She waited some more, but still he didn’t come. She shrugged and climbed into the wooden tub herself. She was lathering herself with sweet lavender when he strode into the room. She stopped in mid-lather and stared at him.
He walked to stand over her. “When you are finished, I will bathe. You will wash my back.”
“I waited for you but you did not come.”
“Do you wish me to wash you?”
9 2
“Oh no, I can manage it well enough.”
“What is that smell? It is nice.”
“Lavender. The Romans brought lavender with them when they inded Britain many hundred years ago. I believe it comes from the Latin lavare that means to wash.”
“Where did you learn that?”
“I am not ignorant, Severin. It is from Leech Book of Bald, written some two hundred years ago. I have also read The Physicians ofMyddfai. If you will leave me now, I will finish and then fetch you.”
He just shook his head, walked to the bed, and sat down. He began unwrapping his cross garters. She washed her hair and rinsed herself as best she could. The drying cloths were on a stool three feet from the tub. She looked at him, now pulling his tunic over his head, at the cloths, and quickly climbed out of the tub. She had just wrapped the cloth around her when she heard a low laugh.
“You move quickly, Hastings. I like your legs. They are long and smooth. They will go nicely around my flanks.”
“Why would you want my legs there?”
“You will see. I-”
There was a knock on the door.
“Enter.”
He frowned at her for speaking so quickly, but said nothing. It was Alice carrying a bucket of hot water, two lads behind her carrying more buckets. Hastings gripped her bedrobe and held it in front of her. The lads, however, just hefted the tub and carried it out to empty it.
“Thank you, Alice,” Hastings said, then saw that Alice was looking at Severin, a very soft smile on her face. A smile? Then she remembered. He d said he would take Alice if Hastings continued to vex him with her monthly flux. She just stood there, watching Alice, a girl but three years °Jder than she, sweet-natured, a good worker, a girl who loved to laugh and jest, a girl who’d explained to Hastings why she was bleeding that fst time when Hastings was thirteen years old. Had Alice been with Severi*, her husband?
9 3
“Alice, come here and help me with my boots. My squire is still on the archery field. I doubt your mistress could make a good job of it.”
Hastings didn’t say a word, merely watched as Alice walked quickly to Severin, bent over, and grabbed his boot, laughing, even as she backed closer toward Severin, who was looking at her bottom. He reached out his hand, then frowned down at that hand and pulled it back.
But Alice didn’t have any reticence. She wiggled, actually wiggled her bottom in his face. She saw Severin staring intently at Alice’s bottom. Would he take her right here in front of his wife? His wife whom he was going to bed this very evening? He had never looked at her so intently. He appeared utterly absorbed, the knave.
“You lecherous bastard,” she yelled at him. Hastings didn’t think, she grabbed up a bucket of hot water and threw it on him. He yelped. Alice jumped away, one of Severin’s boots in her hands.
“Hastings, I did not know you were still here. I thought you had gone behind the screen to dress. Why, I-”
“Get out, Alice. I thought you were my friend, yet here you are, wiggling your bottom in Severin’s face. He is my husband, Alice. I will not allow that.”
Alice looked perplexed. “Aye, Hastings, I know that he is your husband, but he is just a man. What does that have to say to our friendship?” ^evfrin had his tunic over his head and was wiping himself off with it. His hair was plastered to his head, the bed cover was wet, and there was Trist, his beautiful coat sticking up in wet clumps.