Conquering William

by Sarah Hegger

  Sister’s eyes opened and locked on Gregory. “Betrayer. The Lord will visit his condemnation on you.”

  “Do you think you can send Cedric for water?” Alice peeled Gregory’s clothing from Sister.

  Sir Gregory nodded. He took his clothing from her and balled it into his fist. “She will need a healer.”

  “I do not understand,” Alice said. “What sins can she possible have to atone for?”

  “Ah, Lady Alice.” Shaking his head, Gregory gave a sad smile “There breathes not one amongst us who can cast the first stone. We all battle our own demons.”

  Still waters ran deep through this tall knight. More than Alice could have suspected, knowing the stories she’d heard of him. Sister did a lot of railing about the word of God. Sir Gregory seemed to live it.

  A slim figure slipped into the room. Ivy cast a glance at Sister and then looked at Alice. “How can I help?”

  “Get you from me, whore.” Sister’s voice faded into a rasp, and her lids fluttered closed.

  Alice did not want to upset Sister further. “I am not certain…”

  Ivy grinned and winked at her. “Perhaps we should speak outside.”

  Alice followed her into the passage, certain she would not look so cheerful after being called a whore.

  “I have some knowledge of healing.” Ivy stood with her hands folded before her. “She will not allow me to tend her, without making herself worse. You tend her, and I can provide you with what you need.”

  Alice recanted every horrible thought she’d had and every nasty word she’d uttered about Ivy. The woman was a saint. A beautiful saint William smiled at too much for Alice’s liking, but still a saint.

  Chapter 16

  Too tired for much else, Alice sat and stared at the kitchen hearth fire. Tarnwych had long since settled for the night, and Cook and her boys snored from their pallets close to the warmth. Above stairs, Sister needed Alice to return with Ivy’s poultice for her wounds. Over the hearth, Ivy steeped yarrow in a large pot with Ivy alone knew what else. All day Ivy had battled by her side to bring Sister’s fever down, but the lashes on Sister’s back had become fouled, and the fever ate at her frail form.

  The old scars beneath the fresh lashes disturbed Alice more. Sister’s back bore the scars of a lifetime of whippings. Why? What sin did Sister seek to flay from her flesh?

  “Here”—Ivy put an earthen mug before her—“drink this. You must be tired.”

  She must be tired? Alice nearly laughed aloud. Aye, she was done in, but Ivy worked just as tirelessly. Alice accepted the mug with a smile of thanks.

  Ivy sat on the bench on the far side of the table, her hands clasped around a similar mug. “We need to wait for the yarrow.”

  Alice nodded. Yarrow would draw the infection from Sister’s body and halt the bleeding, Ivy had told her. “How did you learn about healing?”

  Ivy sipped her warm milk and placed the mug on the table. “When I came to Anglesea, Nurse took me under her wing. Some of this I learned from my mother when I showed I had a knack for it. When I was younger I always tended the animals about the farm or the other children.”

  Ivy’s dark hair lay braided down her back, her bliaut unadorned dun linen. If she had met her on the street, Alice would have judged her a farmer or craftsman’s wife.

  “You can ask,” Ivy said.

  Alice’s face heated. She had been staring, and both of them knew it. Weariness rid her of any idea of dissembling. “You do not look like…what you were. What they say you were.”

  “A whore?” Ivy tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

  “That is a horrible word.”

  A delicate snort escaped Ivy. “It is a horrible profession.”

  Alice giggled. Indeed, a horrible profession, and Ivy joined in her laughter. Ivy’s smile transformed her face into breathtaking. No wonder William forever made Ivy laugh.

  Their laughter cleared the air. “Is it true?”

  “Aye.” Ivy rolled the base of her mug on the table. “My father sold me to a man named Rudd when I was fourteen.”

  There was naught funny about that, and Alice sat straighter on the bench. What an awful thing for a father to do. Except…

  “I was a little older when my father married me to my first husband,” she said. “Although it is not the same, as he was but one man.”

  Ivy propped her chin on her palm. “One man. Many men. Women are sold as chattel to further a man’s ends.”

