“You devil’s animal,” Etheldred hissed and brought up the gold, corded switch. She swung it with a whicker of air before Alys could stop her, but instead of landing on the monkey who now hunched near the stones, the switch broke against the length of golden links, pulling the leash from Etheldred’s fat fingers.
Alys squealed as, in the next instant, the monkey clambered swiftly up her own skirt and scrambled over her back to perch on the shoulder farthest away from Etheldred Cobb. She could feel the animal’s tiny fingers in her hair as it clutched at her circlet and the flicking vibration of itsheartbeat through its feet. Alys brought up a hand to steady the small creature. Its hair was soft and radiating heat, its limbs feeling both delicate and powerful beneath her palm.
“Come here, you little bitch,” Etheldred growled and made to grab the monkey from Alys’s shoulder.
Alys instinctively stepped back, steadying the monkey with her hand, her fingers wrapping protectively around its slight forearm.
Lady Blodshire’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Mary?”
The mule-faced maid, heretofore nearly forgotten by Alys, stepped from behind Etheldred and toward Alys with outstretched—and bandaged, Alys noticed—hands. “Be still, my lady, lest it bite you.”
Alys was not certain whether the maid meant the monkey or Etheldred Cobb, and it took a mustering of all her decorum to not turn from the Blodshire group and flee with the monkey. She could feel the animal’s trembling increase in the instant before the maid’s hands claimed it. Alys was forced to assist the maid by prying the monkey’s fingers from her circlet, lest she lose a goodly portion of her hair along with the small animal.
“It is beyond my understanding,” Etheldred began when Mary had stepped behind her once more, “why my son thinks you worth a moment of his time, as forward and gauche as you are. Amicia spoiled you to ruination, I daresay.”
“Mother,” Clement whispered, his thin brows lowering.
Alys’s stomach clenched. “Do not trouble yourself over Clement’s affections, my lady—I’m certain it is only Fallstowe’s wealth he admires. ‘Tis most costly to outfit as many knights for Crusade as Blodshire has so piously promised. Perhaps someone fears for her soul?” Alys let her eyes go deliberately to the homely maid over Etheldred’sshoulder, and Mary dropped her gaze while her face flushed scarlet. Alys looked boldly once more to Etheldred, and noticed that the group held the other guests’ attention once more.
“How dare you slander me so, you little heathen!” Lady Blodshire quivered with rage. “I should strike you where you stand.”
“Oh, do allow me to have a stool fetched for you so that you might reach me properly, you fattened old—”
“Lady Blodshire, I thought it must be you when the guests gathered into such a knot. Welcome to Fallstowe.”
Alys’s words were cut off not only by Sybilla’s gracious welcome, but by the sharpened points of her fingernails digging into Alys’s tender upper arm.
“That …girl,”Etheldred sputtered, and pointed a gnarled finger at Alys.
“Is young and foolish,” Sybilla supplied.
Alys jerked her arm free and looked up at her sister, the sparkling-cold, beautiful Sybilla. “She is cruel to that animal, Sybilla. The poor thing is terrified of her!”
Sybilla flicked her ice-blue eyes—so unlike Alys’s own rich brown—toward the monkey, and then returned her disapproving stare to Alys with a cool blink. “Should you one day possess a monkey of your own, you may treat it however you like. Until then, you will do well to remember that others’ possessions are of no concern to you. Apologize to Lady Blodshire.Please,” Sybilla added quietly, and Alys heard the dire warning in her outwardly benign tone as if her dark-haired sister had screamed it.
Alys swallowed. She was a grown woman. And Sybilla seemed to forget of late that she was not their mother. “I will not,” Alys said, lifting her chin and telling herself her voice sounded strong and sure. “She flung the first barb,and this ismy home, too,Sybilla. I’ll not allow for such disrespect.”
“The only lady at Fallstowe owed respect is its head, which is me,” Sybilla said calmly, quietly, with a smile, even. Alys knew she was as good as dead. “And you will allow for whatever I deem appropriate. I’ll not have our guests ridiculed.”
“Heavens, what are you two about?” The middle sister, Cecily, now joined the group. Dark-haired like Sybilla, but sharing Alys’s brown eyes, Cecily was the anomaly of the Foxe family, meek, sweet, and more devoted to God than any young woman had reason to be, in Alys’s opinion. She dressed plainer than even Alys did, although her beauty was as striking as Sybilla’s, even with her own rich hair hidden beneath a drab, shortened veil.
“Apologize, Alys,” Sybilla repeated, ignoring Cecily’s arrival. “Or be gone to your rooms for the remainder of the feast.”
Cecily sighed. “Oh, Alys, what have you done now?”
Alys felt her chin flinch, and her eyes flicked to the scores of people staring at her. She was humiliated yet again before the all-powerful matriarch of Fallstowe, Sybilla. Even silly Clement Cobb now looked at her with uncomfortable pity in his watery blue eyes. She had never missed her mother so desperately.
“I will not apologize,” Alys said quietly. And then, louder,“I will not!Clement, you are a dear man, and I am sorry for any embarrassment this may cause you, but I will not apologize to a vain old harridan who belittles others and boasts of her piety out one side of her mouth and then kisses her own maid with the other side!”
The crowd gave a collective gasp and Sybilla’s already pale face went cloud white. Even the musicians and servants had quit their work.
Lady Etheldred sagged toward Mary, and the monkey leapt free as the maid’s arms came around the old woman.
“My sweet Etheldred!” Mary cried.
Clement whispered, “Mother!” before falling to his knees at her side. “Are you dead?” Alys couldn’t help but think she heard a note of longing hope in his voice.
The monkey clambered over the pile of bodies on the floor and launched itself at Alys, who caught it by the arms and swung it up on her shoulder as if she’d performed the action a hundred times before.
