by Jane Feather
Simon hid his concern as he knelt before the tub and scrubbed her with a washcloth, desperately trying with friction to get some heat back into her. The maids were thrusting hot bricks wrapped in flannel into the bed. Doris was drying Ariel's hair in a thick towel. Steam rose from the tub, the fire was built to bonfire proportions, and sweat dripped from everyone in the room but Ariel, who continued to shiver.
Both Simon and Doris dried her. "She needs a nightgown or chamber robe," Simon instructed. Doris produced a thick woolen chamber robe.
"I hate that robe. It makes me itch," Ariel protested through chattering teeth. But no one took any notice of her, and in a very few minutes she was in bed, quilts piled up high on top of her, hot bricks pressed against her body. But still she shivered, and there was an ominously hectic flush on her cheeks.
Simon laid a hand on her forehead. "You can physic others, Ariel; what should we get for you?"
She shook her head. "Nothing. It will pass once I warm up. I wasn't in the water that long."
"Long enough," he said shortly. "There must be something…" He stopped when he saw that her eyes were closed and she seemed to be sleeping.
A tap on the door announced Jack Chauncey, who stood in the doorway. "I thought maybe Lady Hawkesmoor would like to know that her mare is back in the stables. Her groom is taking care of her. He said I was to tell Lady Ariel that the wounds were cleaning up nicely, but he would use a paste of saltwort to guard against corruption."
"Tell him to cauterize the wounds first." Ariel's voice was a thin croak. "With a sulphur match. It has to be done, the hawk's claws are filled with poisonous matter." She muttered something that sounded to her listeners like a string of curses from a shipping wharf, but her voice was lost in a bout of hollow coughing.
"I retrieved your knife, Simon," Jack said a touch awkwardly, seeing his friend's grim visage as he lifted Ariel's head and propped more pillows beneath. "I know how much it means to you." He held out the knife.
Simon turned from the bed and took it with a nod of thanks. Jack had wiped the blade, but there remained a few dried rusty drops of the falcon's blood. It had been his father's knife. He thrust it into the sheath in his father's wide belt with the jeweled buckle.
Ariel turned her head on the high pillows. The coughing had ceased but her face was both white and flushed and her eyes were heavy under swollen lids. "Jack, will you remember to tell Edgar about the sulphur?"
"Of course, Lady Ariel."
Her chuckle was a faint thread. "Must we be so formal, sir?"
Jack smiled. "Not if you don't wish it, Ariel."
"I don't," she said, then turned her head away, and the men watched her desperate fight to keep the cough from breaking loose. It was a fight she lost.
"I'll tell Ravenspeare that you'll not be joining the party tonight," Jack said unnecessarily as he left the room.
Simon waited until Ariel was quieter, then he said, "Tell me what I can do for you, sweetheart. If you can help others, you know how to help yourself."
"Ephedra… but I don't have any."
He placed his hand on her brow. Her skin burned against his palm. "Then where will I get some?" he asked patiently.
"Sarah, but she-" The rest of the sentence was lost in a renewed attack of coughing.
"I've brought some 'ot flannels for Lady Ariel's chest, m'lord." Doris entered the room without bothering to knock. "They're soaked in camphor. She uses 'em for chest ailments. Cured Mistress Gertrude like a charm last Easter."
She proffered her strong-smelling cloths. "Shall I put 'em on, sir?"
"Yes… yes, if you think they'll help." Simon drew back the quilts and opened Ariel's robe, exposing her creamy breasts and the taut frame of her rib cage. Her flushed skin was raised in a rash.
"Get the robe off me!" Ariel demanded fretfully, her hand fluttering over her chest.
"Find her another robe, Doris. This is irritating her skin."
Doris carefully laid the aromatic flannel over Ariel's chest before fetching a wrapper of fine lawn from the dresser. "This isn't as warm, m'lord, but like as not it'll trouble 'er ladyship less."
Simon lifted Ariel from the bed as Doris eased off the woolen robe.
"I can do it myself." Ariel flapped at them as she tried to push her arms into the sleeves of the lawn wrapper. But another fit of coughing overtook her and she left them to it. The camphor-soaked flannel seemed to bring her some ease when she was finally lying back again, and her eyes closed.
