Chapter Twenty-Six #2
She broke away from Kenton, instructing the boys to remove the lamb, but they tried to plead and bargain with her.
Kenton was more firm about it. He went over to the boys, who by now had corralled the frisky animal, and pointed to the door that led to the kitchen and ultimately out to the yard beyond.
“This may come as a shock to you, but lambs do not belong inside the keep,” he said. “Remove the beast so that we may eat the lovely meal your mother has worked hard to prepare.”
Tab was still on his bottom; he had the lamb around the head so it would not try to butt him again. “He does not want to go outside!” he declared.
Before Kenton could reply, Teague nearly shouted at him. “He can sit nexth to usth!” he said in his terrible lisp. “He will behave, I promith.”
Kenton shook his head and began to direct the lamb towards the door in spite of all of the boys holding on to it. “You cannot guarantee the behavior of the beast, Teague,” he said, pushing the fuzzy arse along. “Take him outside and back to his mother where he belongs.”
The boys argued somewhat but not too much; they knew, deep down, that the lamb belonged outside.
Even Tab, who had originally told his brothers to take it outside, was now reluctant to do so.
Sometimes the boys tended to push their mother’s patience just because they knew they could.
Kenton, however, seemed immune to their will, a big authority figure in their midst. Kenton helped them scoot the lamb out of the hall, through the kitchens, and then he stood in the doorway to the yard and watched as the three of them took it back to the corral where the other sheep were clustered.
As he stood there watching, he could feel a soft hand slip into his big one.
“You will make a fine father someday,” Nicola said, gazing up at him adoringly. “You have always shown great patience and wisdom with my sons, something their father never did.”
He squeezed her hand. “It is good practice for our own children,” he said. “I expect at least a dozen, by the way.”
Nicola rolled her eyes. “God’s Bones, le Bec,” she said. “A dozen?”
He nodded. “That would be my preference, aye.”
She rolled her eyes again, this time laughing as well. “You are a madman,” she said, releasing his hand and turning away. “Come and let us eat. Mayhap it is the lack of food that is causing these great fantasies you seem to have.”
He grinned broadly as he followed her from the kitchen, hearing the boys coming up behind them. “Is that so?” he said. “We shall see.”
“Aye, we shall.”
They entered the hall with smiles on their faces and the three boys ran around them, making a mad dash for the table where Janet and Raven were pouring wine into cups.
The hall was empty this night, with just the family to feed, because everyone else was out on guard duty.
Kenton made sure to relay orders to the servants to take food outside to the men, which they rushed to prepare.
As the servants went off to tend to their tasks, Nicola, the three boys, and Kenton sat at the feasting table and delved into the steaming food.
Boiled mutton with garlic and onions was the main bill of fare along with fresh bread, apples with cinnamon, and boiled beans.
Kenton sat between Tab and Nicola, eating heartily, helping Tab butter his bread, and grinning at Nicola as she tried to keep the twins off the table.
Instead of asking for something to be passed to them, like the butter, they would simply climb upon the table to get it, prompting their mother to grab a little leg and pull them back down.
It came to the point where the twins gravitated towards Kenton because he wasn’t apt to pull them off the table, so Nicola finished her meal with no one on her right side and everyone to her left as the boys crowded around Kenton.
But it was more than simply the fact that he seemed more lenient with them; it was the mere fact that he had returned and the boys were thrilled to see him.
Nicola finished her meal with a smile on her face, watching Kenton and her sons interact, so incredibly appreciative of his presence.
He seemed to bring out the best in all of them, the man who had once been their captor but who was now quickly becoming the center of their world.
It made all of those lonely, fearful nights for Nicola fade from memory, recent nights where she had been unable to sleep, so very fearful of Kenton’s fate.
Now, his fate was here, at Babylon, as if he had always belonged here.
He was theirs and they were his. She couldn’t explain the joy, the contentment, any other way.
As she watched Teague and Tiernan tussle over wanting the same piece of bread, the door of a closet in the entryway slowly creaked open.
Nicola caught movement out of the corner of her eye, turning to see the mad, old woman emerge from her cave and begin her nightly dance.
Kenton, too, saw the movement as the old woman flitted about in the entry hall, just outside of the reach of the light.
He could see her silhouette in the darkness, moving about.
The twins, naturally, were frightened and climbed upon Kenton for protection, while Tab stood up from his seat, moving around his mother so he could have an unobstructed view of the dancing woman.
Tab had seen the old woman many times in his life but when he came to realize she was not a ghost, as Kenton and the other knights had explained to him, he began to be more curious about her.
Most nights she came forth but, as of late, her appearances were less and less frequent.
Even her dancing seemed to be slower and less energetic.
But to Tab, she was of increasing interest now that he was more aware of her.
As the woman danced in the darkness just beyond the hall, Tab turned to his mother.
“Mam,” he said, pointing to the woman. “Who is the ghost?”
Nicola looked at Tab, surprised to hear the question.
He’d known of the “ghost” for years but had never shown much interest in her, so his question naturally had his mother surprised.
He was almost six years old now and as Nicola thought on his question, she presumed he had a right to know the truth.
He was old enough and certainly becoming more curious and aware about things. Her little boy was growing up.
“That is Lady Aspasia Thorne,” she said, putting her hand on Tab’s shoulder. “She is your father’s mother. She is your grandmother.”
Tab continued to watch the woman, now with his brow furrowed. “She is?” he asked with some awe in his tone. “Then why does she do that? Why does she live in the closet?”
Nicola squeezed his shoulder. “It is sad to say that she is not in her right mind,” she said.
“She has not been in her right mind since I came to live here many years ago. Your father made her live in the closet because she was not fit to be around other people, so she has lived in that closet so long I do not believe she knows anything else. You know that she will not harm you as long as you leave her alone.”
Tab was rather rocked by the information that the woman in the closet was his grandmother. “It was not right for Papa to make her live in the closet,” he said. “She should not be there.”
“She likes to be there, Tab. As long as she is content, then you must leave her alone.”
Tab wasn’t so sure. Something in his young, growing mind felt sorry for the woman, feeling empathy his father never had.
The woman was evidently his family, after all, and he was coming to understand a good deal about family and taking care of those he loved.
He never understood that so much as when Kenton started to take interest in him and his brothers, and now the man had returned to them.
He had learned a great deal from Kenton in the short time he’d known him.
He was a man that Tab wanted to emulate.
His father had never been kind. He had always known that.
He never regretted stabbing the man when he had been taking his fists to his mother on that terrible night, stabbing him with a sword he had stolen off of one of the old, drunk soldiers.
His father had been ill after that and then he had died, so Tab had always suspected that perhaps he had killed his father.
He’d never told his mother his suspicions, however, because he didn’t want to upset her.
Maybe she didn’t realize that what he did had caused his father’s illness and eventually killed him, so he didn’t want to tell her.
Let her believe that his father simply died and that was the end of it, because to Tab, it was the end.
Gaylord Thorne, the man who had fathered him, had finally ceased to exist.
And then came Kenton.
Kenton had been the enemy but he had shown them all more attention and affection than Gaylord Thorne could have ever dreamed of.
Nay, Tab wasn’t sorry at all for what he’d done.
In his view, he’d had to do it. He had to protect his mother from his father.
But he did not have to protect her from Kenton.
Watching the gray-haired old woman dance around in the dark, Tab was coming to think there was one more woman who had needed protection from his father, only Tab hadn’t realized that until now.
Maybe he could help her somehow. Picking up a piece of bread from the table, Tab made his way towards the old woman spinning in the dark.