satisfied with their nitpicking, and poured a dish of water over Brynn’s head. He gasped and sputtered, but they paid him no mind, instead lathering his head with the rich soap, rinsing it, washing and rinsing it a final time. Then they yanked him up, ordering him to step from the tub onto a cloth, which he did. The three girls then set about drying their brother off.
“Get in between his toes,” Gorawen suggested.
Finally, Brynn Pendragon was cleaner than the day he had been born. “I smell like a flower,” he grumbled.
Averil handed him a clean sherte. “You can roll in the pig byre on the morrow, little brother,” she told him with a grin. “Then we shall have something worth washing the day after tomorrow.”
“You’ll have to catch me first,” he warned her, glowering.
“Don’t worry, Brynnie, we will,” she answered him in dulcet tones.
“Go seek your bed, my son,” Argel said quietly. “Your father and I would speak with your sisters now.” She kissed the top of his dark damp head.
“Good night, Mother. Good night, aunts. Good night, Da,” the boy said, and left the hall without further protest.
“That was well done, lasses,” Argel praised them, “but your skills will need some refining. Your brother will be bathed every other day until I am satisfied that you are knowledgeable in this. You may go to your beds now. God protect you and give you sweet dreams this night.”
The three sisters curtsied to the lady of the castle, and then each girl kissed her mother, and their father, before leaving the hall. They slept together in a large bed in a room at the top of the keep. Reaching their chamber they removed their skirts and tunics, washed their faces and hands, and cleaned their teeth with a cloth. They took turns brushing each other’s hair out and plaiting their locks into a single braid for the night. Then they climbed into their bed, drawing the curtains about it, and pulling up the fur robe that kept them warm.
For a long time they were silent, and then Averil said, “Did you note our brother’s manhood? It seemed small, though father did say a grown man’s is larger.”
“He isn’t even nine yet,” Maia defended her little brother. “It does get larger, my mother says, when he becomes a man. She wanted me to know that so I wouldn’t be shocked when I had to bathe a man.”
“How big does it get?” Junia wondered. “It seems to me a useless piece of flesh, dangling there between Brynn’s legs. What use has it other than to pee?”
The two older girls giggled.
“My mother says when roused the manhood grows in length and thickness. It becomes as stiff as a piece of wood,” Maia said.
“Why?” Junia demanded to know.
“Because, you goose, the man puts it into you, and makes a baby. If it were all flaccid he could not do it,” Averil said.
“Where does he put it?” Junia asked, fascinated.
“We’ll show you,” Averil replied, making eye contact with Maia, who, leaning over, held her little sister down while Averil pushed up her chemise, and put a finger on Junia’s hairless little slit. She pushed the fingertip past the two nether lips, saying, “It goes in there. Deep. I don’t want to put my finger any farther lest I damage you, Sister.”
Junia’s eyes were wide with both surprise and shock as her older sister pulled her chemise back down again. “Where I pee?” she gasped.
“Nay, not there. There is an opening farther along. That is where the manhood is lodged, little one,” Averil explained.
“Does it hurt?” Junia wondered.
“My mother says the first time it does, for the manhood shatters your maidenhead, which is hidden within you,” Maia said. “But after that, she says, when the girl has been made a woman, there is pleasure if a man is skilled. She says our father is very skilled, and wishes the same happiness for all of us.”
“I wonder who our husbands will be.” Junia sighed.
“That is something you won’t have to think about for a while,” Maia told her. “Averil will be the first of us to wed, and it must be soon, for she is fifteen on the last day of this month. And then I will be wed, probably next year sometime if Da can find the right husband for me. But you aren’t quite eleven, Junia. You have several more years before a husband will be chosen for you, and you are wed.”
“I shall miss you both when you are gone!” Junia replied.
Averil laughed. “But you will have this bed all to yourself, and you know you have always wanted that. You are forever complaining that Maia and I crowd you, and kick.”
“But I will be so very lonely,” Junia responded. “I shall have no one to talk with before I go to sleep. Or to remind me to say my prayers. And I really like sleeping in the middle between you both.”
“Well, you will have us both for a while, chick,” Averil said, giving her little sister a kiss on the cheek. “Now, let us all settle down. I am fair exhausted from bathing our brother this evening.”
“Gentle Mary, may you and your son, Jesu, watch over us this night,” Maia said.
“May angels guard us through the dark hours,” Junia replied.
“And bring us safely to another day so we may walk in the path that God has set out for us to walk in,” Averil concluded. “Amen.”
After a few moments of restlessness the three sisters slept.
Chapter 2
Godwine FitzHugh lay dying, his bastard son, Rhys, and his only legitimate heir, a six-year-old girl, by his side. “I trust you to look after Mary,” he gasped. “You are all she has now.” His gnarled hand clutched at his grown son.
“You know I will protect her, Father,” Rhys said quietly.
“Have her pledge her fealty to the Mortimers, and you also,” the dying man continued. He glared with dimming sight at the other man in the room. “Priest! You have heard my wishes. My son will have charge over my daughter, and over Everleigh. You must swear it before the Mortimers. Do you give me your promise?” His hands moved restlessly over the coverlet, plucking it nervously.
“I do, my lord,” the priest replied.
Godwine FitzHugh turned his attention to his children again. “Find an heiress, Rhys, marry, and get children on her quickly. Make a good match for Mary.”
“Aye, Father, I will do my best,” Rhys FitzHugh swore. But as he swore it he was thinking that obtaining a wife would probably be impossible. He had nothing to offer any woman. And an heiress? He almost laughed aloud. His father meant well. He had given him his own name, and raised him, for his mother had died at his birth. So had his half sister’s mam. His father wed late in life, having spent his earlier years keeping the peace for the king here in the Marches between England and Wales. His own birth was the result of his father’s youthful passion for Rhys’s mother.
“Steal your bride, lad,” his father whispered.
“What?” Surely he hadn’t heard correctly. He looked questioningly at his sire.
The old man grinned, looking like a death’s head as he did so. “Find a propertied lass, steal her and take her virginity,” he repeated. “The family will have to agree to a match if you do that, my son. I know your birth is against you and for that I apologize.”
“There is no honor in such an act,” Rhys murmured to his sire.
“Don’t be a fool, lad. You cannot afford to be honorable in this matter. You need a wife, and stealing one is the only way you will get a lass. Bride stealing is not really dishonorable, Rhys. It is done all the time.”
His son laughed ruefully, and then