Chapter 6
T he maid hovered nervously in the doorway, looking for all the world like she feared Bethany might eat her.
“You are to attend a feast tonight in the hall, my lady,” she said, looking anywhere but at Bethany’s face. “Not the official welcome feast, of course, not yet, but it will be a grand enough occasion all the same. The king has ordered me to bring you a new dress.”
She dumped a pile of fabric into Bethany’s arms, then immediately looked even more panicked.
“Would you like me to help you dress, my lady?”
“I’m sure I can manage,” Bethany began, but it had apparently been only a rhetorical question. The girl bustled past her into the room, followed by two other nervous maids. Before Bethany could protest, they began reaching to tug her muddy dress over her head. Another two girls appeared, carrying what looked like buckets of hot water. In moments, a tub by the fire had been transformed into a hip bath. After her roll in Dunadd’s dirt, the thought of a bath was deeply appealing. Bethany gave in and let the girls strip her clothes from her and usher her into the bath. She felt awkward, being naked in front of strangers, and fought the urge to cross her arms over her body. No one else seemed to find this strange, though, so she tried to act like it was all normal. Princesses must be used to this.
Once she was washed, she rubbed herself down with a soft length of cloth. The maids had tried to do it for her, but Bethany drew the line at something so personal. Was this really how princesses lived in the early middle ages? It all seemed rather invasive.
Next, the almost-silent young ladies dressed her in a soft white under-dress, then a long-sleeved gown in a faded grey-blue. Finally, they pulled a sleeveless pink dress over the whole lot, and belted it firmly around Bethany’s waist. All three layers were soft and prettily trimmed, and Bethany immediately felt more comfortable. One of the women poked suspiciously at Bethany’s yoga pants, lying discarded on the floor beside the bath.
“Shall I burn these, my lady?” she asked.
“No!” Bethany said, instinctively reaching for them. “They are… important for warmth.”
The woman looked unconvinced, but she tucked the pants into a wooden chest. Hopefully, they would stay there.
Bethany’s hair was roughly dried with the same scrap of fabric, then formed into two long braids down her back. Bethany had always been proud of her hair, which came down to her waist, and the women seemed impressed with it. At least that was one way in which she fitted in here. A pixie haircut would have been hard to explain away. Thankfully, Lucan had always liked her hair long .
At last, she was deemed ready. She held out a hand towards Matthew, who jumped up from the bed and came towards her. But one of the maids caught his hand.
“Your son is to eat here, with us,” she said firmly. “You can rest assured that he will be well treated.”
Matthew promptly burst into tears, fighting to free himself from the strange woman.
“I would rather he came with me,” Bethany said, stepping towards him.
“It is the king’s orders,” the woman said.
“We will take good care of him,” another girl said softly. “Perhaps he would like to play a game with us?”
Bethany relented. They seemed good-natured enough, and surely the king would allow no harm to come to her son. His fiancée’s son.
“He likes hide and seek,” she said, and forced herself to sweep out of the room with her head held high like a princess. Matthew’s sobs followed her, but she told herself this was all for his benefit. If she had to become Princess Eithne and marry a king to keep her son safe, she would do it. She could only hope that it would not come to that.
A pair of guards had been hovering outside Bethany’s door, and fell into step beside her. She did not need their guidance - the huge hall was hard to miss. She felt rather like a prisoner being led to her execution. And the people around them were all muttering as they passed, adding to her unease. Bethany caught Eithne’s name a few times. It certainly seemed that there was a lot of gossip about the princess, considering she had never visited Dunadd. From what Bethany overheard, Eithne’s brother somehow played a role, and the princess herself was not much liked by the people here, even if she was about to marry their king. But that was all she had a chance to hear before the great doors of the hall swung open in front of her.
Dinner passed slowly. Bethany had not been seated beside Comgall, who had greeted her politely, if a little coldly, and then proceeded to ignore her. Instead, she sat between Comgall’s younger brother, who could barely be out of his teens, and a tall, slender man who had been introduced as the priest, Dubnus.
“You’ve certainly travelled a long way,” Dubnus murmured as the bowls of stew were tidied away. “A very long way indeed.”
There was something unsettlingly familiar about his voice. It sent shivers up Bethany’s spine.
“It is certainly not a short journey from Ireland,” she said politely.
“I’d say your journey was even longer than most people here realise,” he said, leaning back in his chair.
“I imagine most of them have never been to Ireland,” Bethany said, and turned her attention to Comgall’s brother, Tomás. But she barely heard a word the young man said. Dubnus’s tone implied that he knew something. But that was nonsense, surely. Unless he had met Princess Eithne, and knew Bethany to be a fraud. She must not forget how vulnerable she was here.
Comgall’s brother - she had forgotten his name already - said something that was clearly intended to be funny, although Bethany had not caught the details. She forced herself to smile and laugh a little. His returning smile was more than a little predatory. And then she felt his hand, gliding along her thigh under the table. He reached the top of her leg - and squeezed.
Bethany shot to her feet, outraged.
“I find that I am too tired to be very hungry,” she said through gritted teeth. Head held high, she rushed out of the hall, all too aware of the eyes burning into her back as her stomach growled loudly. What sort of place had she come to?