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*

“What I do,

I do to keep us all safe….”

*

“Y ou should not have tried to engage him,” Havilland hissed as she dragged her sisters towards the keep. “He is crafty and he is brutal. You are lucky I saw him drag you into the stables!”

Madeline was defiant but Amaline was contrite, bordering on tears. “I am sorry, Havi,” Amaline sniffed. “Do not be angry with me!”

They were nearing the keep entry, a second-level entry with retractable wooden stairs that led up to it.

Those stairs, for the past three days, had been in danger of being destroyed by Four Crosses troops but never closer than they had been the previous night with the Welsh on the walls.

Even now, they were a soggy mess, sagging on one side where soldiers, in a panic, had already begun the dismantling.

They were fairly dangerous in their current state.

But Havilland didn’t pay any attention to the leaning, sagging stairs.

As Amaline begged for forgiveness, she came to an abrupt halt and began smacking both Amaline and Madeline in her frustration.

Madeline simply threw up her hands to protect herself but Amaline caved in, crying.

She let Havilland beat her around the shoulders.

“You should have left well enough alone,” Havilland said as she smacked.

She really wasn’t hurting them; it was more the noise of the slap than anything else.

“Do you see what you have done? I had to knock the man out in order to save you both from his wrath. Now he will be looking for all three of us, looking to finish what he has started!”

With that, she stopped smacking and dragged her sisters up the leaning stairs, bracing herself against the side of the keep so they could keep their balance.

The entry door was eleven stairs up from the floor of the bailey and she tugged on Madeline, who in turn tugged on Amaline, pulling each other up the stairs like a train of great burdens.

Amaline, at the end of the train, continued to weep.

“But he hurt you, Havi,” Amaline said, hoping her sister would understand why they had acted as they had. “Would you not punish someone who had hurt us?”

They were at the entry door and Havilland yanked them through.

“Nay,” she snapped. “I would have let them beat you to death and then I would have danced upon your graves. Do you not understand? You have only made things worse. Now, de Lohr will hear of this behavior and he will wonder what is happening at his garrison. He will wonder why we are attacking his men. He will send Tobias and Becket to investigate. They will want to speak to Papa and know what he intends to do to discipline us for attacking one of his knights. And then what shall we do? They cannot speak to Papa!”

She was shrieking by the time she was finished. Standing in the cold, damp entry to the keep, the sisters faced one another in moody uncertainty. Amaline was wiping her nose while Madeline seemed much more composed. She eyed her older sister without fear of the woman’s rage.

“We will fend them off as we always do,” Madeline said calmly. “You always become upset over the smallest things, Havi. We will tell them that Papa is ill and is not allowed visitors. It has always worked before.”

Havilland faced her dark-haired sister. She and Madeline were quite alike, in fact, not merely with the same dark hair and same delicate face, but also in manner.

They were both stubborn and confident, but Havilland, with her long limbs and height advantage, held the edge over her middle sister physically.

And things had become physical between the two more than once, not simply the silly slapping that Havilland had been doing, but an all-out brawl on occasion.

That hadn’t happened in a while, fortunately, because Roald was no longer in his right mind to break up the fight.

Perhaps the girls realized that. They had been forced to grow up quickly in the wake of their father’s debilitating mental illness.

Perhaps they realized there was no place for their foolish disagreements now.

They had a fortress and each other to protect.

But even now, as they gazed at each other, Havilland knew it wouldn’t take much for Madeline to throw a punch and for her to take her sister’s head off in reply.

The fists were beginning to ball already.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” Havilland finally asked, her dark green eyes glittering. “You are the one who wanted to challenge him, dragging poor Ammie along with you. It is always you, Madeline. You have no sense at all.”

Madeline lifted her chin. “You let him beat you,” she said, her tone bordering on condescending. “Someone had to teach the Gael a lesson.”

“I did not ask you to!” Havilland snapped, overlapping her sister’s bold statement.

