“She does,” the baron confirmed, his tone grave but with a gleam in his eye as he surveyed the small barrels at the far end of the building. “Come now, Mair,” he said, switching to Welsh, “we have had our fun, and he is my guest, so I think he must have some braggot in compensation.”
While Sir Edward looked about as if he thought himself transported to a most bizarre kingdom, Mair said, “Very well, my lord. Braggot it shall be—but if he wakes complaining that he has a smith pounding on an anvil in his head, that his throat is as parched as the desert, and that he thinks he would be better off dead, I will not be held responsible.”
“Thank you, Mair. I shall remember this.”
“You will pay for this, too,” she noted wryly.
“And so, I fear, may Sir Edward.”
Chuckling, Mair proceeded to pour two cups of the braggot.
The baron made a great show of raising the drink to his nostrils and sipping before tasting; Sir Edward likewise raised his cup slowly, but his expression was more that of a man who fears poison.
Until he took a sip, and then he gulped the rest.
“God’s teeth, this is marvelous!” he cried as set down the cup and looked at her expectantly.
“It is quite strong, you know,” she remarked. “It is a mead mixed with ale, so—”
“This is fit for infants and children!” the Norman proclaimed. “Give me another!”
Mair smiled slowly as she filled the cup again. “Your order is, of course, mine to obey, Sir Edward. And you, my lord, will you have another?”
“I don’t think—”
Sir Edward paused as he lifted his cup to his lips and let out a raucous laugh. “Too strong for you, Baron?” he asked mockingly.
The baron held out his cup as if he were accepting a challenge in the lists of a tournament. “Pour!”
Chapter Eight
“Oooohhh!”
The long warble of two decidedly drunken male voices, followed by snatches of inaudible lyrics, reached the ears of those assembled in the great hall of Craig Fawr well before the baron and Sir Edward stumbled over the threshold. They would have fallen, except that they had their arms around one another like old friends of at least thirty years standing. Or almost standing, at any rate.
The baron straightened, regarded those gathered in the hall, including Trystan and Lady Rosamunde as well as his own wife, and threw out his arm in a dramatic gesture.
“Shalu…sella…salutations,” he slurred as he teetered precariously.
Then he grinned a lopsided grin and started to bow. He nearly fell flat on his face.
Trystan had never been more mortified in his life as he hurried toward his father and Sir Edward, whose hair and garments were as disheveled as if he had been tossed in a blanket.
Nor had he ever seen his father so drunk before. He had heard stories, of course, of a time or two when his father had over-imbibed in his younger days, but he had never been a witness to such an event. Indeed, his father generally held men who did not know when to stop drinking in contempt.
Until today, apparently.
As Trystan reached his tipsy parent, he glanced over his shoulder at Lady Rosamunde, whose face was as red as her gown while she sat motionless in her chair. He knew his face must be just as red with shame.
“Da, you’re drunk,” he muttered as he put his shoulder under his father’s for support.
“My son, I am,” he confessed happily.
“No, you’re not,” Sir Edward slurred, patting the baron on the back. “You’re just…well-greased!”
The plump Norman burst into a low rumble of a laugh at his own wit.
“Emryss, you are going to retire at once,” Lady Roanna said with a firmness of tone that all obeyed, even the baron, as she hurried forward.
Her husband waggled his eyebrows in a comical leer. “With you?”
“Emryss!”
“Da, you’re making a spectacle of yourself!” Trystan chided as he tried to disengage his father from Sir Edward’s bear-like grip.
Another swift glance at the still sedentary—and no doubt horrified—Lady Rosamunde only increased his disgusted dismay.
Sir Edward tried to point an accusing finger at Trystan. Unfortunately, it seemed he couldn’t quite focus.
“Young man,” the Norman said, leaning forward as if hinged at the waist, “tha’s no way to shpeak to your father, the very best of men. The very best of companions.” Sir Edward sniffled and his eyes filled with tears. “The very best friend a man could ever have!”