  True enough. What a depressing thought. Alice sipped the warmed milk and honey Ivy had prepared for her. “How did you come to live at Anglesea?”

  A look of distaste crossed Ivy’s face. “Rudd believed I was his to pass about as he liked, and he liked to pass me out a lot. I did not agree. Lady Beatrice came upon one of my disagreements with Rudd and rescued me.”

  “Lady Beatrice did?”

  “Oh, aye.” Ivy chuckled. “With no thought for her own safety, she attacked three men.”

  Sweet Bea, indeed! She would like to know a woman with such boldness. Except Beatrice barely acknowledged her, and Sister’s illness had delayed her plans for making amends.

  Ivy rose and tended her yarrow. “It is ready.” Movements neat and efficient, Ivy drained water from the yarrow and tipped the root into a clean basin. Ivy stood between Sister and her Maker, and Alice would have struggled without her.

  “It was not you,” Alice said.

  Ivy looked at her.

  “The other day in the hall. When I ran out. It was not you.”

  Ivy paused in grinding the yarrow. Potent, sweet herb scent filled the narrow space of the table between them. “Who was it then?”

  “It was the boy. Mathew. But I cannot explain it. I saw him and I was overcome with the worst kind of fear. As if my life was in danger. I ran before I could think better of it.” Saying the words out loud sounded ridiculous.

  With a frown, Ivy fetched a clean square of linen and laid it on the table. “Mathew cannot help the way he is. He was born that way.”

  “How is he?” Alice would rather ask Ivy than William, or God forbid, Beatrice.

  “He is…slower to learn than other children.” Ivy straightened and stretched her back. “He is easily confused and upset by change. But for all that, he has the sweetest nature of any person I have met.”

  Alice’s heart sank. The size of her mistake swelled until it threatened to engulf her. “William is wroth with me.”

  “William loves Mathew very much. He cannot tolerate any cruelty toward his brother.” Ivy spread a thick layer of slime-green paste over the linen. “What is it about Mathew that makes you fearful?”

  “I do not know.” And therein lay the thorn. She did not fear the boy himself. She feared…Alice groaned her frustration. “I do not understand it.”

  “Well.” Ivy held the poultice out to her. “Have you tried telling William so?”

  “I have not seen William since Sister fell ill.”

  “He is a reasonable man,” Ivy said. “But his love for his family comes first. Take this up and lay it across her back.”

  Alice took the poultice from her.

  “Make sure she drinks that tisane as well,” Ivy called after her.

  Alice dragged her bones upstairs and into Sister’s airless chamber. Putrefaction hung heavy and cloying in the air.

  On the palette, Sister tossed about. Alice had tied cloth constraints to Sister’s wrists to keep her from turning onto her abused back. More good advice from Ivy.

  She carried a basin of fresh water to the bed. Alice cleansed the wounds as gently as she could. Sister had flayed her flesh raw. At first, Alice’s gorge had risen at the sight, but she had grown accustomed to it now. Still, the pain Sister had inflicted on herself defied Alice’s comprehension. She could not believe God would demand such cruelty from his flock.

  Alice cleansed around the wounds before laying the poultice across Sister’s back. />
  All the time, Sister mumbled and muttered about her sins and the abomination. Alice gave up trying to make sense of Sister’s feverish meanderings, but a vicious taskmaster haunted the old woman. No person deserved the torment Sister suffered.

  Sister had sacrificed her life at the nunnery to stay and care for Alice. Alice could do no more than repay her in this small way. Still, Sister’s reaction to the Anglesea party seemed unreasonable, strange even.

  Getting Sister to swallow the tisane lying on her stomach presented a double challenge. Alice dipped a cloth in the tisane and pressed it to the upward corner of Sister’s mouth. She stroked her throat until Sister swallowed. It took time and more tisane ended on the linen beneath Sister than in her mouth, but Alice persisted until she had emptied the basin. If this room boasted a casement, Alice would throw it open and let the cold night air in. But Sister has insisted on occupying this tiny, comfortless cell.