Madeline was always pushing her, always overstepping her bounds when she knew full well that Havilland was in charge.

Havilland knew her sister didn’t like that arrangement because she wanted to be in charge and it was a constant battle to maintain her command.

Frustrated, she shook her head. “If I need your help, I will ask. If anyone is going to teach the Gael a lesson, it will be me. I am the one he wronged. Now, listen to me and listen well– you will never do anything like that again without my knowledge. One of these days, you are going to do something so foolish that I will not be able to save you. Is that clear, Madeline? And you, Amaline– stop following her. She is going to get you into a goodly amount of trouble someday.”

Amaline nodded eagerly, willing to placate her oldest sister, but Madeline was unmoved. She continued to meet her sister’s gaze as if she had done nothing wrong.

“At least I am not a coward,” she said, baiting Havilland. “At least I fight when there must be fighting.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you are content to sit and let the Welsh come to you. The next time they come, we may not be so fortunate.”

Jaw ticking, Havilland got in her sister’s face in a provocative move. “Tell me more of how I am a coward, Madeline,” she said, daring her sister to speak further. “Is it because I will not send out troops to burn their villages and challenge the nearest Welsh outpost?”

“Aye.”

“We do not have the men for such ventures. It would be foolish to attack when we know we cannot defeat them!”

Madeline stared at her a moment before shaking her head, averting her gaze. “Ever cautious, Havi.”

“Ever foolish, Madeline.”

Madeline snorted softly, although there was no humor to the sound. “You sit around and wait for de Lohr to protect us,” she said. “You must take the offensive against the Welsh. De Lohr does not live here; we do. We should have a say in how we fight the Welsh who continually attack us.”

“Mayhap that is true, but I will not do anything foolish to put us all in danger,” Havilland countered.

“That is the problem with you, Madeline– you have let control of an army consume you. You would step out and do something utterly foolish without thought for the consequences. Well, I will not behave that way. What I do, I do to keep all of us safe. If you do not like the way I run things around here, then you are more than welcome to leave. I will not stop you.”

Madeline’s dark eyes glittered with rage. “That is an attractive invitation.”

“Then I wish you would take it.”

“If it would take me far away from you, I might do that.”

Havilland stepped back from her sister, glaring daggers at the woman.

She had two choices at that moment; continue the argument, which would not end well, or give her sister a command to follow.

She chose the latter because Madeline needed to be reminded of who was in command.

Havilland found herself having to remind the girl more and more when they had circular arguments like this.

Madeline wanted to be the aggressor against the Welsh.

Havilland knew they could never sustain such a thing.

It was a bitter argument that was starting to drive them apart.

“You will not leave at the moment,” Havilland finally muttered.

“You are needed here. Now, you will go to the kitchens and take stock of our provisions to see what we have to feed these additional men. That is our priority. While you do that, Ammie and I will see to the wounded. We had several last I saw. Once you have finished seeing to the provisions, come and find me in the great hall.”

Madeline wasn’t pleased by the command in the least. “We have servants to tend the provisions.”

“And we have servants to steal from us,” Havilland snapped. “You must ensure they do not. Go now and do as I say. Food stores are precious and we must make sure to keep track of ours.”

Madeline didn’t agree with the command in the least, a directive she felt was beneath her.

If Madeline wasn’t in control of something, then she was unhappy.

Inventorying food rations was menial work.

It was clear that she wanted to argue more about it but, for some reason, she didn’t.

She simply turned on her heel and marched from the keep.

Havilland felt some relief that Madeline didn’t fight with her about it, but she also felt some wariness about the woman.

The truth was that she didn’t trust Madeline.

The girl had seen seventeen summers upon this earth and thought she knew it all.

Madeline believed that she was right and everyone else was wrong.

Havilland had, at times, even heard of Madeline trying to summon the support of the men against Havilland’s decisions. It was subversion from her own sister.