Rosehaven (22 page)

“Have you vomited?”

Hastings shook her head. “I do feel queasy sometimes. Not just at a certain time of the day, but it just comes and goes. I cannot predict it.”

“Aye, I would say you carry his child. He is a potent man. Most of the churls are potent, and thus women are cursed to have their wombs filled whether they wish it or not. Aye, men—the blight of our land. Would that I could poison all of them, but then again, women like you wouldn’t be pleased were your husband to crumble into dust.”

“I would not be too certain of that right now, Healer.”

“So he is acting more faithless, is he?” Then she grinned, showing very white, very even teeth. “Bring me this Marjorie and let me see what she is about.”

“She is always very nice to me,” Hastings said, so depressed she kicked her toe into a rock and gasped from the sharp pain. “She is also very beautiful except for last night when her nose swelled and turned red. I mixed a drink for her and it went away.”

“Perhaps you should have waited, Hastings. The swelling would have gone away by the next morning.”

“I know that, but I was weak. I didn’t let her suffer. However, I did add goat urine to the mixture. She drank it.”

The Healer laughed and patted her face. “Well done. You have turned into a fine woman, Hastings. Now, did I tell you what I learned from a monk who happened to visit me two days ago? If I grind up columbine leaves and add saffron, it will cure jaundice. What do you think of that?”

Hastings was excited, she couldn’t help it. “Show me how to do it, Healer. I must know.”

The Healer laughed. “If you and your husband had been married for more than a year and your womb was still empty, I would give you the distilled water of wallflowers to drink twice a day for four weeks. Unfortunately, Lord Severin is like most men, he plows and plows and his seed sinks immediately into fertile ground. Such a pity. Come with me, Hastings, and I will give you just a bit of my special mixture—no, I will not tell you the ingredients. It will keep you smiling and your belly calm.”

• • •

Severin shoved the door inward. His skin felt tight, his loins were heavy, his wife hadn’t spoken to him for well onto three days, and he was furious.

Hastings was standing over a narrow table mixing some of her damnable herbs. She looked up, then immediately back down to the mixture in a wooden bowl. “Did I ever tell you that MacDear will gently shred columbine flowers onto the platters that hold the meat? He says it makes the food look more appetizing. He prefers the red columbine, he says it adds—”

“I am sick of this, Hastings. You have changed again. You have returned to the woman I married. You have not treated me well. You have ignored me. The miracle has ended. I did not muck it up. I do not know why you have changed, but you once more have your shrew’s mouth. If you wish to go back to the way we were, then so be it. However, you will see to me, your husband. My man’s need is great. I would have you now and I will tolerate no arguments.”

“Did you know that the name ‘columbine’ is from Latin and means dove? You see, people believed the plant looked like doves’ heads.”

He was on her in a moment. The pulse was pounding wildly in his neck. Trist wasn’t with him.

“You will force me, Severin?”

“Aye, if I must.”

“What is wrong with Marjorie? Is it her monthly flux or is she tired of you? Are you not moving quickly enough to remove me from Oxborough so that you can wed her?”

He jerked back as if she had struck him. “You are mad,” he said, and ripped her gown from neck to waist. “Don’t speak such nonsense again. I cannot have Marjorie. Fate saw to that many years ago.” He ripped open her shift, baring her breasts.

“You will not force me again, Severin.”

“I will do as I please with you, Hastings.” He picked her up and threw her onto her back on the bed. He was over her in a moment, pulling up her skirts, opening his breeches. He was breathing hard.

She stared up at him and said, “Would you risk harming your child?”

He froze over her. “You carry my babe? A new lie, Hastings, but not a very good one. I haven’t touched you for a very long time.”

“Aye, and surely that is my fault.”

“I have had other things on my mind. Now I want to relieve myself.”

She bucked and heaved, so furious that she wanted to kill him. He lowered his face to kiss her and she tried to bite his mouth. He couldn’t believe that she had tried to bite him. He reared back, forced her legs wide, and came into her hard and deep. She yelled, more with anger than with the pain of it.

“You animal,” she screamed at him, not caring if a servant was outside the bedchamber door to hear her. “I hate you. I wish your saddle had hit you on the head. Maybe everything would be different, maybe—”

He was deep now, pushing against her womb, breathing hard as he heaved over her.

When he reached his release, he froze over her. As she felt his seed inside her, she said, “I will never forgive you this, Severin. You have betrayed me. I would that you never touch me again. Go back to your Marjorie and leave me be.”

