Lady of Fire Read Free Page B

you've not sown one." Her voice sank to a spiteful whisper. "Nay, husband, you do not have it in you to make a male child."
    Gilbert reached out and grasped her chin painfully. "Have a care what you say to me, my lady, else I will put you aside. D'ye hear me, woman?" He released her and stepped back. "Now—Eleanor will sup with us and you will appear the proud parent. And if you beat the child and mark her, I'll mark you. As for Roger, you'll see him decently outfitted if you have to strip one of your fawning relatives to do it. I'll not send him to
Normandy
in rags. If you do not appear, you will be put out of my house."
    He'd won his point. Mary stood before him with blanched face and enormous frightened eyes. Abruptly he turned on his heel and walked out, brushing past his eldest daughter on the winding stone stairs.
    Eleanor had heard it all and, poised indecisively, tried to decide whether to go to her distraught mother or to follow her angry father. She finished climbing the few steps to Lady Mary's solar, where she found her beautiful mother still shaking, her hands held to her cheeks. Eleanor's first impulse was to reach out and comfort, but she drew back as Mary saw her. The hatred in her mother's eyes was unmistakable.
    "There you are, you stupid girl! I hate you—get out of my sight!"
    "Maman, please—"
    "Get out! Whatever happens to me, you are to blame for it!"
    His elation tempered by his aching limbs, Roger leaned forward on the bench while his mother tended the ugly bruises on his arms and torso. It had been a hard-fought contest between him and Belesme, one that the bigger boy had eventually won, but he knew he'd impressed those who'd watched with his own skill. And when the Conqueror had called the halt, he'd clasped Roger firmly by his sore shoulders and told him he could join the Conqueror's train, a signal honor even for the legitimate sons of great barons. Robert of Belesme had thrown his sword down in disgust at the news, but even he dared not defy Old William.
    "There," Glynis murmured as she rinsed the cloth in the bowl of water, "you've nothing to stitch up at least. Now"—she set aside the water and dropped to the bench beside him—"tell me again how this came about."
    "There's naught to tell, Mother, that I have not already said." He looked up into Glynis' blue eyes and read the pride there and relented. "All right, 'tis as I told you—I was practicing with the quintains where I'd set them this morning. Anyway, several others stopped to watch and then an older one, Robert of Belesme he is called, came up and said I belonged in a stable—that I was naught but a bastard, and a coward's bastard at that—and that they ought to throw me into the drainage ditch for daring to try a noble's sport. I had but the pole I was using for practice and he had a fine sword. Anyway, he would have done it had not Lea come running out to save me." He broke into a broad smile at the memory and nodded. "Aye, I would that you could have seen her, Mother. She marched right through them and faced Belesme, calling him a coward and forbidding him to do it. When they would hold her, she dared them to touch Nantes' daughter and they did not. Anyway, we did not hear the riders coming until this old man in mail rode up and demanded to know what was amiss. Lea would not let me get in a word as she told him about it. You cannot imagine our surprise to find that it was the Old Conqueror himself and he was most displeased to learn of Belesme's part in the matter. He had Walter de Clare give me his mail and his sword and told the young count he'd make it a fair fight. Jesu, Mother"—Roger winced in remembered pain—"But Belesme fought as though possessed by the Devil—I think he would have killed me had not Old William been there."
    "But he did not, my son, and now you have your chance."
    "Aye. Had it not been for Lea, 'twould not have happened." His face clouded at the thought of telling Eleanor he was leaving. Her life