The Kadin - Bertrice Small [189]
“If she won’t I will,” chuckled Marian. “Ye hae my blessing too, my son; but treat my daughter well, or ye’ll regret it”
Hugh was dismissed to find his prospective bride. With the privilege granted old retainers, Marian sat down on the settle opposite her mistress. The fire blazed merrily.
“Eighty-five gold pieces,” she said. “It took me a moment madame, but I think I’ve figured it out Forty years I shared yer captivity. My husband, Alan, may God absolve him, spent twenty-two years before his death a slave to my lord Selim. Our only child was born into captivity, and is now twenty-three. Do not these figures add up to eighty-five?”
Janet smiled. “It was not for nothing that ye helped Alan wi’ my lord’s accounts. Yes. Yer deduction is quite correct I wanted Ruth to have money in her own right and so the marriage contract shall read This way my nephew must behave himself lest his wife cut him off!”
“Only you would think of that, madame.”
At that moment Hugh More-Leslie was pouring out his heart to Ruth. After hesitating just long enough to make him believe that she might refuse him, Ruth accepted his proposal The wedding was set for Twelfth Night.
The wedding day dawned fair with a bright sun that sparkled on the new snow. The religious ceremony was held in Sithean’s Chapel of Saint Anne, with the castle chaplain, Father Paul, officiating. Sir Charles Leslie gave the bride away. Afterwards Janet gave the newlyweds a small feast in her own hall in the West Wing.
It was a small celebration, but a merry one, and it ended in great hilarity with the putting to bed of the bride and the groom. Since it was winter the newlyweds’ house could not be started until spring, so they were for the present making their home in the castle.
Janet Marian, Jean, Fiona and Jane hustled the bride from the hall to the nuptial chamber. There they divested the happy girl of her wedding finery, put her into a prettily embroidered soft wool nightgown, brushed her long hair, and helped her into the bed They were none too soon, for the door opened, and a laughing Charles, Ian, and Adam pushed a grinning Hugh into the room.
“We all wish ye joy,” said Janet quietly, herding the rest of the guests out before any ribald comments could embarrass Ruth. “Good night, my dear children.”
The following morning the mothers of both the bride and the groom paid the newlyweds an early morning visit Several minutes later from the bedchamber window the bedsheet—with its bloody virgin stain—flew proudly in the winter wind.
With the festivities of New Years, Twelfth Night and the wedding over, things settled down. Janet in defiance of her class status, had bought a large herd of sheep and intended raising them as a cash crop.
The winter was bitterly cold, with blowing snows. Had Lady Leslie not been popular with the peasants she might not have obtained the best shepherds in the area to care for her flock, but she did; and unlike others who lost over half their new lambs, she retained three quarters of hers.
“Why,” she asked Marian one sunny May morning, “do those innocent little creatures gamboling down in the meadow choose to be born during the worst of winter?”
“Because they’re stupid, madame! There’s no other reason for it,” she snapped.
The sheep might be stupid, but the lady of Sithean was wise. Her business flourished. After shearing, the wool was washed, dried, combed and carded by the men and women in Janet’s village of Crannog which had sprung up on the lake shore opposite the castle. The process was repeated to make the