Chapter Eleven #2
Open-mouthed, Chrystobel watched the increased activities with great concern and some awe.
She’d never seen such drunkenness. Izlyn, who had been helping in the kitchens, heard the commotion going on and came to stand next to her sister, wide-eyed at the spectacle.
Holding hands tightly, they stood and watched with shock and bewilderment as George, as drunk as a giddy fool, jumped on top of the feasting table and began singing ribald songs.
“There once was an old whore named Rose,
Who would lick off the tips of your toes!
In passion, ’tis odd, she would swear that, by God,
A tree was as big as your rod!”
The men roared with glee, singing the chorus of the song as loud as they could.
They weren’t really singing. In fact, they were shouting and slamming their wooden cups against the floor, the wall, or the table.
George was dancing around on the table, drunkenly kicking cups and trenchers onto the floor, including Gart’s.
Frustrated, Gart reached up and yanked him down.
George ended up in a pile on the floor as Aimery, even drunker than his brother, leapt up in his place.
He launched into a well-known song, much repeated in inns and taverns throughout England and Wales.
“A young man came to Tilly Nodden,
His heart so full and pure.
Upon the step of Tilly Nodden,
His wants would find no cure.”
When it came to the chorus, Aimery lifted his hands to encourage every man to sing with him. Soon, the hall of Nether was filled with the sounds of English voices, all joined in drunken revelry.
“Aye! Tilly, Tilly, my goddess near,
Can ye spare me a glance from those eyes?
My Tilly, sweet Tilly, be my lover so dear,
I’m a-wantin’ a slap of those thighs!”
The men laughed uproariously, mostly because Aimery was bouncing around on the table, doing a jig like an idiot. But he slowed long enough to sing the last verse with the greatest flourish.
“Then our young man, his life less grand,
Since the day he met our Tilly.
His love for her nearly drove him daft,
When he discover’d not a puss, but a shaft!”
Cups pounded on the tables and walls loudly as men shouted a refrain of the chorus.
Aimery leapt down from the table, pulled his brother up from the floor, and began dancing with him, crazily, around the head table while the soldiers screamed encouragement.
The two of them held each other in an embrace as they danced a wild jig around the room, suddenly coming to a stop when they spied Chrystobel and Izlyn. Aimery pointed at the pair.
“Look!” he cried. “The two most beautiful women in all of Wales!”
The entire room turned to look at Chrystobel and Izlyn, standing against the wall, and before they could run off, George and Aimery had them cornered.
“Come and dance with me, Lady de Poyer,” Aimery begged. “It is a night for celebration!”
Chrystobel was torn between fear and humor with Aimery’s drunken antics. He had her by the wrist and she was trying to pull away.
“Nay,” she insisted. “I do not dance.”
“What?” Aimery bellowed, outraged. “A beautiful woman who does not dance? It is a crime! A tragedy! An outrage!”
Chrystobel was shaking her head even as he tried to drag her away from the wall. “Nay,” she said, more firmly. “I do not dance. Please let me go.”
Aimery wasn’t trying to be cruel. He was simply drunk and had little self-control.
To his right, George had managed to grab Izlyn, who was paralyzed with fear as the man held on to her.
When Chrystobel looked over and saw the expression of terror on her sister’s face, something within her snapped.
Izlyn was petrified and George didn’t seem to notice.
All Chrystobel could hear or see were visions of Gryffyn as he grabbed Izlyn to haul her away to the vault while she had been helpless to intervene.
How many nights had she lain awake, weeping because she couldn’t help her sister?
But this was different. Gryffyn wasn’t here and Chrystobel wasn’t helpless in the least. She could defend her baby sister, however small the gesture, against a drunken knight.
Yanking her arm away from Aimery, she reached over and slapped George across the face.
“Let her go!” she roared, clutching her sister fiercely against her. “Can you not see that she does not wish to dance?”
Izlyn broke into sobs as Chrystobel rushed the girl off, bolting from the hall. Keller, having been over on the opposite side of the room, barely caught the commotion. All he saw was Chrystobel slapping George and his protective instincts began running wild.
Pushing himself away from the table, he was trying to figure out why he was so dizzy as he headed over to where George and Aimery were standing.
He was mad enough to kill and it began to occur to him that he might be slightly drunk.
Everyone else was, and he was coming to think he was no exception.
There was no other explanation for the tilting room and his surging fury.
He was never any good when he imbibed too much so he was usually very careful about it, but he seemed to have lost track of how much drink he had ingested this night.
He seemed fine until he started drinking that powerful cider, and then… .
By the time he reached George, his fury had gained full steam. He grabbed the young knight by the shoulder and spun him around to face him.
“What did you say to Lady de Poyer to cause her to slap you like that?” he snarled. “Well?”
George’s eyes opened wide with both fear and surprise. “N-nothing, my lord,” he insisted. “I only asked her sister to dance but she did not want to!”
Aimery was nodding fervently, confirming what George was telling his liege. Frustrated, angry, Keller looked between the two young knights.
“You will never again touch my wife or her sister,” he growled. “Do you comprehend me?”
George and Aimery nodded seriously. “Never again, my lord,” George assured him. “We apologize.”
That wasn’t good enough for Keller. He thumped George’s chest with a big hand.
“You know what Gryffyn d’Einen did to those women,” he said, his voice low and threatening.
“You know what hell he put them through, how he beat and humiliated them. By God’s Bloody Rood, you should have more sense than to grab women who have known little else but abuse. You’ll scare them to death!”
George readily agreed. “We are deeply sorry, my lord,” he repeated. “Should we go apologize to your lady wife and her sister?”
Keller eyed the two knights, knowing they were mostly harmless, and suddenly feeling rather foolish for becoming so angry with them. It was the alcohol forcing his manner.
“Nay,” he grumbled, pushing past them. “I will go and make sure they are well. You just stay away from them.”