‘Sire?’ the lad said again.
‘My hauberk.’ He raised his arms above his head.
‘Yes, sire.’ The shirt of chainmail was hauled up and off and passed to another squire. He nipped round to Sir Owain’s back to unlace the quilted gambeson, hearing a ‘Tch!’ and seeing a slow shake of his master’s head. ‘You are not happy with the result, sire? You should be. It was the best today.’
‘Wait till tomorrow, lad. Never count your chickens.’
That was, of course, exactly what he had done when he’d arrived, believing that she might be inclined to look favourably upon him after her marriage to that disgusting little upstart, Gerrard. But although he had realised at their first meeting that this woman was different from the rest, he had not understood until now by how much, nor had he known anything of the lasting anger his sudden departure had caused her. And, of course, if he’d had the slightest inkling that Gerrard and her brother were ready to leap into the breach with such alacrity, he’d have made more sure that his bid had stuck. As it was, he had believed that time was on his side, with her father’s approval and probably hers, too. Now, he had not only her anger to contend with but her resistance to jousters, to his reputation, and to his unfortunate association with her late husband who, if any man did, got what was coming to him. It was a pity that he himself was not the one who should have the telling of it, but that was Sir Phillip’s task, and he was on a pilgrimage of absolution to Rome, poor chap.
So, with a lady who would neither be impressed nor intimidated, what was to be his next line of attack? He pulled off his damp linen shirt and threw it at his squire. Then he allowed his linen chausses to fall to the floor as he strode across to the bath of steaming water. Taking the sponge in one hand, he sat its heavy wetness on top of his head and pressed.
Father Janos and the Lady Francesca de Molyns halted their conversation at the patient’s bedside as Eloise and Saskia entered the low-beamed chamber where the walls danced with the moving shadows of silent servants.
‘I came as soon as I could,’ Eloise whispered. ‘How is he?’
Neither her mother nor the physician missed the tearstains and swollen eyelids, even in the dimly lit room, and both of them guessed that Rolph was not the cause.
Her mother enclosed her, tenderly, as Saskia had done. ‘Coming round slowly,’ she said. ‘Drifting in and out of consciousness at the moment.’
‘That’s a good sign. Has he spoken?’
‘Nothing intelligible, dear. You’ve done well.’
Eloise saw now that the monk was of medium height, that his habit was clean and in good repair, his strong sympathetic hands ever ready to dive away into wide sleeves when not in use. His eyes were dark and steady, and she knew instinctively how difficult it would be to hide anything from him. Perhaps that was why he was also Sir Owain’s chaplain.
‘And Griselle?’ Eloise said. ‘Has she been to see him?’
Lady Francesca smiled, wryly. ‘No, her ladies took her to her rooms. I’ll go and see her now you’re here. Don’t stay long. You look as if you could do with some rest yourself. It’s been a long day.’ She kissed her daughter’s cheek and brushed away a lingering tear with one finger. ‘Courage, child,’ she whispered, smiling. ‘You’re not alone.’ Then she left.
The door closed, and Eloise caught sight of the chaplain’s gentle eyes. ‘I’m sorry I sent you…’ She reached out a hand to touch his arm, then thought better of it and withdrew before it made contact.
Father Janos shook his head to stop her apology. ‘No matter,’ he whispered. ‘Think no more of it, my lady. Better two who understand than two who don’t.’
‘Thank you, Father. I think your understanding must be better than mine, in this case.’ At the prickling sensation behind her eyes, she turned her head away, though not before the priest-physician had seen a bright teardrop glisten in the reflected light. ‘And thank you for your help with my brother. You were far more than an assistant, and I was impolite. Please forgive me.’ She turned towards the bed where Rolph had begun to move his head upon the pillow. Kneeling beside him, she caressed his brow, and he opened his eyes at her tender touch.
They searched her face, unfocussed. ‘Marie?’ he whispered.
‘It’s me, Eloise,’ she said. ‘You’re in the castle, Rolph. Quite safe. You did well.’
To their consternation, his eyes welled with tears, his bandaged jaw working to speak but forming only one word. ‘No.’
Again, she caressed his forehead but this time he frowned impatiently, and Eloise turned her attention to Father Janos. ‘A fever, as usual. I generally give powdered willow-bark with honey, Father. Is that what you use?’
