“I will try my best,” Romilly said, forcing her voice to calm, “and if I am not sure what to do, no doubt mestra Mhari will tell me.”
“Ah, you think yourself my old Granny’s betters, do you?” Rory demanded truculently, “You will say Dame Mhari till she gives you leave to say Granny, do you hear?”
Romilly realized, abruptly, that she had automatically used the form of a noblewoman speaking to an inferior. She hung her head, pretending to be ashamed, and murmured, “I meant no harm-”
“And since you’re a girl, it’s more suitable for you to wash Granny’s face and put her into a clean bedgown, get her ready for the day,” Rory said, “D’you think you could sit in the hearth for a little today, Granny? If our fine lady here gets you fresh and ready?”
“Aye, I’ll sit in the hearth for your wedding meal, Rory,” said the old woman, and Romilly, biting her lip, said meekly that she would be glad to do whatever she could for Dame Mhari.
“I knew she was too fine-handed for a lad,” said Mhari, as Romilly bent to lift her, and went to dip hot water from the barrel. As she washed the old woman’s face and hands, and brought a clean but threadbare gown from the ancient clothes-press in the corner, she was thinking harder than she had ever done. How could she escape? They would watch her moment by moment until the marriage was consummated; by which time she thought grimly, they would think her too beaten to try and get away. It made her sick at her stomach to think of that great unwashed lout taking her to bed, but she supposed it wouldn’t kill her, and since she was actually in the bleeding part of her woman’s cycles, at least he was unlikely to make her pregnant. And then she stopped short in what she was doing, remembering gleefully something Darissa had whispered to her a few months after her marriage. At the time, Romilly had only been embarrassed and giggled about it – what great sillies men were, to be superstitious about such a thing! But now she could make it serve her.
“I am cold, wet and bare like this,” the old woman complained, “Wrap me in my gown, girl – what am I to call you?”
Romilly started to tell the woman her name – after all, now they knew she was a girl what did it matter? – but then she thought; her father might seek her even as far as this. She said the first name that came into her head.
“Calinda.”
“Wrap me in my gown, Calinda, I am shivering!”
“I am sorry, Mother Mhari,” she said, using the meek term of respect for any aging woman, “I had a heavy thought-” and she bent close to the old woman as she wrapped her in gown and woolly shawl and then laid her on her pillows, drying her hands with a towel. “I-I-I will gladly wed your grandson-” and she thought the words would choke her.
“And well you should,” said the old woman, “He is a good kind man, and he will use you well and never beat you unless you really deserve it.”
Romilly gulped; at least that she would never have bad to fear from Dom Garris. “B-but,” she said, pretending to be embarrassed, which was not difficult, “He will be angry with me if he tries to share my bed this night, for my-my cycles are on me, and I am bleeding….”
“Ah, well,” said the old lady, “You did well to tell me; men are funny that way, he might well have beaten you for it; my man used to thump me well if I did not tell him well before the time, so he could keep away or sleep with the dairy-maid-ah, yes, once I was well off, I had a dairy-maid and a cook-wench at one time, and now look at me. But with a woman’s care, I will grow better soon, and Rory will not have to cook porridge and bake bread, which is no work for a man. Look what a fine man you are getting, he never scorned to wash and turn his old Granny in her bed, or bring her food, or even empty my chamberpot. And speaking of a chamberpot-” She gestured, and Romilly fetched the utensil and supported the old woman.