“Trystan, help your father to our chamber,” his mother ordered, although the lift at the corners of her lips belied her stern tone. She signaled for one of the soldiers to come forward. “We shall help Sir Edward to his.”
“Nonshense!” the Norman roared. “It’s the shank of the evening!”
One of the maidservants went by bearing a tray of mugs of ale. Sir Edward grabbed one, took a swig, smiled—and then promptly bent over and lost it, and more besides.
Trystan looked again at the dais and realized that Lady Rosamunde was gone. He didn’t blame her for being too embarrassed to stay.
Here he had been hoping to tell his father his good news, and instead his father had gotten Sir Edward drunk and humiliated them all. If Lady Rosamunde decided she wanted nothing more to do with him, or his family, he would not be surprised.
If he felt any relief, it was that Sir Edward appeared to be even more drunk than his father.
“Come, Da, to bed,” he ordered, not aware how much like his mother he sounded at that moment.
If his father noticed, he gave no sign.
“Away, ho, to bed we go!” the baron caroled as Trystan helped him stumble toward the tower stairs, leaving his mother and the soldiers to look after Sir Edward.
It took some time to get his father to the bedchamber, a time made longer by his father’s insistence on pausing at nearly every stair as he attempted to remember the lyrics of the pwnco he had composed the morning after his marriage to Lady Roanna. It was a wedding poem, each verse made up on the spot, and in response to a similar impromptu verse from those gathered outside the bridal bedchamber.
“And then Gwillym said something about the length of my sword,” his father mumbled meditatively, scratching beneath his eye-patch with one finger. “My sword or my staff or my root or something…”
“Oh, Da,” Trystan muttered. He had heard this too many times to be remotely interested. Right now, all he wanted to do was get his father to his bed.
“Those were the times, my son!” the baron cried as he started forward again. “Not much of a wedding night because I was an idiot, but I made up for it later!”
“Yes, Da. Watch that worn place.”
“And I’ll never forget the look on your mother’s face when I threw that door open and her standing there nearly naked—”
“Careful!”
“Whoo! I’ll get that loose bit fixed tomorrow. Good times we’ve had, my son. Great times. There’s nothing like a good wife. Nothing! Now that Lady Rosamunde, she’s fine if you like ’em cool and skinny.”
Trystan’s jaw clenched. They were nearly there.
“No fire banked there. Not like your mam!” The baron leaned on the frame of the bedchamber door and regarded his grim son as he swayed. “But Sir Edward and I are such great friends now, he won’t object.”
“I am glad to think some good might come from this disgraceful behavior, provided Sir Edward remembers you were such a great drinking companion tomorrow.”
The baron looked shocked. “Remember? Why, of course he will! And I’ll wager he’ll remember not to accost Mair like that again, either,” he finished before he careered into the room.
Trystan followed. “He accosted Mair?”
“Well, he tried.” The baron started to chuckle as he drew off his patch, revealing the empty eye socket and mottled scar beneath. “God’s wounds, you should have seen his face when he found out she made the ale…
You should have seen hers when he grabbed her!”
“He touched her?”
His father tried to undo his belt. “Aye, he did.” He paused, his expression soddenly pensive. “Not that a man could blame him. She’s got a very nice ffolen.”
“Da!”
“Well, she does.” The baron finally got his belt off and sighed, and scratched. “I’m half-blind and love my wife, but I know a shapely bottom when I see one.” He eyed his son. “You sound upset.”
“Who wouldn’t be upset to see his father come staggering home like the village drunkard, having set the man he hopes will be his father-in-law drunk, too?”
“I am not to blame if the fellow doesn’t know his limits. We tried to warn him about the braggot, but he wouldn’t listen. Since he’s a guest, what could we do?”
“You could have said, ‘No more.”’
“I could’ve.” The baron began to struggle with his tunic. “Where’s your mam?”