‘There’s nothing better, my lady. That will ease the pain, too. What about a sedative?’
‘Yes, Saskia makes a useful infusion of mullein. I know Mother grows it in the herber. I’ll have some gathered immediately.’
‘Excellent. Do you carry your physic-chest on all your visits, my lady? You’re remarkably well equipped.’ He glanced appreciatively at the range of wax-covered pots, phials and stoppered bottles all neatly labelled, the tools, tweezers and scissors, silver knives and spoons, the tiny hand-held balance and weights.
‘Always. There’d be little point in going abroad without it, nowadays, when there are so few reliable medics to be found. Now, I think it’s time for a sample of urine as soon as he’s fully conscious. His birth sign is Capricorn.’
‘I’ll make that my responsibility, if you wish.’ He smiled. ‘I have my flasks here, and my charts. Do you use arnica, my lady?’
‘For bruising? Yes, do you have some?’
‘I prepared a new tincture just before we left.’
A sound from the bed made them both turn. ‘Eloise.’
‘Yes, love. I’m here.’
Rolph’s voice was faint, but calmer now. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘And thank you. I think I can recall…’
She dabbed at his forehead, wiping away beads of sweat. ‘Shh! A slight fever, that’s all. We can fix it.’
‘What’s the damage?’
‘Jaw, collarbone, wrist, ankle, some bruising. Not too serious, considering the weight of that brute. You’ll be up and about in a few days.’
‘My horse?’
‘Fit as a fiddle.’
‘I’m no match for…ouch…Whitecliffe.’ His face contorted with pain, but with one finger he touched her cheek that still bore the stain of tears. ‘Did he unhorse you, too, sister? Those were not for me, surely?’
‘Yes, love,’ Eloise said, keeping her voice low. ‘They’re as much for you as for anyone. Griselle’s very upset.’
He frowned. ‘Is she? Well, don’t let her c—’
But he was too late. The door opened to admit Lady Griselle, accompanied by Sir Owain of Whitecliffe, this time wearing a calf-length silver-grey bliaud luxuriously furred at the hem and wide sleeves. A violet cloak was fastened on one shoulder with a large silver disc that shone with amethysts. By contrast, the lady’s surcoat of figured red brocade did little for her sandy hair and blotchy pallor. A troop of women followed them in, most of them in Griselle’s household.
Eloise stood to make way for her sister-in-law, but already Rolph had escaped into a pretence of unconsciousness and, by the time Griselle reached the bed, he had put himself beyond her interrogation.
Crossly, Griselle turned on Eloise. ‘They told me you were caring for him, but you’ve only just got here.’
Before Eloise could defend herself, Sir Owain came to her rescue far more effectively than she could have done. ‘Lady Eloise was the first to tend him, my lady. You have her to thank for such promptness.’
Ignoring the suggestion, Lady Griselle lowered herself on to the stool by her husband’s side. ‘Rolph, dearest…oh, Rolph! What have they done to you? Where does it hurt?’
Father Janos and Eloise exchanged glances. ‘Everywhere, I should think,’ he murmured to her, lifting one eyebrow.
It was
impossible for Eloise to avoid Sir Owain in the now overcrowded room, and his question was directed as much to her as to his physician. ‘He’ll recover, won’t he?’
The sincerity in his voice left her in no doubt of his concern, but it seemed to her that, though Father Janos could easily have allayed Sir Owain’s fears, the monk remained silent, allowing Eloise to answer while he watched and listened for the tone of her response.
‘Yes, he’ll recover,’ she whispered. ‘He’s strong enough, though not as fit as he once was. He’s already recovered consciousness, sir.’
‘But…?’ Sir Owain looked over his shoulder. ‘He’s shamming?’
‘Well, not exactly. Almost.’ The last word was spoken in unison with Father Janos. ‘Father,’ she said, ‘I must leave to prepare myself for supper. I dare say Lady Griselle will want to stay with my brother awhile, but Saskia will prepare the willow-bark and the mullein, if you wish.’
‘And I will gladly administer it, my lady. We can attend to the arnica tomorrow when the dressings are changed. I carry an unguent of comfrey, too.’
‘And we grow the leaves for a poultice.’
