Fires of Winter Read Online Free PDF Page B

gladness and attention to me. He never said why, of course, and for a long time I did not know his treatment of me was different from that of other fathers so I did not ask. By the time I realized that I was cosseted and favored above most other daughters, there were good reasons for his favor and I was too busy and too content to think about it. Now that I look back, I would guess that my father was a man who needed the soft love of a woman, the fond flattery and the gentle bantering talk that only a woman can provide.
    I do not mean to say that my father and mother lived unhappily together. They did not quarrel nor hate each other, but there was a cause of distrust between them. I know that grieved my mother, at least in later years, for she felt the cause was long gone—but she did not know my father as well as he knew himself. Thus, she could not understand the wariness he still felt toward her after so many years as husband and wife, and when she sickened it troubled her mind so much that she talked of it.
    My father, Sir Malcolm of Ulle, was not born in Ulle. He had been liege man to Duncan, eldest son of King Malcolm of Scotland. When Malcolm was murdered and his brother, Donald Ban, came to power, Duncan fled to England and my father came with him. Papa learned the ways of the Normans in the court of King William Rufus and rode back to Scotland with Duncan when, with the English king’s support, he drove his uncle from the throne. In less than a year, however, Duncan had been murdered too, and my father fled for his life to a distant cousin of his mother’s who held the lands of Ulle. Three years later, Edgar, Duncan’s half brother, drove Donald Ban from the throne, but though Papa loved Scotland and still considered himself a Scot, he saw no reason to go back there. He was a younger son in a large family and had no heritage to claim. Edgar, the son of Malcolm’s second wife, was not likely to offer much to his brother’s man when he had so many of his own retainers to reward. And Papa had made a place for himself in Ulle, for his cousin was a lazy, dissolute man who was delighted to let my father manage his estate. He had no heir and wanted none, quite content that Papa should hold the lands after his death—if he could.
    Mama did not know when Papa’s cousin died, but by 1104 when Henry, who had been king of England for four years, came on a progress to take fealty of those subjects who had not previously sworn to him, Papa was holding Ulle. At that time, King Henry did not have the absolute power he came to wield over his subjects in later years, and he still needed to consider the opinions of his barons. So, because Papa’s neighbors liked him and his tenants had few complaints, King Henry decided not to try to drive him out of Ulle, even though he was Scots born and had no real legal right to the estate. On the other hand, King Henry did not trust Papa—well, from what I have heard, he did not trust anyone very much—I mean that he trusted Papa even less because of his Scots birth and his remaining love of that country.
    Mama was the answer to that distrust. Her father was totally dependent on King Henry’s favor, and Mama was bidden to marry my father and to watch for signs of treason in him. If she sent warning, she would be rewarded and her children would be assured of the estate and of other favors from the king. If she did not send warning, not only would she and her children suffer the same fate as her husband but her father and mother and siblings would go with her to blinding or exile or death.
    I remember crying out against so disgusting a charge and saying that I would not consent to be a spy against the man to whom I was united in wedlock. Mama’s eyes had grown huge with the wasting of her face and body, and now, though she laughed at my childish protest, they glittered darkly with tears.
    â€œA woman has no choice,” she said. “Could I