Rohana had turned dead white. She said in a low voice, “Gabriel, Jaelle is not a child She has taken the oath of the Free Amazons, and in law neither you nor I have any responsibility for anything she may do, under this roof or any other. I beg of you to calm yourself, to sit down and finish your breakfast.”
“Don’t you quote that filthy law to me,” the man shouted incoherently, and his face was so dark and congested with fury that Magda wondered if he were about to suffer a stroke. “Jaelle is a woman of the Comyn! I forbade you to allow her to join these female scandals, and now do you see what you have done? A woman of our clan, seduced and betrayed-” He actually raised his arm as if to strike Rohana.
Jaelle, in horror, rose to her feet. “Uncle! Rohana is not to blame for anything I may have done! If you are going to shout and carry on like a madman, at least shout at me!” she said angrily. “I am a grown woman, and competent in law to manage my own affairs.” _ “Law, law, don’t you talk to me about the law,” Gabriel shouted, beside himself. “No woman alive is fit to manage her own affairs, and it doesn’t matter what you-law-” He struggled to speak, as if his rage had swollen his throat completely shut, got out a few words of gibberish, then clenched his fists, swayed and came crashing down on the table, shattering crockery and chinaware, overturning a copper pot filled with some scalding hot drink that flooded the table, drenching the cloth. He struck his head hard, seemed to jerk violently on the rebound, and fell heavily to the floor, where he lay with his body arching backward, his heels drumming the floor in repeated, convulsive spasms.
Kyril, motionless with shock, suddenly leaned half across the table, running to lift him, but Rohana was already there, cradling the unconscious man’s head against her knee.
“Let him lie till it is over,” she said in a low, angry voice. “You have done enough for one morning. Go and call his man to help him to bed. Are you content, Kyril? Do you know now why I begged you not to provoke or trouble him? Do you honestly think”-she raised gray eyes, literally blazing with anger, to her son’s-“that anything-anything goes on under this roof which I do not know, or permit?”
Jaelle felt a lump in her throat, obstructing speech. She had seen epileptic seizures before, but she had never before seen dom Gabriel in the grip of one. Now, looking at Rohana, kneeling and holding her husband’s head, she realized exactly why Rohana spent so much of her life-foolishly, slavishly, she had often thought-in keeping dom Gabriel quiet and content, in averting his rage and calming his anger. Rohana’s burden was far heavier than she thought.
Could I myself do so much for any man, however I loved him? And Rohana was given to him by her family, hardly knowing his name. Yet all these years she has managed it so that few outside the household even know his disability! She must have seen the warning signs, and tried to avoid any trouble. …
“Mother, I am sorry,” Kyril begged. “I truly thought he should know of this.”
Rohana swept him with a look of utter contempt. “Did you truly, my son? You cannot bear to think of any woman who does not obey you as if you were a God! And now you thought you had her at your mercy! How petty you are, Kyril! So to salve your wounded pride, and to revenge yourself against Jaelle, you have goaded your father into a fit; and he will be ill for days.” She brushed aside his excuses without listening. “Go and call his body-servant, and help carry him to his bed, and no more talk. You have insulted our guests, and I will not forgive you soon for this!”
He went, glowering, and Jaelle came to Rohana’s side. “Rohana, I am sorry-I did not realize”
Rohana sighed and smiled at her. “Certainly not, child; you thought you were dealing with a rational man. You spoke more gently than I would have expected, and you said nothing that was not true. And I know that Kyril provoked you.”