“But it does not make sense—”
“Sense! The only sense in this sorry mess is that of smell—the bloody, God-awful odor of a putrid, faithless woman.” He ran his widespread fingers through his hair and pulled, shaking his head. “Holy Jude! How many times does a man need to be burned afore he learns not to trust the flame?”
“But I do not understand. What need would she have for marriage vows with you, unless she truly feared the Lord of Gravely?”
“Steven has ever wanted to ruin me. ‘Tis certain he uses her in his devious plot. And who knows what Eadyth hoped to gain.” He shrugged. “She fancies herself in love with the demon thane, no doubt.”
“Somehow, she does not fit the picture,” Wilfrid said with uncertainty.
“I know what you mean. I had thought her past the child-breeding years, too. And, more than that, Steven usually chooses more comely maids for his pursuits.”
“Now, there you could be wrong. With all due respect, I have been riding about the estate with her in your absence. Like a burr in my backside, she has been, with all her demands. But I have a nagging suspicion she may not be what we originally thought.”
Eirik waited for Wilfrid to explain himself, but his seneschal turned red-faced and stammered, “But ’tis not my place to reveal such things without proof. And you will think me wooly-headed if I say she is not that unattractive.”
“Hah! More like your vision is starting to dim. Like mine. Or Britta has turned your manroot to mush.”
Wilfrid ducked his head sheepishly.
Eirik picked up his wine goblet and searched the room for wine, then realized he had thrown it all against the wall and into the rushes. His lips curled with disgust at the mess surrounding him as rationality began to calm his emotions.
“Send me more wine,” he directed Wilfrid. “And set a guard to watching John and Larise at all times. Do not let them so much as visit the garderobe without an escort.”
“Yea,” Wilfrid responded with a nod, heading toward the door, then turned back. “Will you have me send out men to search for the Lady Eadyth tonight?”
Eirik’s eyes met Wilfrid’s in a steely gaze. “Nay, we will go on the morrow. And then, I swear afore God, she will pay dearly for her deceit.”
Despite his exhaustion, Eirik did not sleep at all the entire night. He drank goblet after goblet of fine Frankish wine but could not reach the blessed numbness of drunkenness. Instead, his mind worked continually, weighing all the evidence, seeking answers, coming to conclusions. He kept coming back to two proven facts: Eadyth had made a bloody fool of him, at the least, and mayhap even helped to plot his death, at the most.
By the time dawn light crept through the arrow slit openings in his bedchamber walls, Eirik was rigid with fury, but he controlled his rage under a calm, self-contained facade. He went down to the great hall and headed toward the kitchen where his servants already worked industriously.
Despite his anger, he saw evidence everywhere of Eadyth’s touch. The keep smelled fresh from its many scrubbings, and every wood surface sparkled with polish, or as much as it possibly could in its crumbling state. He noticed two new chimneys in the great hall, a project he had planned for years but had never stayed long enough to accomplish.
The crisp rushes sent up waves of sweet herbal scents as he crushed them in his walk through the hall. In the kitchen, Bertha worked before the hearth, wearing a clean tunic, having pulled her hair back under a white wimple and neat head-rail.
“My lord,” she bowed deferentially, “would ye care fer a bowl of porridge, or sum bread ‘n cheese to break yet fast?”
“Nay,” he answered, open-mouthed with surprise at all the changes in the spotless kitchen. Long-stemmed, fragrant herbs and dried flowers hung upside down in clumps from the ceiling rafters. The rushes had been swept completely from the stone floor of the kitchen, which was being scrubbed with sand and soapy water by a thrall on hands and knees.