* * * *
‘Just a moment!’ Rowena called in answer to the knock that had just sounded on the door.
She wiped the stewed apple smeared around baby James’s face off with a cloth, and hurried over to his older brother Peter, who sat howling on the floor surrounded by the sticks, bits of wood and tied cloth dolls he was using as toys.
She crouched beside the little boy. ‘Shush, honey, it’s alright. Show me which hand you hurt.’
‘The-this one,’ he wailed pitifully, holding out a red little hand. ‘The b-block fell on it!’
The knock sounded again, louder and more insistent this time.
‘I said I’d be with you shortly!’ she shouted above the din in the cottage.
Peter’s howls were promptly joined by his little brother’s. Distressed by Peter’s anguish and his own lack of attention, he banged the spoon Rowena had been using to feed him with on the table, where he was seated in his little chair, and cried ‘Mama, Mamaaaa!’
‘Rowena, can I come in?’
She instantly recognized the voice outside as belonging to Sir Richard.
‘Oh no…’ she groaned aloud, at her wit’s end. With one weary hand she leaned against the nearby windowsill, and with the other cradled her hot, flustered head. ‘Yes, just let yourself in,’ she called weakly.
There was a click as he unlatched the door. She lifted her head to see him step inside and duck his head to fit under the low doorway. His state of mind was written all over his face.
It was not a good one, and she had not expected anything less. The last time she had seen him was when he was being half dragged, half carried towards the guest quarters by Aldred and Herlewin the previous evening.
Rowena let her head sink into her cupped hands with a sigh. Why did he have to choose the very worst time to turn up? Like right now, when she was surrounded by crying, out of control children and—she glanced down at the sorry sight that was her dress—smeared in stewed fruit.
‘Rowena…’ he growled at her.
She met his accusing glare with resignation. ‘Yes, what is it?’
‘You know what.’
Young Peter, seeing that his attempts to get ‘Aunty’ Rowena’s attention by pulling at her skirts were having no effect, started to howl even louder. Baby James followed his older brother’s example, and brought his screams up a pitch too.
The two children had both been in a difficult mood ever since she got there, and at this moment she felt like joining in with the children’s screams herself. Ignoring the screaming children and growling sheriff, she took a deep breath and tried to block out the noise for long enough to calm herself a little.
Then baby James decided to throw his bowl of stewed fruit onto the floor for good measure.
‘Oh Jamie, no!’ she gasped, as the pewter bowl shattered on the floor. ‘Why did I offer to look after them while Becky was bringing in the harvest?’ she groaned, collapsing onto the nearest stool. ‘They are like little angels when she’s here, but I look after them for a mere hour and they turn into the spawn of Satan!’ She wiped her sticky hands on her skirt and sighed. ‘I’m already at my wit’s end, Sir Richard, so please, whatever you do, don’t start bugging me about last night.’
A spark of anger flashed in Sir Richard’s eyes. Gripping the edge of the table with white-knuckled hands, he shut his eyes and tightened his lips to a thin, hard line.
Rowena braced herself for the inferno, but it did not come. Instead, he opened his eyes after a few silent moments and went over to the still-crying Peter. To the watching damsel’s great surprise, he gathered the little boy in his arms and lifted him up.
Peter seemed rather surprised too. He quickly stopped his crying and gazed at the towering stranger intently, a mixture of fear and wonder in his eyes.
The powerfully-built warrior smiled kindly at the little child. ‘What is the matter, young sire?’
‘I squished my little pinkies,’ Peter replied, regarding the injured hand gravely.
‘Now that is bad,’ Sir Richard said sympathetically. ‘Do you think your little fingers might hurt less if I showed you something special? How would you like to see my sword?’
The little boy looked up at him in wide-eyed wonder. ‘You have a s-sword?’
‘Yes, I am wearing it now,’ Sir Richard replied, setting Peter back down. ‘I’ll show you.’
