Hugh and Bess by Susan Higginbotham Page B

small forest of pavilions was sprouting nearby as well. The taverns were full, and their keepers, in the highest of spirits, were heard to say that they wished the lord of the manor got married every year.
      With each new relative from Hugh's family who arrived at Tewkesbury manor over the next day and a half, Bess's head swam like the fish embroidered on her new bed coverlet. Hugh's four sisters were the first to appear. The eldest was Isabel, the Countess of Arundel. Bess already knew not to expect her to be accompanied by the Earl of Arundel. The couple had married as children and had disliked each other from the start. Mortimer and Isabella had executed their fathers a week apart, and though this circumstance might have brought some couples closer together, it had not improved their marital relations. They had lived together just long enough to have a fourteen-year-old son, Edmund, who came with his mother to his uncle's wedding.
      “No need to be formal,” said Isabel briskly as Bess acknowledged her sister-in-law's higher rank with a curtsey. “I am a countess for now, but I shan’t be as soon as Richard finds a higher class of woman than the doxies he usually runs with and gets the annulment he is always threatening me with. Oh, it's true, Edmund, don’t blush. But here! See what I have brought you as a wedding gift! Oh, there's the usual gold cup that you’ll receive later, but I thought you might prefer this.”
      A page who had been standing in the background stepped forward and solemnly placed a ten-week-old puppy into Bess's arms. “The best of my finest bitch's new litter,” Isabel said. “Hugh said that yours had died a few months ago, and I thought you might like this one.”
      Bess had indeed told Hugh during her horseback ride with him and Sybil that she was fond of dogs and that her old one had died recently, but it was something that she hardly thought he would have remembered. She cuddled the pup as it licked her nose. “’Tis so kind of you, Countess.”
      “Isabel.”
      Isabel was giving Bess a detailed account of her dog breeding, and Edmund had struck up an animated conversation with Bess's younger sister Sybil, when a girl of about fourteen rode up, followed by a waiting woman, a few men, and a very scruffy-looking, mud-splattered boy of about eleven. “My youngest sister, who's married into the Berkeley family,” said Isabel. “She is an Elizabeth like you, but she is Lizzie to us, and as I suppose you shall be Bess to us, that will save a great deal of trouble. Lizzie! This is Hugh's betrothed, Lady Bess.”
      Elizabeth de Berkeley smiled at Bess as the boy, evidently a Berkeley page, awkwardly assisted her from her horse. Though quite womanly looking, with a full bosom and a nicely rounded rump, Lizzie still wore her curly brown hair flowing, as befitted only maidens and new brides. Was Lizzie still deemed too young to bed with her husband, wherever he might be? “Will your lord be coming?” Bess asked, realizing when it was too late to retract her question that this might be another situation like that of the Arundels.
      Lizzie pointed to the boy. “My husband is right here,” she said resignedly. “Maurice will never go around a body of water if it is shallow enough to ride through.”
      “Cools off the horses. And if I had gone the long way I wouldn’t be here yet.”
      “ I took the long way and arrived here at the same time as you,” said Lizzie.
      “Because I waited for you, slowpoke.”
      “And you have gotten yourself all dirty for Lady Bess! For shame, Maurice.”
      Maurice smiled and bowed to Bess, then pointed to his wife. “She acts proper now,” he said in the tone of one making a great confidence, “but she can play at football nearly as good as a lad, I’ll tell you.”
      Lizzie rolled her eyes. “Do clean up, please, Maurice. Lady Bess will think us savages.”
      “They’ll be fine breeders when they reach the age,”