Free Rebel Warrior (Medieval Warriors #3) by Regan Walker

eating amid dirty rushes.”
    Elspeth giggled, apparently trying to imagine the scene.
    “Is it true, My Lady?” asked Catrìona. “Did you change the way the men and women dress?”
    The queen set down her embroidery and gazed toward the window where sunlight was streaming into the small chamber. “When we first came to Dunfermline two years ago, it was a very different place than it is today.” She looked around the circle of women. “Malcolm had no queen; his first wife had died. The tower was the stronghold of men, a place for them to sleep and eat before setting out on a raid. The chapel was a dank, dismal place, rarely used.”
    “The tower was dark and not clean as it is today,” said Cristina, the queen’s sister, with obvious disdain. Her face twisted into a grimace, an expression Catrìona could not picture on Margaret. “We were raised in the courts of Hungary and England,” Cristina continued, “places of great opulence. We were unused to filth.”
    Margaret interrupted, mayhap to keep her sister from describing all they had encountered. “Once I agreed to become Malcolm’s wife, I wanted his court to bring glory to him and to Scotland.”
    What must it have been like for the young queen amid so many rough warriors? Margaret had changed many things, bringing a civility to Malcolm’s court apparently absent before. “He must love you all the more for it.”
    Margaret blushed. “I am happy he loves me at all, but in truth, he was willing to make the changes because he saw the wisdom in them.”
    “And because they were important to you,” said the queen’s sister.
    “Well, I for one am glad for the hearty fare your kitchen prepares,” said an enthusiastic Elspeth. “I can only imagine what the king’s men dined on before you came to Dunfermline.”
    The queen seemed amused. “They did not use many spices or sauces in those days. The fare was simple and the meat cooked over the central hearth fire and not always well.”
    The queen’s ladies, who had come after the changes were made, laughed at the queen’s description of men tearing great chunks of meat off haunches of venison and boar roasted over an open fire in the hall.
    Cristina huffed. “ ’Twas hardly acceptable.”
    After that, the women went back to their needlework and Catrìona did the same, enduring the stabs of her needle for more than an hour. Finally, she looked up at the light coming through the window, thinking it must be time to meet Giric. Desperate for a change and longing for the diversion flying Kessog would bring, she glanced at Margaret whose deft fingers were working small, perfect stiches of golden thread into a large square of ivory silk. An altar cloth .
    “My Lady,” Catrìona said, setting aside her embroidery. The queen paused in her needlework, lifting her brows in inquiry. “Would it be permitted for me to show one of the orphans my falcon? The lad seemed most eager to see it when we broke our fast together this morning.”
    The other women, Fia among them, kept their heads down, their busy hands pausing only briefly with Catrìona’s question.
    The queen’s sister frowned, clearly disapproving of the request. A few years younger than Margaret, Cristina was fair-haired, but not so pretty or, Catrìona sensed, so kind as the queen. “Your falcon ? Surely that is no seemly pet for a lady.”
    “Kessog is no pet,” said Catrìona. “He is a wild bird of prey raised to hunt.”
    Thankfully, the queen was not as rigid as her sister and intervened before an argument could begin. “Of course you may go. While I encourage my ladies in their embroidery to adorn the chapel’s altar and to make beautiful their clothing, we do much more than needlework at Dunfermline. In time you will see, but for today, bringing joy to a small orphan shall be your devotional. ’Twas the lad, Giric, was it not?”
    “Aye, My Lady.”
    “He is a most unusual boy,” said the queen. “Misfortune has not dulled his young