“I am not stupid. I remember now. She is the heiress, the one you had to marry to save us.”
“Aye. I’m pleased you remember. How do you feel, Mother?”
“Feel? Are you blind? Just look at my feet. They hurt. Sir Roger’s bitch made me flee the keep and I had to hide in the forest for nearly a week before I managed to gain the attention of the men-at-arms who were riding below. I had to hide in the tree so the wild animals wouldn’t kill me. They said they were looking for me. The bitch must have gotten frightened that I would die and Sir Roger would be angry. Just look at my feet. No one cares about my feet.”
“I do, madam,” Hastings said. She turned to her husband. “Please have one of the men bring my trunk of herbs. May I speak to your mother, Severin?”
He was staring at his mother, clearly uncertain.
“I am larger than she is. If she becomes violent, I will be able to deal with her.” She turned to the fat woman who was hovering behind them. “Bring me warm water, a bathing tub, and many bathing towels.”
The woman’s three chins wobbled. “Aye, my lady.”
“This is one of the women you selected to see to your mother?”
“Aye, it is. She has gained more flesh than seems possible in such a short time. You will call me if you need anything. I will go into the hall and speak with Sir Roger. I would know more about this situation.” He paused a moment and looked around him. “I do not like this chamber. It would depress the spirit of a healthy man.”
“Aye, it would. We will speak of it later, my lord.”
He was still frowning when he left her.
“My feet!” he heard his mother screech.
Hastings managed to get her mother-in-law to sit on the narrow, musty bed. The coverlets were thin and smelled dirty. When she saw her feet, she wanted to cry. They were torn and filthy, some sores crusted, others still oozing blood. She looked up at the now-silent woman whose dirty hair hung in strings to her meager breasts and said quietly, “Madam, allow me to take care of you.”
The woman stretched out a dirty hand and lightly touched it to Hastings’s cheek. “I was once pretty like you are.
It was a very long time ago. There was a man I loved. He looked very much like the man who was standing in the doorway with you. He died, you know. It was a petty thing, the way he died. He was drunk and fell from his horse into a ditch. There was water in the ditch, just a small amount of water, but he landed facedown and drowned. Is that not petty?”
“Aye, it is. The man with me is your son, Severin.”
“Severin? I wonder why he is named Severin. I would have called him William, after the great conqueror. I remember Severin. He was a quiet boy, but strong, so very strong. I remember how he once lifted me above his head with just one hand. Then he left. Ah, but my feet hurt.”
Hastings tended her mother-in-law herself. She didn’t want the fat woman in the same chamber with her. As for the second woman Severin had picked to care for his mother, she never saw her. It was some minutes before she thought to ask, “What is your name, madam?”
“I am Moraine. I was once pretty, like you are.”
“You still are,” Hastings said, her voice grim as she held Moraine’s filthy, bleeding foot in her hands.
“Sir Roger says that my mother escaped when one of her women became ill, nothing more. He was very sorry for it. But he found her and she is safe. He apologized sincerely for not sending a messenger, but he did not wish to unduly alarm me. He did find her unharmed, so my trip is wasted. He promised to punish the man who rode to Oxborough. I told him that the man wasn’t to be punished, that I had planned to come soon in any case.
“Then he said his mistress, Glenda, was always kind to my mother—indeed, that she would weep when my mother forgot who she was and where she was. He said my mother was very fond of Glenda when she wasn’t succumbing to her madness. He seems very pleased with himself that he found her and that she’s alive. As to her small chamber, as you know he sees nothing at all wrong with having moved her into it. After all, my mother is mad. Most of the time she isn’t aware of where she is, thus why waste the large bedchamber on her?”
“Did you kill Sir Roger, Severin?”
Slowly, very slowly, the ferocious frown disappeared. He stopped his urgent pacing. He smiled down at her. “My blood was hot enough to do it, but I held back. Perhaps he deserves it, I’m not yet certain. But it amazed me, Hastings. He truly saw nothing at all wrong with what he has done. I believe he even expects me to reward him for finding her. When I would have questioned him more, he left the hall when my attention was elsewhere. By Saint Olaf’s elbows, even the ale he served me tasted of piss.”
“Let me kill him instead. I’ll wager you will find out he does deserve it.”
That brought him to a stop. He arched a black eyebrow. “You are but a girl, yet you speak like this?”
“Aye, a dagger through his black heart. As for this mistress of his, you heard what your mother said. Something about the bitch making her flee Langthorne. So Sir Roger denied that. I would like to know the truth of it as well. If the mistress had something to do with it, then I would like to tie her to a stake in the village and keep her there for all to see for at least a sennight. It would rain at least three times in that period.”
“Why do we not simply tie both of them to the stake, naked, back to back?”
Her eyes glittered. “I like the way your mind snaps to the perfect punishment. You said that Sir Roger sees nothing wrong with what he has done to your mother. I would imagine that because he treated her with indifference, the two women you picked to care for her became quickly hardened. I don’t know where the second woman is. Your mother is very thin, Severin. Her feet are very bad—she was barefooted the entire time she was hiding in the forest—but I have treated them as best I can and bandaged them with clean linen. I have given her some of the potion the Healer prepared. She is sleeping now, in one of my night shifts. Her clothes were filthy. This fat woman probably ate all your mother’s food.”
“Where have you put her?”