After a few moments, he placed his arm around her waist again.
“You can wake me like that any morning you like, wife.”
“And you may do that to me anytime, anywhere.”
“Really? Like at our morning meal? Just bend you over the table whilst our guests are stuffing their gullets with my food and ale?”
“Exactly like that. Then maybe they would look at me with less than fear.”
“Aye, but they would regard you with something else and I will not tolerate disrespect against you.”
She turned toward him and placed her hand on his face. “You are a good man, Giric MacDomnail. I am glad you sailed to Islay.”
“As am I,” he said. “I do believe we are crafting peace, you and I. There will be challenges, but as long as we work together, I have faith this can work.”
“As do I.”
The morning meal was pretty much a continuation of the previous evening’s feast. Platters of bread and meats and cheese accompanied pitchers of ale and mead. Saga was famished and did not even try to hide her appetite. After her second helping she noticed some of the ladies staring at her. Annoyed with the implication of disapproval, she gathered up her trencher, filled it and left her husband’s side to go sit with them. Letting opinions stew made no sense to her. If they had something to say to her, she would give them the opportunity and correct where necessary. She hoped today’s gown of sky blue but similar style as theirs would put them further at ease. Aislin had managed to find six gowns for her to wear that were barely long enough until she could have more made.
“Do you live near here?” Saga asked.
Both ladies looked like she’d appeared out of thin air. “I—well—I live close, but my cousin is here visiting me from Edinburgh.”
“And your names?”
“You met us last night, Lady MacDomnail.”
“As I met dozens more. Surely you do not expect me to remember all the names of all the people here upon first meeting.”
“As lady of this castle you will be expected to do just that,” the cousin from Edinburgh said. “Let’s face it. You do not fit in here and you never will.”
Saga did not stop eating, though she wanted to throw her trencher at the nasty little woman. She wondered at the woman’s motives, too. If she lived in Edinburgh as a lady, chances were any Viking raids never touched the fancy hem of her gown.
“Speaking of fitting in, do you both know my husband well? Has he always been such a buck?”
The Edinburgh lady turned as many shades of red as Saga had ever seen. An inkling of understanding dawned on her. Mayhap some of the animosity the woman had displayed was similar to the cousin, Naywin last eve.
Thankfully the woman’s companion found humour in Saga’s question. “I am Elora MacAlpin. My brother is your husband’s friend. I believe you have met him already.”
“I have. He appears to be a sensible man, strong and wise in the head.”
“He is that and values your husband. Is it true he is taken with a woman from your village?”
“That woman would be my sister and, ja, I believe they have made a connection.”
“You are all filthy heathens,” the other one said. “You should go back to your own land and leave us alone.”
“And what would you know of it, Ada?” Elora asked. “The king himself has pledged his daughter to a Viking warlord. Giric is merely following in his footsteps and doing his part to ensure peace.”
“We would not need peace if they had stayed where they belong. You are all filthy, rotten animals who take what is not yours.”
Saga drew a deep breath. She would not cause a scene here, and physically harming this woman would only prove her point. She was trying to provoke and doing a good job, but a shield-maiden possessed strength of mind as well as body.
“That’s enough, Ada,” Osgar said from behind her. “You will leave this hall at once. Sister, take our cousin back to the castle and confine her to her chamber until I can make arrangements for her return to Edinburgh.”
Saga nodded at Osgar in thanks. She supposed she should have expected that and by all accounts the woman’s words were none she hadn’t heard before. One thing was for certain, when Giric said they had their work cut out for them, he had not exaggerated.
“What passes here?” Giric asked.
