‘Oh, she gets dirty alright, with our Laird, Aila,’ said another, elbowing the plain one and chortling.
The lass, Aila, put her hands on her hips and said to Cecily, ‘Are you not too tired to do kitchen work after spreading your legs for Peyton?’
‘Be gone. You are tiresome,’ said Cecily.
Aila was not finished. ‘How can you even sit down after he has pounded you all night, you slattern?’
Cecily rose, hands in fists, her temper rising like a black flood. ‘Name me that again, and I will slap your insolence out of you, bitch.’
‘Bitch, is it? At least I am not a whore, to be used whenever and by whoever,’ said the lass.
Cecily slapped the lass around the face, and then they were off, tearing at each other’s hair, grappling and falling to the floor to the excited shrieks of the other two lasses.
Aila was big and strong and managed a few blows and scratches, but Cecily was gripped by a terrible rage – at her situation, her folly, the loss of her freedom. She had often fought with her brother, Bran, and sister, Rowenna - nasty, spiteful fights as they grew up. She got her forearm around Aila’s throat and squeezed.
‘Filthy, stinking trollop,’ wheezed the lass. Cecily was on the brink of smashing her face into the flagstones to shut the river of bile coming from her mouth when strong hands hauled her to her feet and pulled her arm from Aila’s throat.
Peyton stood there with a face like thunder, Bertha beside him. Cecily’s pride squirmed. She must look a fright. Her hair was hanging around her face, there was blood on her knuckles where they had smashed into the floor, and her breath came in gasps of red rage. Worst of all, that bitch Aila had torn her fine dress.
‘What the hell is this?’ Peyton shouted.
‘She attacked me, Laird. Set upon me like a vicious she-wolf,’ cried Aila.
‘You got what you deserved,’ spat Cecily, tearing herself free of Peyton’s grip.
He rounded on her. ‘Explain yourself.’
‘I gave her a lesson in manners for calling me a whore.’
‘That is what she is,’ cried Aila. ‘Everyone knows she is your mistress, or whore, more like.’
His jaw worked. ‘Aila, enough! Get out of my sight before I have you whipped, and that goes for you as well,’ he snarled at the other two lasses. ‘Leave us.’
Peyton’s wrath was towering as he rounded on Cecily. ‘Why can’t you behave? I am gone for one day and a night and come back to you brawling like a back alley cat. I want peace in my house.’
‘A piss on your peace, and I don’t want to be in your house,’ she snarled.
‘Lass!’
‘Oh, go to hell, you miserable scum-sucking whoreson.’
Peyton’s mouth fell open in shock, and so did Bertha’s. Cecily swept out, clutching the shreds of her dignity, which fell away as she heard Bertha declare, ‘And there’s me thinking she was a lady.’
***
Cecily cowered amongst the sacks of apples and grain in Fellscarp’s dank cellar. Shouting came from above, and then deathly silence, which was worse. Her breathing slowed as her anger seeped away. She should not have done that. She should not have said what she did. Oh, what he must think of her. What was the point of her life now? She could do nothing right. All she could do was cause misery.
Soft footsteps sounded to her right, coming closer. Pray God, Peyton would not beat her too harshly.
‘Come out, lass. I know you are down here,’ said Bertha.
Cecily peered around a sack in case Peyton was waiting to ambush her. ‘Where is he?’ she hissed.
‘Stomping around above and swearing that if he gets hold of you, he will bare your bottom and give you a spanking for what you said to him.’
‘And I suppose you will hand me over,’ said Cecily.
‘No. Not this time,’ she chortled. ‘Let us wait here awhile until his temper blows over. It always does. That Aila is a nasty piece and got what she deserved, and it was worth it to see the look on Peyton’s face.’ Bertha plopped her ample behind onto a sack and rummaged in the next one. She took out two apples and handed one to Cecily. ‘Might cleanse that mouth of yours,’ she said with a grin.
