Chapter Five #3
The priest glared at him as much as he could, given the fact that a very big man held him by the neck.
“Release me!” he demanded weakly. “You have no right!”
“I have every right. You shame every priest in England with your gluttonous behavior, and you greatly shame your hosts. No more food, no more drink, until this is over.” Still holding on to the priest, Bric turned to Pearce.
“Take him out to the well and douse him with cold water until he sobers up. I’ll not have a drunkard perform this marriage. ”
With a grin, Pearce grabbed the priest and began dragging the man out of the hall, ignoring his protests. But as he neared the entry, his wife suddenly appeared and yelped with shock when she saw her husband manhandling the priest.
“What are you doing?” Zara asked, frightened. “Lady de Winter has sent me to make sure he is ready to perform the wedding mass.”
Bric came up, motioning to Pearce to continue with the priest, while he dealt with Zara. “The wedding will be performed on schedule,” he told her evenly. “Your husband is simply sobering up the priest.”
Zara’s eyes widened. “He is still drunk?”
“What do you mean ‘still’?”
Zara blinked her big, blue eyes fearfully. “He was drunk last night, too,” she said. “He sat at the end of the table, drinking and eating and burping all evening. Was he still drinking this morning, then?”
Bric sighed heavily; it did not please him to hear that. “I saw him asleep in the hall last night, so at least he paused drinking long enough to sleep. But he was certainly drinking again this morning.”
Zara shook her head sadly. “God forgive him.”
Bric snorted rudely. “God forgive him, for certain, I will not,” he said. When he saw the shocked expression on Zara’s face, he forced himself to calm. He knew he came off as terrifying and irate when his dander was up. “Not to worry, my lady. All will be well. Is my bride ready?”
He was shifting subjects, now bringing up Eiselle, and Zara’s fearful expression faded. “Aye,” she said. “Lady de Winter has made her look like a goddess. Wait until you see her, Bric. She is more beautiful than anything I have ever seen.”
Bric smiled faintly. “I am not sure anything can make her more beautiful,” he said. “Will you let her know that the priest will be ready to conduct the ceremony within the hour?”
Zara nodded, but she looked to the entry door with uncertainty. “Are you sure he will be sober?”
Bric’s smile vanished and he cocked an unhappy eyebrow. “If I have anything to say about it, he will be,” he said. “Is Lady de Winter with my intended?”
“She is.”
“Tell her to wait a half-hour before coming to the hall. Your husband and I should have the priest moderately sober by then. If the water doesn’t do it, then mayhap I can scare the man into sobriety.”
“You might scare him to death, Bric.”
He sighed heavily as he headed for the entry. “That,” he said, “is a distinct possibility.”
As Zara fled back the way she’d come, Bric ended up in the inner bailey, circling around the side of the keep to the secondary well.
There was one in the lower level of the keep, in the storage area, protected by the walls of the keep, and then the secondary well used by the soldiers and trades.
Bric could see Pearce as the man gleefully dunked the priest’s head into a big bucket, and he could hear the priest gasping as he approached.
He watched Pearce dunk the man twice more before he stopped him.
He didn’t want to drown the man before the wedding could take place, even though it would have been just punishment for his behavior.
As the priest sat in the dirt, soaked and sputtering, Bric bent over and slapped the man on the face to bring him around.
“Well?” he demanded. “What did you think was going to happen when you imbibed in too much drink before the wedding? Did you think I would let that go unnoticed?”
The priest yelped when Bric slapped him again, rubbing his stinging cheek as he gazed up at the enormous knight with the heavy Irish brogue.
“I am a man of God,” he said, water spraying from his lips. “Hell will welcome you with open arms for striking a man of God.”
Bric lifted an eyebrow. “Hell will welcome me with open arms for infractions much worse than that,” he said. “I have no fear of God, or of heaven or hell, so think not to threaten me with eternal damnation.”
The priest was still wiping water from his eyes, struggling to overcome his drunkenness. “What kind of a man are you that you would not fear God?”
“A man of reason and common sense.”
“Such arrogance!”
“Indeed I am, and if I were you, I would tread carefully. And do not act so pious; you will probably make it to hell before I do, so do not imagine that you are better than I am.”
The priest mustered a deeply outraged expression. “I did not come here to be insulted by the likes of you,” he said, struggling to stand but he was so drunk that it made it difficult. Still, he managed to get to his knees. “Where is Lady de Winter? I demand to speak with her.”
Bric shook his head. “I would not do that,” he said. “If you think I have been hard on you, that is nothing compared to Lady de Winter. She’ll gouge your eyes out and laugh at your misery if she’s angry enough. Nay, man, you would do better with me and not the banshee.”
The priest was still on his knees, glaring up at him, but it was clear that he was thinking over what he’d been told. Frustrated and tipsy, he held out a hand to Bric.
“Then help me up,” he said. “And, for Pity’s sake, help me to dry off. Let us get this wretched wedding over with.”
Bric took a step back as Pearce took the priest’s hand and pulled the man to his unsteady feet. As the priest began to wring out his robes, he glanced up at Bric.
“Who is getting married?” he asked. “You? Or your relation?”
Bric watched the man as he tried to clean himself up. “Me,” he said. “What is your name, Priest?”
The man snorted as he brushed the mud off his knees. “Call me Manducor,” he said. “And you?”
“Sir Bric MacRohan.”
“And you are the husband-to-be?”
“I am.”
The priest looked him up and down. “What woman would marry a man as mean as you?”
Bric stared at him. Pearce, having heard the comment, eyed Bric with some apprehension, fearful that he would soon be picking up pieces of the unruly priest after Bric tore him apart. But after a moment, Bric simply broke down into a grin.
“That is a very good question,” he said. “If you remain sober, you may yet find out.”
“And if I do not remain sober?”
“Then I will tie a rock around your neck and throw you into the river.”
“It seems it would be better that I remain sober.”
“You are showing true wisdom for the very first time.”
Manducor shook off his robes, brushed off his hands, and faced Bric. “Can I at least celebrate with food and drink after the marriage?”
He had a rather irreverent way about him, but Bric was coming to think the man was rather sharp and opinionated, certainly not terrible qualities, properly placed.
He actually thought he might come to like this frank, rude, and mouthy priest. He didn’t know why, but there was something unwaveringly brave in the man’s eyes.
Brave, bold, and rather pathetic, somehow.
As if the man had nothing to lose by drinking himself to death and challenging knights twice his size.
Foolish, but brave.
“Aye,” he finally said. “You can celebrate when the marriage is completed, but not before. Do you understand?”
“Sadly, I do.”
“Good. Then let us return to the hall where you can dry out your robes. You have a marriage ceremony to perform.”
Manducor continued to shake out his wet robes as he staggered back towards the keep entry. Bric watched the man go, shaking his head in exasperation as he and Pearce followed at a distance.
“I do not think he gave us his real name,” Bric muttered.
Pearce’s eyebrows drew together. “Why would you say that?”
“Because Manducor is Latin for ‘eat’.”
Pearce looked at Bric with some shock before breaking down into giggles. Only Bric MacRohan, the man who was so resistant to marriage that he would try to fight his way out of it, would be married by a priest who named himself after his favorite pastime. It was almost too ridiculous to believe.
It was going to be an interesting marriage, indeed.