by Sarah Hegger
“Good.”
William entered, followed by an entourage bearing her bath.
Alice did not feel up to a bath, but William cajoled her into it. With tear-bringing gentleness, he stripped her and placed her in the warm water. He even washed and braided her hair for her before putting her back to bed. All the while he spoke as he worked. Snippets of his life, his various boyhood illnesses and injuries.
Alice’s jaw cracked on a mighty yawn as she sank into the bed’s softness.
“Sleep, Alice.” William kissed her forehead. “I will be right here when you wake.”
When next Alice woke, fat, lazy snowflakes drifted outside the casement. New snow had a magical quality about it, in the way it quieted everything about it.
She sat up slowly, testing her stomach’s willingness. William must have left.
She felt refreshed from her sleep. Indeed, she not only felt well, but hungry enough to devour an entire suckling pig. Quickly she dressed in one of her old bliauts. She welcomed the demise of the mud brown fabric. Soon Ivy and Beatrice would have her new bliauts ready for her. Perhaps just in time to let the seams out again.
Sister! It struck her midway down the stairs. Sister huddled beside the tarn in the deepening snow. Hurrying now, she went in search of William.
Beatrice, Ivy, and the boys clustered about the hall hearth. Little Adam made a great game of tangling himself in yarn skeins as his mother, and Ivy sewed.
“Feeling better?” Beatrice smirked at her.
Ivy stayed bent over her sewing.
“Ivy told you.”
“Told me what?” At feigning innocent, Beatrice had no talent. She must have thought so too, because she scrunched her nose and laughed. “Aye, she did. William will be delighted when you tell him.” She pointed at Alice. “And you are going to tell him soon, are you not, dear Alice?”
“Where is William?” She expected to see him when she woke.
“He had to leave.” Beatrice rescued her sewing from Adam’s grasping fingers. “The men reported some strange activity near the tarn this morning.”
“Tarn?” It burst from her on a near shriek.
Beatrice and Ivy stared at her.
She might tell them, but then they would speak with William, and she wanted him to hear it from her first. She did not fancy the retelling of her night’s foolishness second hand. “The tarn can be dangerous. I hope a village child did not wander too close.”
Beatrice jabbed her needle into the cloth. “I am sure it is nothing.”
“Could you eat?” Ivy folded her sewing and rose.
“Aye.” She could eat her way through a barracks worth of food.
Beatrice chuckled. “I am exactly so when I carry. Losing my belly one moment and hungry the next. Fortunately, for most of us, it passes off before long.”
Alice touched Adam’s soft curls by her knee. “I would like it to be me who tells William.”
Beatrice laid her hand on her heart. “Your secret is safe.”
Ivy snorted and raised her eyebrow at Beatrice. “Only if she tells him soon.”
“She will tell him.” Beatrice shushed Ivy with her hand. “A woman needs to find her own time and words to do such a thing.”
“There you are.” William strode into the hall, his handsome face ruddy with cold. His smile was warm and intimate. No sign of having encountered aught untoward.
“Did you find anything?” Beatrice voiced the question Alice dared not ask.
“Nay, nothing.” William pressed his cold face against Alice and kissed her cheek. “You look much better.”
“I feel much better.” Relief added extra warmth to her smile.
“There were signs that somebody has used the old crofter’s hut recently, but they were gone when we got there. Probably some poor soul taking respite from their travels.” He chafed his hands and held them out to the blaze. “It is cold out there,” he said. “Cedric! Wine!”
“Aye, my lord.”
“And warm it, Cedric.”
“Aye, my lord.”
Cedric’s boots clumped on the floor, followed by a loud clatter. “Beg your pardon, my lord.”
“He improves.”
“You are rather cheerful today.” Beatrice cocked her head and studied her brother.
“Indeed, I am.” William bestowed a soft, sweet smile on Alice before warming his back at the fire. “I find the cold most bracing.”
