that Adelar could be like his father, but how else to explain his actions since she had arrived?
“If you will excuse me, my lord, I must prepare for evening prayers,” the priest sitting near her said gravely.
“Good even, Father,” Bayard replied, bowing his head.
Endredi watched the priest walk away. Before she had known a Christian, she had been told priests were evil men who would cast spells to send you to eternal torment if you didn’t pay them to say special prayers. She had learned otherwise, but this gloomy man still added to her dread. She did not trust him, either, especially as he had been giving her harsh looks for the better part of the meal.
Bayard, seeing where she looked, patted her hand. “It is not you he disapproves of, Endredi. It is women in general.”
“Women in general?”
“Yes. He suspects you all of being little more than demons sent to tempt honest men. You see the long tunic he wears? He began to dress like that after he went to Rome. He was there several years. Too many, I think. He was a kind enough fellow before he left, but easily swayed. I understand he joined with some rather strict priests. Ever since he has come home, he has spoken as if women were God’s special punishment.” Bayard smiled, his eyes twinkling rather mischievously for a powerful thane. “Fortunately, he leaves tomorrow on a journey to the monastery of his bishop for synod.” He touched her hand. “I hope you will soon come to feel at home here. It will help that you speak our language.”
“My...my family has Saxon blood,” she replied, slipping her hand into her lap. Then, as she smiled with some sincerity, she began to hope that she might not find her marriage just a duty. Bayard seemed genuinely concerned about her.
Her response had caught Ordella’s attention, as well as most of those seated around them. Ranulf said, “Cynath will surely be pleased to hear that you are part Saxon.”
Endredi looked questioningly at Bayard. “Cynath?”
“My overlord, an ealdorman in the Witan.”
“Cynath thinks very highly of your husband, my lady. Justly so, of course,” Ranulf said.
“Of course,” Ordella echoed.
The man who had been singing stopped and put down his harp. “What would be my lady’s pleasure?” he asked, an infectious grin on his round face. “Another song? Another instrument? I can play pipes, horns and fithele. Perhaps you would care to dance?”
“This is my gleeman, Godwin, and a talented fellow,” Bayard said by way of introduction. “He amuses me, for which privilege I pay him an extraordinary amount of silver.”
“I assure you, my lady, I am worth every coin!” Godwin proclaimed, making a very deep bow.
His mien was so sincere and yet so comical, she knew he was trying hard to make her smile. She attempted to oblige him.
“I think we will dance another time,” Bayard said. “Show her how you juggle.”
Godwin responded with a roguish grin, then pulled out three knives, the shortest of which was twelve inches long. The Danes, seated just below Ranulf, half rose from their seats, until he threw the knives up into the air and began to juggle them.
“Look at him,” Dagfinn said scornfully in his own language. “Saxon warriors have many skills, albeit useless ones.”
“What did he say?” Bayard inquired of his bride, shifting closer to Endredi so that his body was against hers. She moved away.
“He says that Saxon warriors are very skilled.”
Godwin picked up three heavy battle axes and juggled them, the blades flashing. This time, the Danes stared openmouthed. “I am not a Saxon,” Godwin said without taking his attention from the whirling axes. “I am a Mercian.”
“If other Danes act like these, we may use our skills to drive them right out of the Danelaw. They seem as attentive as a dog waiting for a bone from his master’s table,” Bayard remarked.
The Saxons around him smothered their laughter. Endredi stared at the fine white tablecloth. She had never liked Fenris’s brother, who often made jests at the expense of those weaker than himself, but she did not enjoy hearing her countrymen insulted. Nor was she pleased to find that her husband so obviously wanted the Danes expelled from their lawful land. He had been attentive and polite to her thus far, but perhaps that would change when they were alone.
Godwin stopped juggling the axes and began to do other tricks with his knives. The Danes went back to drinking.
“Barbarous rabble, are they not?” Ranulf observed loudly. “And most unpleasant—yourself excluded, of course, my lady. No wonder Adelar hates them all.”
Bayard darted an angry glance at his nephew. “Ranulf!” he said, an unmistakable tone of warning in his voice. “You must forgive his hasty words, Endredi,” Bayard went on placatingly, as if she were no more than a child. But she knew only a fool would believe a burh full of Saxons would welcome a marriage between their thane and a Viking, and she was not a fool. “It is true that my cousin dislikes most Danes. He was abducted by Vikings when he was a boy. They killed his sister.”
“What?” Too late Endredi realized that she had shown too much. Everyone stared at her. “How terrible, my lord,” she said, fighting to keep her voice calm and not to proclaim to everyone that Adelar had told a base falsehood. “I am most dismayed that my countrymen may have caused a member of your family any anguish,” she said after a moment. Despite the seeming regret in her voice, anger was boiling under Endredi’s placid surface. If anyone had been to blame for Betha’s death, it was Adelar, who had taken her from the Viking village during a snowstorm in an ill-fated attempt to make their way home. Even then, the little girl had died of an illness, an act of the gods, as she had tried to tell him. Then she had given him the silent companionship he seemed to find the greatest comfort. This lie was her reward?
She would make him correct that lie. Such falsehoods only inflamed the hatred between the Danes and Saxons. Many of the women she knew were as tired of the fighting and the bloodshed as she. If making Adelar confess the truth would prevent one skirmish, one more death, she would ensure that it happened.
“You had nothing to do with it,” Bayard said kindly. “Godwin,” he called out, “sing something else. Something pleasant.”
Godwin complied. After his third song, Bayard turned to her and said solicitously, “You are so quiet. Are you weary? Do you wish to retire?”
Endredi glanced at her husband. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Helmi waiting patiently at the end of the hall.
“Yes, my lord,” she said, rising. The time had come. She was this man’s wife.
“I shall join you in a little while.”
“Sleep well, my lady,” Ranulf said, a leer on his impertinent face.
She was going to hate her husband’s nephew. And she would make Adelar reveal the truth, at least to Bayard. As for how she would feel about her husband, she would find out soon enough, no doubt.
* * *
Helmi held open the door