“Aye,” he said, heaving and jerking, so spent he could barely speak, “mayhap I will. She always has smiles for me. She always welcomes me, just as she did when she was a young girl. Why did you humiliate her?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Her nose.”

“I did nothing. I did fix her goddess’s nose though.”

“It matters not if you lie to me. Why will you not bend to me again? Why do you compel me to force you? Why will you not smile at me again? Why won’t you let me kiss you or caress you? Why won’t you let me give you pleasure?”

“I did smile at you until she came and you looked at her like a lovesick boy. You don’t care if I smile or if I
cry. All you care about is staring at her, riding with her, seating her in my chair. Your desire for her is clear for everyone to see.”

He pulled out of her and stood beside the bed, staring down at her. Her legs were sprawled open but she didn’t care. She watched him straighten his clothes.

“I am with child. If I were not a healer perhaps I would destroy it, for I want nothing from you. Nothing.”

He was over her in an instant, his hands around her neck. “You will not speak like that. It is blasphemy. A man would be justified to kill a wife who killed his child. Ah, but you aren’t with child, are you?” He released her throat and fell onto his back again. He sighed. “Lie no more, Hastings. You know I will go easy with you if you will but bend to me again. You also know I will take you whenever I wish to. That is the way of it. Don’t fight me. There is no need. Smile at me again, caress me with your hands, kiss me in front of our people. There was no reason for you to stop that.”

“Where did you ride with Marjorie this morning?”

“I showed her the marsh just beyond the northern estuary. Why? Come, Hastings, do not be jealous. It doesn’t become you. Let me come to you the way I did before. You enjoyed my body. You yelled your pleasure. Do not continue this madness. I told you, Marjorie was lost to me years ago. It is over. It is done.”

Where had Marjorie gotten that new gown? Rot the woman and rot Severin. “You think it your right to betray me? To have two women in the same keep? Or will another saddle fall upon my head?”

He stared down at her, his face white. He opened his mouth, but she raised her hand to stop him. “No, Severin, no lies. I can bear no more lies.”

She saw that he was as angry as he had been so long before, when they had first wedded. He came over her again, shoved into her, and moved over her until once again he reached his release.

He held her arms above her head, speaking even as his breathing still hitched. “No lies, Hastings. I will tell you
the truth. You are pathetic. Look at yourself. Ranting at me, lying there with nothing to give me but your damned anger that I do not deserve. It is you who have mucked up the miracle, not I. I will not accept this, Hastings. Damn you, become the way you were a week ago. Look to Marjorie, she is sweet and gentle, an angel who walks in the sunlight even when it is night. Aye, try to mold yourself into Marjorie’s likeness.”

He jerked off her. As he walked from the bedchamber, she yelled at him, “I wish your saddle had fallen on you! All that was between us was a lie. I was never anything to you save a convenience. Damn you, I am not pathetic! I would rather mold myself in Satan’s likeness than Marjorie’s.”

He slammed the door behind him. She lay there for but a few moments, then rose to bathe herself. It was at that moment that Hastings made her decision.

22

“I
ASK IT AS A FAVOR TO MY FATHER. PLEASE, BEAMIS
, don’t say no.”

Beamis scratched his armpit, looked everywhere but at his mistress’s face, and wished Gwent would magically appear, overhear what she wanted him to do, and forbid it without hesitation and with great force of voice.

Hastings tugged at his sleeve. “Listen, Beamis, you know my father traveled to this place three or four times a year. Don’t shake your head. Surely you knew of it. You were his master-at-arms. You did, did you not? Of course you did. You accompanied him.”

He nodded finally, praying that if Gwent didn’t come then Lord Severin would appear. No, he would not pray for that. All knew that Lord Severin had mucked things up again with his wife. All knew that he desired Lady Marjorie, an exquisite wench with exquisite silver hair that a man wanted to stroke and rub against. But, Beamis thought, she was still just a wench like any other wench. Hair wasn’t all that important.

Hastings was an heiress and a healer, only a wench secondarily. “I can’t,” he said finally, and wanted to cry.

Her hand was still on his arm, tugging now frantically
at his sleeve. “Beamis, I cannot remain here and watch her take my place.”

“I cannot, Hastings. Please, do not ask this of me. It is impossible. I cannot.”

He was miserable, she could see that, but she didn’t care. She said very quietly, “The saddle that fell on me—Lord Severin’s own saddle. You know it was not an accident. Do you wish Fawke of Trent’s daughter to be killed? If I remain here, it could happen and you know it, Beamis.”