  Bare, unadorned stone covered the walls and floor, the sparse furniture rough and worn, like a sort of penance all of its own.

  Alice added more wood to the fire and sat on the bench beside it. Ivy said the fever should break at some point, so now she waited. A prayer for Sister’s healing might help, but Alice had no prayers in her, so she sat and listened to the quiet sounds of the sleeping keep.

  * * * *

  William stood outside the chamber door and cursed himself for his cowardice. He dreaded the look of trepidation on Alice’s face.

  He had threatened her, spoken to her so roughly Father would have kicked his ass. While he bore the shame of his actions, she bore the fear. He knew a thousand ways to wheedle a woman out of a pet, or tease her out of a temper. Not one, however, to replace destroyed trust. Aye, Alice had erred in her treatment of his family, and they would still speak of that. But as his reason returned, he kept reliving the look on her face as she ran from the hall.

  People often turned from Mathew in disgust, but Alice had worn a face of pure terror.

  He had stopped Ivy as she made her way to bed. Ivy told him Alice cared for the nun. As much as he disliked the woman, he would not see her dying untended like an injured dog—however tempting the idea.

  His answers lay beyond a door he hesitated to open.

  William took a deep breath and pushed open the door. He recoiled a step into the passage as the stench belted him in the face. God’s alive! How could anyone bear this for more than a breath?

  The nun murmured and shifted about on the pallet.

  Drawing fresh air deep into his chest, William stepped into the room.

  Alice lay crumpled like a bundle of rags on a rough bench before the fire. She could tuck her entire form on the narrow bench. Such a delicate creature he had bellowed at and bullied. He would welcome Father’s ass-kicking. Shadows lurked beneath her closed eyes, and she frowned in her sleep. Glorious red hair tumbled onto the bare stone flags.

  A queer constriction happened in his chest, much like it did when he watched one of his nephews at play.

  So loyal, his Alice. She must have remained here and watched over Sister until weariness overcame her. Loyalty he understood. His own to his family had led to this chasm between them. He crouched beside her. Strange how he had thought her a trifle plain when he first saw her. Of course, he had not said as much to Roger, but he had harbored the thought. How could he not have appreciated the delicacy of her features, the sweet tilt of her nose, the lushness of her mouth? Spending the past nights wrapped in a blanket in the hall, he had missed her curvy little body pressed against him. Several times a night, he woke and reached for her to find himself alone. A married man had no reason to deny his desire for his wife, especially not when he had a lusty bundle like Alice in his bed.

  His Alice. His to honor, keep, and guard, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, as ordained by the Holy Church till death parted them. A lifetime seemed a long time to nurture a grievance between them.

  * * * *

  Alice floated warm and snug on her own cloud.

  She snuggled into her deliciously warm cloud and drew the faint smell of cloves in deep. Her cloud moved. Her eyes protested her opening them.

  “Hush.” William’s voice lowered and silky. “Go back to sleep.”

  Oh, she would love that. Alice closed her eyes again. She could not sleep. “Sister! I must care for Sister.”

  William’s fine features hovered above her. “Sleep. Someone will watch her while you do and come for you if you are needed.”

  “She does not like anybody else near her.” William carried her in his arms.

  “I know, and Ivy gave her something to help her rest while you do.” His face softened into an expression almost tender. “Sleep, my Alice. Martha will watch over her while you do.”

  She should remain awake, but her heavy eyelids drew toward each other. Against her ear, the steady sure pound of William’s heart lulled her.

  They reached their chamber and William lowered her onto the bed. Bending, he unlaced her shoes and slid them off.

  “Arms up,” he said.

  Alice obeyed, and he unlaced her bliaut and slipped it off.

  Next, he pulled down the bedlinens and helped her scoot under them. Beneath her aching back, the soft pallet folded about her like an embrace. William must have had it replaced.

  His footsteps grew fainter, and the door creaked open.

  Alice raised her head. “Stay.”

  William stopped, his hand on the door latch.

  “Stay.” Alice did not want to spend another lonely night in this bed. She held her breath as he stood by the door for a long moment.

