“Discipline them, like children!” The abbot nodded his hoary head.
“Maybe that was so in the past.” Lily leaned toward Radulf, as if she spoke to him alone. “But now cannot the harshness stop? There are rebels willing to listen . . . at least, I believe it is so. Can the English and the Normans not live in peace together?”
Radulf narrowed his dark eyes. “There will be no peace while Vorgen’s wife stirs the pot.”
“Lady Wilfreda?”
The name shocked Lily to frozen silence.
But the abbot didn’t notice, easing his bony buttocks upon the hard wooden seat. “I have heard appalling stories of her cruelty, Lord Radulf. I have heard her likened to a she-wolf eating her own young!”
Radulf turned to him. His voice was soft. “You know her?”
The abbot, startled by his guest’s intent stare, hurriedly shook his head. “I don’t know her, no, but I can see into her heart.”
Radulf shrugged and lost interest. “Everyone has heard of her, but no one knows her,” he growled. “I begin to think she is a witch who can vanish and appear at will!”
The abbot’s eyes widened and he crossed himself.
“I have heard,” Lily began, dizzy from her own daring, “that Vorgen kept her locked away from the world. His prize and his prisoner.”
Radulf sipped his wine.
Emboldened by his silence, she went on.
“Everybody speaks of Wilfreda as if she were a devil’s daughter, but as you so rightly said, my lord, not one of these rumor bearers has seen her or spoken to her. Lord Radulf, you know what it is to be a tall tale. Perhaps she is not nearly so terrible as the stories would have us believe. Perhaps she, too, is weary of war.”
Now Radulf’s eyes were riveted to hers. Lily forced herself to remain calm while his dark gaze delved deep, deep into her heart, until she became light-headed. At last, when she was sure he must know all her secrets, he shrugged, and returned to his wine.
“You mean well,” he allowed, “but you know not what you say. I knew Vorgen, I fought with him at Hastings. He was a loyal soldier. It was his wife who turned him into a traitor.”
Lily blinked, amazed by his willful blindness.
Anger bubbled inside her, and with it a swirl of memories of her life with Vorgen. The pain and humiliation, the damage to her body and mind.
But somehow she forced all emotion down, using her cooler mind to subdue her eager heart.
Remember that Radulf could not have known Vorgen as he really was, or he would not speak so. Vorgen must have changed, or he had hidden his true self well. Or was it just that Radulf, being a Norman, could not denigrate another Norman when there was an Englishwoman handy to take the blame?
For her sake as well as his, she must try to make him see, wake him from his sleep. It was foolish, perhaps, but when she was gone she wanted Radulf to understand.
“I understand what you say,” she said gently, “but men change. Perhaps the Vorgen you knew changed. Greed is like an illness that can afflict any man. Vorgen came north on the king’s business and saw he, too, could be a king. At least . . . that is what I have heard.”
“We must all be vigilant against the sin of greed,” the abbot murmured perfunctorily. He was losing interest, his head nodding.
Radulf played with the stem of his goblet. He preferred to believe Wilfreda had caught Vorgen in her spell like an evil, alluring spider might catch a helpless fly. He had a picture of her in his mind: raven-haired, amber-eyed, smiling into men’s eyes and saying one thing while she meant another. Wilfreda had become Anna, and he hated her.
“Who have you heard speak on this matter?” he demanded, a growing anger coloring his deep voice. “Does your father indulge in treason, lady?”
Lily shook her head, startled at the expression in his eyes—black and furious, like the storms that boiled over the hills near Vorgen’s keep.
“But you plead Wilfreda’s case?” he went on, leaning toward her, crowding her.
Again Lily shook her head, refusing to be intimidated. “Nay, Lord Radulf. I merely offer you my thoughts. Are women not allowed to have opinions under King William’s rule? I had heard he is very fond of his wife, and listens to her advice.
“Matilda is different—”
“And how is that?” Lily searched his face, very aware of this new tension between them. And the danger in his eyes. A combination of desperation and determination drove her on. “Matilda is a woman, the same as Wilfreda, the same as I am. Should a woman not be given the same fair and just treatment as you have given Vorgen?”
