Dreams of Lilacs

Chapter 6



Gervase looked out the window in his bedchamber and was rather grateful he was at least able to stand to do so. There had been many fortnights during which even that simple accomplishment had been beyond him.

He wasn’t sure at the moment that he was all that grateful for it, unfortunately. The fields that made up his view still looked as barren as they had four months earlier. Perhaps leaving things to lie fallow every now and again was good for them. Heaven knew he had little choice in the matter at present.

Obviously it was far past time he made a brief journey to the village to speak with his prév?t to see about routing his peasants out of bed to see to spring planting. Master Humbert had served his father for years, which Gervase supposed would stand him in good stead at present. It was for damned sure he hadn’t had much of a relationship with the man before.

Besides, who knew what sort of gossip he might overhear at the local inn?

He drew on a cloak, belted a useless sword about his hips out of habit, then rubbed his right thigh for a moment or two to try to ease some of the discomfort. It served him as well as it did every morning, which was to say not at all. ’Twas little wonder his temper was as black as night. If he ever had another day where he wasn’t in pain even in his sleep, he might manage something other than a snarl when he spoke. Unfortunately, he didn’t hold out much hope for it.

He could walk, though, which was definitely an improvement. Whether his bones had been set properly in his leg and arm, he couldn’t have said.

He opened the door, then walked out into the passageway. Two of his men were standing there, looking impossibly grim. At least things there were as they should have been. He smiled pleasantly at them.

“Where is Sir Aubert?” he asked.

“Training the men, Lord Gervase.”

Gervase nodded. “One of you tell him I’m riding to the village to seek out Master Humbert. I’m leaving in half an hour.”

The man nodded briskly and hurried off to deliver the tidings. Gervase made his way to the hall, trailed by his remaining guardsman. He would break his fast, hopefully without seeing anyone he didn’t want to see, then force himself to get on a horse and get himself to the village. He couldn’t say he felt any stronger than he had the day he’d brought home that stray wench, but perhaps he was. He’d forced himself to walk to the stables and back each day for the past several days. He supposed he wasn’t managing it in any less time, but at least after the journey he wasn’t retreating immediately to his solar to give vent to a very large collection of vile curses for the rest of the day. He could only hope a small journey out of the keep wouldn’t finish what was left of him.

He limped into the great hall, then came to an abrupt halt. That was painful enough that he had to put his hand out to the nearest wall and simply breathe for a moment or two. Once he could manage that, he had another look at the madness going on in front of him.

His orphan who had started out as a lad, then become a lass, had now apparently decided she was a scholar.

“She’s helping Lucien with his Latin.”

Gervase scowled at Joscelin who had seemingly recently taken up the very annoying habit of popping up where he was least expected. “She’s doing what?”

“You heard me.”

“I heard you,” Gervase agreed, “but I didn’t believe you.” He looked back at his newly acquired serving wench who was currently shaking her head and instructing his younger brother to repeat what he was doing. “I still don’t believe it.”

“Come and listen, then.”

“I don’t have time,” Gervase lied. “Things to do.”

Joscelin didn’t move. “Have you considered that she might not be just a serving wench?”

“I’ve been too busy to consider anything save my usual business.”

Joscelin only continued to regard him with far too much discernment. “Of course. Why would you be curious about a girl who looks like that?”

“She’s a runaway servant,” Gervase said, because that sounded like a reasonable thing to say. “I’m being excessively generous by giving her food and a place to lay her head.”

“And two of your own guardsmen. Very generous.”

Gervase looked at his brother coolly. “I believe I’m finished with this conversation.”

Joscelin only continued to watch him, a smile playing around his mouth. Gervase was heartily tempted to wipe that smirk off his brother’s face, but Joscelin was, damn him to Hell, at the height of his prowess. That was saying something because the lad had been formidable at ten-and-six when Gervase had first begun to take him along tourneying. That decision had been easily made. Joscelin was the only one of his half brothers he had known well enough to trust. He wasn’t sure if that said more about him or about his stepmother, who hadn’t trusted him around her sainted spawn.


He took a deep breath. Perhaps it was just better not to think at all.

“I think I would be careful with her,” Joscelin said with a shrug as he walked away.

