Then the Lady Isabelle laughed once more and Thomas saw her poking at some part of Robert below the table edge. The face of his prioress’ brother turned a deep burgundy as he quickly rose and, after a brief word to his father, left the table.
Thomas couldn’t hear what had been said but noted that his prioress was leaning over to say something to Sir Geoffrey’s wife. Isabelle drew back her head, her teeth bared in a self-righteous smirk. As she did, Henry leaned back in his chair with an audible groan. His robe shifted and Thomas saw one excellent reason for his dining companion’s distress. Henry was suffering from a rather impressive erection.
Seeing the direction of Thomas’ glance, the man blushed and bunched his robes over the offending member.
From just a bit further up the table, however, other eyes had also seen the cause of Henry’s discomfiture. Sir Geoffrey’s face was pale as he slammed his goblet down.
***
During the course of the dinner, Eleanor had glanced down the table several times to look at Brother Thomas, a habit she had tried with no success to break. This once, however, she could blame the wandering gaze on amusement. Thomas was in conversation with the castle priest, his head bent back as far as possible from Father Anselm’s mouth.
She smiled. Indeed, her father’s priest had breath so foul that Satan himself might flee from it. For the preservation of souls at Wynethorpe Castle, this might be a blessing; for poor Brother Thomas, it had most likely turned his stomach quite sour.
She shifted her attention back to her immediate companions and gestured to Robert to give her portion of the boar with its spicy sauce to the Lady Isabelle.
“How can your sister bear to forsake this meat?” Isabelle asked as she licked her lips in anticipation the moment that the extra portion hit her trencher. “Oh, I suppose you took some vow, Lady Eleanor,” she continued, waving the concept away with the hand not occupied with her wine cup. “I would find such things very wearisome.”
As Isabelle spoke, she leaned forward against the table. The gesture not only bespoke ill manners but also presented Robert, Eleanor, and the quiet Juliana with quite the view of her soft and ample breasts. The tightened cloth of her robe also accentuated, with a tantalizing shimmer, two erect nipples.
Eleanor blinked at the blatantly sexual display and hoped Sir Geoffrey had not seen any of it. Had Henry been sitting in Juliana’s place, she thought, he would surely have been outraged at such an immodest display of what should have remained the private charms of his stepmother. Robert, on the other hand, had seen it all. Although he had drunk little wine during the meal, his face now flushed a blotched red.
Juliana shifted uneasily beside Eleanor. “Vows are not tiresome to those who take them, my lady,” she said in a low voice.
“So you may say now, stepdaughter.” Isabelle hesitated ever so slightly. “Vows are right and proper for one of the Lady Eleanor’s vocation for cert.” She slipped a palm under one breast, raising it as if offering a gift. “Still, you are not destined for the convent, are you? It is said that red meat heats the blood and makes one lusty for the marriage bed. You would do well to heed that and fortify yourself well in advance of the day.” She smiled and leaned back into her chair. “Forgive me. I forget. You have never known a man, have you? Indeed, you would know nothing of such things, stepdaughter.” She laughed. “Have no fear, Juliana, before you and Robert marry I will explain what a man and woman do on the night after they take their vows at the church door.” Then she slipped her hand over Robert’s thigh, and her laughter rang sharply over the noise of the diners. “I promise, my lord, that your wife will come well prepared to delight you in the thrust and parry of your marital bed.” She winked in the direction of Eleanor and Juliana.
Robert brushed her hand away as gently as possible. His face turned a deeper scarlet as he rose and bowed to his father. “I beg pardon, my lord, but I must see that the oxen have sufficient hay now that the snows have come.”
Adam nodded and went back to his discussion with Sir Geoffrey.
Robert turned with a perfunctory bow to the three women, muttered the standard courtesy, “much good do it ye,” and left the hall as quickly as good manners allowed.
Although her father’s expression had changed little, Eleanor knew from the movement of his eyes that he had noticed the reason for Robert’s rapid exit from the dining hall. His opinion of Isabelle could not have improved.