“That is not what you said when you arrived here.” Alice still giggled at William stomping around their bedchamber grousing about the cold.
“Indeed.” He winked. “That was before I discovered what a warm welcome Tarnwych really offers.”
“Dear God, William.” Beatrice clapped her hands over her ears. “You will upset my stomach if you continue.”
* * * *
Alice preceded William to their bedchamber to change for the evening meal. From the twinkle in his eyes, she could look forward returning very late to table.
He shut the door behind them and braced his back against it. Fine perspiration gleamed on his forehead. Despite William’s eagerness for bed sport, they must speak. The secrets between them would fester like an old wound, and she wanted them gone before she shared her good news. “William, there is something I must tell you.”
A sort of pained grimace crossed his face. He leant his head against the door and a wicked smile took its place. His voice grew heavy with lust. “I do not want to talk now, Alice.”
“I can see that.” Her blood warmed. “Unfortunately there is something I must tell you, and you will not be pleased.”
Scowling, William took a shaky breath.
“It is not that bad.” Perhaps she should forget the idea of speaking and adopt William’s plan. “Well, it is bad, but not as bad…”
He leant forward, shoulders to knees.
“William, are you well?”
“My head…spinning, aching.”
“Sit a moment.” Alice hurried to him and propped her shoulder beneath his arm.
William attempted a few steps on his own, stopped, and leant into her. His tunic was soaked through with perspiration, his face pale.
“William?”
“Water.” He worked his tongue in his mouth as if parched.
This could not be right. Did William have the same ailment she had suffered this morning? “Do you need to be ill?”
“Aye.” William clenched his jaw as she helped him onto the bed.
She brought the basin to him.
“Get Ivy.”
“Cedric!”
“My lady?” Cedric made his usual clumsy entrance. He glanced at William, stilled and stared. “Is Sir William ill now?”
“Aye.” It looked as if her morning’s ailment had not been a result of being gravid. Could it be the same ailment that beset Anglesea?
William groaned and grabbed the basin.
Alice could not suppress her flinch as he lost the contents of his stomach.
Cedric paled and scrambled out of the room.
The basin dropped from William’s hands, spewing vomit and pottery shards across the floor. “My hands.” William peered up, his eyes wild and unfocussed, his breath coming in slow, shallow rasps. Sweat poured down his face. “There is no strength in my hands.”
Alice sidestepped the mess and ran to him. She pressed him back onto the bed.
Ivy entered at a run. “What is it?” She leaned over William. Her long delicate fingers pressed into the pulse at his neck.
“Is it what I had?” Alice did not remember sweating like William did, or losing control of her limbs.
“Nay.” Ivy shook her head as she examined William. Her face grew still and grave.
He knifed his legs into his belly and yelled.
“William.” Ivy grabbed his face and held it firmly. “Listen to me, William. Does your stomach hurt?”
“He was sick.” Alice indicated the me
ss on the floor.
Cedric hovered in the doorway, retching as his horrified gaze locked on the befouled floor.
“Get some buckets and rags.”
Cedric pressed his hand to his mouth.
Alice raised her voice. “Cedric!”
He blinked at her.
“We need to clean this up so we can attend Sir William.”
Cedric backed out of the room, hit the doorjamb, and froze.
“Go, Cedric.”
Ivy murmured to William as she pressed gently on his belly. She glanced at Alice, the concern on her face setting light to Alice’s simmering worry. “What did he eat?”
Her stupid mind refused to function. She had not seen William all day. “I do not know. He was out and he came in not long ago.”
“Get somebody who will know. I need to know what he ate and drank today.”
“What is it, Ivy?”
William jerked onto his side and was violently ill.
“It cannot be.” Ivy pressed him down again.
William thrashed out, and Ivy ducked his arm just in time.
“What is it?” Alice wanted to grab Ivy and make her look at her, but Ivy’s entire being stayed intent on William.
“Help me strip him,” Ivy said.