Gervase was tempted to beat a few details out of the lad, but Joscelin had already trotted lithely out of reach and Gervase had no desire to bellow after him. He scowled. The wench was nothing more than she seemed, which was a servant. Perhaps she’d been a servant to a lord with sons and she’d eavesdropped on their lessons as she’d been scrubbing the floors. Perhaps she’d been cleaning ashes out of the fire as the lord himself had furthered his learning. The reasons why a lowly serving wench with such astonishing beauty might have skills that most scullery maids did not possess were many and varied. He was just certain he would be giving them a proper examination the first chance he had.

Fortunately for him, that opportunity was not presenting itself at present. He turned his back on the spectacle of his brothers sitting happily around the table, waiting breathlessly for that angel of a girl to help them with their studies, and stomped toward the front door with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

That vigor lasted until he’d gotten out to the courtyard. He had to stop for a moment or two, then lean over and catch his breath until the pain in his leg receded a bit.

Damn her, who was she?

? ? ?

An hour and many curses later, he walked into the village hall and looked for a seat that he could get back up from comfortably. He wasn’t surprised to watch villagers scatter before him like leaves before a fall wind. He rolled his eyes, then took the first seat he found. Aubert sat down with him, then had a casual look about. Gervase had no doubts he could simply ask his captain for the number and kind of everyone in the common chamber and have an accurate account. It wouldn’t have surprised him to know Aubert had marked not only what everyone was wearing, but what they were eating as well.

He looked up as his forester swept into the tavern and strode over to him. He was bowed to, then Master Humbert took the third seat.

“A good morning to you, monseigneur le duc,” he said with a smile.

Gervase attempted a smile. “And to you, Master Humbert. What tidings from the village?”

“The usual,” Humbert said with a shrug. “Tales of your fierceness, speculation about what you do in the keep at night, questions about spring planting.”

“No worries that I won’t be able to defend them if necessary?” Gervase asked lightly.

Humbert’s smile faded. “That, too, my lord, if you must know. Though ’tis cheering to see you here, isn’t it?”

It was a damned sight more cheering that being limited to looking at the canopy of his bed, though he supposed he would do well to keep that thought to himself.

“It is,” he agreed simply.

“Though I am curious as to why you wanted to meet here and not in your hall.”

“Breath of fresh air,” Gervase said succinctly. And fewer ears listening from the shadows, which was something he supposed he didn’t need to say. “Anything I should know?”

Master Humbert proceeded to give him a list he tried to pay appropriate heed to. Truly, he did. Could he be faulted if he found it difficult to concentrate on the pedestrian task of running an estate the size of a small country when he had other things that puzzled him?

Who was she?

He wasn’t entirely sure Master Humbert wasn’t still talking when he set aside his cup and prepared to leave.

“Lord Gervase?”

He blinked. “What?”

“Shall I bring you the rest of the tidings later? To the keep?”

Gervase nodded, then paused. He wasn’t sure how to ask the question without attaching more significance to it than he wanted to, but he had to know before the woman in his hall made him daft.

“A final question,” he said.

“Of course, my lord.”

Gervase chewed on his words for a moment or two. “Have you heard of anyone missing a servant?”

Humbert blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“A servant, man. A wench who goes about the kitchen scrubbing floors and making sausage.”

Humbert laughed a little. “Aye, I knew what they did. I just wondered why you were curious. Did you lose one?”

“Nay, I didn’t,” Gervase said. “I was just curious.”

“I haven’t heard of anyone having lost a serving girl, but I could ask, if you like.”

Gervase shook his head. “I’m not that curious. ’Twas nothing more than idle talk in the kitchens, you know.” He rose and put his right hand down on the back of his chair to steady himself without thinking beforehand what it would cost him. He gritted his teeth for a moment or two, then smiled at his forester. “I’ve business back at the hall. Come to me on the morrow, perhaps.”

“As you wish, my lord. Safe home, as always.”

Gervase ignored that, because things like that made him feel as if Fate were watching him far too closely. He wasn’t altogether certain that Joscelin hadn’t said the same thing to him at some point before his accident. It would have been convenient if he could have remembered the events leading up to it, but he couldn’t and there was nothing to be done about that. He was perhaps in his own way missing as many memories as that poor daft wench back in the castle, sweeping his floors and helping his brothers with sums that even he had to think about for a moment or two.

