“Yes. We will have boar tomorrow.” They would have had it today, but the one he’d killed the day before had been scavenged by other predators. It was only to be expected when he had left it there for them to find.
He took his seat beside his wife and turned to Barr. “What has happened with my horse and my wife in my absence?”
“Someone tormented the stallion into a lather and then released him from the stable on a rampage.”
Talorc had barely taken Barr’s words in when Earc said with relish, “Your wife was directly in the horse’s path.”
A subsonic growl of fury rumbled in his throat, making the other Chrechte around the table send back immediate growls of submission. Only the fact that she was sitting there looking unharmed in any way kept him from roaring out his anger.
He turned abruptly to face his wife. “You are well?”
“Right as rain.” She even smiled.
“Someone saved her. Who?” he asked Barr.
“She saved herself. She didn’t hear the shouts of warning, but she noticed the earth trembling beneath her feet,” he said with clear admiration.
Hell, Talorc was more than a little impressed himself. “Where was her escort?”
From the look on Barr’s face, that was the first time the question had occurred to him. “I do not know, Talorc. Who did you assign to escort her today?”
Talorc’s memory flew back to that morning and his leave-taking from the fortress. He had not assigned anyone the specific duty of watching his wife. He rotated the duty amongst his soldiers daily, so none missed too much training time. Despite the fact that he had not assigned a soldier to the task, his wife knew better than to leave the tower without an escort.
“You know you are supposed to be escorted when you leave our room,” he censured her.
A wisp of something like anger passed through her beautiful brown eyes before she blinked and it was gone. “I was never alone.”
“If you had an escort, you never would have been in danger.”
“I avoided the danger on my own. I’ve been doing so for years.”
“She’s a liability to the clan. Anyone can see it,” Osgard said angrily from his place down the table.
Talorc looked at his wife to see her reaction to the old man’s words, but she appeared not to have noted them. It struck him then that she rarely looked in Osgard’s direction. Considering the fact that she could not “hear” him if she did not see him, her behavior effectively eliminated the crotchety warrior from her notice.
It was an effective way to deal with his advisor’s annoying inability to accept his new lady. Talorc had to admire the simplicity and ingenuity of it as well.
He turned so she could not see his lips either and glowered at his advisor. “She is my wife.”
“To hell with the clan, then?”
“Watch yourself, Osgard. You will go too far with your prejudice and find yourself living with your great-niece in an already crowded cottage.”
“It wasn’t the clan in danger today, but our lady,” Guaire said from his customary place on the other side of Abigail.
“I wasn’t actually in any more danger than anyone else,” Abigail asserted, obviously having read Guaire’s lips.
Osgard snorted, but several soldiers nodded in agreement, their respect for their lady clear.
“What did the stable master have to say?” Talorc asked Barr.
“He did not see anyone.”
“No one at all?”
Barr shook his head. “He was training one of the young mares in the paddock, so was nowhere near the stable at the time your horse got out.”
“And the stallion?”
“Shows signs of being whipped on his left flank.”
Talorc let out a growl that had several warriors’ heads snapping up. “Did you check for scent?”
“There was naught but the stable master and his helper, and nothing in the whip marks themselves at all.”
Talorc frowned at that. Whoever had played the prank clearly knew enough to avoid detection by masking their scent. In addition, they had been careful to use an implement that they had not touched at the end used to whip the horse. “You think one of the boys?”
“It could be.” Barr was a cautious man and would not accuse without some indication of guilt.
Not even youths known for their pranks.
Despite being unsure what her husband was feeling toward her, Abigail found the evening meal surprisingly pleasant. It was more relaxing than any meal she had eaten in the presence of others since coming downstairs for the first time after her fever when she was ten. She did not have to worry about revealing her secret anymore.
The release of pressure was most amazing. No one got impatient with her when she missed something they said. Everyone acted like her ability to understand them was some great talent, that
Not someone cursed.
“Did you hide your deafness among your English family?” Earc, ever the curious one, asked.
“Of course. Only my mother, stepfather and eventually my younger sister Jolenta knew.”
“Why ‘of course’?”
“At best my affliction was considered a great misfortune.”
“And at worst?” Earc prompted.
“Many priests teach that to be so infirm indicates possession by a demon.”
“Are English priests so gullible, then?” Fionn asked. “Or are you expecting us to be by believing you?”
“I assure you, it is the truth.” She only wished it was not. “The abbess says they cry demon when they cannot explain why a fever leaves one person deaf or blind but another untouched by any such difficulty.”
“Your abbess sounds like a wise woman,” Guaire said.
“I never met her. We only corresponded through letters, but I counted her friend. She was the only person besides my sister Emily who found value in me after discovering my affliction.”
Talorc took hold of her face and turned her head so their eyes met. “Stop calling your deafness an affliction.”
The rest of the room ceased to exist for her. “It is—”
“An infirmity, though not much of one in your case. You have learned to compensate for it in amazing ways.”
“I have no choice. I did not want to live the rest of my days in a nunnery’s locked cell.” She shivered at the thought that still plagued her dreams some nights.
“You had a choice, but you did not give up.” He shook his head, looking puzzled, but she did not know what by. “The only true misfortune is the idiocy your parents showed upon learning of your changed circumstances.”
“Emily protected me from my mother’s wrath.” As much as she had been able to anyway.
“There should have been no wrath. You did not make yourself deaf.”
“She always blamed me. I was supposed to make a good match and forward her social ambition.”
“Marriage to a laird should please any mother.”
“Sybil was just glad to get rid of me, but my younger sister Jolenta was jealous.”
“It matters not. You are now mine to protect.”
Abigail stared at him, not sure how to take that. Just yesterday, he had said there was no place for her in the clan. Now he acted as if he had no intention of banishing her. She wanted to know his plans but was not about to ask about them in front of his soldiers.
Someone must have said something because Talorc frowned and looked over his shoulder. He spoke, his face averted so she could not read his lips. Osgard got up and stormed from the great hall.
“He does that a lot,” she said quietly.
Talorc returned his attention to her. “What?”
