Winter Roses

by Anita Mills

  “Nay—I am all right.”

  But she was already working the torn mail from above his wound, trying to see how bad it was. “Sit you down that I may soak the cloth away,” she muttered. “ ’Tis stuck to the blood.”

  “I am too tired,” he protested. “In the morning—”

  “ ’Tis overlate to stitch even now,” she insisted, pushing him toward the bench.

  “God’s bones, but I’d seek my bed.”

  “After.” She began unlacing his overtunic, loosening it at the neck. “Ena, the cold first, else we’ll not get this off him.”

  The woman finished pouring water into a pot, then brought a small basin and ewer to Arabella. Peering over her mistress’s shoulder, she offered, “And ye want, I’d get Ewan to aid in undressing him.”

  “Ewan is as tired as I am,” he muttered.

  Arabella rolled a cloth and soaked it in the water, then pressed it against his arm, squeezing the liquid into the stiffened sleeve. Rubbing gently, she tried to loosen the blood-soaked wool from the wound, all the while taking care not to cut him with the jagged edges of his torn hauberk. He leaned forward until his head pressed against her breasts.

  “How had you this?” she wondered aloud.

  “I dinna remember taking the blow,” he murmured, circling her waist with his other arm. “ ’Twas a sword cut, I think.”

  “Thanks be to God that it wasn’t an axe.”

  “Aye.”

  “I cannot get it loose without making it bleed.”

  “Leave it then.”

  “Nay. I need to see it.”

  He was tired unto death, and so cold that he did not think he ever could be warmed. “Then whilst she heats the water, I’d have her mull wine also.” His arm tightened, bracing his body against hers as she pulled the woolen tunic sleeve out of the gash. “Jesu,” he muttered.

  “Would you that it healed with lint in it?” she countered.

  “Nay.” He closed his eyes, savoring the warmth of her body, the smell of her rosewater. “ ’Twas worth the blow,” he mumbled against her chest. “They’ll nae raid again this way.”

  “You caught them?”

  “Aye, and punished them also.” Despite the pain in his arm, he felt comforted by the softness of her breasts and the gentleness of her touch. “And Kenneth dies, I will hang one more for it.”

  “And he does not take a fever, he will live.” Turning to where Ena poured honey into a cup for him, she said, “I’d have you aid me in getting him undressed.”

  “The wine …”he protested thickly. “I’d hae the wine before.”

  The poker hissed, and, immediately the air smelled of hot metal and spices. When Ena carried the cup to him he took it and drank deeply, letting the liquid warm his stomach. Twisting his head, he wiped his mouth on his torn sleeve, then drew a deep breath. Letting it out, he settled his shoulders in resignation.

  “I am ready.”

  Between them Arabella and her tiring woman managed to strip the tunic, coif, hauberk, cuir bouilli, and. gambeson from him, baring him to the waist. As Arabella pulled off the padded garment he weaved slightly, then caught the bench, hanging on. The ugly gash on his upper left arm exposed the raw muscle beneath. For a moment she fought the gorge that rose in her throat, then she swallowed it.

  “ ’Twill have to be stitched, my lord—’tis too deep.” She looked again. “Holy Mary, but I know not how you can use the arm.”

  “It pains me now,” he admitted.

  She washed the wound again, this time with the heated water, then sprinkled basilicum to dry it where it still oozed. Taking her needle, she threaded it with silk and looked to Ena.

  “I’d have you hold it together for me.”

  “Aye.”

  He winced visibly as she stuck his flesh with the needle, drew the thread through his skin, and tightened it across the gap, drawing the edges close. She hesitated briefly.

  “Nay, finish the task,” he muttered through clenched teeth.

  “I’d not hurt you.”

  “There is nae help for it—go on.”

  She worked quickly, taking stitches, closing the wound as his hands gripped the bench at either side. Every now and then she glanced at his profile, seeing the tightness of his jaw. His eyes were closed, the lids purple above deeply shadowed circles, and his hair, where it fell forward over his brow, was dark against his skin. When she’d knotted the thread at the end he exhaled, visibly relieved.

  “Would you that I got you something to eat?”

  “Nay.” He leaned forward again, this time sliding both arms about her waist, resting his head against her chest. “So tired, Bella.”

