Candace Robb - The Lady Chapel

"Aye. When you've fought for your lives side by side …" Owen stopped himself. If he began to tell Cecilia about his old comrades and she listened with such sympathy, he would be in danger. Lucie hated anything to do with soldiers. Cecilia's sympathy was as tempting as her hair. The dream, Owen now saw, had been a Heavensent warning. "It is best not to remember the days that are past."

Cecilia frowned, puzzled. But she changed the subject. "Where are you from? Your speech is different. Softer than ours."

"Wales."

"Of course. A Captain of Archers would be Welsh."

"Nay. Tis not always the way of things. In fact, it's a rare man like the old Duke, Henry of Lancaster, who would trust his judgment of a man enough to let a Welshman have so much power."

"I trust you. And Anna does, too. She said you had warm, dry hands and an eye that did not hide its thoughts."

Owen did not want to discuss himself. He did not wish to hear compliments. "Any sign yet of Paul Scorby?"

Cecilia shook her head. "The men at the gate know to escort him in this morning." She sighed. "I would rather Anna were long gone from here, but this morning her fever is high and the bleeding has begun again, so I know you are right. To travel now would be dangerous for her."

Father Cuthbert joined them, giving them a blessing. "May I come with you when you take Master Scorby up to your daughter? I feel responsible for Mistress Scorby's being here. Perhaps I should not have given in. She might have stayed at home. She knew she could not make the journey alone."

"You should not blame yourself," Cecilia said. "It is best that she is here. The servants are afraid of Paul. They would have given her little sympathy."

They did not wait long for Paul Scorby. He strode into the hall and right up to Cecilia, demanding to know what she had meant, keeping him out last night.

Cecilia rose to face her son-in-law. As she was as tall as he, it was a clever move. Paul Scorby could no longer glower down at Cecilia, but must step back to meet her eyes. Owen mentally applauded Cecilia's courage.

"My daughter must be kept quiet, Paul. You will understand when you see her. She has suffered severe injuries."

Paul Scorby glanced at Owen and the priest. "Injuries?"

Cecilia picked up a lamp. "I will take you to her now."

Owen and Father Cuthbert rose.

Paul Scorby frowned. "I will see her alone."

"No, Paul," Cecilia said quietly. "You will not see her alone." With that she made her way to the stairs.

Scorby followed and, behind him, Owen and the priest.

When they entered the bedchamber, a serving girl was bent over Anna, blotting her forehead.

"Thank you, Lisa," Cecilia said. "You may leave us and have something to eat while we speak with Mistress Scorby."

The young woman scurried out.

Owen watched Paul Scorby's face as the man approached his wife. Anna's injured eye was still swollen shut. As Paul approached, Anna hid the bandaged hand and pulled the covers up to hide her bruised mouth. Paul Scorby flushed a deep crimson. His eyes slid over to his mother-in-law, then back to his wife.

"Anna has other injuries as well as those you see," Cecilia said in a tight voice. "Her stomach is dark with bruises that bleed within."

Scorby turned on Father Cuthbert. "How could you let her travel in such condition?" he demanded.

The priest, young and inexperienced in the world, was so astonished by the man's behavior that he opened his mouth but could make no sound.

"God forgive you, husband," Anna said.

Scorby wheeled round with a look of surprise. "Forgive me?" He knelt beside her. "What are you saying, Anna?"

She turned away from him.

Scorby looked up at Cecilia. "She has a fever?"

"Yes," Cecilia took care not to look into her son-in-law's eyes.

Paul Scorby reached a hand out toward Anna's chin.

"Don't touch me!" the injured woman cried, and tried to move out of her husband's reach.

"What do you want me to do, Anna?" he asked, his voice breaking with emotion.

A good actor, Owen thought.

"Leave me to myself," Anna whispered.

Scorby stood up. "Well, of course I cannot stay here, and you cannot travel." He looked at his mother-in-law. "You will keep Anna here until she is healed?"

"She wishes to go to St. Clement's Nunnery when she is well enough to travel," Cecilia said.

Scorby's mask dropped momentarily. He rolled his eyes, disgusted. "That again."

Father Cuthbert found his tongue. "It will help both of you if Mistress Scorby is at peace with her Savior before she returns to you."

Scorby smirked at the priest. "Oh, yes, I smell the rat of pious counseling in this. Are you permitting her to eat these days, since she is suffering in other ways?"

"Paul!" Cecilia barked. "1 will not have a priest insulted in my house."

Paul Scorby spun round on his heel and marched out of the room.

Cecilia knelt beside her daughter, smoothed the damp hair from her face, and kissed her on the forehead. "Rest now, love. He will honor your wishes, I will make certain of that."

They found Paul Scorby standing by the fire drinking ale. He was a handsome man, if one looked at his features and imagined them without the petulant expression in the eyes and the pouting mouth. Even the shoulders suggested a self-pity that was unbecoming. Such a man was dangerous. Owen wondered at Gilbert Ridley's judgment, to have married his daughter to this man.

Cecilia picked up the pitcher of ale, offered Paul Scorby more. He let her fill his cup. Cecilia put a restraining hand on Paul's, holding the cup from his lips for a moment. "You will honor her wishes, Paul?"

His upper lip curled in a snarl. "Of course I will. It would be a sacrilege if I refused, I am sure. Any day now the Pope himself will come on pilgrimage to pray at my wife's feet." Scorby downed the ale in one gulp and stormed out of the hall.

Father Cuthbert took a deep breath. "God was with us."

Cecilia and Owen exchanged a glance.

"I should like to go sit with Mistress Scorby and say morning prayers," Cuthbert said.

"That would comfort her, I am sure," Cecilia said.

Cecilia motioned for Owen to sit. She poured two cups of ale, put one in front of Owen, took a sip from the other. "My son-in-law behaves like a spoiled child."

"But he is not a child. He is an angry man."

"I know. I'm not a fool."

"I did not think that for a moment. I just want to make sure that you realize how dangerous he might be."

Cecilia sighed. "You will be relieved to get away from here. We are an unhappy household." She rubbed the back of her neck.

"You are tired."

"Very. I sat up most of the night with Anna. But it was not in vain. While I sat there staring at my daughter's ravaged face, I thought of something that might-I cannot say how, for I know so little about it-but it could perhaps have some bearing on the-deaths."

Owen leaned forward. "Anything you can remember might help."

"Gilbert spoke little business around me, but this incident I know about. It was thirteen years ago. A long time for someone to wait for revenge. But if he had been in prison …" With her eyes, Cecilia asked Owen's opinion.

"Indeed. Prison gives a man much time to gnaw on bitterness."

"Have you been in prison?"

"No. But I've been captain of men who have. It can twist a man until his soul is wrung out of him and he's more animal than man."

Cecilia held Owen's gaze with her dark eyes, luminous in the pale, thin face. "So. I had best tell you about the incident."

"Why did you sit up with Anna last night? You had thought she was better."

Cecilia shrugged. "I could not sleep."

"It's a curse, isn't it, the restlessness that comes when you most need the forgetfulness of sleep? My wife sent along something to calm you. She was widowed a few years ago and remembers how impossible it was to rest."