Griselle’s whine broke into their conference. ‘Are you discussing him? Didn’t I ought to be consulted? Have you bled him yet?’
Patiently, Father Janos spoke for them both. ‘No, my lady, we have not. Sir Rolph has lost enough blood down his sister’s front in the last two hours.’ He touched Eloise on the arm. ‘You go, my lady. Sir Owain will escort you.’
‘Oh, Sir Owain can stay—’
But the silver-grey knight was already turning her towards the door, disregarding her objections. ‘Yes, I intend to, Janos. I’ll have some food sent to you. We’ll return later, before bed.’
‘Will we?’ Eloise said, in the passageway outside the door.
‘Yes, lady. We shall. That, among other things.’
Too weary to ask what he meant by that or why she needed an escort at all, Eloise walked by his side in silence through a hive of torch-lit passageways where the rich aroma of roasting meats was carried on the draughts. Echoes of clattering dishes, shouts of men and the discordant tuning of musical instruments assailed their ears at every turn until they reached the stairway that spiralled upwards to their chambers.
Eloise went on ahead, but when Sir Owain passed his own doorway and continued up to hers, she halted, leaning against the wall to look down at him.
‘Go on,’ he said. ‘It’s all right.’
She hesitated, unable to see his expression in the shadows, but feeling his hands on her waist, moving her on. Resigned, and unable to argue, she climbed the last few steps and opened the door, making no protest as he followed her inside and closed it behind them. The chamber was lit only by one candle on a tall iron stand, its flame already guttering in the gust of air from the door.
‘Wait,’ he said. He took another candle from its sconce and lit it, then another, instantly returning shapes to their places, adding faces to their voices, meanings to expressions.
‘Thank you, Sir Owain,’ Eloise said. ‘I can manage now alone.’
He stood looking at her as the distant wail of a hurdy-gurdy was caught on an uplift of night air. Slowly, he held out his arms. ‘Come on,’ he whispered. ‘Come on, lass.’
She had no need to ask what he meant, but her resistance to him was now well rehearsed and she was unwilling to trust her impulses as often as she had in the past. Her legs refused to obey either his command or hers, yet her eyes could not hold back the messages of compliance as they watched him unfasten the silver brooch, lift his cloak off his shoulders and toss it on to the bed. Without releasing her from his careful watch, he came to her, reaching out and drawing her carefully into his arms, tilting back her head, angling it into the soft candlelight.
His thumb brushed tenderly over her eyelids, wiping away a fringe of dampness that remained. ‘No more tears, my beauty. No more fighting. The skirmishes are over for today. You’ve had enough, haven’t you? Now it’s time to call a truce.’
She could have stopped him, pushed herself out of his embrace, but this was nothing like the previous harsh capture of steel-plated arms, nor was it the stuff of her dreams, downy and insubstantial. It was rock-firm, comforting and, for the first time in her life, everything she wanted. This time, his lips lured and enticed, nudging her into the response to which she had been so close before, tenderly leading her deeper into surrender, masterly and persuasive. He gathered her closer in to him.
She reached up at last to hold his head, to cling and touch and fill her fingers with his hair, with the cool skin of his neck and the width of his shoulders. The strength in her legs left her, weightless, spineless. ‘No,’ she whispered, heeding some aimless, pre-planned, age-old response.
‘No,’ he agreed. His mouth explored the long satin sweep of her throat, hungrily tasting while she breathed in the heady aroma of male success.
‘No,’ she said again. ‘You forget.’
He lifted his head and regarded her seriously. ‘No, lady, I do not forget. I know of your plans to remarry. You told me yourself. I do not accept them. Nor will the king. Nor should you pursue them. They will fail. Forget them.’
Wearily, she shook her head. ‘Please, don’t try to persuade me. I’m too tired to argue.’
‘I know. This is no time for decisions. You’ve had a damnable day, haven’t you? And you’ve dealt with it all as I knew you would, superbly. But there’s the rest of the evening to get through, and I’ve decided we’ll do better to get through it together, in each other’s company, without the hostilities.’
She began a protest. It would be misunderstood, misinterpreted, and anyway her family knew she didn’t like him, and it would appear disloyal, and so on. But he stopped her with another skilful kiss that made her forget the rest.
