by Jane Feather
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.<
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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, and 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.
Sarah’s fingers were once again deft and efficient as they finished unbuttoning Ariel’s robe. Jenny removed the camphor-soaked cloths and Sarah unscrewed the lid of an alabaster pot and began to anoint Ariel’s chest with an ointment that filled the chamber with fumes so strong that Simon’s eyes began to water.
Recognizing that he’d only be in the way if he hovered by the bed, he sat down by the still-blazing fire. The dogs came to him immediately and sat at his feet, their heads resting on his knees. Simon watched the proceedings around the bed, struck by the sure-handed efficiency of the two women as they tended to Ariel. Once, Sarah glanced at him over her shoulder, and again he was shivered by that strange sense of knowledge. It was as if she knew him in ways that he didn’t know himself. Perhaps she was a witch woman, he thought uneasily. One who had the “sight.”
Doris came in with a jug of steaming hot water and a flat skillet. She placed the copper jug on the bedside table and then set the skillet on a trivet over the fire. Simon shifted his knees sideways so that he wouldn’t hinder her work, and the girl blushed and pushed the dogs aside with rather more bustle than was strictly necessary.
She straightened and smoothed out her apron. “Will that be all, Mistress Sarah?”
“For the moment,” Jenny responded, reaching into the basket again, taking out a handful of coltsfoot. “If you’ll excuse me, my lord . . .” She reached across Simon’s lap to throw the leaves into the skillet.
Simon grabbed his cane and stood up. He limped over to the window, out of harm’s way, and perched on the cushioned seat beneath. He was unaware of Sarah’s covert glance as he moved awkwardly to his new site, and by the time he was seated again, she had returned her attention to the cough medicine she was mixing with the hot water in the copper jug.
As the leaves heated in the skillet, the room filled with powerful fumes that smelled like incense, that pierced Simon’s lungs with a clear coldness as he breathed it in. “It’ll help Ariel to breathe cleanly,” Jenny explained, hearing his slight gasp of surprise. “Perhaps you would prefer to go downstairs, sir.”
Simon shook his head before he remembered that the woman couldn’t see the gesture, but Sarah was looking directly at him with a thin eyebrow lifted, a question in her steady gaze.
“I am no nurse,” he said, “but if you give me clear instructions, I’m certain I can manage.”
Sarah nodded and turned back to Ariel, who was now propped high on pillows, the hectic flush still startling against her pale cheeks, her eyelids heavy and swollen, but to Simon’s ear it seemed that already she was breathing more freely.
Ariel swallowed the hot tea of slippery elm and coltsfoot that Sarah poured from the jug, and then lay back, closing her eyes. “There’s no need for you to stay longer, Sarah. You should never have come in the first place.”
“You know quite well you can’t prevent Mother from doing what she wants,” Jenny said with a slight laugh. She came back to the bed and laid a hand on Ariel’s forehead. “If you can sleep, Ariel, I think we might be out of the woods.”
Ariel smiled somewhat feebly. “Let’s hope so. It’s the last time I’ll be taking a swim in the Ouse in the middle of winter.”
“You never spoke a truer word,” Simon declared, rising from the window seat and joining the others at the bed. Ariel still looked very ill to him, but her voice was less croaky and she hadn’t been racked with one of those violent coughing spasms for five minutes or so.
“Sarah, there’s no need for you stay longer,” Ariel repeated with a mixture of pleading and urgency. “I can look after myself now, and I know you want to get home.”
“If you explain what I need to do, I can manage to care for Ariel now.” Simon hoped his hesitation didn’t sound in his voice. It clearly mattered to Ariel that her friends shouldn’t remain in the castle any longer than necessary, and it seemed to him that it was equally important she didn’t get agitated. “And I’m sure Doris will help.”
Sarah gave him another of her unnerving glances, then she touched Jenny’s arm, drawing her away from the bed, her eyes bidding Simon to follow.
“Ariel needs to sleep,” Jenny said in an undertone, taking the smoked-glass vial from her mother’s hand as Sarah held it out. “But I doubt she’ll take the laudanum. She’s not the best patient,” she added with a smile.
“Is the laudanum necessary?” Simon directed his question to Sarah, who responded with a decisive nod.
“Then Ariel will take it,” he said evenly, glancing down at the small bottle he now held in his hand.
The older woman’s eyes rested on his face for a minute, again with that intense and questing gaze. Slowly she raised a hand to Simon’s face. As slowly, she touched the scar, tracing its jagged length with a fingertip.
Simon stood very still; he couldn’t have moved away had he wished to. There was something so delicate yet so searching about a touch that was almost a caress. And the deep blue eyes looked into his and seemed to know him right through to his innermost core. But there was nothing sinister, nothing witchlike about the woman, only gentleness, and now he found there was something oddly comforting about that strange knowledge behind her eyes.
Jenny was standing very still. She looked puzzled. She couldn’t see what her mother was doing, but she sensed the tension in the small space that enclosed the three of them, sensed the strangeness of her mother’s taut vibrancy. Then Ariel coughed, a dry rasping sound behind them, and Sarah’s hand fell from Simon’s cheek. She moved away from him, gathering up her cloak, swinging it around her shoulders as she went back to the bed.
Jenny bent to replenish the leaves in the skillet on the trivet. “If you can keep these
fresh, Lord Hawkesmoor, it will help, and you should rub the ointment onto Ariel’s chest every three hours. And give her the tea for the cough whenever she wants it. There are also some lozenges she can suck to help soothe her throat and calm the cough. But if you can persuade her to drink the laudanum, she should sleep for six hours or so.”
“Rest assured, I will persuade her,” he said. His face and most particularly the scar still seemed to tingle with the lingering memory of Sarah’s touch.
Jenny gave him a quick smile and returned to the bed, picking up her own cloak as she did so. She moved unerringly around the chamber, Simon noticed. Presumably she had been there before and had committed its contours and furniture to memory.
“We’ll leave you now, Ariel.” She bent to kiss the patient. “Be good and take your medicine and I’ll ask Edgar to bring me back in the morning to see how you are.”
Ariel’s smile was rather feeble but it was definitely a smile. “I feel better already. Thank you both for coming, but I wish Sarah hadn’t come.”
“Your husband insisted,” Jenny whispered against her ear. “According to Edgar.”
Ariel flushed. “He had no right to do that.”
Jenny shrugged. “Maybe not. But you know that no one could make Mother do something she really didn’t wish to.”
That, Ariel reflected, was certainly true. She glanced up into the older woman’s thin face and read, as always, the hardness of purpose beneath the lines of suffering. “Thank you, Sarah,” she murmured, returning the woman’s kiss.
After the two women left, Simon came over to the bed, carrying the vial of laudanum and a glass.
“If that’s what I think it is, you may save yourself the trouble,” Ariel rasped, pulling the covers up to her chin and regarding him a touch belligerently. “I don’t take laudanum, ever.”