“When it comes you will not lay a finger on it. I’d rather that it went unbaptized to its grave than marked with your cross of blood.”
He waved his hand.
“There is another matter, or rather two, of which I must speak to you, my daughter. When do you take your first vows?”
“We will talk of it after my child is born. ‘Tis a child of sin, you say, and I am unrepentant, a wicked woman not fit to take a holy vow, to which, moreover, you cannot force me,” she replied, with bitter sarcasm.
Again he waved his hand, for the she-wolf showed her teeth.
“The second matter is,” he went on, “that I need your signature to a writing. It is nothing but a form, and one I fear you cannot read, nor in faith can I,” and with a somewhat doubtful smile he drew out a crabbed indenture and spread it before her on the table.
“What?” she laughed, brushing aside the parchment. “Have you remembered that yesterday I came of age, and am, therefore, no more your ward, if such I ever was? You should have sold my inheritance more swiftly, for now the title you can give is rotten as last year’s apples, and I’ll sign nothing. Bear witness, Mother Matilda, and you, Emlyn Stower, that I have signed and will sign nothing. Clement Maldon, Abbot of Blossholme, I am a free woman of full age, even though, as you say, I am a wanton. Where is your right to chain up a wanton who is no religious? Unlock these gates and let me go.”
Now he felt the wolf’s fangs, and they were sharp.
“Whither would you go?” he asked.
“Whither but to the King, to lay my cause before him, as my father would have done last Christmas-time.”