as Hastings had ever seen her in her life. She looked furtively toward Dame Agnes.

Dame Agnes said, “Alice, would you like to help me give our mistress some instruction?”

Alice perked up at that. “Hastings? Are you all right? Did he hurt you? I don’t see any bruises.”

This wasn’t right. Hastings stared at two women she’d known all her life. He wasn’t to blame unless he beat her? “He humiliated me.”

“What does that mean?” Dame Agnes said, stepping close. “Humiliation? Men do that well as a rule. But what did Lord Severin do to you?”

“He measured me with his hand to see if I could easily birth babes.”

Dame Agnes nodded. “Aye, he would do that to prevent worry about you. You must needs have an heir quickly, Hastings, but he did this not to humiliate you but to assure himself that you would be able to birth them without dying. This is the humiliation? This is all that he did?”

“He was going to put his hands on Alice’s bottom, then thought better of it.”

“Of course he would. You were standing there, weren’t you? He spared you humiliation. It seems to me, Hastings, that you have sorely mistreated your new husband.”

Hastings squawked, opened the rose drawer, took out some of the drying blossoms, and ate them.

Alice said, lightly laying her fingers on Hastings’s sleeve, “Men do not think clearly and sensibly as women do. They like to fight—to test their manhood and to clear their blood—to eat and drink, and to have sex as often as they can. There is little more to any of them.”

“That is an excellent description, Alice,” Dame Agnes said, nodding in approval. “So, Hastings, you have really mucked things up here. You have taken a simple man whom you could have led about by the nose if you’d just thought about it. Instead you have treated him to fits of outrage and given him only quarrels. You have argued with him when there was no need. You have yelled and ranted and carried on at great length when all you would have had to do was smile.”

Hastings grabbed another rose blossom and ate it, chewing viciously. “By Saint Godolphin’s shins, he has never kissed me, not once. He doesn’t like me. He thinks I’m ordinary, well, he did say that I was not an ordinary heiress.”

“An ordinary heiress?” Alice repeated, frowning. “What does that mean?”

“It means that Severin always believed that an heiress would be ugly. I am not ugly, but I don’t have anything else to please him. He doesn’t like me, even after I saved his life. Bedding me is a duty, nothing more. You are wrong about him, Agnes. He does not want sex with me.”

“Ah,” Dame Agnes said.

“What does that mean?”

“It means, Hastings,” Alice said with exaggerated slowness, “that you are angry because he did not show you proper gratitude. He is a man, a warrior. Such a man cannot tell a woman that she is brave and courageous and that he will revere her above all others for the rest of his life. Men are not like that.”

“Aye,” Dame Agnes said. “To be felled by an assassin, it probably shriveled his soul as well as his manhood. Then to have you save him, well, it is as Alice says. A man of his stature would find that more than difficult to accept.”

“This is all very confusing,” Hastings said, and took another bite of a rose blossom. Then she sighed and began to carefully wrap the foxglove blossoms in soft linen.

“And then you cured him.”

“Aye, Agnes,” Hastings said, jerking up. “That was a mighty crime on my part. Mayhap I should have kissed his feet instead? Mayhap I should have just leaned down and let him put his heel upon my neck.”

“Do not become impertinent with me, Hastings. Now, sit down and eat the bread and stew Alice brought you. Rose blossoms are fine, but you need MacDear’s stew.”

Her nurse pointed to the bed, saying no more, until Hastings, shrugging her shoulders, sat down and allowed Alice to place the tray on her legs. She picked up the crusty bread and took a nice bite. Her stomach growled.

“You eat and we will talk. If you wish, you may ask questions. I wonder, Alice,” Dame Agnes said, turning away from Hastings, “do you believe we should fetch Belle from the great hall? Her knowledge of men is legendary.”

Belle, Hastings thought, her eyes widening. She was old, fat, and had scarce a tooth left in her mouth. Her hair was long and thick, however, very black with only a bit of gray showing. She had been wedded to four men, all of whom were dead now. However, Old Morric, the blacksmith, was casting his eyes in her direction and everyone poked everyone else with their elbows and whispered behind their hands, laughing. It was very confusing.

“If we discover that we need Belle, we will call her later,” Dame Agnes said.