Free Gifts of the Queen by Mary Lide

was our food—fish and eels and fowl, but mainly eels—with handfuls of green stuffs pulled from the peasant's plots, washed down with river water, bare mouthfuls to satisfy men with appetites. Nor is it easy to fend for yourself in a camp of men. As I did. For when in company of the baggage train, the ladies of my retinue came tottering along, poor ruffled souls, more like bedraggled birds in their ruined silks, all but speechless with shock at the state of Sieux, I determined to send them away. I made this decision on my own, and on my own I ordered it. And for the most part, they went willingly, all save the youngest, that is, and the eldest one, to voice protest, not at what they saw but rather at the ruin of their own hopes.
    ‘They told me when we left England,' the youngest whined, not much more than a child so much could be forgiven her, 'that as part of an earl's entourage, I should have a white pony of my own, with bridle of crimson leather, fringed with bells, and I should bide here at Sieux, be taught the ways of wife, until a noble lord should claim me as a bride.'
    The other women hushed her with murmurs of common sense. 'There be no horses,' one blurted out, 'neither black nor white, nor food to eat. We do well to leave.'
    But the Mistress Alyse de Vergay was not so easily got rid of. 'By the Mass,' she said, her anger loud enough for all to hear, 'I did not look to be thrust out like a kitchen wench. How dare we be treated so. The counts of Sieux were proud men once. They did not think to live like tramps nor have their offspring dropped like tinker's pups. I am no trollop to be abused although I know there is a trollop here. My virtu is not questionable to bear a bastard child.'
    Her voice, stripped of all polite pretence, raged without cease. I have said before that she was tall, overripe and plump in her pale gown, but for the first time I sensed the determination that lay behind those billowing silks. Her face had flushed, her blue eyes burned. I could not understand the reasons for such malice and certainly would not debate virtu or bastardy with her. I turned my back and stalked away.
    But her words angered and distressed me, the more I suspected she voiced what the other ladies dared not say. We had housed them, these Norman ladies who thought themselves so fine, at the village edge in a half-ruined barn which Henry's men had stripped bare. It smelled of mice and rats but scarce contained a wisp of straw to harbor fleas. I resolved I would not have them there, not for one more hour than was necessary, and so went at once to bid our men prepare an escort without delay. I would have those ladies hence before the day was done. The men were tired, but listened to my orders patiently. Now, as chance would have it, Lord Raoul and his guard had just ridden in and were down in the horselines, sorting through the saddles and accoutrements to determine which could be spared for sale. Lord Raoul looked up quickly on hearing me; his ears were sharp and my voice was perhaps too loud. He eyed me thoughtfully. Then, as I flared past, he threw another strap on the pile and caught at the hem of my cloak with his good hand.
    'Hoity-toity, lady,' he said. 'What brings you here?'
    Still too angry to speak coherently, I bit my lip. He must have known why.
    'Accompany me,' he suggested in a courteous way, but his hand was firm on mine so I could not escape. He drew me out of earshot. I glimpsed a flicker of mirth run through his men. They thought, no doubt, their lord led me apart to chastise a wife who took too much upon herself . Their mirth fanned my rage.
    I shook myself free and faced Lord Raoul, no wifely precepts left in me today; forgotten were all those demure ways I had tried to adopt. Oh, I know my faults. I can be as blunt as any man and certainly think what often would make a man's ears burn. I know what marriage vows and Holy Writ and all men's Holy Sacraments enforce: that womenfolk