“I must swear you to secrecy, Aunt Jemma,” he said. “You are the only one not affected by the situation, so I must have your oath.”
Jemma looked at him curiously. “Ye have it,” she said. “But what situation do ye mean?”
Scott came to a pause in front of Athena, turning to look at Jemma. The woman was pregnant with her fifth child and due to give birth in a month, so Scott was hoping she would understand their predicament and advise them. When she wasn’t being angry or volatile, Jemma could be wise and patient. But only if the mood struck her.
Scott could only hope this was one of those times.
He took a deep breath.
“You know the situation my brother and Helene are in?” he said.
Jemma lifted her eyebrows. “Their marriage?”
Scott shook his head. “The reason they were prompted into the marriage so… quickly.”
Jemma understood immediately. “Ah,” she said. “Aye, that. And yer brother paid the price for it when he earned himself the Helm of Shame.”
And so came forth that terrible, awful name.
Helm of Shame.
It was something greatly feared by all of the sons and soldiers of William de Wolfe, Paris de Norville, and Kieran Hage. They were the greatest knights of their generation, men who had been born and bred for battle, men who had raised their children in the same honorable fashion.
The Helm of Shame was used as punishment for those who behaved ignobly.
It was one of those brilliant, nasty tricks used for punishment on naughty lads or lazy knights. It had all started many years ago at a battle near Whiteadder Water when someone cut the garter off the mail of Kieran’s left leg during the heat of battle. The mail slid down and took his breeches with it, and suddenly, Kieran was fighting with his bare arse exposed.
Once the fighting stopped, Kieran was so angry at the rebelling Scots that he refused to pull up his breeches. He left his backside hanging out and made it all the way back to the encampment that way. But it didn’t end there. He went to the Scots prisoners and made them all look at his bare buttocks to punish them for their insurrection.
And so, came the Helm of Shame.
As Kieran was walking around, holding up his breeches in the front so his manhood was covered, he came across a knight from Northwood Castle. The young knight was named Corin de Fortlage and he had pulled out of the battle early, pleading exhaustion. Kieran was so angry at Corin that he pushed the man to the ground and sat on his head with his bare buttocks. He called it the Helm of Shame and told Corin if he ever left the field of battle early again, he would punish him again with the Helm of Shame. It had been particularly ghastly for Corin because of the way he’d fallen on the ground – when Kieran squatted on him, from the angle of his head, the man’s testicles were right by Corin’s nose.
Corin was always the last man to leave the field of battle after that.
The Helm of Shame was legendary amongst the de Wolfe armies and it was something that Kieran had done more than once. If a young knight displeased him, they were threatened with the Helm of Shame. No one else could do it better than Kieran and the older knights began using it as a threat to the younger knights or misbehaving squires. William, Paris, and Kieran had even used it on their own sons to keep them from being naughty.
Unfortunately, it had been used on Troy when Helene’s pregnancy had been discovered and, even now, Troy was in the great hall with his head shaved because part of the Helm of Shame had been to shave his head in an odd manner, leaving just a patch of hair at the top of his skull so he looked like a complete fool. Scott’s mother, Jordan, had taken pity on her son and shaved off that weird patch so at least his head was uniform now, even if he was bald.
Scott didn’t want that to happen to him.
“There is no delicate way to put this, so I will come out with it,” he finally said. “Tee and I are in the same predicament, only our fathers do not know yet. I am not sure how to tell Uncle Paris. I need your counsel, Aunt Jemma. Please.”
Jemma didn’t react to the shocking news. Scott and Athena kept waiting for her to shriek with surprise, even outrage, but she didn’t. She simply looked between the pair of them, digesting what she’d been told. After a moment, she sighed faintly and rubbed her own blossoming belly.
“Well,” she said thoughtfully. “If we’re being perfectly honest, yer Uncle Kieran and I were in the same situation before we were married and, if I recall, so were yer own mother and father. ’Tis nothing new with the hot-blooded men of de Wolfe and Hage. Even de Norville. That pompous peacock likes tae think he’s perfect.”
Scott fought off a grin. The animosity between Jemma and Paris was legendary. “You mean Uncle Paris?”
Jemma snorted and turned up her nose, which was usual when discussing Paris. Scott watched her closely, waiting for some measure of wisdom to come forth, but nothing was forthcoming.
“Well?” he said hopefully. “How should I tell Uncle Paris?”
Jemma held up a hand for patience before extending the bucket to him. “Put some milk in it for the bairns,” she said. “I’ll return.”
Leaving Scott holding the bucket, she headed out of the stable. When she was gone, Scott turned to Athena.
“Where did she go?” he wondered, baffled. “Do you think she’s gone to tell him herself?”
Athena’s eyes were wide. “I do not know,” she said. “He’ll not take the news well coming from her. Mayhap you should go after her.”
Scott wasn’t sure about that. Part of him wanted to hide behind his pregnant aunt, but most of him wanted to stop her if, indeed, she had gone in to tell him herself. He wasn’t quite sure what to do, so he stood there nervously as Athena took the bucket from him and went to the rear of the stable where the dairy cows where corralled along with several goats and their kids. Scott could hear her milking the cow, the rhythmic sounds of milk streams hitting the side of the bucket. It seemed like an eternity, listening to the sounds of the distant party and the swish, swish of the milk, until he could suddenly hear people approaching the stable.
The sound of footsteps did nothing to help his anxiety. He stood his ground as he saw figures coming at him from the darkness.
Jemma was followed by two very large men.
William de Wolfe’s features came into view, followed shortly by Kieran Hage. Men he loved and trusted dearly, but men who, only several hours earlier, had done unspeakable things to his brother in punishment for the exact same predicament. He heard Athena gasp as she came back in from the corral, but Scott couldn’t take his eyes from his father.
Jemma came to a halt in front of him.
“I told them that ye needed tae tell them something,” she said quietly. “If ye want advice, they’re the men tae ask, lad. Ye’d better do it.”
Scott looked at her, knowing why she’d done it. He’d tried to put the burden of a terrible situation on her shoulders and she’d shirked that duty, quite reasonably so, in favor of the men who could genuinely be of some help.
“What is it?” William asked, half-drunk from hours of drinking to Troy’s marriage. “Why are you out here? What is so important?”
Scott sighed sharply. There was no use in delaying the inevitable.
“Because I must ask your advice,” he said. “I want to marry Athena, Papa.”