She heard a soft groan and turned her head. When Robert left, Juliana had said nothing. Now one tear crested in the corner of her eye and slowly rolled down the woman’s cheek. Her old playfellow may have been her elder by only a year or so, Eleanor thought, but she had the face of a much older woman with eyes sunken into darkness, cheeks gray and hollow with melancholy.
Juliana had once been such a sunny companion, always the first to think of innocent mischief. With a smile Eleanor remembered the day Juliana had climbed a tree and dropped a skirt full of rose petals on the woman who was now her stepmother. At the time, Isabelle had looked up at the impish girl and laughed with a simple joy, blowing at the pink petals drifting down on her as if they were fragile bubbles. The two had been as sisters then, Eleanor remembered. Now they seemed so sad together and much at odds.
Eleanor shook her head at the memory, then leaned over to Isabelle and said in a low voice, “This is neither the time nor place to jest over the marriage night, my lady. No agreement has yet been reached between our families. When it has, there will be much opportunity for such fond ribaldry.”
Isabelle’s fixed smile turned yet more brittle. “An admirable speech from a lady married to Our Lord,” she said, then bent her head in a mockery of a bow. “So that I not offend your virgin ears further, lady, I shall indeed cease what you choose to call my fond ribaldry.” With the petulance of a bored child, she slouched back into her chair and dipped her finger into the pewter cup in front of her and made waves in the wine. Then the brightness in her eyes dulled, she drained her cup in a trice, and her face flushed with the drink.
What a difference just a few years had made in both these women, Eleanor noted, as she chose to remain silent in the face of Isabelle’s ill temper. Like Juliana, Isabelle was not the light-hearted girl she remembered either, a child who spontaneously hugged her friends and loved to crowd into the lap of her husband’s first wife for the maternal affection that lady gave with as much abundance as if Isabelle had been her own child. As Eleanor recalled, the girl had been an orphan, not even distantly related to the Lavenhams. Sir Geoffrey’s elder brother had received her wardship from the king and enjoyed the income from her lands while she was yet a child. Since he had never married, he had given Isabelle, with a small allowance for maintenance, to Sir Geoffrey and his wife to rear. There she had had a loving home. Until now, it seemed. In truth, despite her air of self-satisfied superiority, Isabelle looked no happier than her old friend. What had happened to cause such estrangement? Was it really jealousy? Could it be, as Sir Geoffrey had suggested, that Juliana resented his remarriage? And why had Isabelle married the father rather than the son? What…
Harsh masculine laughter shattered Eleanor’s reflection. She looked up and saw Sir Geoffrey slam his goblet of wine down on the table. A burgundy stain spread across the white linen tablecloth.
Isabelle sat bolt upright, her face paled unevenly as she stared at her husband.
“Boy, you are a spineless whelp!” Sir Geoffrey snarled at his son.
“My lord…” Henry’s round face was crimson.
“My lord,” his father mimicked in a high-pitched voice. “When you fathered me, you gave me balls, but I have since lost them.” His voice dropped to a growling bass. “I cannot provide you with everything, boy. If you were a man, you’d get what you needed on your own.” He looked down from the high table to the benches filled with men of lower status and his lips twisted into a thin smile. “But why should I think him a man? He has never given me reason to assume such.” He nodded to his captive audience in the hall, then pointed to his son. “I fear his mother must have dreamed of Eve the night this one was conceived for she left me with a mincing cokenay instead of a son. Perhaps,” he continued, turning to Henry, “you had best ask my wife for advice on the whitening she uses on her face and give your braies to a man, for a cokenay has no use for men’s attire.” He gazed around the hall and smiled at the sporadic laughter that greeted his angry wit. “Perhaps I’ll see if I can find a man willing to be your husband amongst her many rejected admirers.” Then the look in his eyes turned hard. He bent down for something under the table. As he rose, he tossed the raw testicles of the now roasted boar into Henry’s lap. “Unless these can give you what you lack.”