Now that Peter had stopped bawling and she could actually hear herself think, Rowena got up and went over to baby James, whose earlier screams had subsided to a low sob. She lifted him out of his chair and started to rock him gently in her arms.
Meanwhile, Sir Richard was unbuckling his sword belt as Peter stood watching with rapt interest.
Once it was off, Sir Richard held out the sheathed sword to Peter with one hand. ‘Here, see if you can hold it.’
The little boy looked at it with awed reverence. ‘Aunty Rowena is always telling me stories about knights and dragons and princesses. Is your sword magic?’
Sir Richard laughed. ‘Magic?’
Peter crossed his arms and gazed up at the huge warrior with a look of graveness on his chubby little face that made Rowena smile. ‘Yes. In Aunty Rowena’s stories there is sometimes a sword that burns with flames or fights on its own.’
‘No, I’m afraid my sword does neither of those things.’
‘I just thought it might because you look like one of the knights in her stories.’
‘Thank you, young sire. I am indeed a knight,’ Sir Richard answered, a little too smugly for the liking of the watching Rowena.
The awe-struck child gaped speechlessly for a moment. ‘A knight?’ he finally asked. ‘A proper knight like the king makes?’
‘Yes, that’s right; the king did make me a knight.’
Peter held out his hands. ‘Can I hold your sword?’
‘You can try, but I warn you, it is very heavy.’ Sir Richard carefully lowered the sword into little Peter’s eagerly waiting hands.
As soon as the child had the full weight of the massive blade in his chubby little hands, he nearly fell to the ground. Sir Richard quickly took the weight again.
‘Lordy!’ gasped the little boy, looking worshipfully up at Sir Richard. ‘You are as strong as a giant!’
‘That’s because he is a giant, honey,’ Rowena chipped in, feeling relieved that the children had finally settled down, but somewhat cross and more than a little embarrassed that the menacing and often abrasive Sir Richard had triumphed where she had been failing so miserably.
She looked down on the now quietly-settled baby James. ‘He must be tired now. I think I might put him back to bed. Just bear with me a moment while I step outside—I moved his cot outside under the birch tree in the garden so he will not get so hot.’ She held out her hand to Peter. ‘Come, let’s go and put Jamie in his cot.’
The little boy pouted and clung to the table leg. ‘No, I don’t want to go.’
‘Are there knights in Rowena’s stories who protect the weak?’ Sir Richard asked the reluctant traveller.
Peter nodded his round, mop-haired little head sagely.
‘Why don’t you go out with Rowena and act as sentry while your little brother sleeps, like a real knight?’
The boy nodded eagerly.
Sir Richard handed Peter one of the long twigs lying on top of the woodpile near the hearth. ‘Here, now you have a sword too. Perhaps your sword will be a magic sword?’
Peter’s face lit up with delight as he took hold of it. ‘Yes! My sword makes monsters and evil knights turn into ashes if I touch them with it,’ he declared boldly, swinging the stick in his hand.
‘Shall we go and put your brother to bed now?’ suggested Rowena.
Peter nodded vigorously, making his golden curls bounce playfully. ‘Yes, I will escort you out, but—’ he looked up at Sir Richard, ‘first he must make me a knight.’
Sir Richard smiled good-humouredly. ‘Of course.’ He drew his huge sword out of its scabbard. ‘Now y
ou must kneel before me on bended knee.’
Peter solemnly kneeled before the warrior.
Sir Richard lightly touched the little boy on each shoulder, while Rowena held her breath at the sight of the massive steel blade coming so close to the dear little head.
‘Arise, Sir Peter!’
The little boy could not have looked more proud. He arose and solemnly turned his big eyes up at Rowena. ‘Now we can go. I shall go first, like a knight ought, to protect weak damsels and babies from bad things.’
Rowena laughed with delight and let him lead the way, which he did with full knightly dignity, shoulders back and ‘sword’ held in front as he marched out the door with his pleased minder following behind carrying his baby brother.
Sir Richard really was a case of still waters running deep…
.10.
