The Silver Rose (14 page)

Without further thought she fetched from the storeroom the leather bag that contained her shiny instruments. “Come, Becky.” Taking the child’s thin hand, she hurried with her to the stables. “Put the gray to the gig, Sam,” she instructed a stable lad. She helped the child into the vehicle; the dogs leaped, barking around the wheels, and streaked off along the narrow cart track as their mistress drove hell for leather toward the village.

The cottage seemed even lonelier than ever, perched on its hillock above the dike, with the wind howling, whipping
up the still waters of the river, and carrying clouds of dust across the flat lands stretching to either side.

Despite the wind, Jenny stood at the cottage gate. Her uncanny ability to sense when someone turned onto the track leading to her mother’s house had obviously been keener than ever this morning.

“Is it you, Ariel?” she called, smiling, as Ariel drew rein at the gate. Without waiting for a reply, she opened the gate. The wolfhounds bounded through, pausing to rub their heads against the woman’s worsted skirt in greeting.

“Good day, Jenny.” Ariel sprang down from the gig.

“Who’s with you?” Jenny turned her blind eyes to the gig. They were large and beautiful, light blue with deep dark pupils, and if one didn’t know they were sightless, it would be impossible to tell.

“Becky Riordan.” Ariel swung the child down as she explained the situation. “If you and Sarah would go to the woman, I could take you in the gig and be back at Ravenspeare in time for the shoot,” she finished, walking with Jenny up the path to the cottage.

“Mother, it’s Ariel,” Jenny called as they crossed the threshold into the dim interior, lit in the daylight only by a rush lamp and the glow of the fire. The small windows were shuttered against the wind, and the single room was small, sparsely furnished, but the earth floor was swept clean and the air was fragrant with the racks of drying herbs set above the fireplace.

Sarah came forward quickly, holding out her hands. She took Ariel’s in a firm clasp, smiling silently, but her eyes were as sharp as ever as she scrutinized the girl’s face. It was the first time she’d seen her since her marriage, and she found herself looking for some sign of her new status upon the girl’s fresh bloom. But she could see nothing unusual.

And then her eyes dropped to Ariel’s hands still clasped within her own, and that deep shuddering began again in her belly. She stared at the serpent bracelet on Ariel’s wrist. She touched it, raised her eyes inquiringly.

“Ranulf gave it to me,” Ariel said, holding the bracelet up to the light. “He gave it to me as a betrothal gift, but I haven’t worn it until now . . . or at least not until the wedding. It’s strange but rather fascinating, don’t you think?”

Ranulf Ravenspeare had given it to Ariel? How could it be that the bracelet had passed from the man she had given it to into the hands of the Ravenspeares?

“Ranulf said it was a family heirloom, but I’d never seen it before,” Ariel continued, for a moment unaware of the older woman’s silent turmoil. “He gave me my own charm, though.” She touched the silver rose. “That’s quite beautiful, don’t you think?”

Sarah nodded but her smile was effortful.

“Are you unwell?” Ariel said swiftly, bending to kiss the faded cheek. “I am come on an errand of mercy, but if you cannot manage to go, I’ll go with Jenny.”

Sarah shook her head and her smile strengthened. She gestured inquiringly at the child clinging to Ariel’s skirts, her eyes wide with a fearful curiosity. All the local children knew of the two women herbalists who dwelt among the reeds. The one who never spoke, the other who couldn’t see. No evil was known of them—on the contrary, they were renowned for their healing skills—but they were strange folk and people called upon them with mixed emotions.

Jenny explained the situation to her mother as she moved efficiently around the interior of the cottage, filling a basket with what she deemed they might need to help the laboring woman. On her own ground, Jenny’s sightlessness was no handicap. “Ariel must be at her own wedding celebrations,” she said, reaching up for a bunch of dried thyme. When crushed and warmed in melted honey, the herb made a drink that could relax cramping muscles.

Sarah nodded and set about her own preparations. A few minutes later the women and child left the cottage. Sarah closed the door but made no attempt to lock it. They had little enough to steal and no enemies. They climbed into the gig and Ariel turned the patient pony in the narrow track.