“Seeing to Sir Edward, remember?”
“Oh, aye.” He gave up with his tunic and sat heavily on the bed, then fell back. Trystan headed for the door. Let his mother deal with his father.
The baron sighed heavily. “Poor Mair.”
Trystan slowly turned back. “What do you mean, poor Mair? Was she upset by what Sir Edward did?”
“Not after a minute,” the baron replied thickly. “You know Mair. Flares up and dies down as quick as a blink.”
Trystan took a step toward the bed. “Then why ‘poor Mair’?”
His father yawned.
“Because she’s got nobody.”
“She has Arthur.”
“Who will be going to Fitzroy for his training next year.”
“Fitzroy?”
“Aye, of course, like Dylan and you and your brother. Who else?”
“I thought Dylan—”
“Dylan wouldn’t be tough enough with his own son, and Genevieve would fuss over him and spoil him. Trefor goes next month to Fitzroy, and Arthur next year.”
Trystan hadn’t thought of that. “I’ve heard she has Ivor.”
“Had Ivor, and he had her, but not any more.”
Trystan tried not to look as if this interested him in the least—and told himself it didn’t. “How do you know?”
His father yawned again and as he spoke, his words drifted off. “I’m the lord, that’s how. A lord has to know these things…”
Then he snored.
Trystan was very tempted to wake him, but he didn’t. After all, it didn’t matter to him if Mair and Ivor were no longer together. Indeed, if he was glad, it was only because there would be no more shameful couplings in the courtyard. Or on the wall walk, either.
Fighting the arousal that always and apparently inevitably came with that recollection, he quickly and quietly left the room. As he shut the door, he heard his mother’s footsteps approaching and forced his thoughts to bathing in freezing water as he waited.
Unfortunately, that made him remember Mair in the river.
He thought of the time Fitzroy had kept him standing out in the cold rain because he had left a spot of rust on his armor.
That worked better, and by the time his mother reached him, he was more calm and composed.
“He’s asleep,” he announced quietly.
“No doubt he’ll sleep late in the morning and be sick when he wakes.”
“You’re not angry?”
His mother gave him one of her rare smiles. “In all the time I’ve known him, I think I’ve seen him drunk five times. I can excuse this lapse, and I think you should, too.”
“Because it is so rare that he disgraces us so?”
Her brow wrinkled. “No, because I’m sure he got drunk keeping Sir Edward company. Don’t you want your father and Sir Edward to be friends?”
“He might have found a better way.”
“I cannot argue with that, but he will be punished enough tomorrow.”
Trystan smirked, remembering the one and only time he had imbibed too much braggot.
Once had been more than enough to teach him the foolishness of that.
“You’re right. I’ll never forget—” He caught himself. “I remember the night Dylan got drunk and nearly fell off the roof of Mair’s brewery.”
Nor would he forget how Mair had roundly chastised him for letting Dylan climb up in that condition. Then how she had started, stared and burst out laughing when she realized he was just as staggeringly, stinkingly drunk.
It had been months before she had stopped teasing him about it, or ceased to ask him how he had enjoyed sleeping in the empty water trough where she had left him.
“Mother?” he said as she put her hand on the door latch.
She turned back to him, a quizzical expression on her face. “Yes, my son?”
“Do you think Sir Edward will be upset about this tomorrow?”
“No. I daresay your father could not have selected a better method of ensuring his agreement to your marriage if he had called a council.”
Trystan wondered why he wasn’t more pleased by this observation. Perhaps he was too tired after the strain of this day and this evening. “Good night.”
His mother reached out and gently caressed his cheek. “Good night, my son. I suppose you’ll sleep well, for it seems you will get the bride you desire, after all.”
“I daresay I will.”
Lady Roanna sighed softly as she watched Trystan trudge down the stairs. He set such high standards for himself, and everybody else, her youngest boy. If only he could have a little more of Dylan’s natural joie de vivre, his life might be easier.
