At the far end of the table, next to Catherine, Solomon watched Adalisa. It seemed to him that Edgar’s stepmother was a delicate French rose, planted in a desert and somehow expected to bloom. He wondered if, after so many years, she still felt like a foreigner in this land.
They had reached the fruit and nut stage when Robert arrived, with his dog. He was wearing old leather breeches and a tunic without sleeves that was stained with sweat. Waldeve glanced at him and his jaw set. He put down the sticky sweetmeat he had been gnawing.
“You look like a
neyf,”
he said. “No. Worse. Like a slave, without pride or sense.”
Robert shrugged.
“I’ve been away from my holdings for weeks,” he stated. “They needed tending to. I need to work to survive on the pittance of land I have. I’m too busy for family dinners. The only reason I’ve come at all is that I have news for you.”
He raised his voice, although the hall was quiet enough for him to be heard in a whisper.
“There was a messenger waiting for me,” he told them. “He had information he was afraid to deliver here.”
For a moment Waldeve’s shoulders sagged, as if an iron yoke had been dropped on them. He regained himself quickly though.
“And what did your cowardly messenger fear to tell me?” he asked.
Robert looked around the room, savoring the attention.
“The horses have been found,” he said. “At Hexham. Alexander’s still wore the bridle the king gave him at Carlisle.”
The silence became uproar. Men shouted and pounded their knives and cups on the table. Alexander’s wife shrieked and began to wail. Æthelræd didn’t bother to try to push through the confusion to get to Robert. He simply stepped up onto the table, making it creak alarmingly, sending dishes flying and spattering sauce across the room. He jumped off the other side and faced his nephew.
“Where are they?” he asked. “Who has them? Who did it?”
“At the priory,” Robert answered. “In the care of the priest. I don’t know. They were left in the church, tied to the rood screen, in the middle of the night.”
That brought the room to silence again. Edgar shivered and crossed himself. So did many others. Solomon and Catherine looked at each other. Would no one tell them what was happening?
Waldeve leaned forward over the table. A pitcher of ale tipped over, causing a foamy waterfall to spill to the floor. His mouth opened and closed twice. Finally, he found the word he wanted.
“Why?” he asked. “Who is playing with me like this?”
For once Robert almost pitied his father. He seemed to have aged in the past few moments, crumpled. Adalisa put a hand on her husband’s arm. He turned and stared at her as if at a stranger. Then he looked at Edgar.
“Is it God?” he asked. “Is this a divine punishment for my sins?”
The question startled Edgar. When had his father ever worried about his sins? And what answer could he give? How would he know God’s mind? He was thankful that Catherine couldn’t understand. She’d try to explain her theories on divine retribution. But Waldeve didn’t want theology, he wanted reassurance.
“More likely someone in league with the devil,” Edgar decided. “After all, if the Lord wished to punish you, he wouldn’t need swords.”
Waldeve nodded, comforted. It pleased him to think that he was so powerful his enemies needed to league themselves with Satan in order to combat him.
“But why Hexham?” Edgar wondered. “Robert, was there anything, a message, a sign, anything at all attached to the horses? Did they seem to have been abused, ridden hard?”
Robert threw up his hands. “I’ve told you all that was told to me,” he said. “And now I must get back to my work.”
He turned to go.
“Stop at once!” Waldeve roared. “We’re leaving at first light and you’re going with us.”
Robert sighed and shook his head, but kept walking. The door was open to let in the summer sun. This close to the solstice, it shone almost horizontally into the room. He paused at the threshold, black against the glare, then shook his head again and left.
For a moment, everyone simply stared at the space where he had been, then all heads turned to Waldeve.
Deliberately, Waldeve pushed back his stool. He walked the length of the table, ignoring his stunned household. He crossed the room to the doorway and pulled down a crossbow from the wall. As they watched in horror, he slid the bolt into the weapon and raised it, aiming out into the courtyard.
Æthelræd leaped forward, knocking his brother over as the arrow was loosed, shooting up into the sky.
“Have you gone mad?” he asked Waldeve. “You have no sons to spare.”
Waldeve lowered the crossbow and spat on Æthelræd’s bare feet.
“I have a dozen sons better than that one,” he answered calmly. “No man turns his back on me.”
Æthelræd looked at him with scorn.
“You mean, no man dares to,” he said. “Robert has done your bidding long enough and he’s no traitor. Any man brave enough to tell you ‘no’ to your face will never betray you.”
Waldeve looked around his brother to the people gathered at the table. His eyes scorched them. Finally, his gaze stopped at Edgar.
“Will you go to Hexham?” he asked.
“I will,” Edgar answered. “Not for you, but for my own satisfaction. You haven’t answered my question, why there? I want to find out.”
“Husband,” Adalisa interjected. “Your son has only just arrived. He needs to rest before setting out again.”
“He’ll have the night,” Waldeve said. “Take the women and retire to your rooms, Wife. We don’t need you here.”
She clenched her teeth and opened her eyes wide to keep back the tears. She wouldn’t disgrace herself before all these people. Adalisa raised her chin, then bowed her head slightly.
“As you wish,” she said.
Catherine was startled at being rushed so abruptly from the hall. But she was also relieved. Now she could find out what all that had been about. She also hoped that James was awake and hungry. She was more than ready for him to eat. As they left, she snatched a hunk of dripping bread from the table and hid it in her sleeve. No one would have thought to give Willa any food.
Adalisa moved with dignity, ignoring the whispers of the other women as they moved up the stairs together. Inside, her heart was thumping so hard that her ears ached with the sound of it. She was frightened and she was hurt, but most of all, she was angry.
