Hugh passed by him, and entered a small room, warmed by a little charcoal brazier set on a flat slab of stone, and lit by a torch in a sconce on the wall. Close under the light the dowager lady of Longner sat on a bench against the wall, propped erect with rugs and cushions, and in her stillness and composure dominating the room. She was past forty-five and long, debilitating illness had aged her into a greyness and emaciation beyond her years. She had a distaff set up before her, and was twisting the wool with a hand that looked frail as a withered leaf, but was patient and competent as it teased out and twirled the strands. She looked up, at Hugh's entrance, with a startled smile, and let down the spindle to rest against the foot of the bench.
'Why, my lord, how good of you! It's a long time since I saw you last.' That had been at her husband's funeral, seven months past now. She gave him her hand, light as a windflower in his, and as cold when he kissed it. Her eyes, which were huge and dusky blue, and sunk deeply into her head, looked him over with measured and shrewd intelligence. 'Your office becomes you,' she said. 'You look well on responsibility. I am not so vain as to think you made the journey here to see me, when you have such weighty burdens on your time. Had you business with Eudo? Whatever brought you, a glimpse of you is very welcome.'
"They keep me busy,' he said, with considered reserve. 'Yes, I had business of a sort with Eudo. Nothing that need trouble you. And I must not stay to tire you too long, and with you I won't talk business. How are you? And is there anything you need, or any way I can serve you?'
'All my needs are met before I can even ask,' said Donata. 'Eudo is a good soul, and I'm lucky in the daughter he's brought me. I have no complaints. Did you know the girl is already pregnant? And sturdy and wholesome as good bread, sure to get sons. Eudo has done well for himself. Perhaps I do miss the outside world now and then. My son is wholly taken up with making his manor worth a little more every harvest, especially now he looks forward to a son of his own. When my lord was alive, he looked beyond his own lands. I got to hear of every move up or down in the king's fortunes. The wind blew from wherever Stephen was. Now I labour behind the times. What is going on in the world outside?'
She did not sound to Hugh in need of any protection from the incursions of the outside world, near or far, but he stepped cautiously in consideration of her son's anxieties. 'In our part of it, very little. The Earl of Gloucester is busy turning the south-west into a fortress for the Empress. Both factions are conserving what they have, and for the moment neither side is for fighting. We sit out of the struggle here. Lucky for us!'
'That sounds,' she said, attentive and alert, 'as if you have very different news from elsewhere. Oh, come, Hugh, now you are here you won't deny me a little fresh breeze from beyond the pales of Eudo's fences? He shrouds me in pillows, but you need not.' And indeed it seemed to Hugh that even his unexpected company had brought a little wan colour to her fallen face, and a spark to her sunken eyes.
He admitted wryly: 'There's news enough from elsewhere, a little too much for the king's comfort. At St Albans there's been the devil to pay. Half the lords at court, it seems, accused the Earl of Essex of having traitorous dealings with the Empress yet again, and
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