28
ALICE SAW MARJORIE PACING BACK AND FORTH, BACK AND forth, in front of Hastings’s bedchamber.
She stepped down a few steps and waited. What did the woman want? She heard the thick oak door open, heard voices.
It was Lord Severin. She heard the door pulled shut.
It was the master Marjorie had been waiting for. Alice wasn’t surprised, but she did think that the woman was luckier than she deserved. What would she have done if Hastings had come out or if they’d come out together? Ah, but that one was just full of stories and her wits worked quickly.
Without hesitation, Alice pressed herself against the solar stair wall, making no sound, and listened.
“I have waited for you, Severin.”
“It is very early, Marjorie. What is it you wish?”
“I wish for us to ride to the beach. The morning is warm, the sun bright. I wish to speak of the future.”
Alice thought she’d choke. The bitch, the damnable bitch. Coming right out with it. She sounded utterly confident. Mayhap, Alice thought, she should get some of the love potion for herself from the Healer. Marjorie certainly believed it worked. Just listen to her. Alice would pour a goblet of it into Beamis’s ale, the blind oaf.
She heard a deep sigh from Lord Severin. Fight against it, she wanted to shout at him, but she held her tongue, hearing him say at last, “Very well.”
She heard Marjorie’s skirts swish, and she heard a quiet moan. The woman was kissing him or caressing him with her hand, Alice didn’t know which. She began to whistle, very loudly, and clopped up the few stairs.
The noises stopped.
Lord Severin was standing with his back against the closed bedchamber door when Alice came into view. He was holding Marjorie away from him. At least he still had some shame or perhaps the potion wasn’t such a miracle after all.
“Good morning, my lord,” Alice said, sounding happy as a gull who’d just snaffled a fish from the sea. She merely nodded to Marjorie. “Is Hastings awake, my lord? I wish to speak to her.”
“Hastings is within. She is grinding some felwort, she told me.”
“Then I will see to her.” Alice knocked on the door, did not wait for a reply, and walked in, still whistling.
She didn’t close the door completely, and remained close, listening. She held her finger over her lips when Hastings looked up and opened her mouth to speak.
“I must speak to you, Severin. Away from here. Away from her. Come with me now.”
Alice began to whistle loudly. She clopped her feet right next to the door.
Then she flung the door open. “Ah, my lady wishes to speak to you, my lord. The Healer gave her a mixture of herbs to feed to the marten. It will complete his healing.”
Hastings just stared. Then she saw Marjorie standing next to her husband, just outside the bedchamber door.
She called out, her voice as cold as the frozen water in the jugs during winter, “My lord, do you have Trist?”
The marten poked his head out of Severin’s tunic. Severin merely looked down at Marjorie, raised his hand, then lowered it. “Aye, here he is. I’m bringing him.”
Once Severin had left the bedchamber, leaving Trist sniffing in the various open jars of herbs, Alice grabbed Hastings’s sleeve. “She attacked him, Hastings. I saw it. It is she who searches him out. Not the other way around.”
“He did not push her away, did he?”
“Don’t sound like a beaten dog! I know you believe the love potion makes him unable to resist her, but I don’t believe it. He did resist her. I heard him speak. He sounded like he just wanted to get away from her. Listen to me, Hastings, Severin’s mother, Dame Agnes, and I have all discussed it, and we’ve decided that it is time to take care of Marjorie once and for all.”
“Kill her?” Her voice was wistful, then she shook her head. “I cannot do that. I would like to, but I cannot. The king would be displeased if he had to find Eloise another guardian.”
Alice laughed. “That was a good jest, Hastings. Perhaps your humors are returning to their proper balance. No, it is not our idea to lay an axe on her neck. No, we want you to do something else. Something very basic, well, perhaps more than basic. Lady Moraine said it was the most elemental of strategies and the most advanced of strategies as well. Now, tell me what you think of our idea.”
A shadow fell over her columbine. His voice, deep and smooth, said, “I must punish you, Hastings.”