The air was still and few sea birds called.
The older folk muttered about summer storms being the worst as the household shuffled into the chapel for morning prayers and devotions.
As a companion of the Duchess, Anwen was permitted to sit on a bench behind Igraine, while most of the household stood or knelt as was required. Over their heads, Anwen could see Steffan standing at the back of the chapel, his staff in his hand, his gaze on the ground.
Just a glimpse of him made her heart squeeze and thrash like the waves against the cliffs.
She had supposed that being alone with and talking to a man would require constant fortitude and guarding of her honor. She had heard lurid tales from Igraine’s other women. From their stories, Anwen gained the impression that at the first possible moment a man would push his physical attentions upon a solitary woman, using his strength and weight to convince her to fall in with his wishes.
The little exposure she’d had to men who lived in Tintagel convinced her the women were not exaggerating, for Anwen was aware of male gazes following her as she crossed the yard, making her heart leap as it was now.
Or else, the women said, a man would pay no attention to the woman at all. He would barely notice her, only to demand she serve him food and drink and look as pretty as possible while she did it.
Steffan had done neither. He spoke to her as if she were a man, as if the ideas in her head and the words she spoke were worthy of his attention. He did leer at her…well, he could not leer. Only, she did not think he would even if he could see her. Not that any man had ever leered at her. She was not a beauty like Igraine. Even when Anwen was younger, plain was as charitable a description as could be spared for her.
Her hair was plain brown and lighter rather than darker. It was neither a pretty gold nor a pleasing Celtic black. It was thick and abundant and when she let it loose, it brushed the back of her hips. Yet it hung in straight hanks, with no interesting curls or waves. Her face was not objectionable, although it was not pretty, either. Her eyes were also brown, as were her brows. Her nose was straight and perhaps a little long, her lips were neither thin nor full and they did not beckon as Igraine’s full lips did. Anwen’s skin was Celtic pale, without scars or blemishes, yet it was not brushed with a delicate blush of color or dewy with youth.
She did not have curves the way Igraine did. Her breasts were full yet not large enough to draw a man’s eye. Her waist was small, but so were her hips. Her legs were longer than most women’s. Her feet were long, too. Not as long as a man’s yet they were not pretty and delicate the way a woman’s ought to be.
Anwen had spent many nights when she was younger, totting up the sins of her appearance, wondering if they were the sole reason she did not draw men’s gazes the way any silly young thing new to the court tended to do. It had been many years since she agonized over her shortcomings, though.
Last night, she had not lingered upon the long list of grievances. She considered them for only a short while, in light of the startling realization that Steffan could see none of her flaws.
Was that why he treated her as he did? For a while, when he spoke of their places in the world and the work ahead of them, she forgot this was the angry man she was expected to control and direct.
His anger had been there—it bubbled silently at the bottom of his words and thoughts, driving what he said. Yet he did not vent his anger upon her the way they said he had done to the soldiers at Dimilioc.
In fact, talking to him was interesting. When she had shuddered in anticipation of having to speak to a man alone, “interesting” was not a possibility she had entertained.
When prayers were done, Anwen passed through the kitchen and scooped into a bowl a spoonful of the oatmeal and dried fruit stewing on the fire. She took the bowl back to her room. It was not required of her to sit with the other women to eat, for which she was grateful. She sat at the teaching table instead. While she ate, she turned her thoughts upon the coming day.
Before she finished her bowl, the latch clicked up and the door opened. Steffan moved into the room with the same confidence a sighted man would. The staff stayed tucked under his bulging arm.
He knew the room now, she realized.
He shut the door. “Anwen?”
“At the table,” she said. “Have you eaten? I did not think to bring more food with me.”
He lifted his spare hand. There were three of the cook’s flat oatmeal cakes wrapped in a cloth. “I thought you would be with the other women.”
“You planned to eat alone?”