She glanced up at the sky when they reached the main road, if such a narrow unpaved track could be so called. It was overcast but the wind was dying down and the faintest shadow of light was diffused behind the clouds. Ariel judged it to be close on midmorning. It would take half an hour to reach Ramsey. She must stay awhile and give her own opinion and advice on the situation. Another three quarters of an hour back to Ravenspeare. Breakfast would be well over by the time she reached the castle. The absence of the bride at the board, for the first meal after her wedding night, would draw remark, but it couldn’t be helped.

In fact, she stayed much longer than she’d expected to at the side of Becky’s mother. The woman lay on a mattress on the floor beside the fire. Chickens, coming in out of the cold, scratched unheeded around her. Her six other children wandered in and out of the cottage, letting in icy blasts that sent the green logs in the fireplace spluttering. The woman’s husband sat in a corner, puffing on a clay pipe, drinking from an ale pot, heedless of the whimpering children or his moaning wife. When the three women came in, ducking under the low lintel, he took their arrival as his own cue to leave the scene of pain and struggle and seek out his own companions in the tavern.

With an inarticulate grunt, he slouched out, on his way clouting a child who had had the temerity to stumble into his path. The toddler set up a shriek of indignation, and little Becky scooped him up and thrust a crust of bread in his mouth.

Ariel was used to such scenes. She took off her jacket, rolled up her sleeves, and bent over the writhing woman. Sarah and Jenny unpacked their medicines. As a pair, they moved seamlessly, Sarah as her daughter’s eyes, Jenny her mother’s tongue.

“It’s a breach,” Ariel said, sitting back on her heels, a worried frown creasing her brow. Alice Riordan screamed a high, unearthly shriek. Ariel wiped her brow, the flecks of foam from her lips.

“’Twas the same with ’er last two,” a voice muttered from a dark corner. An old crone whom they hadn’t noticed before pulled herself up from her rocker and tottered across to the fire. She stood looking down at the suffering woman with an expression both detached and compassionate. “Rub ’er belly with pig fat, that’s what I’d do.”

It was a common enough folk remedy but one that seemed singularly pointless to Ariel; however, sometimes it seemed to soothe the laboring woman. “If you think it’ll help, Granny, I should do it,” she said, helping Jenny lift the laboring woman so that Sarah could slip beneath her back the thick pad that would elevate her hips.

“You’d best be on your way, Ariel.” Jenny stripped the leaves from a bunch of herbs, tossing them into a pot of hot water. “Mother and I can manage.”

Ariel looked doubtful. “It might need the forceps.” She was much more sure-handed with the birthing instruments than the other two women.

Sarah, on her knees before the laboring woman, shook her head vigorously. Her hands were on the woman’s belly, shiny now with pig fat, her mouth pursed with concentration as she felt the contractions.

“Mother doesn’t think so,” Jenny declared. “We’ll manage, Ariel.”

Ariel still hesitated. She would much prefer to stay here in this fetid cottage, doing what she was good at, than return to the devious morass of murderous intrigue at Ravenspeare Castle. The situation here was straightforward. It would result in life or death, but the choices and their consequences were clear. In the world at Ravenspeare, there was no such clarity. But it had to be faced sometime. She couldn’t always avoid her own grim situation by plunging herself into the problems of others.

“I’ll send Sam back with the gig to take you home,” she said, picking up her coat from the floor. “He’ll bring calf’s-foot jelly and provisions for the family.”

“Aye, and if you’ve a lump of Old Man, it won’t come
amiss.” Jenny stood up and accompanied her to the door, her voice now low. “She’ll need to sleep if she comes through this, and that husband of hers’ll be on top of her again before she’s healed.”

“I’ll send some with Sam. Make sure her husband doesn’t get hold of it.” The opiate locally known as Old Man was much prized among Fen folk suffering from the agues and fevers that the marsh seemed to breed, but Ariel had noticed that people became quickly accustomed to it, and the more they used it, the more they needed to take of it to dull their pain.

