Paul shrugged. “To be expected, isn’t it, with a woman who has been the King’s whore? It should quiet down soon enough, now that she is preparing to leave. Her servant confided the plans to Jane, the groom’s wife. I say it can’t be soon enough.”

Marcus broke off a hunk of bread and ate it. He drank his ale. Paul turned the conversation to other things and some time passed during which Marcus brought the livid fury that had blazed through him under control.

His meal done, he rose. “Paul, send men to the town and farms and speak with the people. Let it be known that I want to parlay with Carwyn Hir. Perhaps someone in these parts knows how to get word to him, and the message will travel.”

Paul agreed that might work, and that an attempt at negotiations might bear fruit.

“I also ask that you do what you can to stop this talk, for the lady’s sake.”

Paul nodded, but did not appear very hopeful.

“There is one more thing, Paul. Let it be known that if anyone ever calls her a whore again, that person, man or woman, will be exiled from these lands forever.”

Paul’s gaze snapped up. He grimaced with exasperation and dismay. “Ah, hell, Marcus, you didn’t. There’s going to be hell to pay now, that’s for sure.”

Paul was right about that. There was going to be hell to pay, and some of it was waiting in a chamber up above. Marcus aimed there, to speak with the woman whose servant had conveniently been indiscreet with Jane, the groom’s wife.

He found Nesta sitting near the window, her makeshift table arranged to catch the sun rays flowing through the thick window slit. Only one little pot was open, and she used her brush to fill green into the back of her design.

He strolled over and examined the parchment. It showed seven women holding various objects and seated on the backs of seven primitive men who crawled about in loincloths.

It was almost complete. She must have been laboring over it since their return yesterday. He had thought that her absence from the hall had been a way to avoid him, not the result of absorption in her designs. He did not care for the evidence that her head had not been filled with thoughts of their time together, as his had.

“It is the seven virtues triumphant over the seven vices,” she explained with her head still bent.

He knew what it represented. The image of chastity caught his attention. The face of lust on whom she sat bore a striking resemblance to himself.

“You have been laboring hard at this, Nesta. You have had a sudden burst of artistry.”

“It passes the time.”

“It also provides you with coin, you once said. Do you need some now?”

“One can never have enough coin.”