She could say no more because Eirik picked her up and dumped her, clothes and all, into the tub, then dunked her head under the water. She came up sputtering, only to hear him say, “Whilst you are in there, wash that vile grease from your hair. It stinks.” Before she could answer, he pushed her head under again and held it there so long her nose began to burn.
When she finally emerged from the tub, livid, her hair hung limply under her soaking head-rail and her wool gown made a huge puddle on the rush-clad floor. “You… you… you… ,” she stammered, unable to come up with the appropriate words to describe his odious self.
And Eirik just stood there in his naked magnificence, hands on hips, feet planted apart arrogantly, laughing his head off. When his fit of mirth finally passed, he said with dry amusement, “Well, I feel immensely better.”
“You toad.”
Still laughing, he threw her a linen cloth to dry herself and motioned her to the stool. Pulling on a pair of braies and a long-sleeved shert, he commented ominously, “Now we will discuss your treachery, and what to do about this ill-suited marriage we find ourselves in.”
Eirik walked over to the small table near his bed and pulled a piece of crumpled parchment from the drawer. He smoothed it out on the tabletop, then turned and handed it to his wife, never speaking a word. Instead, he walked to the opposite side of the room and leaned against the wall, waiting for her to finish reading the incriminating words. His skin itched like hell, but he refused to scratch or apply her onion juice or salt water. He would wait until later and send Wilfrid to the local herbal woman for an ointment.
“Well?” he asked finally when she had pondered the letter for an inordinate amount of time. “Have you naught to say for yourself?”
“Where did you get this?”
“Britta found it under your mattress.”
She lifted her eyes to him, horror covering her face. He shook his head in disbelief. She looked like a drowned rat with her greasy gray hair hanging in wet clumps under the sodden head-rail, onion-induced tears streaming down her face.
“Do you realize what this means, Eirik?” she said anxiously. “Steven, or one of his men, has been in this keep.”
“Tell me something I do not already know,” he remarked sarcastically, “like where the hell you have been the past four days. And with whom.”
Eadyth waved his question aside as if it were of no importance. “At Hawks’ Lair. You know that already. But what I meant was that we must take better precautions if Steven can enter this keep so easily. He could have taken… oh, my God, he could have taken John.”
“Yea, he could have. Just as you planned.”
Eadyth’s brow furrowed in puzzlement. Blessed Lord, the traitorous bitch put on a good act. He could almost believe her innocence. “I never expected a maidenhead, wife, but neither did I expect to be cuckolded so soon after the vows were taken.”
“What do you mean?” she asked stiffly. “Are you saying that you believe the lies in this letter? Do you imply I have been… involved with the man who tries to take my son from me?”
“All facts point that way. And I have only your word that he seeks to do you harm,” he said, shrugging, as he walked up to her and removed the letter from her hands. “Hold on, love, just a short while longer till we can be together finally… ,” he read in a mimicking voice, then, “Your heart’s husband, Steven.”
Eadyth stood abruptly, knocking the stool over. Angry pink spots dotted her cheeks as she snarled, “You think I am Steven’s whore?” When he did not answer, Eadyth muttered under her breath, then exclaimed in a shrill, indignant voice, “You bastard! The only true statement in this missive is Steven’s reference to you as the Beast of Ravenshire. Yea, you are a beast to think thus of me.”
Tears filled her eyes, but Eirik remained untouched. She had played him false with his hated enemy, and that he could not abide.