“Do you enjoy this?”
The words hung there in the air between the women; neither one misunderstood the question.
“My lady,” Robena said as she moved closer, “yer husband was a man who gained pleasure from the pain of others. He enjoyed inflicting pain and watching others in the giving of it.”
Anice’s breath stuck in her chest—this was not what she’d expected to hear from the whore. How did she know this about Sandy? How could she? Oh, dear God!
“You? Did he...?”
“Aye, but I’d already had enough men to know that most are no’ like that. Most take pleasure in pleasure. And those men are the reason I do enjoy what I do for them, with them.”
Anice shook her head, unable to force any more words out. Sandy had spread his destruction far and wide. Stepping into the sunshine, Anice took a few steps and Robena called to her.
“Thank ye for yer kindness to me, milady.” Robena curtsied again.
The tears rapidly filling her eyes blocked her vision, so Anice simply nodded in the direction of the voice and then turned away. She’d had no idea that Sandy had attacked Robena before their wedding. Of course not, she thought. No one would have mentioned his behavior if it involved a whore.
Stumbling down the path, she knew where she had to go. Following the lane away from the keep, she made her way back to Moira’s cottage. Surely Moira would tell her what had happened. When she reached it, she banged on the front door. When she realized that no one was inside, she walked around to the back. When Anice left here earlier, Moira had said she’d be working in her garden. Sure enough, she found the healer kneeling between rows of plants, gently turning the soil with her hands.
“Why?”
Panting and unable to catch her breath, Anice waited for Moira to acknowledge hearing her question. When it wasobvious that Moira was biding her time before responding, Anice spied a bench under a tree nearby and collapsed onto it. Moira continued and finished the row she was working on before standing and dusting the dirt off her skirts. Pausing to rinse her hands in a bucket of water, Moira came to stand before her. Now in her sixth month, Moira’s belly protruded as her own had done some months ago. But where fear and apprehension had ruled Anice’s pregnancy, joy and contentment were clear in Moira’s face and deportment.
“Why, Moira? Why?” she asked again.
“Ye are asking several questions with yer one word, Anice. Why did he take her as he had taken ye? Because he chose to. Why did I no’ tell ye of his actions? Because ye were no’ ready or able to hear of them.” Moira paused for a few moments. “Let me ask something of ye. Why did ye go to see the whore?”
Anice winced at the harsh sound of the word. Somehow meeting Robena face-to-face and talking with her had changed her perception of the woman. And, added to the comments of the women whose counsel she valued, she felt that mayhap she had also done this woman wrong in the past....
“She is Robert’s friend.”
“Is that what men call them now? Friends?” Moira’s voice was strange, almost as though she were taunting Anice with her questions.
“Regardless of whatever else they may do together, he calls her friend. I was simply looking for ways to thank him for what he did.”
“So you made arrangements with the whore to do what? Tup him?”
“Moira, stop this,” Anice said, waving her hand in front of her. “In looking for ways to thank Robert, I thought to aid his friends, if they needed it.”
“And did she?”
“Nay, she says she needs nothing that she does not have.”
Moira walked over to the bench and sat beside her. “And that is when she told you about Sandy?”
“Nay,” Anice answered, shaking her head. “I asked if she enjoyed what she does with men and she said all men are notlike Sandy was.” She clasped her hands as she remembered the moment when she realized what her late husband had done. “Then I knew, Moira, I knew what he had done to her.”
“Aye, he and his friends used her badly.”
Anice could feel the blood drain from her face. “His friends, too?” she whispered, shuddering at the thoughts that raced through her mind. “Was she beaten?”
“No’ the way he did ye, Anice, but she will never be able to bear children.”
“Oh, dear God in heaven!” she cried out. “If that bastard was no’ dead, I would have to kill him with my own hands.” She heard her voice slip with the emotion behind it. When she realized what she had said, she gasped. Then she heard Moira laugh.
“Oh, lass, ’tis glad I am to finally hear that from yer lips.” Moira took her hands and closed her own around them. “Ye have lived first in fear and then in guilt over what he did to ye. Ye blamed yerself for his abominations. ’Tis good to see and hear yer anger at him for what he chose to do.”
“But, Moira, ’tis wrong to say that.” Anise could feel the weight of her guilt once more. Had she brought Sandy’s behavior on herself by her own? If that was not a sin, then surely her attempts to end her own life had been. She would pay for that the rest of her life and probably her soul would pay for eternity.