He nodded to Master Humbert, then turned and left the common room with as much confidence in his step as he could muster. He supposed he couldn’t be blamed if he had to pause several times between the door of the hall and the village stables. His meal had been hard on his belly—

Only he hadn’t eaten anything, he supposed.

He swung up onto his horse—that poor old horse who seemed not to feel the indignity of being all Gervase could manage—then nodded for Aubert and the lads to begin the journey home. He would have far preferred to sit still and try to manage his pain before he wept, but he knew from experience that it wasn’t going to get any better. There was something to be said for simply riding into the storm, as it were.

He wasn’t sure how long it took them to reach the keep. He was simply glad to see it rising up in the distance. That hadn’t always been his reaction to the sight of his home, to be sure. He’d been scarce three winters when his mother had died and his father remarried with unseemly haste. A large succession of half siblings had then arrived. The boys had never treated him as anything but a brother, but he couldn’t say the same for his stepmother. She had barely tolerated him, though he couldn’t have said why. Perhaps she resented not only his father’s affection for him, but his own place in the house of Seger. At least her lads hadn’t possessed any of her less desirable traits. After all, ’twas Joscelin and Guy who had put out the flames and saved not only him but their hall. He wasn’t sure he could ask for more loyal siblings than that.

He dismounted in the stables, handed his reins to the same stable lad he’d relinquished his horse to almost a se’nnight ago after rescuing his scullery maid—and had it been that long?—and was pleased to see the lad looked hardly troubled at all by Gervase’s presence. Perhaps things were improving.

He left the stables and walked back up the way to the great hall.

Or at least he did for a score of difficult paces before he saw something that forced him into a stumbling run before he knew what his body intended.


He managed to remove the offending man from the woman the bastard had just slapped before the brute could hit her again. He overbalanced and fell against the wall of his keep thanks to the effort, but he supposed that was a happy bit of good fortune because he took the man with him.

It was Coucy’s man, the one who had assaulted his rescued gel in the kitchens.

He stepped away, then backhanded the fool with his good hand. The rather heavy sound of cheek against stone was particularly satisfying.

Coucy’s guardsman’s hand was on his sword, but it fell away when he realized whom he was facing. Gervase looked at Aubert.

“Take him to the dungeon.”

Aubert nodded and two of the lads took the offender away with as much gentleness as Gervase would have used himself in their place, which was exactly none. He looked at the woman in front of him to judge the damage.

She was clutching the front of her gown together, which told him two things. First, someone had obviously found her something womanly to wear. Second, based on the red handprint on her cheek and the tears standing in her eyes, she had spent more time in the company of a knave than he might have preferred. He took off his cloak, then pulled her away from the wall and swept it around her shoulders. He helped her lean back against the wall where he thought she might be more comfortable while he shouted at her.

“Where,” he asked as calmly as possible, “are your guardsmen?”

“I told them to stay inside,” she said, her voice trembling badly.

“Why?” he asked. It was such a reasonable question and he asked it with hardly a raising of his voice. Hardly.

“Because I was just coming outside to see if there were any flowers blooming in that patch of dirt there outside the hall door. It seemed a poor use of their time, don’t you think?”

He had to admit that a year ago he would have thought the same thing, though he was hardly going to say as much to the trembling woman in front of him.

“That lad was lying in wait for me, I believe,” she continued. “In the shadows there outside the door.”

Gervase exchanged a look with Aubert, who stepped back a pace or two to impart an edifying suggestion to a man who then ran off quickly toward the hall. Perhaps Coucy’s man’s journey to the dungeon would meet with a few unexpected bumps along the way. That was always a bit difficult to predict in these circumstances.

He turned back to the woman in question and felt fury sweep through him again. That someone should have laid a hand on—

“You will not strike me.”

He blinked. “What?”

She lifted her chin. “You will not strike me, sir.”

“Strike you,” he mouthed, then he cleared his throat. “Strike you? Daft wench, I’ve a mind to take my blade to you!”

He said that with enthusiasm. It was entirely possible that he shouted it. He was so turned about and his leg so on fire, he honestly couldn’t have said what he’d done. He curled his right fist into a ball and rested it against the stone, leaning on it to take some of the pressure off his leg.

Two of his younger guardsmen came rushing out of the hall, men that should have known better than to be led about by a wench, no matter how beautiful she might be. He supposed those were apologies on their lips, but he cut them off with a sharp motion of his good hand. He looked at Aubert.

