The Taming (Peregrine 1)

Chapter

Fifteen

No!” Liana snapped at Gaby and Joice. “Don’t put that there. Nor over there. And certainly not there!”

Joice backed out of the room as soon as possible, but Gaby stayed in the solar, looked at the back of Liana’s head, and bit her tongue. Not that she’d kept her mouth shut in the two weeks since that awful supper when Lady Liana had appeared wearing the coins, but she’d learned it did no good. “He has what he wanted,” was all Lady Liana would say to Gaby’s pleadings that she and Rogan talk to each other.

And Lord Rogan was worse than his wife. Gaby had wheedled Baudoin into broaching the subject to the lord, but Rogan had nearly put a pike through Baudoin’s belly.

So, because of the anger between the master and mistress, the whole castle, as well as the village, was suffering. The bakers refused to deliver fresh bread because Rogan refused to pay them, and Liana refused to have anything to do with the household. So there was, once again, sand in the bread. The courtyard was full of manure because no one ordered the men to clean it. The peasants were hungry. The moat, with only a foot of water in it, already contained half a dozen rotting cow carcasses. Whereas this had been the normal way of life before, now everyone complained. The men complained about the lice and the fleas in their clothes and the manure under their feet. They complained about Rogan’s temper. They complained about Lady Liana not doing her job properly. (No one seemed to remember the way they’d fought her when she first arrived.)

All in all, after two weeks there wasn’t a person within a ten-mile radius who wasn’t affected by this argument between the lord and his lady.

“My lady—” Gaby began.

“I have nothing to say to you,” Liana snapped. Two weeks had done nothing to calm her temper. She had made every effort to please her husband, to be a wife to him, and he had ignored her and humiliated her in public. He, a man of great beauty, might think that the plainer people of the world had no feelings about their lack of looks, but he was wrong. If he thought she was so ugly, then she’d spare him having to look at her.

“It’s not me,” Gaby said. “The lady Iolanthe asks to see you.”

Liana’s head came up. “Severn has had his way. He has won and he has his brother the way he was. I see no reason to see Severn’s mistress.”

Gaby gave a bit of a smile. “The gossip is that Lord Severn and his…the Lady Iolanthe are quarreling also. Perhaps she’d like to commiserate with you.”

Liana wanted to talk to someone. Gaby constantly preached forgiving Rogan for everything. She thought Liana should go to him and apologize, but Liana was sure he’d reject her. How could a woman as plain-faced as she was have any influence on a man like Rogan? And how could someone as dazzling as Iolanthe understand Liana’s problem? “Tell her I cannot accept,” Liana said.

“But, my lady, she has invited you to her apartments. It’s said that she’s never invited anyone inside there before.”

“Oh?” Liana said. “I am to go to her? I, the lady of the manor, am to visit my brother-in-law’s married mistress? Tell her no.”

Gaby left the room, and Liana looked back at her tapestry frame. She was seething over the presumption of the woman, but part of her was also curious. What did the beautiful Iolanthe have to say to her?

The invitation was reissued daily for three days, and each time Liana refused it. But on the fourth day she looked out the window and into the courtyard and saw one of the Days, her generous bosom pushing against the coarse wool of her greasy dress.

Liana turned to Joice. “Fetch my red brocade gown, the one with the cloth-of-gold underskirt. I am going visiting.”

An hour later Liana was dressed so that she knew she looked her best. She had to go outside and cross the courtyard to reach the stairs to Iolanthe’s apartments, and she could feel every eye on her. But she looked straight ahead and ignored all of them.

When she at last reached the apartment and a maid opened the door, it took Liana a moment to recover her composure—and close her gaping mouth. Never had she seen a room of such wealth. There were gold and silver-gilt dishes everywhere. There were rugs on the floor, deep-piled, intricately patterned carpets. The walls were hung with silk tapestries of delicate scenes and so intricately woven, a flower no bigger than a thumbnail had a dozen colors in it. The beamed ceilings were painted with pastoral scenes. The windows had leaded panes with colored-glass inserts that shone like jewels.

And in the room were carved chairs with cushioned seats, carved sewing frames, beautiful chests inlaid with ivory. There was nowhere she could look that was not of exquisite beauty.

“Welcome,” Iolanthe said, and in her silver gown she was the most beautiful object in the room.

“I…” Liana took a breath to recover herself. “You had something to say to me?” Earlier, Liana had thought of telling this woman how immoral she was and how she would spend eternity in hell for being married to one man and living in sin with another, but in Iolanthe’s presence, no such words came to Liana.

“Won’t you have a seat? I have had something prepared for us to eat.”

Liana took the seat offered and sipped watered wine from a ruby-studded gold chalice.

“You’ll have to go to him,” Iolanthe said. “He’s too stubborn to give in to you, and besides that, I doubt if he knows how.”

Liana set the chalice down with a thunk and stood. “I’ll not listen to this. He has insulted me repeatedly, and this is the final straw.” She started for the door.

“Wait!” Iolanthe called. “Please return. That was rude of me.”

Liana turned back.

Io smiled at her. “Forgive me. It has been difficult lately. Severn has been in the worst temper. Of course I’ve told him this is entirely his fault, that if he hadn’t been so jealous of his brother, Rogan would never have said he’d married you for your money and you would never have had to resort to the veil of coins.”