Free The Prodigal Son by Anna Belfrage Page A

if you ask nicely I might tell you some more about the battle of Helm’s Deep.”
    Ian and Alex were a stone’s throw from the house when they heard the sound of loud, angry voices floating up towards them. In the middle of the yard stood Matthew, glowering at a rotund dragoon.
    “Why? I am a law-abiding man, I have no interest in…”
    “Law-abiding? Well if so, Mr Graham, swearing the oath is no major matter, is it?” the soldier said. “Or do you hold convictions that stand in conflict with taking it?”
    “Shit,” Alex muttered when Matthew straightened up to his full height. She increased her pace, motioning for Ian to hurry along.
    “I don’t hold with these laws prohibiting man to follow his conscience in matters of faith,” Matthew said. “They’re…”
    “What? No, no, Mr Graham. It is not for you to choose how things should be ordained, that is for your betters to decide.”
    “My betters? And who might they be?” Matthew loomed over the dragoon, who calmly held his ground.
    “Your king, Mr Graham. His parliament, his officers. All of those are your betters.”
    Matthew scowled and Alex wheeled to face Ian.
    “Lie down, pretend you’re hurt. Your foot or something.”
    Ian fell to his knees, squealing like a dying pig.
    “Not that hurt,” Alex hissed, although it did seem to have the desired effect. Matthew and the officer turned to look up the hillside. She bounded down the last few yards. “Come quick, Ian has hurt himself!”
    Matthew gave Alex a sceptical look, but ran off in the direction she was pointing, leaving Alex alone with the little officer.
    “Sir,” she curtsied, “may I perhaps offer you some beer? And your men, of course.”
    The dragoon cheered up at this generous offer, and by the time Matthew came back after having assured himself Ian would survive his near lethal tumble, the soldiers were far less menacing.
    “Monday a week,” the officer said once they were back on their horses. “At the church.”
    Matthew nodded and watched the troop ride off before facing her.
    “You shouldn’t waste beer on such.”
    “And you shouldn’t waste breath arguing with them, it’s not as if it you have much choice, it is?”
    Matthew grunted something rude and colourful, among which Alex could make out whoresons and goatsuckers. Goatsuckers? It almost made her laugh.
    Matthew spent the rest of the morning astride the barn roof, venting his anger on the new shingles. Now and then, he’d see Alex dart by far below, and once he even saw Joan, a hunched, grey shape that hobbled to the privy and back.
    “What’s ailing Joan?” Matthew asked Alex after dinner.
    “I’m not sure,” Alex said.
    Matthew chewed his lip. Slowly but steadily Joan had been regaining her strength, and when Simon had left a week or so ago she was close to being back to normal. But since then she had begun slipping in the opposite direction, lying pale and unresponsive in her bed in between the feeding of her daughter.
    “Simon says she mustn’t try for another child.” Matthew shook his head at the unfairness of it. Good people such as Simon and Joan should be blessed with many bairns, and now all they had was one scrawny little daughter, a wean with her father’s reddish hair and her mother’s wide grey eyes. Even if Simon had tried to make light of it, Matthew had heard the disappointment in his voice.
    “I heard,” Alex said. “How will they manage? I suppose they’ll still want to have sex.”
    Matthew smiled at her expression; he never had sex with his Alex, he made love to her or bedded her or took her on the stairs – although that was very long ago – or had her in the hayloft. He glanced in her direction and saw she had been following his line of thought. It made his balls tighten pleasantly.
    “I’d go crazy,” she said, her blue eyes very intense. “You know, without…”
    “Aye, but if it were a question of your life we would find other ways.”
    Alex groped him hard, smiling