Ana Seymour - Lady Of Lyonsbridge

“Am I addressing the lady of this castle?” the man asked. He sounded angry, but his voice held a note of doubt as he glanced around the room to find her in bed.

Lettie answered for her. “Aye, ’tis the chamber of the lady Alyce, yer lordship, but milady’s took desperate sick.”

“She’s been poisoned then, like the rest of my men?”

Lettie nodded vigorously. “I fear so, milord.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.” The visitor’s expression was concerned and all anger was gone from his tone.

Alyce gave a small smile of triumph underneath the blankets.

“She’s been fair doubled over with the cramps since supper, milord.” Alyce repressed a giggle to hear her honest old nurse embroidering her lies.

The knight frowned. “It could be serious, then. I came seeking out your lady to ask for some medicines to relieve my men, but if she’s stricken herself, perhaps we should find an herbalist. Is there one here at the castle?”

Lettie grew serious at his somber tone and her reply was less assured. “Nay, milord. There be old Maeve over to the village, but there’s some that think she’s more than half crazed. Most folks hereabouts cure their own.”

The big knight gave a sigh of exasperation. “So the chatelaine’s sick and the herbalist is crazy. Where would you recommend I seek help for my men, good mistress?”

Lettie glanced at the bundle of covers on the bed, hesitating.

Her voice muffled from the folds of the wimple, Alyce said in a crackly voice, “Old Maeve may be able to help you. ’Twould be the wisest course.”

The knight glanced sharply at the bed. “Do you feel yourself recovering, milady?”

Alyce shook her head. The knight took a step into the room and peered more closely, as if trying to get a glimpse of her face, but she kept the blanket pulled tightly around her.

“If the old woman has some powders that will help, I’ll obtain some for you as well, Lady Sherborne,” he said.

“Very kind,” Alyce rasped.

The man paused a moment, as if waiting for her to continue speaking, then said finally, “I’ll send someone immediately, or, if everyone else in the place is stricken, I’ll go find the crone myself.”

He gave a courtly bow that seemed to include Lettie as well as Alyce, then turned and left.

Both women were silent for a moment after he closed the door gently behind him. “Saints preserve us, Allie, did ye see the man?”

Alyce threw off the covers and sat up abruptly. “Of course I saw him.”

“Did ye not think him the handsomest knight in all of Christendom? And polite as well, didn’t ye think? It makes me feel wicked that we played such a cruel trick on him.”

Alyce pulled the wimple from her head and scowled. “I do not consider it polite to batter down the door of a sick, mayhap dying, woman.”

“But ye’re not sick.”

“Nay, but he didn’t know that.”

“I feel bad, just the same. And now we’ve sent him off to poor old Maeve. Who knows what he’ll find there.”

Alyce gave a sniff of indifference. She was not going to admit to Lettie that she was sharing her servant’s guilt. The knight had been polite, aye, and more than pleasant to look upon. And it was not the man’s fault that he had been chosen to execute the unscrupulous business of Philip Dunstan and Prince John. “If Maeve’s having a good day, she’ll help him,” she said.

“Aye, and if she’s having a bad day, he’ll probably begin to think us all mad.”

“He can add that to his report to Dunstan, then. With luck, he’ll become so disgusted that he’ll ride back to his master and report that the lady of Sherborne is a sickly hag, that her household is wretched and her people are all lunatics.”

“In truth, Kenton, I don’t know whether the powders will help or finish the job that their spoiled stew started.”

Thomas and his lieutenant sat with their backs up against the cold stone wall of the great room. It was nearly dawn. Thomas had slept little after his return from the village. As the servant had warned, he’d found Maeve to be a frail old woman who drifted in and out of reality. But she’d given him feverfew and some ground hops, and had promised that together the two powders would purge the fiercest of poisons.

“Most of the men are still sleeping, Thomas,” Kenton answered, gesturing to the bodies strewn around them. “They seem to have rid themselves of the problem naturally. Myself, I feel fine this morning.”

There was a groan from a dark corner of the room. “Harry?” Thomas asked.

“Aye. He was the worst struck. Mayhap the medicine would be of some benefit to him.”

Thomas pulled a pouch from inside his surcoat. “The witch told me to mix it with hot ale.”

Kenton began to boost himself wearily to his feet. “I’ll see if I can find a serving wench in this place who might know where I can get some.”

Thomas pushed his friend back to the floor. “I’ll do it, Kent. I’m the healthy one. I’ll look for some breakfast for us, as well.”

Kenton gave a wobbly shake of his head. “Just the ale for me, Thomas. I’ve had enough of Sherborne Castle fare for one visit.”

Thomas gave him a sympathetic grin and went in search of some sign of life in the strange household.

Alyce lay awake for hours after Lettie left. It had become a pattern since her father’s death. During the day she could be cheerful and optimistic about her future, but at night she’d lie awake wondering how she could save herself from what seemed an inevitable fate.

It had been less than a month after her father’s death, when she was still numb with grief, that the first messenger had arrived from Prince John, informing her that the prince, acting as her liege lord in the absence of King Richard, had bestowed her hand upon his loyal servant, Philip of Dunstan.

When she’d heard the tales of the man who’d been chosen as her bridegroom, the nightmares had begun. But this night it was guilt that kept her tossing restlessly on her small bed. When she finally fell asleep, she dreamed that a number of tall knights, all looking like Dunstan’s messenger, were forcing her to eat a wretched pottage of rotten entrails. Then they were dragging her down a long hall toward a dais, where her bridegroom awaited. She awoke with her skin cold and clammy.

It was shortly before dawn. She sat up, staring into the dark, suddenly beset with worry. What if one of the men she had so callously sickened were to die? She rose from her bed and fumbled around in the dark, putting on her clothes. She’d not bother Lettie, nor any of the other servants, but she would quietly slip down to the great hall and make sure that none of the visitors was in dire condition.

If any of them were truly sick, she’d have no choice but to reveal herself and care for them. She had her mother’s herb chest, and she’d learned how to use it these past years since her mother had died, when Alyce was only ten.

She had no need of a tallow reed to light her way down to the great hall. She knew Sherborne Castle like the palm of her hand. Quietly, she stepped into the big chamber and paused to listen. All around her she heard the low rumbles of sleeping men, but, she noted with a sigh of relief, there were no sounds of distress.

Surely if anyone was very ill, there would be some sign. The fire would have been built up and men would be awake, caring for the patient.

Moving noiselessly, she crossed the room toward the buttery. She was feeling none too sharp herself this morning, she thought with an ironic grin. Punishment, no doubt, for her wickedness in finishing off half a capon the previous evening while her guests ate rotten food.

The sun was beginning to send slanting rays through the castle windows, but as she entered the buttery, it took Alyce a moment to realize that the room was illuminated not by the sun but by a blazing wall torch. The torch had evidently been placed there by the knight of her restless dreams, who was this moment standing frozen in front of her, his mug of ale halfway to his lips.