“Toby!”
It was a bellow, a barely recognizable word. Toby, knowing by the tone that her mother’s mood was not good, bade Ailsa to stay outside. It would not have been healthy for the child to go in. With a breath for courage, she ventured into the dark, musty bower.
It was like a chamber of horrors, a dusty, smelly, cluttered mess. Rats hid beneath the bed, waiting for the scraps of food that the invalid woman would drop. Judith Cartingdon had been a lovely woman once. But ten years of bad health, the inability to walk and the near-inability to speak, had turned her into a caricature of her former self. When Toby came near the bed, Judith picked up her good arm and hit her daughter in the shoulder.
“Where have you been?” she slurred. “I have been calling for you. Why did you not answer me?”
“We have guests for dinner, mother,” Toby didn’t rub her shoulder; she would not let her mother see that she had hurt her. “I had to see to supper.”
Judith slapped her hand on the bed, drool running down the left side her face. “Supper for me, do you hear? Bring it to me now!”
Toby didn’t argue with her; she didn’t want to be near her mother, much less engaged in a futile conversation with her. She turned around to leave the room when Judith picked up a small pewter bowl and threw it at her, striking her on the top of her left shoulder. It stung deeply, but still, Toby didn’t let on. She continued out of the room.
Ailsa was standing by the door, wide-eyed. “Bring her supper,” Toby finally took the time, out of her mother’s sight, to rub her back. “Make sure all of the plates are removed this time. And do not get too close. Her mood is foul this eve.”
“She hit you again?”
Toby didn’t answer her; the back-rubbing was enough. Smoothing her dress and saying a silent prayer that the meal downstairs progressed without incident, she descended the stairs into the hall below.
Sparks from the hearth had caught some of the rushes in the hall on fire; consequently, the hall was smokier than usual. Toby entered the room, curtsying to the men whose attention turned to her.
“Good eve, Father,” she said. Then she looked at Tate. “My lord.”
“Ah, Toby,” her father greeted her, his normal chalice of wine in hand. “I was showing Sir Tate our humble farm.”
Tate stood near the fire; there had been a slight mist outside and he raked his fingers through his hair to dry it in the heat. His eyes lingered on Toby in her emerald surcoat.
“This farm is anything but humble,” he said. “The size and structure is impressive.”
“You may thank me for the size and my daughter for the structure,” Balin said. “Were it not for Toby, this would still be but a mediocre working farm, struggling to support a village.”
More wine and ale were brought to the table. Tate had been accompanied by his entourage of men; the knights stood and drank their ale while the men at arms stood on either side of the front door in a defensive position. The squire sat on a small stool near the hearth, drying his thin body out.
“It is good to see a community that can support itself,” Tate said. “There is so much poverty in the north that the peasants resort to stealing and begging to live. I have had a good deal of trouble with it on my lands.”
Toby moved to pour herself some mulled wine. “Do you also not think, my lord, that the wars of the crown have created such poverty?”
“They do.”
“Yet still you support another uprising.”
Tate knew this moment would come; he just did not think it would come so soon. He turned fully to Toby, a radiant vision in the ambient light of the fire. The sight of her caused the harsh response on his tongue to ease. It was difficult to become angry with such beauty.
“I would not consider Edward’s right an uprising, mistress,” his voice was steady. “Do you deny the rightful king his entitlement?”
“Of course not. But is there not a more peaceful way?”
“If you have any suggestions, you have my full attention.”
Toby wasn’t a military expert by any means. Her gaze trailed to the two enormous knights standing near the hearth; their expressions were harsh and she did not like the feeling radiating from them. The men at arms were far enough away that theyprobably had not heard the conversation, but the squire was looking at her as if he had something to say to all of it. She almost wished she hadn’t spoken out; too many times she would speak before thinking. This was one of those times.
“It would seem to me that the Queen would willingly relinquish the right to rule to her son,” she said. “He is the king, after all. Unless the Earl of March has poisoned her against her own son, what mother would not want to see her child achieve his claim?”
“Power has a strange way of blinding those it serves,” Tate said. “The king has attempted negotiating with the Queen. She does not believe him ready to assume the full mantle.”
“And you believe that he is, my lord?”
Tate’s dark eyes were intense. “I would stake my life on it.”