"She'll get the ague and the lung fever agin, m'lord. You mark my words," Doris said doomfully.
"When did she last have it?"
"Oh, not since she was about ten or eleven. But I don't rightly know, m'lord. Nearly died of it she did, then. If it 'adn't been for daft dumb Sarah, she'd-"
"Lady Ariel just said this woman Sarah has some medicine," Simon interrupted, silencing Doris with an impatient hand gesture. "Where is she to be found?"
"We could send fer 'er, sir, but I don't rightly know as 'ow she'll come." Doris said. "But per'aps blind Jenny could come on 'er own if we send Edgar to fetch 'er."
"Why wouldn't the woman come if she's a friend of Lady Ariel's?" Simon demanded harshly.
Doris shook her head. "Oh, she'd go through fire an' water for Lady Ariel, but powerful afraid of Ravenspeare she is. Lady Ariel won't never ask 'er to come 'ere."
"Well, Lady Ariel isn't asking her. I am. Tell me where to find her."
Doris looked doubtful. "Best to send Edgar, m'lord. You'd need to drive the gig, and then the lane to the cut is powerful rutted, an' with this ice an' all."
"It needs a man steady on his feet. I understand you." His eyes were as bleak as his voice. "Then send Edgar with all speed. And tell him to bring the daughter too."
"Aye, m'lord." Doris, with a scared look, dropped a curtsy and raced from the room.
Simon returned to his vigil beside the bed, his eyes darkening as he stroked back the hair that clung damp with sweat to the broad brow.
Chapter Fourteen
Sarah sat at her loom beside the hearth, her fingers never ceasing their busy threading and weaving, as Edgar explained his errand, his voice uncharacteristically hurried. Sarah's fingers worked like automatons, her expression was serene, but behind her eyes the maelstrom raged.
Jenny stood by the table where she'd been slicing carrots for the women's midday meal, her hands now stilled.
"How bad is she, Edgar?"
"Eh, Miss Jenny, Doris says the cough's already in 'er lungs, she thinks." Edgar pulled at his cap in his hands. "'Is lordship of 'Awkesmoor is beside 'isself, Doris says."
The man who had come in peace, Sarah thought. Ariel had laughed bitterly when she'd first told of the Hawkesmoor's absurd ambition-to bring an end to the blood feud between their families. She had laughed bitterly and in complete disbelief, convinced that mere greed had prompted the man to instigate such an unnatural connection. But then Sarah sensed that Ariel's attitude had changed, that she now believed the earl of Hawkesmoor had genuinely if unrealistically wished with this marriage to heal the wounds of history.
And Sarah could have told her that Hawkesmoors, for all their passion and driving ambitions, were always more interested in love than in hate. And Geoffrey's son would be no exception.
"How long's it been since Ariel fell in the water?" Jenny asked.
Edgar frowned. "Two hours, per'aps." Jenny nodded briskly. "That's good. The fever may not yet have taken a grip." She began to move around the small room as deftly as if she were sighted, gathering things together. "Ephedra, Mother?"
Sarah nodded, and although Jenny couldn't see the gesture, she clearly sensed it. She kept up a running commentary of what she was putting together, "Slippery elm bark, coltsfoot, ground ivy, horehound, chamomile," and Sarah, listening intently, affirmed each selection in a silence that spoke as clearly as words to her daughter.
Sarah rose from her loom and went to the back of the room, where she unlocked a small corner cabinet
. She took out a vial of smoked glass and added it to Jenny's basket.
Jenny touched it with an identifying finger, then said, "Ariel won't take laudanum, Mother."
Sarah simply laid a hand over her daughter's, and Jenny shrugged acceptingly and left the vial in the basket.
"I'm ready, Edgar." She looked expectantly toward the door where she knew Edgar still stood.
"The earl wants Mistress Sarah to come too," he stated, glancing at Sarah, who now stood stock-still beside the table.
Only now did Sarah fully acknowledge what she had known in her most secret heart since Ariel had first come with the news that she was to wed the earl of Hawkesmoor. She needed to see Geoffrey's son for herself. The son she never knew Geoffrey had had. If he had never come to Ravenspeare, she could have continued to live in the ignorance she had so long ago sworn never to question, but now she had the opportunity, she could no longer resist the need to see and to know.