  She held him tightly, then rubbed the thick, disordered hair, running her fingers through it. “I was afraid,” she admitted, her voice low.

  “I told ye: I dinna die easily,” he murmured against her breast. “If anything, I feel the fool for taking the cut.” Abruptly he released her and lurched to his feet. “Got to get into the bed now, else I’ll nae get there.”

  He nearly stumbled over the pallet by the fire, waking Jamie. As the boy sat up Arabella caught her breath, for while he’d said her soil could sleep with Ena he’d not meant here. For a moment the child stared upward, his eyes wide, then he wanted to know, “Did ye get them? Did ye kill them all?”

  “Aye and nay.” As tired as he was, Will managed a smile. “Ask me of it on the morrow, and I’ll gie ye the dagger I brought ye.”

  “Ye brought me a dagger?” He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, as though he feared he dreamed. “An English dagger?”

  “Aye.”

  “I’d see it! I’d see it now! And—”

  “On the morrow, Jamie,” Arabella cut in sternly. Turning to Ena, she told her, “I’d have you take him down to pallet below.”

  “Mama!”

  “And he is quiet, he can stay,” William murmured, moving toward the bed. “Peace—’tis all I’d ask this night.”

  He lay down, heedless of his chausses or his boots, and rolled over to face the back bed hangings. She struggled to pull off the boots, then eased the covers from beneath his heavy body. As Ena blew out the lamp Arabella crawled into bed behind him, drew the top mattress over them, and held him. When he said nothing, she feared he was angered over Jamie.

  “My lord, I brought Ena here because I was afraid for you,” she whispered against his back.

  There was no answer. He slept.

  For a long time she lay there, warming his cold body gratefully, listening to the even rhythm of his breathing. Finally, when her arm had grown numb from lying on it, she turned over, backing her body against his. Across the room she heard her son murmur sleepily, “At first light, I want to see my dagger. I canna wait, Ena.”

  For the first time in his young life, he fought sleep not because of the terror of his dreams but rather because he was too excited. And if she lived to be an old woman, she’d never forget the overwhelming love she felt for her husband just now.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  His arm ached insistently, his head swam with the numbers before him, and Kenneth of Burwell had taken a fever during the night, making it possible that he’d have to hang another English prisoner. He could ill afford the loss of the ransom that would cost him. Not to mention that in the two days since he’d given James the dagger, Arabella had hinted yet again that the boy wished to go to Dunashie with them. It had taken a scowl from him to deter her, and God knew he did not want to rule her like that. He wanted her to do what he wanted her to do without questioning him, for far too often his answers shamed him. But he could not take the boy to Dunashie.

  “My lord, I would speak with you.”

  William looked up from his accounts to see Ewan standing diffidently before him, and he felt a sense of foreboding. Whenever the older man approached him thus, it usually concerned the boy. For a moment his resentment rose: He’d given James a horse and a dagger, and now t
here seemed no end to what was expected of him. “Aye?” he answered warily.

  That William was not in the best of humors did not escape Ewan, but he mistook the reason for it. “How fares the arm?” he asked.

  “But sore.” Sighing, Will pushed his tally sticks aside and gestured to the bench opposite. “Sit you down and speak your mind.”

  Ewan dropped down to face him. “ ’Tis about the boy,” he admitted, confirming Will’s suspicion. “I’d hae ye speak with him.” When the lord was silent, he blurted out, “ ’Tis the lessons—he’d nae learn them.”

  “He hasna the choice!” Will retorted. “God’s bones, but you would bring this to me? Speak to his mother—aye, or to the priest.”

  “Father Edmund has little liking for him.”

  “What matters that? There wasna any love between Henry’s clerks and me, but I learned what they taught me.”

  Ewan nodded. “Aye, but he fears to learn.”

  “Fears?” Will scoffed. “Jesu! ’Tis laziness, more like! Art grown saft like the rest, Ewan? I dinna give him over to ye that ye would coddle him, ye know. God’s bones, but ’tis enough of that he’s had already!”

  “And ye asked it, he’d do it,” the older man persisted. “And yer lady asks, he can see no reason.” He lifted troubled eyes to William. “For all that he loves her, he’d nae be as helpless as she would hae him.”

