Candace Robb - A Spy For The Redeemer

‘Peonies,’ Lucie said. ‘I planted them last spring. I had hoped for blossoms this year, but no matter. The older ones make up for these with a fine show and by the time I need their roots these young ones will be old enough to bloom.’

‘What else is new since my last visit?’ Phillippa asked. Quite lucidly. Without a hint of this morning’s confusion.

Lucie pointed out her new acquisitions, though it was difficult to remember what Phillippa might have seen. Her aunt was rewardingly delighted, requesting cuttings and seeds. They paused at the rosemary hedge, where Lucie crouched to pull at a twining clover.

‘You do not like clover?’ Phillippa asked.

‘I prefer it on tapestries. It grows in all the wrong places.’

‘It has its uses, Lucie.’ Phillippa bent awkwardly to lift some rosemary branches and observe the intruder. ‘But it is crowding the rosemary, I agree. I seem to recall that Nicholas had a spell for clover, to keep it in its place.’

Lucie believed in weeding rather than casting spells, but she saw a way to turn the conversation down a helpful path. ‘He did find a spell. It is in one of the manuscripts in his chest. We should go through them.’

‘But I cannot read.’

‘You would recognise the drawing.’

Phillippa had straightened. She leaned on her cane, gazing down absently at the rosemary. ‘I should have learned to read.’

‘So that you would understand the parchment you spoke of?’

Phillippa looked up, startled. ‘What parchment?’

‘Something your husband had. You spoke of it last night.’

Phillippa pressed her heart, suddenly pale.

Lucie reached for her aunt’s arm, but Phillippa turned away.

‘Aunt Phillippa — ’

‘Say nothing more now,’ Phillippa said softly, taking a deep breath.

Lucie cursed herself. She was no good with her aunt, did not understand what helped, what threatened her fragile dignity. Perhaps a cup of wine would soothe her.

‘Do not leave,’ Phillippa said as Lucie began to walk away. ‘I am relieved to have spoken of it. But I do not remember — oh Lucie, it is the cruellest curse, to be witless one day, lucid the next. It is as if I have been sleepwalking and everyone has witnessed my foolishness. All look at me with such pity — and fear that they, too, might come to this end if they live so long as I have. It is horrible. Horrible.’ Her jaw was set in anger and frustration.

‘I wish that I had a physick to help you,’ Lucie said.

Phillippa shook her head. ‘I have told you before, there is no cure for old age. Except death. So I do not waste my prayers.’

‘I wish only to help.’

‘I know. But I am such an old fool. Had I learned to read, or showed the parchment to you …’ Phillippa sighed. ‘But my father thought reading unnecessary. It did not seem so important when I was young. My brother could read a little, with effort. My husband could read — not well. But look at you, keeping your accounts. You used your reading to study medicine.’ Phillippa shook her head in wonder.

This parchment. Lucie wondered how something that apparently meant so much to her aunt had been lost. ‘How did you come to lose the parchment?’

‘I hid it too well and too often. I have searched all the hiding places I can remember, but it is not there.’

‘Why did you hide it?’

‘Douglas was so secretive about it. He had me sew it into the tapestry — the one I brought to Freythorpe.’

‘But that is the one the thieves stole!’

‘No matter. I removed the parchment long ago.’

‘How long ago?’

‘When your mother came to the manor. I did not know that she would have so little interest in the housekeeping. I was worried she would discover it.’

‘Then it was not you who tore the tapestry recently?’

Phillippa had not been aware of the tear, but could not say with any assurance when she had last made note of the tapestry. ‘You see? My servants must have thought I ruined it and did not wish to speak of it. Sweet heaven, I have been too proud, not asking for help.’

Lucie thought her father would have noticed the damage to the tapestry. Had someone been in the hall, searching for the parchment, since Sir Robert departed in February? If so, they had known where to look. At least where it had once been hidden. But so long ago. ‘Did you receive any visitors this past winter?’ Lucie asked, but already knew that it was the servants she should be questioning. She must go to Freythorpe. But how could she leave the shop again so soon?

Daimon improved under Magda’s care. Tildy delighted to see him coherent, sitting up for hours at a time and eager to be back on his feet soon. But his pallor and the shadows beneath his eyes reminded her that he had only begun to heal. Magda had cut his hair close to his head so that it was easier to apply her healing ointments. He looked like a tousled child with tufts of hair sticking up like bristles.

‘You misjudged Harold Galfrey,’ Daimon chided her after Magda explained that he could not tolerate the amount of physick Lucie had instructed Tildy to give him.

‘I did not tell you of my suspicion,’ Tildy said. ‘Did Magda?’

‘No one needed to. When you came upon Harold bending over me yesterday, I saw the look on your face, Matilda.’

If her fear had been so obvious to Daimon, had Harold also guessed? ‘Do you think I should apologise to him?’

‘No.’

How quickly died the smile, thought Tildy. ‘What is this?’

‘Something — perhaps nothing. There was a man today, he asked for Harold by name. And his voice, it took me back to that night. The attack.’

‘Sweet heaven!’

Daimon tried to shake his head, stifled a curse. ‘I cannot be certain. That night the voice was rougher — he was threatening, shouting. This morning the voice was pleasant. I did not see him — I could not move quickly enough. Let me sit at the table tonight. Perhaps we might talk of this visitor.’

‘That is simple to arrange.’ Tildy smiled encouragingly and lifted her tray of medicines.

Daimon touched her hand. ‘I wish also to keep my eye upon my rivals.’

‘Alfred and Gilbert? Rivals?’

‘They have seen far more of the world than I have.’

What did that matter to Tildy, who seldom went farther than St George’s Field in York? ‘I have heard their boasts at the captain’s table,’ she reminded him. ‘They are soldiers born and no proper husbands for anyone.’ She blushed, realising what she had implied.

Daimon’s eyes lit up. ‘Is it possible that your fears for me mean you have had a change of heart about us?’

‘My heart has been yours all along,’ Tildy said. ‘It is my head that warns against your suit.’

‘Then you have not changed your answer?’

‘Ask me again when you are well and strong.’

‘I shall recover quickly in anticipation of that moment!’

Tildy escaped from those hopeful eyes as quickly as she might.

The table was set up by Daimon’s pallet so that he might be propped up and comfortably join in the conversation. Tildy had told Magda what Daimon had said about Harold’s visitor. The Riverwoman had seen the man.

‘It was Colby, one of the mayor’s servants. He has been in and out of trouble all his life. Magda and thee shall see what he wanted with the borrowed steward, eh?’ She would bring up the incident at dinner.

Tildy was glad that she need not spend the evening seeking a clever time in which to introduce Colby’s unexpected presence. Without that worry she found it quite merry and indulged in the fantasy of being the steward’s wife, accustomed to such evenings. Alfred and Gilbert kept up a lively chatter about their adventures and Magda joined in with stories of her own travels. Even Harold relaxed and told a tale about his youth. Tildy almost liked him at that moment. Daimon said little, but laughed heartily and ate with a healthy appetite.