"Mother doesn't like Ravenspeare," Jenny said into the silence. "Ariel would not expect her to go there."
" 'Is lordship was right insistent," Edgar persisted, twisting his cap between his hands. " 'E said as 'ow I was to bring you both, seeing as 'ow Lady Ariel is powerful bad and Mistress Sarah cured 'er the last time, when she was naught but a babby."
Jenny turned her blind eyes to her mother, who still stood immobile by the table. Her mother's fear and loathing of Ravenspeare Castle was one of the facts of their lives. There was no explanation for it, and when Jenny had once tried to probe, her mother had grown angry, which was such an extraordinary occurrence, her daughter had never brought up the subject again. Both she and Ariel accepted it and now no longer even speculated between themselves.
Sarah closed her eyes and let the surging panic have its way. Angry red circles of pain swirled within the blackness of her internal landscape. It had been long since she had permitted herself to feel the deep and dreadful loss, the old physical agony that still lived in her nerve endings, the agony of a violation that had exposed her soul and her body to the ultimate vileness.
She had taught herself to turn her mind away from the red and black of that memory, but now it filled her, filled every nook and cranny of her being until she couldn't breathe and thought she would choke on it. But she must let it come and then pass from her before she could face Ravenspeare Castle.
Jenny with a small cry came quickly over to her mother. She laid a hand on Sarah's shoulder and felt her mother's violent trembling. "You mustn't come," she said. "You mustn't. Ariel wouldn't expect it, and why would you do the bidding of a Hawkesmoor?"
Sarah ceased to tremble and the red mist faded. Jenny could never know that her mother would do the bidding of a Hawkesmoor out of an old love and an undying gratitude. And if that weren't enough, Ariel needed her. Ariel, whom she thought of as a second daughter. Ariel, in whom Ravenspeare blood flowed as it did in Sarah's natural daughter. Flowed, but without taint.
Sarah's tight, locked face relaxed again. She touched a hand to her throat, then to her lips, then she went to the hook by the door where hung her cloak and took down the thick woolen garment.
Jenny looked bewildered but she said nothing, merely fetched her own cloak, picked up the basket, and followed her mother and Edgar from the cottage, closing the door firmly behind them.
No one said a word throughout the journey, Edgar keeping to the taciturn, phlegmatic silence that suited him, Jenny too puzzled by her mother's volte-face to chat inconsequentially, and Sarah, always mute, locked in her own world as she prepared to pass beneath the arched entrance of Ravenspeare Castle.
Simon paced Ariel's bedchamber, the sound of his halting, uneven step loud in the silence. The hounds, now as restless as he, stood at the bed, their heavy heads sometimes resting on the covers as they gazed at Ariel's pale face on the pillow, or lifted to follow the man's anxious movements.
Ariel was finding it hard to breathe. Her breath wheezed in her chest and whispered through her mouth. But she felt, when she tried to assess her condition with the objectivity of a physician, that matters had not gone too far as yet. If Jenny came quickly with the ephedra and fever-reducing medicines, it should be possible to nip this impending attack of lung fever in the bud. She could not afford to be bedridden. She had to protect her horses from whatever Ranulf had in mind, be on hand for the mare's foaling, and conduct further negotiations with Mr. Carstairs.
As the list went round and round in her brain, she felt her fever rising with her level of anxiety and fought to calm herself. She touched the dogs heads, hoping their steady presence would soothe her, but the sound of Simon's pacing undid any good the dogs could do.
She struggled up a little on her pillows. "You don't have to stay in here, Simon. Go down and join the others in the Great Hall."
"Don't be absurd," he said shortly, coming over to the bed. He scrutinized her countenance, his sea blue eyes brimming with concern. "It would have been sensible to have kept out of the gyrfalcon's way."
Ariel's fever-filled eyes flashed. "I might say the same for you, sir."
"I didn't see it coming," he retorted.
"And I was supposed to stand by and watch it tear your face to pieces, I suppose."
Simon shook his head wearily. "It was just possible I might have been able to avert it myself."
Ariel opened her mouth to respond but any words were lost in a spasm of coughing. Simon, with a muttered exclamation, leaned over her, rubbing her back in a futile attempt to ease the dry hacking. At last it ceased and Ariel fell back against the pillows again. Simon wiped the sweat from her brow with his handkerchief.