Glad of something to do, Alice wrestled William out of his boots and chausses.
Constant thrashing from William made the task doubly hard. His dazed eyes locked on something only he saw.
“Ivy!” Alice yelled the other woman’s name in a desperate plea. “Tell me what ails him.”
Ivy looked up at her, her face deathly pale. “William has been poisoned.”
Alice shook her head. “Nay.”
“Aye, Alice.” Ivy ran the washcloth over William’s soaked chest. “I have never seen it before, but all his symptoms suggest black nightshade.”
“Nay.” Every child knew not to touch the deadly black nightshade berries from the day they could understand. Routinely, Gord had the plant searched for, pulled up, and burned. The berries, the flowers, they were unmistakable. “It could not be. There are none here.”
“Alice.” Ivy gripped her arms. “I know what I am seeing. William has been poisoned, and deliberately. He would never eat the berries, mistaking them for something else. I saw him take Adam and Richard out at Anglesea and show them the plant and warn them.”
“Dear God.” Alice’s legs crumpled and she grabbed the bedpost for support.
“Aye.” Ivy hurried to the door. “I am going to find some vinegar. We will attempt to purge him. You stay with him and make sure he does not harm himself.”
“Legs.” William writhed on the bed. “They cut off my legs.”
“The purge will work, will it not?” Alice took William’s arm and held it. “He will be fine once you get the poison out of him.”
“I do not know.” Ivy slumped in the doorway. “I need to know how much he took and when he took it.”
Cedric appeared with two cleaning women.
Ivy drew her shoulders back and marched from the chamber.
“Find me Aonghas.” Alice caught Cedric by the arm. “Or anyone else who went scouting with William.”
“Alice.” William knifed into a tight ball.
“I am here, William.” She pressed her hand to his forehead. It was clammy and blazing hot.
He stilled and turned his dead stare in her direction. “Alice.”
“Aye, William.”
He calmed enough for her to straighten his legs and get him to lie back.
“You must be still.”
“They cut off my legs, Alice.”
“Nay, William.”
He turned his head and stared at her.
“Your legs are right here. I can see them, and touch them.”
With a sigh, William closed his eyes. He lay deathly still, his chest rising and falling too slowly.
“The boy said you were looking for me.” Aonghas panted as if he had run all the way. “He said it was desperate.”
“Ivy says…” The words caught in her throat as if by uttering them she made them real. She could not collapse like this. William needed her. “She says Sir William has been poisoned. Nightshade. We need to know what he ate and drank today.”
Aonghas gaped at her. He raised his hands and dropped them again. “Ate? Took no food. My lord said better scouting on a sharp belly.”
Could Ivy be wrong? If William had not eaten aught—
“His water skin.” Aonghas smacked the door.
“Find it.” Hope crashed to the floor.
Aonghas left at a run.
“What is amiss?” Beatrice entered, chuckling. “Aonghas near plowed into me. Are that boy’s braies on fire?” She moved deeper into the chamber and her smile vanished. “William.”
“He is ill.” Alice grabbed Beatrice’s hands and clung. “Ivy says he has been poisoned.”
“Nay.” Beatrice squeezed Alice’s fingers. “Who would poison William?”
Dear God, the room swayed about Alice. Who indeed hated William enough to do this?
“Aye.” Grim-faced, Ivy bustled through the door. “You two, hold him. He will not want to swallow this. And get some buckets and washcloths ready. This will not be pretty.”
If the poison did not kill William, the purge might finish the task. Time and movement blurred into one endless, nightmarish blur.
Alice lost count of the sheeting she stripped from beneath William, the washcloths she and Beatrice used as William expelled the poison from his body.
Agonized screams ripped from him as he convulsed and flailed.
It took hours, with Beatrice and Ivy beside her, working alongside her.
Finally, he stilled and drifted into a restless sleep.
