“What was that all about?” Elsbeth wanted to know.
They were alone.
“He cannot be deterred from bedding me, Nursie, but before he does I will give him a bath,” Adair told the older woman.
Elsbeth laughed. “You will make a gentleman out of him, my chick,” she said.
“Nay.” Adair shook her head. “He will never be a gentleman, but if he would be my lover he will at least be clean. And in a few days I will have my horse,” she said triumphantly. “The winter is almost here, Nursie, and I must reach Stanton before the snows. Tomorrow is All Hallow’s Eve. I will be gone by Martinmas.”
Elsbeth did not argue. It was useless to argue this matter with Adair, but she would not allow her mistress to deliberately walk into danger. “I’ll have Grizel clean the laird’s bedchamber,” she said.
“We’ll air the mattress, and the feather bed too,” Adair answered. “And there must be fresh sheets. And when that is done Jack can take the bathtub up to the laird’s chamber. We’ll fill it after supper, before I wash him.”
Just as the sun was setting Conal Bruce, his brothers, and their men returned home. They had killed a stag, which they would take a day or two to dress before hanging it in the cold larder. They had several strings ofgrouse, ducks, and rabbits, as well as three geese and a pheasant. Elsbeth praised them mightily, and then served them a dinner of roasted beef, broiled trout, and fine October ale. When she brought out a dish of pears poached in wine, and some sugar wafers, the brothers were ecstatic.
“Ah, Mistress Elsbeth, will you marry me?” Duncan Armstrong asked her with a mischievous grin as he slipped an arm about her ample waist.
Elsbeth cackled. “You wouldn’t be able to keep up with me, Master Duncan,” she told him, slapping the arm away. “I am a one-man woman, and my man is gone.” She bustled off back to her kitchens, where Adair was sitting with Flora, Grizel, and Jack. “They’re almost done with the meal,” she said. “Go up to the hall now, my chick.”
Without a word Adair arose and left the kitchens.
“So she’s come to an arrangement with him then?”Grizel said.
“There’s many a woman who would be happy to be in the laird’s bed,” Flora remarked. “They say Agnes Carr has tried to handfast with him.”
“Agnes is a whore,” Grizel replied bluntly. “A good-hearted lass, I’ll give you, but a whore. There isn’t a man for twenty miles around who hasn’t traveled the road between her legs now and again.”
“The laird needs a wife,” Elsbeth said.
“Aye,” Grizel agreed. “He does. If your lady can bind him, Elsbeth, then good luck to her, say I. She’s been wed before?”
“Twice,” Elsbeth said.
“And no bairns?” Grizel asked.
Elsbeth shook her head. “The first was a lad of fourteen. The marriage was a proxy one, and he appeared with her uncle one day. He never bedded her, and was killed in an accident before any damage was done.” Elsbeth thought it best not to say that poor FitzTudor had been killed by Scots borderers.
“And the second?” Grizel prodded.
“The son of a neighbor. ’Twas a good match, but he was killed with King Richard at Bosworth. She bemoaned the lack of a bairn, but perhaps ’tis better, given what has happened to her,” Elsbeth said.
Grizel nodded. “Aye. The raiders who took you would have killed the bairn, for they have no use for them. ’Tis a mercy, actually, for to steal the mam and leave the bairn would cause its death anyway. At least your lady has not that sorrow to suffer. ’Twas Willie Douglas who took you, wasn’t it?”
“Aye,” Elsbeth answered.
“He has a black heart,” Grizel said.
“He kept my sister for his wife,” Elsbeth replied.
“His wife is a poor, frail mouse of a creature, but he loves her, they say. If your sister is strong she’ll be safe,”
Grizel responded.
“Margery will cut his throat given the opportunity,”Elsbeth said.
Grizel laughed. “ ’Twould be a service to us all if she did,” she answered. “Did he rape your mistress? He always fucks the pretty ones.”
“He tried,” Elsbeth said, “and she fought and cursed him so fiercely that his manhood shriveled up to nothing. He was furious, so he beat her instead.”
