“The boldness of the woman!” Eirik muttered finally, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes with the sleeve of his threadbare tunic. “First she barges uninvited into my keep. Then she kicks my dog. Shall I lay my boot to her bony arse and send her on her merry way?”
“Oh, let her speak. Mayhap this ‘urgent matter’ she wishes to discuss will provide good sport to lessen our boredom.”
Eirik shrugged. “Perchance. Leastways, I have always wanted to get a closer look at the Silver Jewel of Northumbria.”
“Nay, Eirik. Have you not heard? The jewel lost its glitter long ago. Did you not know court gossips now call her ‘The Tarnished Jewel’?” He whispered several hasty words of explanation.
Eirik’s eyebrows arched with skeptical interest. He knew full well from harsh, personal experience the viciousness of the nobles of King Edmund’s court, but still he wondered if Wilfrid’s words could be true.
Meanwhile, the woman continued to make her way doggedly toward the dais where they sat. A plump matron and several retainers followed close behind her like ducklings waddling after a scrawny goose.
At one point, she stopped and lifted her arrogant nose, seeming to sniff the air around her. Then she leveled a condemning glare at Ignold, one of Eirik’s trusted retainers, and snarled several sharp words his way. The fierce giant of a warrior, who had never been known to back down in a battle, just stared, open-mouthed, at her.
Eirik had a fair idea of what she had said.
After recovering the Norse capital in Jorvik earlier that year, then conquering all of Strathclyde, King Edmund had sent Eirik as his emissary under the Golden Dragon standard to the Duke of Normandy to negotiate the release of Edmund’s nephew, Louis d’ Outremer. Louis had been captured by the Northmen of Rouen the summer before and then rescued by the Duke of the Franks, who persisted in holding him hostage all these many months. Finally, following months of Eirik’s haggling and many setbacks, Louis was restored to his Frankish kingdom.
Many of Eirik’s hird, his contingent of permanent troops, had straggled in that eve after the long return trip from Frankland. They followed his smaller group of retainers who had accompanied him back two sennights ago. After weeks on board ship and then horseback without bathing, they stunk to high heaven. Even he had noticed the pungent, acrid odor of unwashed male flesh as he passed by earlier on his way to the garderobe. No doubt, the shrew from Hawks’ Lair had voiced her displeasure.
The wench continued forward in his direction, ignoring the ribald comments of his men who sat in small groups drinking mead or playing dice. It would seem they had all been too long away from polite society.
A twinge of guilt tugged at Eirik’s conscience. Perhaps he had been rude in ignoring her letters seeking aid in an unnamed “urgent matter.” But he was bone weary from two years of fighting and carrying messages for his king, not to mention continually dodging the arrows of political intrigue. He wanted naught to do with the cesspit lives of the nobility—men or women. Just a little peaceful respite, that was all he asked.
Eirik leaned back in his chair, casually folding his arms over his chest and crossing his long legs at the ankles. He narrowed his eyes and studied Lady Eadyth more closely, barely able to see her body or face under the loose gunna and confining wimple she wore. His eyes teared in the smoke and he squinted even more.
She appeared to have gray hair skinned back tightly under a mud-colored head-rail. No loose tendrils escaped to soften her dour features.
Deep in thought, Eirik brushed his mustache with a forefinger, back and forth, a habit he engaged in when puzzled or deep in concentration. “I had not thought her so long in the tooth.”
“Nor I.”
They both looked back to the woman in question. She was tall and slender, if the trimness of her ankle was any indication as she lifted the hem of her garment to avoid the muck. Her spinsterish breasts waxed nonexistent on a chest as flat as his battle shield. But it was the scowl on her face that was most uncomely. God’s Bones! She came seeking favors, yet could not control her sour countenance.