  Finally, he approached the bed, shed his boots and clothes, and slid naked in beside her.

  Tears pricked Alice’s eyes. She scooted closer to his warmth. When his arm came about her shoulders and drew her head onto his shoulder, she nearly lost the battle with her tears.

  He pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head. “Sleep.”

  * * * *

  Alice screwed her eyes shut against the forceful sunlight insisting she wake up. She stretched out her arms and encountered empty bed. Her body protesting each movement, she sat up. Wintery sunlight caught dust motes in the air. At least the infernal rain had stopped.

  William had left the chamber.

  Twice she had woken in the night, just to confirm William had carried her to their bed and joined her there. His pillow still bore the imprint from his head.

  A gentle tap came from the door.

  “Come in.”

  Ivy poked her dark head around the door. “I see you are awake. William said to let you sleep, but I thought you might be hungry.”

  “How is Sister?” The food Ivy bore made her stomach growl. She had barely taken time to eat whilst tending Sister.

  Ivy smiled. “She is more peaceful this morning. The fever broke in the early hours and she sleeps now.”

  “Thank God.” A weight lifted from Alice’s chest. “And thank you.”

  “It is what I do.” Ivy shrugged. She placed the food on the table beneath the casement. “Come and eat.”

  “She will not be grateful.” Alice took the pottage. Bless Ivy! She’d put honey, cream, and apples into the pottage.

  “William prepared it.” Ivy gave her a mischievous grin. “He said he knew exactly what you liked best.”

  Alice nearly snorted her mouthful of pottage. Her face heated. Such a bad one, William. Even sweeter than Sister recovering was William opening a small chink in the door between them. Aye, Alice would skip through. “Is he about?”

  “Nay.” Ivy busied herself fetching Alice’s garments. “He rode out with the men earlier.”

  “Oh.” She would have liked to find him right away and set matters straight.

  “But he will return.” Ivy fetched her boots and placed them near Alice. “He gave the command that you were not to spend the day in the sick room. One of the serving women will sit with Sister, and
you are to join me for a walk in the fresh air.”

  “William said that?”

  “Indeed.” Ivy shook a clean chemise out. “Now, come and dress. Clouds are already building to the north. I fear we will not have much sunlight left.”

  Alice checked on Sister before she and Ivy left. Martha sat beside Sister and tended to some darning. “I will keep a sharp eye on her, my lady.”

  “Call me if there is any change.”

  “Right away.” Martha waved Alice out. The elderly serving woman had lived at Tarnwych as long as Alice, before her arrival even.

  Weak winter sun had never felt so glorious as it did on her face as Alice stepped into the bailey. Ivy’s threatened clouds boiled about Tarn Crag, driven forward by the stiff breeze. For now, Alice reveled in the freshness of the wind, the warmth on her back.

  Ivy led the way through the inner bailey and into the outer. Around them, people stepped lighter as they too enjoyed the respite from the driving rain and cold. Ice rode the wind in a sharp bite holding the threat of snow.

  Sir Gregory would need to leave soon or risk the weather trapping him at Tarnwych. “Snow is coming. We must warn Sir Gregory.”

  “He left at dawn.” Ivy raised her skirts and picked her way around the puddles. “He hates to be separated too long from Lady Faye.”

  What a grand thing, to have a man who loved you as much as Gregory loved his Faye. She might settle for a man who prepared her pottage for her, or carried her to bed and undressed her like a babe. He may not love her, and Alice’s heart gave a small twinge, but she preferred it to the cold, lonely silence.

  Their boots rapped on the wood of the drawbridge as she and Ivy strode across. Outside the shelter of the keep walls, the wind picked up and tugged at their skirts.

  “Where are we going?” Alice raised her voice over the wind.

  “There.” Ivy pointed.

  From where she stood, the land sloped to a meadow sheltered by low scrub on one side and tucked against the side of a long rock outcropping. In the meadow Lady Beatrice’s golden head gleamed in the sunlight. Three children clustered about her. Alice missed a step. The fear returned.