  “I’d nae believe it,” Will countered. “Whene’er mine back is turned, he is with her. He is like the vine against her wall. Jesu, but art as blind as she, Ewan.”

  “My lord …”

  “Nay,” William dismissed him. “ ’Tis enough that I have said he will learn. Tell him I give Father Edmund the right to chastise him and he doesna do it.”

  The grizzled man rose to leave, then hesitated as though he sought the means to appeal. Finally, he shook his greying head tiredly. “Ye canna visit the sins of the mother on the boy, my lord. ’Tisna right.”

  William reddened, then lost his temper. “Afore God, but you take overmuch on yourself, Sir Ewan! ’Tisna your place to dispute with me!”

  “Afore God, ye forget whence ye are come also,” Ewan retorted, stung.

  “ ’Tisna your place to remind me of it!” Will shouted. “And ye would serve me, ye’ll hold your tongue!” He lurched to his feet angrily. “Aye, and I’d nae hear ye speak of my lady either!”

  “ ’Twas of the boy I’d speak.”

  “And I told ye I’d nae hear it! Between ye and her, ’tis nigh to all I have heard since I wed!”

  The man flinched before William’s anger, but he held his ground. Looking up, he tried to speak more calmly, declaring, “I dinna think ye’d be one as could fault a boy fer his birth, my lord.”

  For a long moment Will stared hard at his liege man, and his jaw worked as he sought control of his temper. “I’d hae ye leave me ere I say what I would not,” he said finally, keeping his voice even. “Too long we hae served together, else I’d not brook this.”

  “Art grown so high, Will o’ Dunashie, that ye ferget what we all were to each other?” As William’s face darkened again, Ewan turned to leave. “High or low, ye answer to the same Father in Heaven, ye know. Aye, and if ye’d hae me leave yer service, I’d go back to Lord Giles at Dunashie.”

  Will had no answer for that. As the door closed after the man who’d served Giles loyally for eleven years and more, he turned again to the tally sticks on the table. Ewan had not the right to chide him, he decided resentfully. And he had not the right to remind him of Arabella’s sin. God’s bones, but did they all speak of it behind his back? Was he pitied for taking her? Did they count him a fool for it?

  Resolutely, he sat down and began again the task of reconciling the rents with the expenses. 2d—pure wax candles for the chapel. 5s. 6d—a dozen tuns of clear wine. 3d—two barrels of pickled lampreys. His eyes scanned the page carefully until he came to an entry that made his blood rise. 3d—fine blue camlet for James of Woolford’s shert. Jesu, but did she never tire of buying things for the boy? What was wrong with plain Scottish wool—or unbleached muslin, for that matter?

  His arm pained him, making him unreasonably cross, and he knew it. And Ewan’s words still stung. Ye canna visit the sins of the mother on the boy…. Afore God, but ye forget whence ye are come also.… Ye canna visit the sins of the mother on the boy…. High or low, ye answer to the same Father in Heaven…. It was as though Ewan’s words beat like a musician’s castanets in his ears.

  ’Twas unworthy of his liege man to say it, for had he not taken the boy when he did not have to? Had he not provided for James of Woolford far better than King Henry had provided for himself and Giles? Had he begrudged what Arabella had spent on her bastard? He’d given the boy the pony, hadn’t he? Aye, and he’d brought him an enamel-handled dagger that Nib had admired, hadn’t he?

  For a brief, fleeting moment, he recalled the small boy’s pleasure as his thin, pale hands had lovingly traced the design on the hilt. He would, he’d told William proudly, use it to kill an Englishman someday. As though he would ever fight anyone … And yet as Will remembered the shining in the boy’s pale eyes, he felt anew the satisfaction of giving it.

  It had reminded him at the time of a distant year, a year when he and Giles had been at King Henry’s court. It had been the last day of Christmas then, and he’d sneaked from beneath the watchful eye of Henry’s clerks to toss dice with the sons of wealthy lords. He’d won a jeweled belt then, and as it was too small for himself he’d given it to Giles. The look on his brother’s face had been much the same as that on Jamie’s. Giles had worn that belt, paying to have it lengthened each year until it had literally disintegrated, and once he was lord to Dunashie he’d had the jewels pried from it and set in another.