“I will not eat with the other men.” He moved over to the table, only pausing at the last second to bend and touch the edge of it. “May I?”
“The bench in front of you is empty,” Anwen told him.
“That is not what I asked. This is your room. Do you mind if I eat here?”
“And if I say no?” she asked curiously.
“The horses in the stables are undemanding company,” he said dryly. “They do not snore, either.”
“You sleep there as well?” she asked, appalled.
“Is there somewhere I am expected to sleep of which no one has informed me?”
Anwen stared at him. “Surely a bed can be found for you.”
He shrugged. “Straw is very comfortable. I have slept upon it for many years.”
Anwen struggled to encompass that. “They gave you no bed at Dimilioc, either?”
“I considered it a blessing,” he said. “Eating with the men was trial enough.”
Anwen’s gaze dropped to the cakes in his hand. He had come here, expecting to eat alone. He made no move to sit, though.
“Oh, for goodness sake, sit down!” she said, abruptly irritated.
He moved toward the table until his knee touched the bench, then stepped over it and sat. Another sweep of his hand across the table told him it was clear. He put the cloth on the table and spread it beneath the cakes.
Then he lifted the first and bit into it hungrily.
Anwen made her attention return to the bowl before her. She ate slowly, enjoying the tart taste of the fruit. She risked staring at the man on the other side of the table, for he could not see her do so. Women had warned her many times that boldly staring at a man would embolden him to take liberties. That could not happen with this man, though.
Her gaze fell to his bare arms and the muscles which moved beneath the flesh as he shifted them. Tendons in his neck flexed as he ate. Even sitting upon a bench, he was full of movement. Vitality emanated from him which conflicted with his blindness.
Her gaze shifted to his sightless eyes. He had oddly colored eyes. They appeared to be green right now, yet when she saw them yesterday, she could have sworn they were brown. They were perfectly normal eyes. If she had not seen him quarter the room yesterday, and feeling the shape and placement of the furniture, she would have supposed he could see just like any other man, now.
Then she processed how swiftly he was eating. “You are hungry?”
“Yes,” he said, around a mouthful of cake.
“Did you not eat your fill at supper last night?”
“That would require sitting with the other men.” He shrugged.
“You had no supper at all?” Anwen asked, appalled.
“Hunger was the more attractive choice,” he assured her.
Anwen remembered Cador and his man, Daveth, talking about the “entertainment” the men at Dimilioc found through taking Steffan’s bowl from him, and throwing things at him. She glanced at Steffan’s spare hand, which was curled protectively around the last cake sitting on the cloth. Likely, the entertainment had not stopped with simply stealing his food.
She shuddered. “You would be best to eat all your meals here,” she said shortly, before she could reconsider the wisdom of asking a man to return to her chamber so frequently throughout the day.
Steffan lifted his head. He swallowed the mouthful of cake and frowned. “Do you eat your supper here?”
“Often,” she admitted.
“I prefer to eat alone.”
“Then I am sure the wet straw in the stable will be a sufficient table for you.” She returned her attention to her bowl, to finish the last morsels.
Neither of them spoke again, until Morgan and Morguase pushed into the room and settled at the table for their morning lessons.
“Must we write more today?” Morguase complained as Anwen retrieved the wax slates from the high table in the corner. “I want to learn more Latin.”
Anwen hesitated.
“Do both together,” Steffan told Morguase. “Write the phrase you learned yesterday. Do you remember it?”
“A man is as wise as his beard is long,” Morguase said.
“And in Latin?” Steffan challenged her.
She frowned.
“Barba,” Morgan said, taking her slate from Anwen.
“Sapientes,” Morguase added, as Anwen slid the other slate in front of her.
They both picked up their styluses and bent to write the words, spelling them out together.
Anwen leaned over to look at their slates. “That should be an ‘i’ and an ‘e’ in Sapientes,” she told Morguase. “Not two ‘e’s.”
Morguase looked at Steffan. “Is that right, Steffan?” she asked him.