She took Jenny’s hand in farewell, then the other woman returned to the sickroom. One of Becky’s little brothers was holding the gray’s bridle, although the pony was securely tethered to a sapling. The boy looked expectantly at Ariel, stretching out a grimy claw.

“Enterprising little lad, aren’t you?” Ariel observed with a slight laugh. She handed him a penny and untethered the pony. The child grinned and ran off down the street, his bare feet flying over the ice-hard mud.

Ariel shook the reins and the pony broke into a trot. As if on signal, Romulus and Remus bounded out of a narrow lane between two cottages and took up their places on either side of the gig.

It was close to noon when the gig turned into the stable-yard of Ravenspeare Castle. Lord Roland was examining the fetlock of one of his hunters. As his sister jumped down from the gig, he came over to her, his expression hard.

“Where have you been, sister? It’s unseemly you should absent yourself from the celebrations that are in your honor.”

“I take little honor from celebrations like last evening’s,” Ariel said tartly. “They were more designed to do me insult than honor. Me and my bridegroom.” She raised an eyebrow at her brother. She feared Roland less than Ranulf. He was not so quick to raise his hand. Ralph she despised, but
he was unpredictable when drunk and she was generally careful not to provoke him.

“You are insolent, sister.” But Lord Roland didn’t sound as if he cared particularly. He took snuff, examining his sister with a curious intentness in his gray eyes. “I understand you passed the night with the Hawkesmoor.”

“I believe it’s customary on a bridal night for the bride and groom to share a bed, brother.” She handed the reins of the gig to Sam and stepped away from the gig. The wolfhounds were at her heels, watchful.

“You were to pass your wedding night with Oliver Becket.” Roland never measured his words with his sister. Unlike Ranulf, he had too much respect for her intelligence to beat about the bush.

Ariel smiled. “My husband had other ideas.” She turned toward the stables. “Ideas he proved perfectly capable of putting into practice.” She left Roland standing in the middle of the yard and went to give Sam instructions about going to Ramsey and what he was to take with him.

Lord Roland slapped the back of one gloved hand into the palm of the other. Partly in anger, partly in reluctant amusement. Ariel would lead a man a merry dance if she was so inclined. Ranulf was furious at the upset of his little plan. Oliver was livid, but Roland guessed that mortification fueled his rage. He had been bested by the Hawkesmoor and nothing could conceal that fact. There was no getting away from it—the man had proved himself more of a problem than had been anticipated.

And Ariel? What game was she playing?

Roland strode out of the stableyard, back to the castle. In the inner courtyard, gamekeepers and dogs milled on the grassy square, while the guests joining the wild-fowling party drank mulled wine against the cold and stamped their booted feet. Servants carried their fowling pieces and game bags.

The earl of Hawkesmoor stood to one side with his own friends. Roland made his way over to them. “I’m sure you’ll
be glad to hear that your bride has seen fit to return, Hawkesmoor.”

“It hadn’t occurred to me that she might not,” Simon returned easily. “She doesn’t strike me as a creature of random impulse.”

“But as yet you know little of your bride.” Oliver spoke, sneering as he stepped up to them. “I assure you, Hawkesmoor, that those of us who know Ariel
well
, know all the little twists and turns and vagaries of the girl’s character.”

“Then I have that pleasure in store,” Simon replied. He smiled, but there was something in his eyes that made Oliver draw back his head as if from a rearing cobra.

“A shared pleasure lacks a certain something, I always find,” Oliver said. There was a rustle of indrawn breath from the circle of listeners. The earl of Hawkesmoor’s smile didn’t waver.

“Generosity is the gift of kings, Becket.” He turned his back slowly and deliberately and walked away.

Chapter Seven

R
ANULF STOOD AT
the door to the Great Hall. He stared out over the thronged courtyard, and when he saw Ariel appear from the direction of the stables, he descended the steps and moved purposefully toward her. She was weaving her way through the crowd, the dogs at her heels, a preoccupied frown on her face.