since you know of no falsity about their plan to ally with us, he has no need for the kind regard of the husband of a woman who yielded to Le Bâtard.”
Nicola longed to defend Hawisa whose decision had ended most of the bloodshed on Wulfenshire, but she said, “I pray your cousin chooses well so he does not later regret what is happening below.” She looked to the end of the bed. “I appreciate the loan of your garments. If it would not be too inconvenient, would you see water, soap, and towels delivered to me so I may bathe?”
She feared the woman would find satisfaction in refusing her, but Vilda said, “It will be done, though it may be hours since the Danes must first be tended and they require much.”
“Not only in gorging their bellies—in all things, as is their nature,” Nicola muttered.
The woman’s lids narrowed and lips parted, but unlike this lady, she did not speak her thoughts. She turned and scooped up the bliaut and hose from alongside the door.
“The chemise!” Nicola jumped up and dragged the garment off over her head.
“Lady!” Vilda gasped. “Have you no modesty?”
Nicola balled the chemise and set it atop the woman’s armful. “Did I not, sooner I would have cast off that foul thing, but now that I have another, I shall don it.” She smiled at the wide-eyed woman. “I know—better I bathe first, but what choice have I until your return?”
It was not meant as sarcasm nor complaint, but as if it were, the woman’s eyes hardened further. “Ere I open this door to men of greater strength than both of us, cover yourself, heathen.”
“I am no heathen!” Nicola exclaimed. “As a lady, many times I have bared myself before a maid who assists with my clothing and ablutions. There is naught untoward—”
“I am not your maid! No matter my reduced circumstances, I am your equal—nay, your better. This is my country. You eat out of my hand. I do not and never shall eat out of yours. Now cover yourself so I may be free of your Norman stench.”
Nicola struggled to suppress anger at being cast in so terrible a light. In the end, what controlled her speech was acceptance that she, more than Vilda, had done this to her.
I cannot know all she has suffered, she told herself, then crossed to the bed and donned the clean threadbare chemise. “Forgive me,” she said, turning back. “My words were not meant to offend. It is just me, reckless Nicola D’Argent who sometimes allows the girl to slip back in.”
The hard about the woman seemed to soften, and she said, “At times I suffer the same, though my slips are more forgivable than yours.”
“So they are, Lady Vilda.”
Moments later, once more Nicola was the lone occupant of the small, uncomfortable room.
Which is dry, of good size, and firm beneath your feet compared to that damp, canvas-hung room upon the ship, she reminded herself and, fighting tears, dropped onto the bed and whipped the cover over her.
As done often during her stay on the vessel she had feared would set sail for Denmark, she questioned if what had seen her somewhat exiled from Normandy was worth what had befallen her these past weeks—from tending victims of the harrying at the abbey which led to her abduction, to imprisonment on this isle among Danes and Saxons who detested her for being a Norman.
“Is this worth it?” she said and saw again the older man to whom she would now be wed had she not behaved badly, then the young man who unwittingly aided in breaking her betrothal, next the Saxon warrior in whose arms she had found herself this day.
“I do not like him,” she said, then rolled to her side, reached beneath the mattress, and withdrew the cloth. She considered the lustrous embroidery thread whose needle had stabbed the thick wool hundreds of times to work the king’s initials amid flourishes.
Would she be able to deliver it to Maël? If so, would it be too late to matter?
If ever it mattered, she reminded herself that had it been possible for William to ease his pursuit of the one who shamed him, now that Vitalis had joined Hereward, the king had further cause to seek the rebel’s demise.
Staring at hands whose nimble fingers drew the cloth through them, she recalled when it was Vitalis’s hands…when he had tossed it at her feet…when he had pushed up out of the