Beamis groaned. Half the men thought it had been an accident. The other half wondered aloud, but Beamis knew what they thought. They believed that someone wanted Lady Marjorie to take Hastings’s place as mistress of Oxborough. But who? The lady herself? How could someone so beautiful, with such exquisite hair, be so treacherous?

He was suddenly struck with inspiration. “No one will kill you. I will taste your food.” He beamed at her. There was a wide space between his two front teeth. He habitually cleaned between those teeth with his tongue. “No one can poison you if I taste your food before you do.”

She sighed and turned away, saying over her shoulder, “I am with child, Beamis. You wish my child to die as well? Lord Fawke’s grandson?”

He cursed, spat in a mud puddle, kicked a roving chicken, and cursed some more at Gilbert the goat, who was chewing on a long strap of old leather. He wanted to strangle that goat with that leather strap. But the goat gave milk. Hastings would need the milk so the child would remain healthy in her womb.

He plowed his thick fingers through grizzled black hair. “I would be undone. Lord Severin would kill me were he to find out. And how would he not know? You would be gone from Oxborough and so would I. The roads are dangerous. There are more outlaws between here and the southern coast than men guarding King Edward. I could not sufficiently protect you. Besides, I would be dead because Lord Severin would kill me.”

Hastings didn’t believe Severin would precisely kill Beamis, but what could she say to that? She would have
to travel alone. But she didn’t know where Rosehaven was.

She patted Beamis’s arm as she said, “You are right. I did not think this through. I will not ask you again. It was not fair of me.”

Beamis wasn’t stupid. He had known Hastings since she was a child. He’d watched her grow up. He looked thoroughly alarmed. “You will not go by yourself, will you, Hastings? By Saint Albert’s toenails, promise me you’ll not go to this Rosehaven alone.”

“How could I? I have no idea where Rosehaven is.” Well, she did know that it was near Canterbury, but that was all. There was probably quite a lot near Canterbury.

He looked vastly relieved. “No, you do not.” He even looked skyward and she imagined he was giving thanks to God.

She found Severin with Torric the steward. There was no longer any distrust between them since Torric had told him about Rosehaven. Severin looked up, recognized that stubborn look on her face, and sighed. He left Torric, took her arm, and walked beside her outside the keep into the inner bailey. “You wish to apologize to me? You wish to kiss me again in front of our people and Gilbert the goat? Mayhap you could caress me with your hands?”

Severin rather thought she would do none of these things. She looked more likely to spit in his eye. She said, “You know that it is not safe for the Sedgewick people to return yet. It is another sennight, at least, to be safe.”

“Aye.”

“I know you do not wish to leave Lady Marjorie. Thus I would ask that you allow me to take some of your men and travel to Rosehaven. I will find out who is living there and what hold there was over my father.”

“Why would I not wish to leave Lady Marjorie?”

“Because you doubtless love her.”

“I do not love any woman, Hastings. You know that. I would have given my life for her at one time, but I was only a boy. I have not enjoyed her for many years. Aye, then she was a boy’s dream.”

He had joined to her when he had been just a boy?
Before he had gone to the Holy Land? “Do not lie to me, Severin. There is no need. I merely wish to leave. You can seat her in my place and give her my gowns. She can sleep with you in my bed.”

“I can do that with you here. No. You will remain at Oxborough and see to your duties. When I decide we will go to Rosehaven, then we will go.”

He turned from her and walked back into the keep. She didn’t think, just picked up a stone that lay near her feet and hurled it at him. It missed him, but not by much, loudly striking the stone wall of the keep and cracking in two. He turned more quickly than she believed a man could move. He already held a knife poised in his hand. He stared at her, stared down at the stone that had come close to striking him in the back.

She was breathing hard. She hadn’t been aware before, but she was now. There were people about them, all staring now, even the chickens and dogs quiet.

He sheathed his knife again at his waist and slowly walked back to her.

He stopped just inches from her. She didn’t move. “Did you not believe me before, Hastings?”

She stared at his throat.

“You dared to threaten me again?”

“I wish I had struck you.”

He grabbed her arm and strode out of the inner bailey, walking so quickly he was dragging her. She pulled and jerked but it did no good. The sleeve of her gown ripped from the shoulder. He merely closed his hand around her bare upper arm and walked more quickly. When he reached the stable, he yelled for Tuggle to saddle his horse.

He stopped then, stared down at her, and shook his head. “I am going to take you down to the beach and beat you. I should beat you here, before all our people so they will know that I am the lord here, but I do not want to test their loyalties. MacDear might poison me.”