“Take them into the lists and kill them.”

“What?” his servant who couldn’t possibly be that exclaimed. “You cannot be serious!”

He glared at her. “You, mistress,” he said in a low voice, “are one word from finding yourself sharing their fate.”

“But I told them to stay behind!”

“And for that, they will die—”

She put her hand on his arm. It was only because he was already in pain that it fair brought him to his knees, no other reason. By the saints, he was a score and eight. He could boast of conquests all over France. Whether or not he had actually made those conquests was perhaps beside the point. His reputation for wenching, his desirability as a lover, his bloody endless coffers of gold that hadn’t mattered a damn bit because his face and form had taken the day, every day, for as long as he could remember—

And now to be undone by a scullery maid?

He pushed away from the wall and pointed a withered finger at her.

“You, be silent.”

She stepped in front of her guardsmen. “I will not let you slay them.”

He took her by the arm and pulled her close where he could bend his head and whisper in her ear.

“If you have any sense at all,” he murmured, “you will cease this instant with making me look weak in front of my men.”

She looked up at him.

He suppressed the urge to clap his hand over his eyes to spare what was left of his wits any further destruction. If he did nothing else that day—or perhaps over the next fortnight, perhaps longer if it seemed necessary—he had to get her out of his hall. He might have to find a name for her first, but, aye, she had to go. If not, she was going to be the death of something. Him, his good sense, his ability to move from one end of the day to the other without spending the bulk of that day wondering how in the hell a serving wench could be so damned beautiful.

Perhaps she was a faery. He didn’t believe in faeries as a general rule, but he thought he might have to revisit the possibility of them very soon. It seemed a far better use of his time than to fight the urge to pull the woman standing so close to him he could feel her breath on his neck close, wrap his arms around her, and keep her safe.

By the saints, he didn’t even know the girl. She could have been full of shrewish and nasty humors, spreading grief and destruction wherever she went. She had obviously cast some sort of unholy spell over her guardsmen.

That brought him back to where he had been, industriously chastising her for making him look weak in front of men who were obviously just as overcome by the fairness of her face as he was.

“I’m sorry,” she said very quietly. “That was badly done.”

“Harrumph,” he said, because it was all he could manage.

She stepped away from his hand on her arm, which he didn’t care for particularly, then turned and looked at the young knights who were standing there looking as if the blades had already gone into their bellies.

“I apologize to you both,” she said without hesitation. “I shouldn’t have asked you to ignore the task you were given.”

“And they were fools to listen to a mere serving wench,” Gervase added, because the two fools quaking in front of him were directly responsible for the terror he’d felt at the sight of Coucy’s little sod assaulting the woman in front of him. He looked at Aubert. “Help them understand to whom they will be listening from now on. Don’t spare any effort in your instruction.”

Aubert merely walked away without comment. The two young knights hastened after him, which Gervase supposed said something about their characters. He had the feeling they would be spending the next fortnight in the infirmary, recovering from their instruction, which was likely too kind a fate for them.

He had to simply look up at the sky for several minutes until he had control over himself. What he wanted to do was first do damage to the two fools who had allowed themselves to be led about by a ring through their noses, then he wanted to take Coucy’s man and beat him to a bloody pulp. Unfortunately, he wasn’t in any shape to do either.

“I apologize, Lord Gervase.”

He looked at the girl in front of him. Obviously she thought his fury burned brightly toward her still. He supposed it wouldn’t do him any good to admit what he was thinking, so he frowned a bit more at her lest she think she had the upper hand.

Frowning was a good way to keep from gaping, he supposed. He also suppressed the urge to shake his head in wonder. Was it possible this one was a servant? If it had been merely the fairness of her face that was so unusual, perhaps he would have assumed she was an oddity, a rare flower planted in common ground, a girl whose father must have lost many nights’ sleep fretting over what would become of her, but she was canny, intelligent, and unintimidated by his sour self. Remarkable.

“Did he hurt you?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Did he touch you?”

She hesitated. “He tried to kiss me, but I avoided that. And most everything else.”

He started to shout at her, but he realized that she was on the verge of some sort of womanly something. He did his best to suppress his alarm. He was accustomed to ladies of breeding and their schemes. The truth was, there wasn’t a lady of breeding that he’d encountered more than once who hadn’t been as ruthless in her own sphere as he was in his.