  High or low, ye answer to the same Father in Heaven. Ye canna visit the sins of the mother on the boy. Jesu, but how was he supposed to help it? He was not a saint. Yet even as he asked, he remembered his earlier Christmas prayer. St. Joseph had been asked to do far more.

  Abruptly he rose, scattering the tally sticks and the account sheets. If he would not speak to James of it, he’d speak to the priest. For all that he was overyoung, mayhap Father Edmund would provide guidance in the matter. Clasping his throbbing arm to ease it, William started for the chapel.

  “My lord.”

  He spun around to face a grave Ewan, and he felt the sting of the man’s words anew. Yet there was no rancor in the blue eyes now. Briefly Will wondered if he’d come to say he was leaving to Dunashie, but Ewan cleared his throat and spat ere he spoke.

  “ ’Tis yer pardon I’d ask, my lord. I know it isna in ye to be unkind, and I shouldna hae spoken so.”

  He could have accepted the older man’s harsh words more easily than this, for they’d been justified. Yet, oddly, it was the apology that shamed him more.

  “ ’Tis forgotten,” he answered brusquely.

  “I did but think that ye’d be able to make him do it, ye know. For all that ye scarce note him, he holds ye in regard.”

  Scarce noted him? God’s bones, but it seemed ’twas all he noted. For a moment William’s resentment seethed anew, then he forced it from his mind. “I’ll speak to Father Edmund on the matter,” he promised.

  “He doesna like the boy,” Ewan insisted. “He’ll say he canna learn, when ‘tis that he doesna want to. But if ye were to—”

  “I’d speak to the priest first.”

  “Aye.” The older man shifted his weight on his feet, then added, “Nib can tell ye the boy can ride unaided.”

  “What good does that do? He canna mount unaided.”

  “Nay.” Ewan spat again on the stones below, then looked at the cloudy sky above. “My sire learned to walk without his leg, ye know.”

  “Your sire walked ere he lost it,” Will reminded him. “And you speak of the boy, his leg is too short and the foot willna hold him. You see how ’tis for him.”

  “Aye.”
Despite the clouds, Ewan squinted at the sky where the sun was trying to break through. “But if the leg wasna overshort, and if the foot dinna turn o’er, mayhap …” His voice trailed off, as though he realized the impossibility of the thought.

  “You would ask God’s miracle, Ewan, for all that I have prayed in my life, never have I witnessed one.”

  “Aye,” the older man sighed. “Still, it doesna seem right that he’ll nae walk in this life, does it?”

  “ ’Tis God’s will.”

  “And we believed that we’d nae ask fer anything, would we?” Ewan exhaled heavily again, then started away. “ ’Tis a pity, it is. My sire learned to walk with two stout poles to hold him.”

  For a long moment William stared after him. Nay, but Arabella’s son could not do it, he decided. Unlike Ewan’s father the boy had not walked before, and he lacked the proper strength in his good leg. And he was too frail to support his body on two poles.

  He found both the chapel and the priest’s room behind it deserted. It was, he supposed, the difference between the young and the old, but he still considered it odd that Edmund of Alton spent so little time on his knees. For all that William had seen of the man, ’twould appear that he himself prayed more often than his priest. Not that Edmund had not gained a measure of popularity in the short time he’d been there. God only knew of any other who could sing his way through the liturgy any more quickly than he, nor was there any more eloquent at Blackleith when it came to his short homilies. The sand was scarce gone from the hourglass ere he was done: prayers, homily, Eucharist, and all.

  ’Twas what ailed the Church: There was naught else for bastards and younger sons. They learned either to read their prayers or to fight other men’s wars, and for many the choice was no choice at all. In the matter of Edmund, Will had not a doubt that he lacked the stomach of a mercenary. And thus Holy Church was served by yet another cleric of doubtful piety. But at least the man was literate, and that was something, Will supposed.

  As he surveyed Edmund’s small room it struck him that it bore none of the symbols of God’s calling. There was not even a crucifix above the narrow cot. The small table held naught but a spiked tallow candle and the floor was swept bare, giving an impression that none lived there at all.