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Severin rose, calmly and slowly, took the end of the trestle table in his large hands, and upended it, sending it crashing into the silver laver that stood close by. The laver sent scented water flying on the sleeping wolfhound, Edgar, whose eyes flew open. He leapt up, growling, ready to tear out an enemy’s throat.
“Enough, Severin, enough! Hold your temper. I do not want you to destroy the keep.”
Severin turned to see his wife of two days on her knees, picking up the laver, that thick hair of hers cascading over her shoulder nearly to the rushes. She looked up at him even as she cradled the damned laver against her chest. “You have dented the silver. It belonged to my grandmother. I prized it. I polished it, I-”
He cursed long and loud, then shouted, something Graelam had never heard him do, “Shut your mouth, Hastings! This has nothing to do with you. Fetch my sword. I will gullet this mangy villain, this villain I believed my friend.” The wolfhound growled. Servants and men-atarms were standing silent along the walls, wondering what would happen, wondering if they should do anything.
“Why?” she said, rising to her feet, righting the laver. “Because he acted without your lofty permission? Because he knew you would demand to fight and he feared you would become fevered again? Tell me, my lord, why are you angry? Are you not an intelligent man, a reasonable man?”
He was on her in an instant, his hands under her armpits, lifting her and shaking her. “You will hold your tongue else I will take you right here on this trestle table and that damned wolfhound can smell your blood and howl.”
She turned whiter than the soft bread she had eaten to break her fast. He shook her yet again.
Let her down, Severin.” Graelam’s hand came down on his shouler, his wounded shoulder, and squeezed. “Let her down. What mean y°u. Would you shame her here in the great hall amidst her people? Would you wound her so that she bled? Is that what is in your mind?”
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Hastings couldn’t bear it. She would kill him. She went completely limp. The wound in Severin’s shoulder ripped pain through him at shaking her, that and the weight of Graelam’s hand on his shoulder. He lowered her slowly to the rush-covered stone floor.
She looked up at him, her eyes nearly black with rage. She kicked him as hard as she could in the shin. He sucked in his breath, jerking back leaning down to scrub his hand over his shin. “You will pay for that, madam,” he said between teeth gritted so tightly she barely understood
him.
I She knew she probably would pay, she just didn’t know him welll
enough to judge the manner of payment. She turned on her heel and ran| from the great hall.
“Severin, you will sit down now and you will close your eyes and think about your shoulder and your shin. She could have kicked you in your groin but she didn’t. She spared you.”
“She didn’t kick me in the groin because she knew I’d kill her if she had. Besides, I move quickly, I would have turned away from her knees in time.”
“Possibly, but Hastings is fast.” Graelam sighed. “You know you wouldn’t have killed her. I doubt you would have raised your fist to her, would you?”
**Severin brushed his palm over his hair. He was tired. His shoulder hurt. Damn her, he had feelings. He was not a toad. “I would have made her believe that I would have crushed b ;r beneath her herb garden. Sometimes she does believe that. However, as each day passes, she grows more brazen, more bold. And it has only been two days. What will she do when a fortnight has passed? I will not tolerate it, Graelam.”
“You are weaving where you stand. Sit you down, aye, that’s it. Now drink the wine. It will calm your ire. I wonder if I fell into rages as do you when I had six fewer years to my life?” Graelam paused a moment, then nodded. “Aye, I believe that I did act the outraged fool. And that was only three years ago. My dear wife left me, I was such a bastard to her.”