‘Yes,’ he said, slipping the gold and amethyst circlet off her brow and smoothing the mark of it with his fingers, ‘I know all that, too. But people will believe what they like, and a truce is merely a breathing space, not the end of the battle. There, does that reassure you? Come, lass,’ he whispered, touching her lips like a butterfly with his own, ‘trust me. I’ll take good care of you, I promise.’
To his credit, he had shown her, directly and indirectly, how it felt to have his protection. With him, she need not fear that dreadful half-existence or the effort of pretence that dogged each of their public encounters. The suggestion was a consolation for a day of intense mental effort that had kept her barely on the edge of normality. She nodded, closing her eyes and resting her cheek upon his silk velvet-covered chest. ‘A truce, then. A temporary one, mind.’
His quiet laugh bumped at her cheek. ‘All truces are temporary, lady. They also have rules. Neither party may reopen hostilities within the time period without giving the other fair warning. Is that agreed?’
The distant blare of a trumpet overlapped his words.
‘That’s the hall-steward’s trumpet for supper, and I’m not ready,’ she said.
‘We should go down. Come.’
‘I cannot go like this. Saskia…’
The door swung noisily open. The maid’s assessment of the situation was reliable and skilled. ‘Supper!’ she said, carrying Eloise’s physic-chest sideways through the door and depositing it into Sir Owain’s waiting arms. Without batting an eyelid at his presence, she took charge. ‘No time to change. Have you washed? No, you haven’t! Tch!’ With the untiring efficiency of a nurse with a tardy child, she sat Eloise on the bed, tidied her hair, dabbed at her face with rose-water, then accepted the use of the violet cloak to cover the stains on Eloise’s pink surcoat. The effect could not have been bettered.
If Saskia was puzzled by the new accord between them, she gave no sign. Yet, of all those in the hall who noted it, it was she who understood the real reason for Eloise’s most unusual docility in the company of the one she privately claimed to loathe.
As plans go, it worked well for both of them, being a great source of r
elief also to Sir Crispin and Lady Francesca de Molyns who had begun to fear the worst for the already problematical relationship. They need not have worried: to the outward eye, all was at peace between their victorious neighbour and their daughter and, if she was somewhat more subdued than usual, it could be due to one of two things, either his discipline or her tiredness.
To Eloise, the immediate effects of being in Sir Owain’s company were at first comfortably ill defined, his kisses having acted like a drug, the effects of which were potent and lengthy, sedating her as effectively as any mullein infusion of Saskia’s. He must have known, for his hand occasionally took hers beneath the white-covered table, holding it on her knee or his own while talking to others, not showily as if to boast, but possessively.
Even so, his quiet attentions to her did not go unobserved, and more than once she noted his friends watching them, smiling and commenting below the level of the general clamour in the hall. Cynically, it crossed her mind more than once during the evening that Sir Owain had insisted on their truce to add some credibility to the fact that, to all intents and purposes, he was her champion on whom she had bestowed her favour. Any continuation of their former hostility would have been hard for him to explain after their private talk in Sir Rolph’s pavilion.
That she was the object of some envy from the women did not escape her either, especially as he made no attempt to disguise his interest throughout the splendid supper, the plays and mumming, the disguisings and the dance that followed. Coming from the one who had shown such outstanding prowess at the jousts, who was by far the handsomest, the one on whom men were laying their wagers to win outright, his attentions were all the more valuable. But by far more meaningful to Eloise was the unexpected thrill of knowing that, for whatever reason, she had the power to make their truce last as long as she chose.
Unaware that Sir Owain was also the cause of some envy amongst the men who had harboured their own secret hopes, Eloise felt a sporadic sense of confusion at her own inconsistency in the matter, not so much for the way it might look to others but at the way it felt to her. The tormenting dread that she had taken the first steps towards becoming yet one more of his ‘countless’ conquests was never far from her mind, nor was the perverse reminder that she had sworn never to allow a repeat of the hopes she had had once before. Worse than anything was her chaplain’s nagging advice that she should keep this day quietly alone, in prayer, and what was the good of employing the man if not to take his advice? If Father Eamonn had known of her desires at this moment, he would probably have dismissed himself from her service for having failed in his duty.
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