Her Tender Bosoms

The stable buck

Maerwynn

“Maerwynn, bless our food please.” Said the gentle voice of the ageing man in front of me. I laid down the fork I had been so readily able to eat my food with.

“Is it not Henry’s turn father.” I replied, mustering up the sweetest smile that I could do. I could see my dearly ‘beloved’ brother sitting nearer the other end of the 4 foot long table glaring at me, I tried to ignore the daunting snarl he was throwing in my direction and instead concentrated on my father whose eyebrows had knitted themselves into a pattern of confusion.

Poor old man, he could not even remember that I had said our daily blessing almost every day for the past 2 weeks.

“No no Maerwynn, it is your turn is it not?” I could see the immediate smirk grace Henry’s face and held back the stream of curses I wanted to through at him, but instead decided to leave him be - for now that is.

“Yes father.” I replied with a tight smile. I inwardly sighed and placed the napkin I held in my hands on my lap, before bowing my head and closing my eyes.

“Heavenly father,” I began “Thank you for this great meal that you bless us solely with, I pray that you’ll sanctify it and let it renew our health, Amen”

“Amen.” Came the repetition from the rest of those seated at the table.

All I could hear was the quiet clattering of the knives and forks we held in our hands as we ate our meal, everyone was oddly quiet today even the twins, which was weird as you hardly ever hear Casper and Cain quiet, not even at the dinner table.

I desperately wanted someone to talk or make a noise of some sort; the silence was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. I placed my cutlery on top of my plate before wringing my hand in nervousness; I wondered what was on everyone’s minds, it must have been something considering the fact that Henry wasn’t making any crude comments towards me and Bernard wasn’t complaining as always.

From the corner of my eye I saw my father look up, worry wrinkles creased his skin, his eyes followed my nervous movements before sighing and running his hands through his greying hairs.

“Leave.” He said sharply to the servants who lined the grand hall, they wasted no time in exiting, some even tripping over their feet to get out.

A couple seconds had passed, in which during that time my father and brothers looked anxiously at each other, I passed glances to my mother who looked almost as nervous as I did, I wasn’t surprised, for the fact that the men had left us out of whatever it was they were thinking about. Typical.

“My dear wife,” my father began taking hold of my mother’s hand, “and Maerwynn.” He said looking directly into my eyes. “For a while I and the boys have been taking into account and increasingly unsettling development in the east.”

He paused for a minute as if to gauge our reactions, but at the moment there was nothing to gauge, I hardly knew what he was on about, I gently nodded to encourage him to carry on, I had also noticed my brothers were now giving us their full attention.

“The Irish seem to have taken over the small lands of the east, Buckmore not included.” He finished.

I gasped, I knew of the small villages that lined the east coast, I had been there many times and had never ceased to be amazed of their beauty, it was sad to know that those violent Irish men had pursued those lands.

“Are they alright?!” I asked, standing up from my seat and in the process almost knocking my chair over, if it wasn’t for Cain who caught it before it hit the ground, a blush covered my cheeks as Cain gently placed his hand on top of mine, pulling me back down onto the seat.