Chapter Twenty-Four #2
Ellowyn grinned at him. “Well,” she said, easing up on teasing him. “Mayhap this particular storm will quickly pass. Did either girl mention wanting money or a dowry during the course of the conversation?”
He shook his head. “Never,” he replied. “They mostly spoke of the fact that they are outcasts here in France because of the de Russe name. Odd how I never considered how my association with the prince would affect them. Even now as I consider it, I do not care.”
Ellowyn merely wriggled her eyebrows, perhaps with some regret.
“I would think it would be rather sad to be an enemy in the land I grew up in,” she ventured, perhaps to force him to think about the young women’s position.
“I do not find it unreasonable to send them back to England. You have other properties other than Guildford you could send them to, do you not? It would not be any trouble.”
He looked at her. “Why would you take their side in this?”
She hastened to reassure him. “I am not taking their side in anything,” she said firmly. “I am always on your side, Brandt. I do not have to tell you that.”
He eased somewhat, looking away and collecting a cup that was on a sideboard near one of the lancet windows in their bedchamber. He poured himself a measure of tart, red wine.
“I am sorry,” he said softly. “I know you are my strongest supporter. I suppose their appearance has me off-guard somewhat.”
Ellowyn was sitting on their bed with her enormous knitting project strewn across her legs. She could feel his confusion. In fact, she had some of her own.
“Why did they say their mother wasn’t dead?” she finally brought up the subject she had wanted to discuss since the moment he had entered. “Did you ask them?”
Brandt didn’t look at her. He poured himself more wine.
He didn’t want to lie to her, but he still believed it might not be the truth.
He didn’t know his girls. He didn’t know if they were liars or not.
He didn’t want to upset Ellowyn with something that could very well be a vindictive lie.
Until something could be proven, it wasn’t worth mentioning.
“I did,” he finally said. “They were simply being spiteful. They hate me, which means they hate you as well.”
Ellowyn accepted his explanation. There was no reason not to. Brandt said a silent prayer that she did not ask more, instead focusing on her knitting. He sipped his wine, watching her from the corner of his eye.
“They will stay here tonight and be gone in the morning,” he told her. “I hope that does not distress you.”
Ellowyn shook her head, focused on her project. “It does not,” she said. Then, she paused somewhat wistfully. “It seems so sad to me that there are girls who have fathers they do not like and then girls who love fathers they no longer have. It is unfair, really.”
He looked at her, waiting to see which way her mood would swing.
She was volatile these days, as easy to cry or anger as she was to laugh.
She seemed to reflect on her father’s passing those months back without bursting into tears for which he was thankful.
She still grew teary-eyed when she thought on Deston.
Wine in hand, he made his way over to her and sat on the bed next to her.
“How is my son today?” he asked softly, changing the subject.
She forced herself from her bleak thoughts, smiling at him. “He is well,” she said, shifting her knitting so he could put a big hand on her belly. “He is very active.”
He returned her smile, waiting with anticipation to feel the activity she was describing but the baby was largely still. “I have been thinking on names for him.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “I thought we were to name him after my grandfather, Braxton.”
He shrugged. “It is a fine name,” he agreed, not wanting to offend her, “but I was thinking that I would very much like to name him after my father’s brother.
He died some years ago but he was often much kinder to me than my father.
I suppose he was more a father to me than my own, although that is not saying much. ”
“You have never mentioned him.”
“I have not thought of him in years.”
“What was his name?”
“Gaston.”
“Gaston de Russe,” she repeated softly. “I like it very much.”
“Better than Braxton de Russe?”
She smiled. “There will be more children and more opportunities to name our children after every male member of my family.” She laughed when he did. “If you wish to name him Gaston, I am agreeable.”
He grasped her gently by the arms and pulled her to him for a sweet kiss. “Thank you,” he murmured. “That means a good deal to me.”
Ellowyn put her knitting aside to touch the man, running her hands over his face, watching him kiss her palm sweetly.
Her mind was moving on from the birth of the child to the not so distant future.
She was also thinking of her husband and his duties to the prince.
He had been home a short while and they hadn’t much chance to discuss the way of things, including how long he planned to remain at Melesse.
“I have not yet had the opportunity to ask you how long you will remain with me this time,” she said softly. “Will you be leaving again soon?”
He cupped her face with a big hand, stroking her cheek with his thumb. “Too soon for my taste,” he told her. “I must return to Edward by the end of the month.”
Her face fell a little. “That is only eight days away,” she said. “Where must you go?”
“Poitiers,” he replied, still stroking her cheek. “I can only spend the next three or four days here before I must return. I brought my army back with me, you know. It takes time to move a body of that size to Poitiers.”
She fell silent a moment, feeling his hand on her face, relishing his touch.
She had missed it so. “Magnus…,” she started to say, stumbling over the words.
“Magnus said that Edward has moved north from Aquitaine, burning and pillaging. He said it is as bad as he has ever seen such things. Is this true?”
Brandt sighed faintly, thinking of the horrors he had caused over the past several weeks.
It was his duty and he did not feel guilty for such things, but he couldn’t help but think of Deston’s accusations of his chevauchee warfare.
They called it scorched-earth tactics, and it was exactly that.
It was devastation on a massive scale, only over the past few months, it had been even worse than that.
“War is never pleasant,” he said, unwilling to tell her the truth of it because it was too terrible for her to comprehend. “It has been very bad indeed.”
She gazed into his face, seeing the exhaustion in the dark depths. “To what end?” she asked. “What I mean is that where will it end? Will the prince simply keep raiding and burning without end or is there a purpose to all of this?”
He shrugged. “Of course there is a purpose,” he said.
“The purpose is to reach Paris and capture the city, but the army was halted at Tours. We spent a good deal of time there trying to take the city to no avail. Now we have regrouped at Chavigny. The prince has sent a message to the King of France to discuss a resolution to all of this, which is why I must return to Poitiers. I must be part of those negotiations.”
She felt some hope in that. “Do you think these wars may finally come to an end?”
“Anything is possible.”
“Will we return home to England when it is over?”
“You do not want to stay in France?”
She shook her head. “I want to go home.”
He understood. With a kiss to her hand, he rose from the bed and took his cup back over to the wine.
He was preparing to pour himself another measure when he glanced out of the window and noticed that there was some activity in the bailey.
He could see Dylan and Alex chatting with Stefan, who had just come down off the wall.
Having been asleep most of the morning and then lingering with womenfolk for the past hour, he thought perhaps it was time to make his presence known and meet with his men. He set the cup down.
“I will return in a while,” he told Ellowyn. “I have not seen my castle in several weeks so it is time to make my rounds.”
Ellowyn grinned as she continued to knit. “It is falling apart at the seams,” she told him saucily. “I have been running it into the ground and taking great delight in ruining your empire.”
He scowled, though it was without force. “Naughty wench.”
She giggled. Winking at her, Brandt quit the chamber and headed out to the dusty, windy bailey.
It would be the calm before the greatest storm of all.