They reached the women’s rooms. Sitting on the floor by the window was Margaret along with Anna’s son. They were dutifully rocking the cradles of the two babies, both of the children watching with rapt delight as Willa’s long fingers tied bits of string, cloth and sticks into figures. A horse, a monk, a knight with a sword, these were already set on the floor next to her. As she worked, Willa hummed a song from Champagne. The children didn’t look up as their mothers entered.
The tears Adalisa had fought so hard to control came rushing out. Quickly she went to her clothes chest, opened it and began
rummaging in its depths as if looking for something. There the tears fell from her face onto wool acrid with dried herbs.
Willa stopped her song when they entered. She smiled at Catherine.
“James is awake, Mistress,” she said. “The other baby is sleeping still. Did you have a good dinner?”
There was no answer to that. Catherine took out the bread and gave it to the girl, then bent over James’s cradle. Her son looked up at her with his father’s eyes.
“What cursed place have we come to?” she murmured, as she lifted him and settled herself to give him his dinner.
Anna and Sibilla watched her with something between contempt and wonder. Catherine ignored them. She was used to the belief that only peasants breastfed. But all the scholars agreed that weaknesses and flaws in the character could be drawn in with strange milk, so she held to her determination. Edgar had assured her that King David’s mother had nursed all her own children. If a sainted queen could, she told people, so could she.
The women lost interest in her oddity after a moment and retreated to a corner to discuss the events of the afternoon. Adalisa emerged from the woolens, her emotions conquered. She seated herself on the rushes next to Catherine and gestured to Margaret to join her.
The child came, still clutching her new toys. Adalisa wrapped her arms around her and rubbed her face against Margaret’s soft, bright curls. Then she gave Catherine a rueful smile.
“There are too many men in this family,” she announced.
Catherine smiled back.
“Perhaps that’s why we really send our sons out for fostering,” she suggested. “They’re too much like their fathers to all live together in unity.”
Adalisa nodded with a sigh. “Now, I imagine you want to know what all that was about.”
“Among other things,” Catherine answered.
Adalisa gave her a puzzled glance, but went on to explain the gist of the argument that had gone on below. Catherine listened while James fed contentedly.
“I see,” she said when the story was ended. “It’s strange. I don’t know the customs of this place, but it appears to me as if these deeds
are the act of someone deliberately trying to demean Lord Waldeve. His sons murdered and mutilated like felons, his horses returned as if worthless. Is this usual behavior in Scottish feuds?”
“Not in the least,” Adalisa said. “Revenge is brutal here, even with the efforts of King David to make people bring their grievances to his court. But it’s also straightforward. A man has a grudge against his neighbor and he kills him in the open and sticks his head above the gate for all to see. This … this desecration, it’s unnatural.”
Catherine agreed. “And you have no idea who would want to behave so?”
It seemed to her that Adalisa hesitated.
“No,” she said. “My husband has never felt the need for friends, but in his own way, he is honorable. He has never betrayed his lord, which is almost a miracle in these times of shifting allegiances. He isn’t kind to those under him, but he is just, I believe. He’s more cruel to his family than to his slaves.”
Catherine had seen enough in her short time at Wedderlie to believe this. She shifted James to the other breast and asked another question.
“Why do you think the horses were returned to Hexham? Where is it?”
“Southwest of here,” Adalisa answered. “Just past the Roman wall.”
“Is it in Scotland or England?” Catherine asked.
“That depends on whom you ask,” Adalisa said. “At the moment, King David and his son, Earl Henry, have the greatest claim. But the church of Hexham is under the protection of the archbishop of York.”
“Does Edgar’s family have any connection there?”
Again a hesitation. Was Adalisa preparing a lie or simply trying to remember?
“Edgar and Robert had a friend who grew up at Hexham,” she said at last. “Robert gave some money for the rebuilding of the church of Saint Peter there. Waldeve, of course, refused. It’s not much of a connection but there’s nothing else that I know of.”
“Could this have something to do with Robert, then?” Catherine asked. “Might this be an attempt to place blame on him?”
Adalisa sighed. “I have no idea, Catherine,” she said in exasperation. “This does not seem to be the work of sane men, so how can I imagine their reasoning?”
Catherine finally took the hint and subsided.
James was dozing now. In the unfriendly silence Catherine was having a hard time staying awake herself. She felt that Edgar’s stepmother wasn’t telling her the whole truth, but everything here was too new and confusing for her to risk more questioning. What she wanted was time alone with Edgar.
Gently, she made James release his grip. His arms twitched beneath the swaddling. Soon, Catherine reflected, they would have to make some little shirts so that his upper body could move freely. She placed him back in the cradle and stood.
“Do you think the men have finished their council?” She asked. “If we are leaving again in the morning, I need to speak with Edgar.”
Adalisa seemed startled. “Catherine, you aren’t considering going to Hexham, are you? The road there isn’t safe at all. And what they find there may be even more dangerous.”
“We came here as a family,” Catherine explained. “Edgar won’t let us be parted now.”
“If you say so.” But Adalisa seemed unconvinced.
“Catherine,” Edgar began, in the voice of one who expects to have to continue talking for some time. “There’s no reason for you to come to Hexham with us and every reason for you to stay here.”
“My safety? James’s?” Catherine asked, knowing that they were both good reasons but not enough to sway her.
“Yes, of course,” Edgar answered. “But much more than that. If I go with my father, I can investigate the situation at Hexham with him and, perhaps, prevent him from striking out at the first person he sees.”