Ariel closed her eyes, not wanting to meet his steady gaze. She remembered what she'd said about his ruined face, and the words now sounded dreadful to her. It didn't matter that she'd been beside herself with rage and fear for the injured roan; it had been unforgivable, almost taunting. But she was too tired to begin to apologize or explain. Her tiredness was bone deep and seemed to have replaced the marrow-deep chill. The hot bricks packed against her body had done their work, although somewhere she felt the cold lurking, a menacing shadow waiting to take shape again. She wanted to sleep but her fatigue was not sleep inducing, it merely brought aching limbs and dry eyes.
Simon turned away from her and went to the window, looking down into the inner court. He was waiting for the two women to appear with Edgar, but in the gloaming the court was deserted. The sounds of feasting from the Great Hall burst forth loud and raucous when the ironbound door was suddenly flung open and a man appeared, bent double, vomiting into the shrubs beside the steps. The celebrations and excess went on, even without the bride and groom.
Simon raised his eyes from the disagreeable sight and looked out over the castle walls to the flat countryside beyond. But it was too dark now to see anything; not even the octagon of Ely Cathedral was visible.
There was a sharp rap on the chamber door as he peered into the dark. He swung round, calling admittance as he did so. Two women, accompanied by Doris, entered. "Mistress Sarah, my lord, and Miss Jenny." Doris bobbed a curtsy as she performed introductions.
"My thanks, madam, for coming so quickly." Simon spoke courteously as he crossed the chamber, extending his hand to the older woman. Dumb, daft Sarah, Doris had called her. But there was nothing in the least daft about this woman's blue eyes as they surveyed him. She was gaunt, her hair white as snow, and deep in those unnerving eyes lurked a knowledge that made Simon oddly uneasy.
To his astonishment she took his large hand in both of hers, the warm dry skin of her palms enclosing it, her fingers curling around his. Simon felt the strangest sensation, as if something from this woman had passed into him. Only with the greatest difficulty did he resist the urge to snatch his hand from her clasp.
Then she released her hold and turned to the bed where her daughter was already bending over Ariel.
"Sarah, there was no need for you to come," Ariel protested, struggling up against the pillows. "All I need is some ephedra, an
d some coltsfoot lozenges and slippery elm bark for the cough. Jenny could have brought everything."
"Mother insisted," Jenny said, beginning to unpack the basket. Sarah merely smiled and opened Ariel's robe. Abruptly her fingers ceased their unbuttoning as her eyes fell on the bracelet around Ariel's wrist. She picked up the wrist delicately between finger and thumb and looked at the bracelet. The charms danced as she turned Ariel's wrist over to see the underside of the encircling serpent with the pearl apple in its mouth.
Slowly she turned her head to where the earl of Hawkesmoor stood just behind her. Her haunted eyes held his gaze for a minute as she still clasped Ariel's wrist, and there was a question in her gaze that he couldn't identify, let alone answer.
"What is it, Mother?" Jenny touched her mother's hand. She could feel her mother's tension.
"You're right, Ariel should take off the bracelet. It's hardly appropriate to wear it in bed." Simon's voice was brisk, masking his own unease. He didn't know what it was that had disturbed the older woman, but he found he couldn't bear the gaze of those blue eyes in the gaunt white face. It was as if she was stripping him bare, seeing through him somehow. The only obvious explanation was that something about the bracelet had upset her-it was something of an acquired taste after all-so he did as he always did when faced with a threat, attempted to remove it. He reached for Ariel's wrist and Sarah released her grip, brushing her hand across her eyes as if dispelling some image.
Simon unclasped the bracelet. For a moment he fingered the emerald swan, the silver rose, the delicate pearl insets in the serpentine chain, the round pearl apple in the serpent's mouth. The hairs on his neck lifted as he traced the reared head of the viper, the tiny black jet of its eye. Where had he seen it before? Why was it so familiar? He couldn't capture the nagging elusive memory.
He became aware of the woman Sarah's eyes on him again and looked up sharply, almost flushing as if caught in some wrongdoing. But she turned back to her patient immediately, and he dropped the bracelet into his pocket.