“You mean to beat me to death as my father did my mother? Go ahead, Severin. And what will you give as your reason? You know that my father found my mother in the
falconer’s bed. In this case, it is you in Marjorie’s bed. It is I who should beat you to death.”

He actually growled deep in his throat. “You will not learn to keep your tongue behind your teeth, will you?”

Tuggle led out Severin’s huge warhorse, stamping and snorting.

He picked Hastings up and threw her over the horse’s saddle, then leapt up behind her. He forced her to remain facedown over his legs.

Gwent came running toward them, yelling, “My lord, do you wish me to accompany you? Where do you go?”

“I find it amazing that a man who owes me his loyalty tries to protect you.”

“I will vomit if you make me remain like this, Severin.”

“I am taking her to the beach to speak in private to her, Gwent. Leave go.” Severin flattened his palm against the small of her back and kicked his horse in its sides. The last person Hastings saw was Lady Marjorie, standing on the keep steps.

Hastings didn’t vomit. She became dizzy, but it passed when Severin pulled his stallion to a halt at the top of the cliff edge beside the path that led to the beach. He dragged her to the ground.

“Do not fight me,” he said, and shook her. “Come.”

He forced her before him down the narrow cliff path. She stumbled twice. Both times he caught her.

When she reached the sand beach, she pretended to crumble. He eased his hold. She jerked her arm free of his hand and ran. Her foot hit a piece of driftwood and pain shot through her toes. But she didn’t slow. It was then, of course, that she began to think clearly again. There was no other way back up the cliff save that single narrow path. She was running her heart out and there was nothing in front of her but barren rocks and smooth-faced cliff face. Rocks. She’d hit him with one this time.

She stopped abruptly and turned. He was walking slowly toward her, knowing she was trapped, not exerting himself. She picked up a rock and waited.

He saw what she had done. It didn’t slow him. Perhaps he even began to walk faster.

“Put down the rock, Hastings,” he called, his voice loud and strong over the gentle waves that washed onto the shore not more than a dozen feet from them. It was chilly here, the breeze off the sea tangling through her hair, pressing her gown against her legs. She was breathing hard.

She held the rock more tightly. Surely there must be something she could do, save stand here like a fool ready to hurl a rock at him that he would easily duck.

What to do?

She refused to wait here like a goat tethered to a stake, refused to let him so easily take her and beat her. She could see the anger in him, see it in the starkness of his eyes, see it in the cords that stood out in his neck. But he had never struck her, never. But now there was Marjorie. And there had been his saddle, hurled down on her.

“You would beat me and harm your child?”

He waved away her words. “Do not try that tale with me again, Hastings. Marjorie told me you had begun your monthly flux on the day of her arrival at Oxborough. That is why I kept away from you.”

“She lies.”

He just shook his head and kept coming. The sun suddenly disappeared beneath a passing cloud. She shivered. She wasn’t breathing hard anymore. She held that rock. She waited.

It was then she knew she would not remain there for him to beat her. She dropped the rock, turned, lifted her gown above her knees, and ran into the surf.

“Hastings!”

The water was so cold she felt her breath freeze in her chest. No, she would make it. She was a strong swimmer, Beamis had seen to that when she was a child. She would swim around the side of the wall of rocks and boulders to the beach just beyond. There was another path, much rougher than this one, dangerous to someone who didn’t know it well, as she did. The water swirled about her knees. Just as she was about to dive into the next wave, she felt
his arms close around her waist, lifting her free of the water, carrying her back to the shore.

She fought him, finally sinking her teeth into his arm. He dropped her onto the dry sand, stood over her, legs spread, rubbing his arm.

“You are a fool, Hastings. That water would freeze the heart in your chest.”

“No it wouldn’t. I have swum in it before.”

“Did you seek to drown yourself?”

She lay there on her back, looking up at him. He was blocking the sun. She shivered, but not from her wet feet, not from the cold, but from the sight of him.

She saw him over her such a short time before, smiling, leaning down to kiss her, to nibble her earlobe, to kiss her breasts even as he eased into her. And she had held him close, her eyes meeting his, filled with him, and they had been together, and she had believed it would be like this forever.

She laughed aloud at her own stupidity.

He still had not moved.

She rolled onto her side, holding her stomach, still laughing. She heard herself hiccup. She felt tears burning her eyes. Stupid tears.

He came down over her, pulling her onto her back.

She whipped her legs up suddenly and drove her feet into his groin. He stared at her for an instant, knowing the grinding pain would be upon him in but a moment, knowing he would want to die, knowing he wanted to kill her. She was a red haze, nothing more than that, a red haze that dissolved quickly enough into such pain that he knew he would vomit.