He hesitated. “If Anwen says that is how you write the words, then it is right.”
Morguase looked at Anwen, startled. Then she turned back to her slate once more.
She did not challenge Anwen after that. The lesson continued, with Steffan introducing simple Latin words for objects in the room. Anwen helped them write the words.
The time passed quickly. When Anwen heard the women coming down from the Duchess’ chamber to head for the kitchen for their noon meal, she took the girls’ slates from them.
“You have done well this morning,” she told them, as she sent the girls from the room.
Then she put the slates away. “I am going to find food for myself,” she told Steffan, collecting the bowl she’d used for her breakfast. “I will see you tomorrow morning.”
She had her hand on the door latch when he spoke. He did not turn to face her, but spoke to the tabletop. “I suppose…I could eat here, after all.”
Anwen struggled with the hot mix of feelings which sprouted at his observation. “You do not need to make it sound as though you are conferring a favor upon me. I like being alone and I withdraw the offer.”
He turned about, lifting his legs over the bench and facing her. His eyes looked gray now. Storm clouds. “I do not like being alone,” he said. “It is not a condition I experienced until…”
Until he was blinded and suddenly, no one sought his company.
Anwen shifted on her feet. “You seek to make me feel pity for your plight and give up my solitude.”
He shook his head. “I prefer to eat alone, for more reasons than to avoid the bad manners of other men.”
Anwen rolled her eyes. “You cannot have it both ways. Either you want company or you want none. Pick one and hurry, for I am hungry and there is lamb stew.”
“Mutton, actually. The smell is unmistakable,” Steffan said. “Someone should explain to the cook about the power of rosemary as an aromatic.”
“You try my patience!” she said and stalked from the room.
She found one of the staff in the kitchen and asked them for two bowls of the stew simmering in the big cooking pot on the fire. There were loaves left over from breakfast and she took one of the smaller ones. Juggling the hot bowls and the loaf, she carried them back to her room.
The room was empty.
Anwen ignored her disappointment. That left more for her to eat.
She settled at the table, the wall at her back, and broke off a hunk of the loaf, dipped it in her stew and ate.
The door unlatched and swung open. Steffan entered, carrying a stoppered flask and two cups in one big hand.
Anwen lowered the bread, her heart pattering.
He sniffed. “Bread, too. A feast.” He put the flask on the table and settled the mugs, then sat. He leaned the staff against the wall, then sat and swiveled to face the table and put his hands upon the surface.
His sightless eyes moved to where she was sitting. There was an expression on his face which Anwen did not understand.
“You must forgive the impertinence,” he said.
“What impertinence?”
He moved his hands across the table, feeling his way with his fingertips. They brushed over the bread and the bowls, including hers, the handle of her spoon and the back of her hand. Then he moved them back over to the other bowl. He picked it up and put it in front of him.
Then, with the same waving of his fingers, he found the flask and the cups. He unstopped the flask and put his finger into the cup and poured the watered wine. When the liquid touched his finger, he stopped pouring. He took his finger out and shook it off, then pushed the cup toward her.
“That impertinence,” he said, his voice strained.
Anwen stared at him, her heart thudding with more than unease. This was why he preferred to eat alone. He didn’t like being alone. Yet he did not like people seeing his fumbling uncertainty, as he explored his food with his fingers and dipped them into his drink so he knew when to stop pouring.
He was embarrassed.
How mercilessly the other men must have tormented him for his awkward groping, to bring him to such a quandary!
Anwen picked up her spoon once more. “I do not care one way or another about your manners,” she said, keeping her voice neutral. “So long as you do not need me to entertain you with gossip and conversation while you eat, you may remain.”
He sat motionless for more of her heartbeats. Then he drew a breath and let it out. Silently, he poured the second cup of wine, then licked the end of his finger.
“Tonight, I will bring napkins, too,” Anwen added and ate.