Chapter Sixty-Two

Miriam clutched at her chest, almost overbalancing. She was down in the cellar with Ruth, checking on the severely depleted stocks, and it gave her quite a turn to hear her daughter’s desperate cry for help.

What was going on?

“Are you all right, my lady?”

She peered up at the auburn-haired woman, who was now Sigurd’s wife, wondering anew why she herself was so small.

“Heartburn,” she lied. “It’s rarely been as bad as this.”

Ruth tutted. “I didn’t realise you suffered so.”

“In truth, I don’t. Lately, I – ”

“Maybe a herbal tea will help,” her sister’s former maid interrupted. “No doubt Jenna can advise.”

“A pity she never had children,” Miriam commented, partly to distract Ruth.

“God has blessed her in other ways,” the woman said. Her piety was a byword. Strange how she had done little to change Sigurd, only tame him perhaps. He was a man settled to marriage and his role in Vercia.

At least there was someone she could rely on. Hubert was not to be trusted. She felt it in her bones. Phi