she said. “I have some clean chemises and leg coverings that belonged to your father when he was younger. I had saved them for Brynn for when he is older, but we may spare some for Rhys FitzHugh. Come along and we will fetch them.”
“Let me tell him lest he put on his dirty clothing,” Averil replied, and running to the bathing room she opened the door and stepped through. “Do not dress yourself yet, my lord,” she said to her husband who was still scrapping the whiskers from his chin. “I will bring you some clean garments.” She picked up his boots and cotte. “I will have the servants clean these.” Then she was gone before he might even speak.
She gave Rhys’s boots to a serving man, instructing him to clean and polish the worn footwear and then return them to her lord in the bathing room. She handed the cotte to another servant, telling her to brush the garment clean and return it to its owner in the bathing room. Then Averil hurried on, a small smile on her face as she thought of her new husband’s reaction when her father’s servants entered the room unannounced.
Gorawen went to the solar where all the women liked to gather. From a trunk set in an alcove she drew out a beautiful linen chemise, handing it to her daughter. “I believe this will fit Rhys,” she said, and bending down again she drew out a pair of braies, giving them to Averil. “You must give his old garments to the servants to launder, but you may keep these.”
“Thank you, Mother,” Averil responded, and she hurried off back to the bathing room to help her husband dress.
Neither his boots nor his cotte were ready when she returned to him. He had finished taking the whiskers from his face. “You are handsome,” Averil said. “My sisters have said it, and now I see it. Here is a clean chemise, my lord, and a set of braies. They are yours now. Put them on while we wait for your cotte and boots,” Averil suggested to him with a small smile. She let her eyes slip quickly over him. He was a big man in every respect, well muscled and straight of limb.
Rhys FitzHugh slipped the undergarment over his now very clean frame. He sat down upon a three-legged stool to pull on the dark woolen braies. “Where did you find these?” he asked curiously.
“They were my da’s when he was younger. My mother put them aside when he outgrew them for Brynn, but says she can spare them, for you are now her son,” Averil told him. “My mother has taught me not to be wasteful.”
“Your mother is very beautiful. But for your eyes you resemble her muchly,” he replied. “She is from the house of Tewydr?”
“Aye. My bloodlines are good, my lord. You will have no cause for shame in me, though you stole the wrong maiden. Actually, my blood is better than that of my true-born sister, Maia, though I should never say it aloud to others,” Averil explained.
He nodded, and then the door to the bathing room opened, and a serving maid entered carrying his cotte and his boots. She handed them to Averil, curtsied, and withdrew from the chamber.
Averil handed her husband his boots. “Put them on, Rhys FitzHugh. They are of better quality than I suspected now that I see them clean,” she noted. Then she looked at his cotte. “It is blue. I could not tell before. But it is very threadbare, my lord. Have you the material at Everleigh for me to make you another? You are the bailiff of a fine estate, and cannot go about looking like a poor man.”
“But I am a poor man,” he reminded her. “Everleigh belongs to my sister.”
“You have cattle and sheep through your marriage to me, my lord, and a purse of fifteen silver pennies, one for each year of my life,” Averil reminded him. “You are no longer a poor man, and you must have a new cotte.”
He laughed. “I am surprised to find that despite your great beauty, my wife, you are a girl who will care well for me, and our children. You are not overproud, or haughty, Averil. My sister will do well to follow your instruction. Rhawn, her old nurse, cannot teach Mary how to be a lady, but you can.”
“I am indeed haughty, my lord, but only where required,” she responded.
He laughed again as he straightened his cotte. It was threadbare. It would be good to have a new one. “There is fabric aplenty at Everleigh, my wee Welsh wife. While you ripen with our first child this winter you will sew me a new one,” he said.
“Even a well-brought up virgin knows it takes more than wishing to get a child,” Averil said pithily, yet there was a small smile upon her lips.
He yanked her into his arms, and kissed her heartily. “As you will learn this very night, Averil, my wife. But for now we are expected in the hall that your family may properly celebrate our union.”
Rosy with her blushes Averil nonetheless spoke up. “Then let us go, Rhys FitzHugh,” she said to him. Perhaps marriage to this man would not be so bad after all. If he was not a great lord he was a charming man. That had to count for something.
Chapter 5
When Averil and her husband entered the hall of the Dragon Lord they found their entire family gathered and waiting. Normally the main meal of the day would have been served at the noon hour, but a messenger sent ahead of Merin Pendragon had warned the keep of the master’s return. The lady Argel had therefore postponed the dinner, and the cook had had time to add more dishes, for the men with their lord would eat far more than the household of women and children he had been feeding. The order of their seating had been prearranged. Averil and Rhys, the feast’s guests of honor, were placed to the left and the right of the Dragon Lord. The lady Argel sat to the bride’s left followed by Roger Mortimer, Maia and Ysbail. To the bridegroom’s left was Gorawen, Lord Mortimer, Brynn Pendragon, and Junia.
By chance there was a traveling monk from the Cistercian order who had begged a night’s shelter from the Dragon Lord. He offered up a blessing for the meal and the young couple. Rhys FitzHugh was surprised when the servants set polished pewter plates and matching spoons before each diner. He had never seen such plates although he had heard of them. He noted the diners in the hall below the high board had the usual trenchers of bread. The servants then brought about the courses for the high board upon silver platters. There was trout broiled and set upon a bed of watercress. There was capon and venison, both roasted, and a rabbit pie in brown gravy. The last of the summer peas was served. Fresh bread, still warm from the ovens, and sweet butter were placed upon the table while other servants poured wine into the pewter cups at each place. When all had been consumed a final course of cheeses, pears, sugar wafers and jellies was brought forth and set upon the high board.
When the meal had been at last finished the guests at the high board washed their hands and face in bowls of scented water brought forth by the servants. Below the high board other servants were gathering up the bread trenchers, which would be distributed to the few poor gathered at the door to the kitchen garden. Lord Mortimer was impressed with Merin Pendragon’s hospitality and gentility, which was every bit as fine as his many English friends. And in some instances even better.
Now the Dragon Lord’s daughters got up to entertain the guests. Like most of the Welsh they were musical by inclination. Averil played upon the telyn, which was a Celtic type of harp. Maia, the pibgorn, a reed instrument peculiar to the Welsh. Junia favored the recorder, which she alternated with a small drum painted with a design, and the cymbalum, or bells, which were shaken in time with the music. She was the most skilled musician of the three sisters.
Outside the hall the day had now waned, and the twilight was followed by the night. All evidence of the meal was now gone from the high board, and the tables below it were set against the walls with their benches atop them. The large fire pit blazed,
