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She greeted every turnspit and learned every name, and when they left to walk across the bailey to the cow barn, Neda said, “You’ve charmed them forever, my lady. They’ll serve you gladly.”

“That is the idea,” Edlyn said impatiently, then returned to the subject that occupied her mind exclusively. “I’ve been living in an abbey. I’ve hardly seen a man for a year, and then only monks.”

Neda adjusted her cloak against the rain. “I see your difficulty. Not seeing any but monks for a year, one would forget what men are truly like, for by the saints, I’ve never met a monk I considered a normal man.”

“Normal?” Edlyn didn’t like that word. “They’re normal.”

Neda said hastily, “They’re holy! They’re great men. They perform a wonderful service. But…” She opened the door to the barn and the milkmaid bustled up to them. “Greetings, Judith, this is our new lady who has come to inspect our milk cows.”

Edlyn didn’t want to inspect cows. She wanted to hear what Neda had to say about monks. Instead she had to run her hands over each cow’s hide and look in every scrubbed wooden bucket.

But as soon as she and Neda stepped out of the barn, she stopped and said, “But what?”

“I’m not trying to offend you, my lady. I’m sure you have many monks of whom you are quite fond. I have an uncle who is a monk and a brother, too, and I adore them.”

“But?” Edlyn insisted.

“I’ve lost them both. They’re not dead, but they’ve suffered to become one with God. They’re good monks—as they should be—and they have nothing left over to care for me.” Neda stared across the bailey. The rain dripped off the barn’s thatch roof and splashed at their feet, and she backed up until her spine rested flat against the wall. “I am selfish, but I remember how close my brother and I were when we were children, and sometimes I want him back.”

“If your brother had become a knight, you wouldn’t have him, either. He’d probably be dead.”

“As God wills.” Neda tucked her hands into her sleeves. “But maybe he would be alive, and sometimes he would come to visit, and he’d hug me as he used to. In addition, he surely would have married, so even if he’d died, I’d have his children who would grow up in his image.”

In the middle of the bailey, some peasant lads were playing in a mud puddle, and they looked no older than Edlyn’s sons. In fact, if Edlyn hadn’t specifically forbidden Allyn and Parkin to play outside, she would have thought they were her sons. One of them picked up a stick and challenged the other. They fought as if the sticks were swords, as busy and rambunctious as any two boys.

Edlyn’s hand crept to her heart. She didn’t want her sons to be knights. She wanted them to be monks, to be safe. But did she want this for their sake or for hers? Did she want this so she wouldn’t have to suffer the agony of knowing they were in battle and perhaps would never return to her?

If what Neda said was true, there would come a day when all their boyish fire would be quenched. All their love would be for God, and she’d never see Allyn’s face light up at the sight of her or feel the butt of Parkin’s head as he requested a hug in his own inarticulate way.

“We’ve got to go on, my lady. We’ll never get done at this rate, and the servants we’ve put off will imagine a slight when the ones we visited first hold it over their heads.” Neda went first as they picked their way across the mingled mounds of grass and slicks of mud. “As for the men we marry, they are indeed pork-brained. Your husband…well.”

If Neda was going to malign Hugh, then Edlyn knew she liked this lady. “What about my husband?”

“’Tis nothing, of course. Nothing more than any man would have done.” Neda walked a few more steps and burst out, “But would any woman have tried to throw the steward and his wife out, especially when the estate showed such obvious signs of tending, without first asking about their loyalties?”

Edlyn leaped to agree. “My thought exactly!”

“Burdett told me what would happen. I said not necessarily. If the new lord had intelligence-and I had investigated your husband, our lord, and from all accounts he was a canny man-he would retain us, or at least give us a chance.”

Edlyn egged her on. “What did Burdett say to that?”

Neda stopped in the middle of the bailey. “Burdett laughed at me. At me! We’ve been married thirty years, and he told me I was a foolish woman. What’s foolish about keeping on the experts to make money for you, I ask?”

“I tried to tell Hugh that.”

“And he didn’t listen, did he? Logic means nothing to these men. Only this cosmos of tangled loyalties had significance. And they say we’re irrational!”

Edlyn liked Neda more and more. “I had to stoop to a womanish appeal to get him to keep you.”

“Oh, my lady”—Neda grasped Edlyn’s hand—“I do thank you for that. I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t helped us. I kissed his boot, but I know who was truly responsible. We will never fail you, I swear!”

“I know you won’t.” Edlyn returned Neda’s clasp firmly. “Although Hugh is worried about any lingering loyalty you might have to…Edmund Pembridge.”

Indeed, the way Hugh spoke of Pembridge, Edlyn feared for her own safety if he discovered she knew him. Why had she lied when Hugh asked if he had been a visitor at Robin’s home? It would have been easy enough to say aye. But then Hugh would have questioned her about him, and she would have had to admit that Pembridge had been Robin’s dearest friend.

His dearest friend and, if she had allowed it, his wife’s lover. Even now, her mind veered away from the memory of Pembridge’s admiration. He had composed poems to her beauty, sang about her grace, and, most dreadfully, praised her steadfast devotion to her husband while all the while his gaze had ridiculed her.

Pembridge, she thought, lived in a confusing welter of emotions. Love for Robin, love for her. Veneration for her fidelity, mockery every time Robin took another mistress. He had waited for her to fall into his arms, yet at the same time she knew he would have despised her for betraying Robin.