The Revelation of the Night
ROWENA came back inside to find Sir Richard had pulled out a bench and sat down at the big table in the centre of the room.
When she had settled herself down on a stool at the other end of the table, he crossed his arms and fixed a reproachful look on her. ‘You know, Rowena, red hair is not the only thing you have in common with the fox.’
She put on her most innocent expression. ‘Oh?’
‘No. You also have the same low, animal cunning.’
‘To be showered with such lofty compliments…’ she cooed in mock-gratification.
The reproachful dark eyes were unrelenting. ‘I thought I knew you, but no. You might have the feeble body and sweet manner of a woman, but you have the heart of a damn fox that sneaks into the hencoop and kills the unsuspecting fowls in their sleep!’
‘Are you insulting me or just trying to tell me that you are a chicken?’ she inquired matter-of-factly.
‘Don’t take that tone; I know what you did to me!’
‘Yes, I tried to help you.’
‘You tricked me into drinking God knows what—probably something they give to horses when they’re castrating them—and then had me hauled away like a piece of meat and thrown in some damn flea-infested corner of the servant’s quarters!’
‘I did tell them to take you up to one of the guest rooms, but perhaps they were already all full.’
‘What if you had given me too much of that stuff? You could have killed me!’
‘I assure you, Sir Richard, the sleeping potion I gave you was perfectly safe.’
He gave an unconvinced grunt in reply.
She rested her chin on her hand and looked slyly across at him. ‘You have yet to ask me if I found the letters…’
He suddenly sat bolt upright. ‘Are you telling me you actually found them?’
‘I think I did.’
He jumped to his feet. ‘Where are they? Why didn’t you tell me you had them?’
‘I have them concealed on my person, and you did not ask.’
He held out his hand. ‘Show them to me!’
‘Bear with me a moment while I get them out…’ she said, turning her back to him for a moment while she pulled the letters out through the neck of her dress.
He looked on admiringly. ‘Good choice. No one would think of looking down there for them.’
She gave a slightly embarrassed laugh. ‘I’ve had them stuffed down the front of my dress ever since I found them last night, even while I was sleeping, in case Lord Cunningham discovered they were missing and had the manor turned over in an attempt to find them. I did not want to burn them until I had shown them to you, because I wish to make sure that these are the letters in question, and—’ she shot him an indignant look, ‘because I’m sure you would not believe that I really had found the letters unless you saw them with your own eyes.’
As soon as they were presented to him, Sir Richard seized hold of the four letters and tensely ran his eyes over each one.
‘Yes, these are the letters—they are all here,’ he said when he had finished, and let out a long sigh of relief.
‘Thank goodness! I doubt I could have managed a second attempt if they were not.’
He sat for several minutes silently staring at the letters in his hands, as if unsure if they were real or just phantoms conjured up by a desperate and overwrought mind.
‘You know, Sir Richard,’ she began tentatively, ‘I couldn’t help reading the letters…’
At this, he immediately snapped out of his reverie and a rather panicked look came over him. ‘Yes, and?’
Rowena could sense the unwelcome nature of her statement from his defensive, prickly tone. But it would take a lot more than that to put her off asking him the question that had been burning in her mind ever since she had read the letters the previous night.
The letters had been in a small, locked iron chest under the bed of the soundly snoring Lord Cunningham. She had been on the verge of giving up the search and going back to bed when the metal chest had glimmered in the lamplight and given its presence away. She had almost been too afraid to pull it out from right underneath her sleeping uncle, but the promise it held of ending Sir Richard’s financial woes and greatly unburdening Chaucy’s poorer citizens had made her bold.
The instant she set eyes on the letters she had known they were what she was looking for. They had Sir Richard’s familiar shaky signature at the bottom, were addressed to a lady called Morgana de Wintore—and contained English military secrets.
She looked calmly across the table at him. ‘Sir Richard, why did you not tell me you were a French spy?’
He pushed his dark hair back from his face, something he always did when he was at his most stressed, and bit his lip silently.
