She who rose upon the pallet on which she had slept these hours appeared well fed, but not overly so, a belted gown revealing a tucked in waist relative to full bosom and hips. And she had a good profile beneath grey-streaked hair braided into a crown, her cheek and chin remaining defined. As she was attractive for one of advanced years, once she had to have been quite comely.
Tugging at worn skirts to free tangled legs, she looked across her shoulder at Vilda who sat on a blanket to the right of the tent’s flap. “I was told you might come to me, Hereward’s cousin,” she said in a surprisingly dulcet voice. “You know who I am?”
Vilda eased the arms clasping her knees. “Theta’s aunt.”
“Aunt…” she drawled. “Only if my brother sired her, and that is unlikely. True, some babes come a month or more early, but very few a month late.” She raised her eyebrows. “This Theta knows, but as ever she has done, she makes use of others however she can.”
Vilda frowned. “You are here against your will?”
The woman turned, stretched out her legs, and leaned back on her hands. “As a purse of coin was put in my palm after being pried open by Theta’s lover, Ivo—whose name is as near the word evil as one can come—I am here as much of my free will as is possible for one who fears great protest will see her dead.”
“Then you do not wish to curse the resistance?”
“I do not, just as neither did I wish to curse the Normans as Theta first suggested.” She set her head to the side. “You know why I would not curse the invaders even had Hereward not refused, Alvilda?”
She hesitated, said, “Though you have my name, I do not have yours.”
“I am Herba, and ere you assume it is a foretelling of my facility with herbs, I was named for the Greek goddess of misery and poverty to commemorate that into which I was born fifty-five years ago—the suppression of our people when the Danish prince, Cnut, claimed England just as now the Normans take what does not belong to them.”
Vilda released her knees and, letting them fall to the sides beneath her skirts, winced over the clatter.
“Chains,” the woman said. “At least I escaped that—thus far.”
“Why would you not curse the Normans, Herba?”
“I confess to a shy belief in God, for which oft I apologize to my soul, though I know it is possible I speak only to myself bound to this earth rather than that which, should it prove only of the imagination, will never deliver me to a better place. I admit to even less faith in God’s representatives on earth, much of it lost when the pope blessed Le Bâtard’s quest for England. Aye, only a shy belief in God and a passing belief in His priests, but I am no witch as some believe, including Theta.”
“Why does she believe it of you?”
“Because I have worked what many name miracles when the bloodletting of physicians and prayers of priests fail to ease afflictions. Though I have made no such claim myself, there are those who do not like that one who lacks training in medicine and does not belong to a holy order—and is a woman—can do what they cannot. Thus, they warn away the faithful by accusing me of casting spells and curses.” She laughed softly. “Not that I do not bear some responsibility where curses are concerned.”
“How is that?”
Herba smiled, revealing though her teeth were gapped, most were present. “A physician came to me and, I vow, he cast the first curse. His jealousy over my ability to know which herbs to cultivate, mix, and cook angered me, but I said naught until he showed me his backside. And—oh!—’twas an ugly one for the large boil upon it.”
She drew in her legs and raised her hands as if to calm a stirring storm. “I know. I ought to have anchored my tongue rather than curse him as if I had the power to raise boils all over his body.” She sighed. “He carried tale of that throughout the Fens, showing that boil he said was but one of dozens I caused to appear on him. Not all believed him, but many who were happy to pay for my services shrank from me.” She spat on the ground. “A witch! I am no more that than he a man of healing.”
Vilda liked this woman Theta must have exposed to Taillebois during one of what was surely many meetings with the enemy—and of which Guy had likely known.
Though the anger of betrayal flared, Vilda put it out with the reminder that no matter how honorably he behaved—no matter the intimacy they shared—still they were enemies. Thus, he had not broken faith. Another had.
“Theta betrays the resistance,” she said.
Herba harrumphed. “Is it betrayal when one was never truly the side among whom they flit?”
“’Tis if they profess to be that side!”
The older woman wagged a finger. “If. Regardless, Theta can only betray one person—herself, since she is true to no other.” She jerked her head to the side. “Not unlike the duke who made himself king. Hence, why I thank the Lord no drop of my blood runs through her.”
“How many times since her arrival at Ely has she visited you, seeking to sell your curses to Saxons and Normans alike?”
“Several, though that first visit was for her—the cursing of both wife and sister of the Bloodlust Warrior of Hastings.”
Vilda stared as she traced that from Maxen Pendery who wed a Saxon through to Guy who was to have wed Elan. Why had Theta wanted his former betrothed cursed? Because that Norman lady wed a Saxon?
“And she expected me to do it without charge,” Herba continued. “When I declined, she slapped coin on the table. As my gruel was thinner than usual, I told her the deed would be done three successive nights.” She gave