“He is strong.” Alice wiped her brow as she stood frowning over William. Damp tendrils of hair stuck to Ivy’s face. Her dress bore the stains of William’s hard battle against the nightshade. “We have done all we can and it is up to him now.”
Beatrice collapsed onto a rug by the hearth. If anything, she looked worse than Ivy. The beautiful gown she had worn for dinner was ripped in places from holding William.
“My lady?” Domnall the older tapped on the doorframe. “Is he…?”
“He must fight the poison now.” Alice’s voice seemed to come from some part of her that still clung to sanity. “What is it?”
“Aonghas has all the men who scouted with Sir William rounded up in the hall. We added a few malcontents to the bunch. What should we do with them?”
“Find out who did this to him.” Beatrice rose from the hearthrug like a soiled, avenging angel. “Break every one of them until you know who tried to kill my brother.”
Domnall nodded, his expression fierce and unbending.
“Wait,” Alice called before he left. “I might know who did this.”
Domnall jerked his head back. “Tell us, my lady.”
Alice sagged against the wall at her back. As they battled for William, she had chained her bitter certainty deep within her and kept it there. “The crofter’s hut. The one by the tarn. I know who was in there.”
“Alice?” Beatrice staggered toward her.
“Sister Julianna.” Alice dared not look at Beatrice. She had lied to Beatrice, and William now paid the price of her deceit and foolishness. “She escaped from the Nunnery. She is quite mad and she would have been more than capable of doing this.”
William’s uneven rasps of breath sounded loud in the deathly hush about her.
“You knew she was there?” An eerie calm inhabited Beatrice. “The night you came in so late, you came from that awful woman.”
“Aye.” Alice stood in the condemnation of Domnall’s gaze. She had done this to William, as surely as if she had administered the poison. “I thought I could persuade her to return with me and we could send her back to St. Stephen’s.”
Beatrice’s blow caught her ac
ross the cheek, so powerful it smashed her head back into the wall.
“You knew.” Beatrice hit her again. “Were you in league with her?”
“Nay, Beatrice.” Ivy stepped between them. So tiny Beatrice’s looming rage dwarfed her. “Alice would not have done that.”
“She lied to me.” Tears ran down Beatrice’s cheeks. “She lied to me and she may have cost my brother his life.”
“William is not dead yet.” Ivy cupped Beatrice’s face in her palms. “And he will not die. Not as long as there is strength in me and in him.”
“She killed him.” Great sobs wracked Beatrice. “She killed my brother.”
“Stop it.” Ivy shook Beatrice’s head. “She would not kill him because she bears his child.”
Beatrice drew herself up, pushing Ivy’s hands away and stared at Alice. “For that reason, and no other, I will not kill you.”
* * * *
“She does not mean it.” Domnall patted Alice’s shoulder as he led her down the stairs. “It is her grief and worry that speak for her.”
Beatrice would not allow Alice to remain in the sick chamber. Her shouts upset William, and Alice had left. William needed his strength for the battle to come. “Aye, I know that, but if I had told William about Sister when Seamus first brought me the message, none of this would be happening.”
“Seamus knew?” Domnall’s bellow echoed off the walls. “I will strip an inch of the little turd’s hide.”
“Nay.” Alice squeezed Domnall’s arm. They had enough to contend with without the brothers fighting. “It was not his fault. He is young, and Sister put the fear of God into him. I know of what I speak. She did the same to me for years.”
Men packed the hall in an eerie silence. Some sat, most stood, tense and alert. Heads spun their way.
“Sir William?” Aonghas rose from his place at the nearest bench.
“Fights for his life.” Alice had no words of comfort for him.
Nuns sat amongst the men, their black lifeless habits like doom portents amongst the men. Nuns? Alice knew she stared, but exhaustion and nagging worry bogged her thinking.
The Prioress pushed between two men. “We arrived just before Compline. We brought you the news that Sister Julianna escaped from us.” She took Alice’s hands in hers. “I hear you have already discovered so.”