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UPON SEEING GRENDEL of Poitiers arrive in her great hall, pale and only slightly unsteady on his feet, the vicomtesse of Limoges rushed forward. “Sieur de Poitiers, I am pleased to see that the prediction of your imminent demise was premature.”
She slid her eyes toward her son, as foul-tempered as ever and standing with his back fitted irritably against a distant wall. “Gui,” she said, addressing him, “do not sulk so. It’s unbecoming.”
Obediently, he pushed himself away from the wall and stood loose-limbed, though the plains of his face puckered like rotten fruit.
The discerning vision of Sarah of Cornwall took in the invalid’s condition. Tepidly, and against her better assessment, she said, “I trust you are feeling haler.”
“He doesn’t look at all hale,” said Gui d’Ussel, clattering into the hall with his brothers. “He rather looks like a vineyard of varietal grapes, ranging from sickly purple to putrid green. When you ripen, Grendel of Poitiers, we shall ferment you into a fine wine.” He held up his hands. “How many fingers have I?”
“Eight,” said Drake, “not counting your thumbs.”
He turned to the intimate gathering. “You see. If he were hale, he would have said twelve.” His brothers laughed though no one else did.
The vicomte left a chair of considerable comfort near the hearth and came astride his wife. “I hope, Sieur Grendel, that you will accept our sincerest apologies. My son should not have involved himself in another man’s troubles. He deserves a whipping.”
Wido reached a hand to his backside.
“A second whipping since the first failed to remove the sneer from your face. When Sieur Grendel is sufficiently recovered, he can do the honors. In place of lopping off your head, which you so richly deserve. That is, if he so agrees.”
Grendel of Poitiers took his time considering. He reached a hand to his bad arm and rubbed it absently. Wido became properly horrified, his face mottling oddly. “He so agrees,” Drake said equably.
Wido bowed and resumed his petulant stance against the wall.
The vicomte went on to say, “Wido’s bed is comfortable, is it not?” and winked before again sending disapproval in his son’s direction. “It shall remain yours for the duration of your convalescence. In the meantime, I wish to introduce you to Louis of Blois, the son of Comte Thibaud.”
Slinking forward, Louis emerged from the shadows, his probing eyes peering up through long eyelashes. He and Drake clasped fingers and nodded politely to each other. “You have a fine Arabian, Grendel of Poitiers.”
Drake shrugged in a disinterested way. “I won him in a tournament. He is ill-mannered, and I have been trying to unload him ever since.”
“A man,” Louis of Blois said, “would give his arm for horse such as that.” And taking his eyes off Drake’s broken arm, bowed again, a grin rising on his lips. “My pardon.”
The vicomte flourished a hand in the direction of the trestle, laid out in its usual high form though with several less places. “Since the vicomte and vicomtesse of Ventadorn leave first thing in the morning, they will not be joining us this evening.”
The vicomtesse of Limoges took Drake’s sound arm and led him to the dais. “And how is it, Grendel, that your mother named you for a mythical dragon?”
“She thought Beowulf a dull name.”
“A wise woman, your mother.”
The meal was morbidly quiet, which suited Drake’s mood. Like a mother, Alamanda spooned dishes into his trencher and cut up his meat. Gui talked in his usual mirthful manner and repeatedly elbowed his brothers, who grunted but never complained. Louis sought Drake’s attention with indirect looks. Meanwhile the vicomtesse of Limoges drew the boy out by asking after his mother’s health, how his uncle the king was holding up after the loss of his queen, what he thought about the attempts on his other uncle’s life, and whom did he suppose was the traitorous villain.
“Could it be, my lady, that he occupies this very hall?” Gui proffered innocently, any hint of his usual giddy person hidden behind a serious expression. “Possibly eating at your very table?”
“Whoever he is, he is not fit for company such as ours,” Wido said. “Most likely he is a despicable Brabançon, Aragonese, Navarrese, or Basque, whom the Lateran Council have likened with pagans and heathens. Is that not so?”
Silence followed as everyone awaited a response.
Gui broke the quiet by saying, “Are you asking me?”
“My son, the one with his chin in his goblet, is being disagreeable as usual,” Lady Sarah said. “But never mind. I know the way Wido thinks. He hates all men who do not hail from the Limousin but is indifferent when it comes to women.”
Alamanda commented, “I heartily agree where the Brabançons are concerned, but I hardly think the Aragonese, Navarrese, or Basques are guilty of anything, other than speaking in a language other than the lenga d’oc.”
“Perhaps you are right, chère Alamanda. Perhaps we are too quick to judge those different from us. But as you say, the Brabançons are not exempt from such exhortation, and those that harbor them for their own wicked devices ought to be cast out with the rest. Glad, I was, to see the last of them leave us winter last, and may they never darken our hearthside again.”
Thus ended a desultory feast, followed by uninspired entertainment, not due in any measure to the troubadours, who sang their hearts out in fine fashion, but to their dispirited audience. Drake fell asleep in a chair piled high with cushions and pillows, his feet propped up likewise on a stool, and his arm couched in a counterpane. When later Alamanda drew the empty goblet from his hand, he languidly opened his eyes. “Just leave me here, Alamanda, where I can die in peace.”
Her studied gaze traveled from Drake to Louis, who hovered sullenly over a goblet of his own, before returning to the invalid. “A comfortable bed awaits, something no sane man can refuse. Come. I will feed you like the Old Man’s assassins, with soporifics that will drive away pain and awaken ecstasy.”