But a tenderhearted serving wench?

The saints preserve him, he was in trouble. Perhaps ’twas time he put her back to work and escaped to hide in his solar.

He nodded as curtly as possible—which wasn’t much—toward the hall. “Come with me.”

She didn’t move. “And if I say you nay and rely on the merits of your chivalry?”

“And what makes you believe I have a smidgen of chivalry?”

“I have a nose for that sort of thing.”

He almost smiled. It took him a moment or two to recapture his frown. He didn’t want to like her. He nodded to himself over that, congratulating himself on a thought that surely made more sense than any other he’d ever entertained. She wasn’t a boy, which should have given him pause. He had the feeling she wasn’t a scullery maid, either, which did give him pause. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d met a serving wench who could speak Latin and do sums, which led him to believe that she couldn’t possibly be a servant.

Who the hell was she?

“I’m taking you to my solar,” he said, grasping for the first thing that made sense to him, “where I will lock you in to help you learn to suppress your less sensible impulses. I will then accompany Cook as she brings you endless baskets of mending and sewing. You will remain in my solar until I give you permission to leave it.”

“Does it have a window?”

He shot her a dark look and had a faint smile in return. “None that you’ll be using,” he muttered.

“And my guardsmen?”

“They will be cleaning the cesspit for the foreseeable future, assuming there is something left of them after Sir Aubert finishes with his labors. They can thank you for that. Do you care to cause anyone else any grief?”

She lifted her eyebrows briefly but said nothing.

“Then let’s go.”

He wanted to stride angrily, but all he could manage was an anemic amble. If the demoiselle of a place she couldn’t remember noticed, she said nothing. She simply walked next to him, silent and grave.

It took him longer to reach his solar than he would have liked, but once there, he pointed to a chair near the fire.

“Sit.”

She shook her head. “I’ll build up the fire, my lord. You sit.”

“I do not need to be coddled,” he said before he thought better of it.

She turned and put her hands on her hips. “I wasn’t coddling you, Your Grace, I was trying to be of some use.”

He merely pointed at a chair and waited until she’d sighed, then walked over to cast herself down into it. She looked at him, clear-eyed and unrepentant. He had the feeling she was only barely keeping herself from sending a crisp satisfied? his way.

He ignored her, then went to fetch wood. He carried an armful over to the fire, dropped a piece, then leaned over to pick it up from where it had almost landed on her toes. He would have thought that living with his broken body for so long would have taught him something, but obviously he had learned nothing so far. He overbalanced, his right leg gave way, and he landed hard upon his knees. The wood spilled out of his arms and half into the fire, sending sparks shooting out from the hearth onto them both.

His companion said nothing. She merely stomped out what was live, then quickly piled the wood onto the fire as if she’d done it countless times before. All that was left for him to do was put out a single smoldering spot on his hose, then attempt to salvage his pride. He trotted out a selection of curses for inspection, gave vent to a handful of them, then wondered why it was they didn’t soothe him as they should have.

She moved a heavy chair where he could reach it. He used it to get to his feet, then collapsed into it with a groan. She sat down in the chair facing him, then looked at him with a polite smile, as if she hadn’t just witnessed him making a fool of himself.

“Shall I read to you?”

He looked at her in surprise. “What?”

She started to speak, but a knock interrupted her. She looked at him.

“May I?”

“Best take my sword.”

She smiled. He realized then that he was in a fair bit of peril where she was concerned, which had to have been the most ridiculous thing he had ever thought over a lifetime of ridiculous thoughts. She was a simple wench, he was lord of a vast estate—

She pulled the dagger from his boot without comment. Poor fool that he was, he simply had no energy to protest. He listened to her open the door and greet his second-eldest half brother.

“Lovely cloak,” Joscelin said politely. “Are you cold or off on a journey?”

“Neither now that your brother has made such a nice fire.”

“That wouldn’t be the first time,” Joscelin said.

Gervase cursed him as thoroughly as he had breath for, then glared at him for good measure when he came within view. “What do you want?” he snarled. “And your humor is, as always, sadly misplaced.”

“You need me to bring sunlight into your gloomy life,” Joscelin said, sitting down across from him.

“That’s her chair, you fool. Get up.”