‘I believed that you upheld the rules of war, that you were loyal to your comrades. But now I find out that you were a...’ She paused, reluctant to say that most distasteful of words.
‘A traitor,’ he finished for her, in a voice that was hollow and empty.
‘Yes, a traitor.’ She spat the word out as if it tasted foul in her mouth.
He cleared his throat and darted a glance at her, then fixed his eyes back on the gauntlets he was wringing nervously together in his hands. ‘I’m afraid I got rather entangled with this lady, Morgana de Wintore,’ he began reluctantly. ‘It was years ago. I was only about four and twenty at the time. Morgan turned out to be a French spy. She manipulated me into passing on anything I knew about King Henry’s army in return for her faithfulness.’
‘Did it work?’ asked Rowena.
‘Did what work?’
‘Spying for Lady Cruelty in return for her love—did she forsake all others and keep herself only unto you?’
Bitterness passed over his face. ‘Yes. For about two weeks.’
‘So you then stopped spying for her?’ his companion asked hopefully.
The sheriff nodded. ‘These letters here are the only ones I passed on to her.’
‘Did the English realize that someone was betraying them to the enemy?’
Sir Richard threw the gauntlets onto the table and wiped away the sweat beading on his brow. ‘Oh yes. The tactical plans I passed on to the French did not cause the English a great deal of trouble, but they were furious that one of their own had betrayed them.’
‘And they no doubt wish very much to flush out the traitor and remove his head from his body,’ she added gloomily.
‘Can you see now why I was so reluctant for you to search for the letters?’
She frowned crossly. ‘No, actually, I do not. Unless you thought I would betray you, I really do not see what you would have to fear. And if you did think that, I would be sorely wounded. You might not have been above such things, but I would never even consider betraying a friend or comrade.’
‘I did not for a moment think that you do would do such a thing!’ he hurriedly defended himself.
‘What then?’
There was a long pause.
‘Sir Richard, tell me what you thought.’
‘I thought you would be furious with me if you found out what I had done,
’ he replied in a quiet voice.
She sighed and sunk her head down to rest on her arms, which were crossed on the table in front of her. ‘If I fancied myself angry with you, I think I would really be angry with myself for having believed you were something which you are not. No, Sir Richard, I’m not angry with you. I knew you were a dark horse and I would expect nothing less from you.’
Looking both relieved and somewhat ashamed, he smiled uncertainly. ‘I’m glad you’re being so good about it. I was terribly afraid you would fly into one of your righteous rages and denounce me like some vengeful angel who, upon weighing the soul of a mortal, had found it greatly lacking.’
She gave a low laugh. ‘Frankly, I don’t have the energy to get into a righteous rage even if I wanted to—though I am sure that if a vengeful angel did weigh your soul it would indeed find it greatly lacking,’ she added sharply.
He eyed her cautiously. ‘Or perhaps I spoke too soon…’
She yawned sleepily. ‘No, you are quite safe—for now.’
He nodded and gave a satisfied smile, then got up and walked over to the hearth. There the knight held out the incriminating letters which had cast a terrible shadow over his life ever since they had been written. ‘I’ve dreamed of this moment for many a long year...’ he whispered, throwing them into the flames.
The sheriff’s clerk was glad too. It was such a relief to have finally put an end to the nightmare that was Sir Richard’s overstretched finances.
He watched the letters burn until nothing but ashes remained, then turned away and came over to where Rowena sat.
‘I owe you my undying gratitude for risking your position and reputation for me in this way,’ he said earnestly, taking her hand in his. ‘I want to thank you for it with all my heart.’
She felt her cheeks grow warm in the face of a sentiment that she was so unfamiliar with having directed at her. ‘It’s really nothing. I have no position or reputation to speak of anyway.’
‘It was not “nothing”. What you did was very brave, and I want you to know that—’
‘Really, Sir Richard,’ she protested, ‘there’s no need—’
The Heart of Darkness Page 16