But then he would not be Trystan.
As she quietly entered the bedchamber, her husband sat up. “Angry as a hornet, my son is,” he noted calmly, and without a trace of drunkenness.
His wife frowned and put her hands on her slender hips. “I thought you were drunk.”
Emryss grinned. “So did Trystan.”
“What manner of joke is this? He’s very upset with you.”
Emryss rose and drew off his tunic, exposing his naked torso covered with several battle scars. “A man may be excused for saying many things when he’s drunk that would be intolerable if he were sober.”
“Emryss!”
“Well, it’s true, is it not, love of my heart?”
“What, then, did you say to him?”
“Not a lot. Just a little reminder or two.”
His wife’s eyes narrowed. “About what?”
The baron strode over to the basin and splashed cold water over his face. “Who.”
“About who, then?”
He dried off his face before answering somewhat sheepishly. “Mair.”
“Mair!”
“Who else? Angharad says—”
“I know what Angharad says, and I also know that Trystan wants to marry Lady Rosamunde. You should not interfere.”
“But he doesn’t love her!”
Roanna sighed and pulled off her cap and scarf, then shook out her long hair that was yet more dark than gray. “That doesn’t mean he loves Mair.”
“She loves him. She’s loved him since she was a girl.”
Sitting by the small table where she kept her brushes and mirror, Roanna started to brush her hair. “She told you that, did she? Today, when you and Sir Edward were drinking? I find that difficult to believe.”
“God’s wounds, of course she’s never told me. She’s never told Trystan, either, or he wouldn’t be mooning over that Norman baggage.”
Roanna stopped brushing and twisted around on her stool. “You really don’t like Rosamunde, do you?”
“Not a bit, and especially not after an afternoon with Mair.”
“She is not noble,” Roanna reminded gently, very aware that her husband had always liked the boisterous, joyful Mair, who never seemed to let her troubles get the better of her.
“As if I give a fig for that! She is perfect for Trystan, she loves him and I think if Trysta
n would quit thinking about outdoing Griffydd and Dylan, he’d realize that, too.”
“It is difficult being the younger son. And if he decides not to marry Lady Rosamunde, that doesn’t mean he’ll wed Mair. He may think…” She cleared her throat delicately. “He may think he would be taking Dylan’s leavings.”
“Surely to God he’s smarter than that.”
“We are speaking of matters of the heart, my love, not the head.”
“And it is of his heart I speak! He could scarce keep his eyes from Mair the other night when she was dancing, even though that pale Norman creature was by his side. He looks daggers at Dylan like a jealous lover. By God, Roanna, I’ve been waiting for him to come to me all defiant and proud and tell me he was determined to wed Mair although she was not noble, and I could go to hell if I thought I could stop him.” He stopped and stared. “Roanna, are you crying?”
“I am,” she admitted sheepishly, wiping her eyes and trying to smile. “I…I wish he would marry her, too, Emryss. I do not like Lady Rosamunde a bit, no matter how hard I try, and I fear she will make his life miserable. Mair would make him happy—although they’d probably quarrel like cats and dogs—but we mustn’t interfere. Trystan is a grown man, and although it breaks my heart, he must marry as he sees fit.”
The baron went to his wife and pulled her into his comforting embrace. “I know, my love, I know. But perhaps I have given him something to think about. If not, I will have to live with the rumors that the baron is losing his ability to know when he’s had enough braggot in his old age.”
Mair sighed. It was long past time to retire, and yet she couldn’t seem to summon the energy to get up from the stool before the fire. Instead, she stared into the glowing embers, thinking and remembering.
She had lived in this little house all her life. Here her mother had borne her, and then died. Here her father had raised her, teaching her all that he knew about brewing before he, too, died, when she was a girl of thirteen.
Here she had been when the DeLanyea boys had come with their father to talk to her father about ale for the castle.
Grim Griffydd, so much older and wiser.
Merry Dylan, who always made her laugh.
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