Joscelin paused, then stood up and turned his back to the fire, waving their wench expansively back to where she’d started.

“My apologies, demoiselle. But you still haven’t told me why you’re wearing a cloak. Seems passing pleasant in here to me.”

“She is wearing my cloak, you idiot, because you didn’t stop her from leaving the hall and she was accosted in the midst of the courtyard!” Gervase bellowed.

Joscelin’s mouth fell open. “By whom?”

“Coucy’s man. The one whose nose she bloodied earlier.”

Joscelin turned to her. “Forgive me. I had no idea.”

She shook her head. “It was my fault. I told my guardsmen to remain inside.”

“And they listened to you?” Joscelin asked in surprise.

“I can be very persuasive under the right circumstances.”

“Aye, when you’re breathing,” Gervase muttered. He started to say something else, then realized they were both staring at him in surprise. “Well,” he said defensively, “she’s not precisely ugly, is she?”

“Hardly,” Joscelin agreed.


“She needs a new gown,” Gervase said shortly. “Take her to your mother’s solar and find her something suitable. Do not remain inside while she changes into it.” He shot the girl he couldn’t possibly call Parsival a look. “You can attempt to repair what you’re wearing. I’ll go find you other things to mend, then you will remain here seeing to womanly things until I give you other instructions, is that understood?”

She looked at him for several moments in silence, then nodded. Gervase shot Joscelin a dark look.

“I would see you in the lists if I could.”

“You have often enough in the past,” Joscelin said easily. “I daresay you’ll be there again in the future.”

He said nothing because there was nothing to say. But after Joscelin and his charge had departed for safer ground, he did send a page to Cook for as much mending as she could find, then he paced in agony until a knock sounded on his door. He opened it, expecting to see Joscelin there, but it was Guy. He opened to his brother, then realized Joscelin and their servant who wasn’t a servant were hard on his heels. Guy gave way to their serving wench and Gervase ignored how the look of admiration his next youngest brother gave her irritated him. She was a servant, nothing more. What did he care how his brothers looked at her?

“You look as if you need an afternoon in the lists,” Guy said easily. “I’ve offered several times, brother, to aid you.”

“I don’t think I could stand two minutes against you,” Gervase said, though it cost him a great deal to admit as much. “I’ll begin with a much lesser swordsman. Perhaps that lesser swordsman there,” he said, glaring at Joscelin.

Joscelin only smiled. Guy shrugged and made Gervase a bow.

“I’ll be off to see to what is needful, then.”

Gervase nodded, because the words of gratitude he should have been uttering were simply beyond him at the moment. Guy merely smiled and left the chamber, no doubt to see to things Gervase should have been attending to himself.

He stood aside as Cook arrived with two enormous baskets of mending and the tools necessary to see to them. He watched Joscelin treat that exquisite serving wench with far more deference than he would have a servant he merely wanted to bed. He waited until she was settled, then he took his brother by the back of the tunic and walked him over to the door. He pushed him out into the passageway, then joined him there, pulling the door shut behind him.

“You know something,” Gervase said bluntly.

Joscelin looked at him innocently. “I know many things—”

Gervase growled at him. “Don’t be an ass. Who is she?”

“That depends on what you intend to do with her.”

“She’s a serving wench. What can I possibly intend to do with her?”

“If she’s that,” Joscelin said slowly, “then why are you asking me anything?”

“Because she’s terribly outspoken for a mere serving wench,” Gervase whispered angrily.

“Why don’t you ask her who she is?”

“She can’t remember.”

“Then why would you think I would know anything?”

“Because you’re smirking.”

“I’m not. I’m admiring.”

Gervase gritted his teeth. “Admire something else.”

Joscelin only smiled and walked away. “You’re awfully possessive of a mere serving wench.”

“I want to know what you’re thinking!” Gervase shouted.

“I don’t think you do,” Joscelin called back cheerfully, “though I would find out who she is before I did something stupid if I were you.”

Well, of course he intended to find out who she was. It was what he’d started out to do that day. He’d been interrupted by arriving back at the keep to find her almost overcome. Obviously, he was going to have to keep a better watch over her. If that required him to remain near her for a goodly part of the day, each day that she remained in his hall, so be it.

Altruistic to the last, that’s what he was.

He could only hope he wouldn’t pay a steep price for the exercising of that virtue.