Candace Robb - A Spy For The Redeemer

She was sitting by the fire, arranging pots and bowls of medicines on a tray, when Harold returned, pink-skinned from scrubbing, his hair slicked back, his muddy tabard traded for a loose linen shirt. ‘Do I look less like one who cavorts with the pigs?’

Lucie was not ready for the feelings his appearance aroused in her, the glint of golden hair on his tanned neck, how it curled damply at the nape. ‘You look — clean. God bless you for all you have done.’

‘I could do no less.’ His eyes held hers for a moment, those terribly blue eyes, and Lucie felt herself grow warm under his gaze. It was but a moment. Then he nodded towards where Daimon lay. ‘How is he this morning?’

‘Not as well as I had hoped.’

Lucie began to rise, tray in hand. Harold rose to help her. His hands touched hers briefly, their eyes met, then he drew the tray from her.

‘Where shall I put it?’

Indicating a small table near Daimon, Lucie started to move away, wishing to break the tension between them that was beginning to choke her.

Harold joined her, falling into step beside her as she moved towards the buttery. ‘Forgive me for overstepping my bounds, but considering Daimon’s condition, might I suggest that I stay to organise the manor guard until he is recovered?’

And miss a ride through the countryside with me? The very fact that Lucie had thought that inclined her to say yes, stay. Stay away from me. But that was no way to make such a decision. She had already resolved how to protect the manor. ‘There is no need.’ She did not think it necessary to tell him her plan.

‘As you wish.’ He sounded wounded.

And what if Thoresby refused? She turned to Harold as they reached the door to the buttery. ‘You have been a great help. And I thank you for your offer. I may yet have need of you.’

‘You have only to ask.’

She touched the back of her hand to her cheek as she watched him walk away, felt the blush still there. How foolish she must look.

She lit a straw from the spirit lamp in the buttery to light a lamp in the treasury. The small room looked the same as it had last night. No one had tidied it. Lucie bent to the task of putting the account books in order. She shortly discovered one was missing. Lighting a second lamp, she searched the floor, behind the chest. From outside the hall came a loud rumble. Someone screamed. She heard people running.

Picking up her skirts, Lucie blew out the lamps.

‘It is the gatehouse,’ Michaelo told her as she hurried past him through the hall and out of the door. ‘God help us, part of the upper storey has caved in.’

It was worse than that. On one side of the archway the outer wall had cracked beneath the burned roof and the crack was widening, the wattle and daub wall tilting crazily inward. Two men were trying to push a top-heavy cart away from it, but as the wall shivered and groaned they abandoned the cart and began to run. With a great shudder a large section of the wall fell into the yard. Debris rained down on the cart, shifting its precarious balance. It toppled sideways, sending the chairs, barrels, a bed frame and household items sliding towards Jenny, the gatekeeper’s wife, who was struggling to carry her small boy and drag a sack out of the way. Lucie ran out into the yard, shouting a warning, but Jenny was too far away to hear her over all the din. Then suddenly, blessedly, Harold appeared from the far side of the yard, by the stables, and scooped up mother and child just in time, kicking the sack aside. Lucie hurried to join him at the stables, side-stepping a rolling barrel. She took the boy from Jenny’s arms as Harold set the young mother down on her feet. She collapsed against him, sobbing.

By now the yard was abuzz with servants and tenants running about, catching up what they could of Jenny and Walter’s household, tripping over each other as they raced for hooks and poles to tear down the tottering wall. Across the yard, Phillippa stood in the doorway of the hall, wringing her hands.

Lucie carried the boy across and handed him to her aunt. ‘Take him inside. I’ll bring Jenny.’

‘My bed!’ Jenny sobbed as she stumbled across the yard in Lucie’s grasp. Lucie guided her inside, murmuring reassurances that Jenny would have a new bed, a much better bed.

The little boy, wailing in Phillippa’s impatient embrace, threw out his arms towards his mother. She rushed to her son, pulled him from Phillippa and settled down on a bench by the fire to nurse.

‘Ungrateful woman,’ Phillippa muttered.

Lucie wished she could tidy her aunt, but there was no time. The servants needed calming, direction. ‘There are bound to be injuries, Aunt. You will need your medicines, clean rags, warm water.’

Phillippa shuffled towards the kitchen.

Lucie turned to Daimon, who was sitting up trying to catch someone’s attention.

‘What has happened?’

She told him. ‘Jenny, Walter and their boy are safe. Rest, Daimon. We need you whole.’

In late afternoon, Lucie sat with Daimon, grateful for the quiet moment. She had sent Tildy, who found it impossible to rest, out to manage the preparation of a cottage for Jenny and Walter. Daimon had suggested one unoccupied since the previous summer when the elderly woman who had lived there died of pestilence. They would not move for several days, after the dangerous vapours from the plague had been dispelled by a juniper fire and then the cottage aired out.

Lucie’s quiet moment was truly just that, a moment. She was mixing a tisane for Daimon when he looked over her shoulder and closed his eyes with a sigh.

‘What is it. A pain?’ Lucie asked.

‘Ma. I hoped she would not hear that I was injured.’

Lucie had forgotten about Daimon’s mother. After Daimon’s father’s death, his mother had moved to a cottage at a distance from the manor house. Lucie had not thought to send word to Winifred of her son’s injuries.

‘Mistress Wilton,’ Winifred said in her gentle voice, bowing her head slightly, her crisp white wimple rustling with the movement. ‘God bless you for the care you have given my son.’ She was a tiny woman, with pale skin and large, dark eyes. A servant carried her wool and spinning wheel.

‘He was wounded defending the manor,’ said Lucie. ‘It — ’

‘As was his duty.’ Winifred crouched beside her son, fussed with the bandage on his forehead. Glancing up at Lucie with an accusing frown she pronounced it damp.

‘Ma,’ Daimon moaned, ‘Mistress Wilton knows what she is doing.’

‘I have packed the wound to bring down the swelling,’ Lucie said. ‘Would you like some time alone?’ She rose from her seat, offering it to Winifred, who slid up on to it. As she smoothed out the skirt of her grey gown she thanked Lucie and went back to examining her son.

Lucie thought to use the time to find something to eat and headed for the buttery. Some bread, cheese and ale would suit her.

Sarah, the kitchen maid, was in the room, hanging fresh loaves in a wicker cage out of the reach of mice. She seemed in a hurry to complete her task when Lucie arrived. It was Sarah who had enjoyed cook’s son’s pranks. She was a large, lumbering young woman, perpetually sweating and wheezing. Her saving graces were an infectious laugh and long-fingered hands that seemed to belong to another body. Not much with which to capture a man’s heart. What had Nan’s son, Joseph, seen in her? Daimon said he had been handsome, though not a young man. Sarah’s presence in the buttery reminded Lucie that both Sarah and Joseph would have been aware of the treasury.

‘Do not hurry on my account,’ Lucie said. ‘Cook managed to bake this morning?’

‘She said we must eat,’ Sarah mumbled.

‘Does her son Joseph look like cook?’ Lucie asked.