by Nicole Locke
‘To her they’re wolves and horses.’
‘Maybe they’d look like that to me if I had enough ale, but they’re simply sticks that need to be turned into kindling.’
‘You’re terrible!’ Matilda laughed. ‘And that’s very untrue. I wish she could have teaching from someone who does such things.’
Bess laughed. ‘Mei Solis could never afford a resident artist.’
‘We can be a poor patron and only provide food and ale.’
‘More like day-old bread and water. Plus, after that disaster Agnes created before, you’ll want someone who is truly trained. Not someone who says they can do it only to get fed.’
‘I truly thought that wattle and daub would work.’
Bess laughed. ‘Everyone thought you were up to your old tricks again.’
‘They were supposed to walk around it.’
‘She built everything right at the entrance. There was no going around anything. And when it all collapsed the mixture stuck to cart wheels and horses hooves.’
Matilda’s only care had been the crestfallen look on Agnes’s face. And now, with a few more crops like the last one and the sheep continuing to grow, they’d soon have enough for someone.
Bess shook her head. ‘Your carving only encourages her.’
‘Those horses on the manor’s stones? I did that years ago.’
Bess gave her a look.
‘What is it?’
‘If you don’t want to notice, why should the rest of us tell you?’ Bess quipped. ‘Looks like Rohesia is inside.’
Great billowing puffs of smoke were pouring out through the only vent.
Matilda’s heart clenched. ‘Where’s my father?’
With a shared look, they rushed forward.
* * *
‘What’s happening over there?’ Nicholas asked.
‘Thought you’d like the look of that,’ Louve said. ‘New buildings—but the best view is if you go through them.’
A sound stopped them. A screeching that was above the animals’ cries and the squeals of children. To Nicholas it sounded like the frantic calls of women whose homes were getting ransacked.
Louve didn’t seem concerned, but there was something wrong here.
‘What is that?’ he asked.
Louve looked grim. ‘You’ll see soon enough.’
Though it had been a long time, he knew the direction in which they went. He’d know the way if he’d lost both eyes.
Matilda’s house.
There had been a time when he’d counted the steps to her front door. Just for fun. Just because the weather had been bad and he’d had the time. And he’d wanted to know—to boast to her that though his home was farther away than Louve’s or Roger’s it took him less steps because he was bigger and better than them.
More importantly, he remembered the day the number had become less. When he’d grown up and he hadn’t needed as many steps to reach her. That was the day he’d realised that his heart needed more beats. The day he’d wanted not only to play with her and tease her, but to kiss her, too.
They took another turn. The noise wasn’t coming from Matilda’s old home, but the healer’s. A small girl was hovering outside the doorway.
He could hear them now. Voices that were familiar. Bess, Matilda, her father. But her father’s voice was different...overwrought.
‘Get him out of here!’ Rohesia screeched. ‘Out! I’ll have to start all over again and—
‘Come on, Father. Step back,’ Matilda coaxed.
‘Fire!’
‘It’s Rohesia’s fire,’ Matilda said.
‘He’s worse. I’m telling you he’s worse. He needs more than me!’ shouted Rohesia.
‘Just a bit more storing the grain and planting the barley. Only a fortnight or two.’
‘He’ll catch on fire by then. Even now I wonder if I have enough dried herbs!’
Nicholas looked behind him. Louve was escorting the little girl in the opposite direction. He hurried to the door and took in the scene before him. Rohesia—tiny, bent, her hair so grey and thin it was almost non-existent—waved a spoon like a vengeful sprite.
Matilda, her tall frame encumbered by her pregnancy, had her hands against an older man’s arms and was turning him. When they shuffled around to face the doorway, Nicholas almost gasped. Holgar. Matilda’s father. The man had stood almost as tall as him the last time he’d seen him. Holgar had shaken his hand and wished him a profitable journey when his daughter had not.
Then his gaze met Matilda’s, and he noticed nothing else.
* * *
Nicholas was at the door. His eyes were wide, uncomprehending. Taking in everything. Her father trembled underneath her hands. Fragile not just in body, but in his mind. Rohesia, who needed care herself, was still shrieking, making her father’s frantic whispers worse. And there was she, with her swollen belly, her painful hips, her worry.
She didn’t want this man to see her like this. ‘What are you doing here?’
Matilda was so stunned to see him she didn’t realise her father was taking a trembling step without support. When he stumbled, it was Nicholas who rushed up to provide a steadying hand. Matilda was so shocked she allowed it.
‘Nicholas, you’ve returned,’ Holgar said.
Absolute. Silence.
‘I have.’
Holgar patted Nicholas’s hand. ‘Get me home, then. I’m tired.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Matilda said.
Holgar looked at his daughter. ‘You’re good, Matilda.’
Her heart stopped and wouldn’t start. It wouldn’t. And it was almost impossible to get words out. But it was a couple of days since the last time her father had talked, and she wouldn’t miss this opportunity now.
‘I’ll get you home,’ she said.
Holgar looked to Nicholas. ‘Good Matilda.’
Nicholas’s brow drew in and a muscle popped in his jaw. ‘That she is.’
‘Joan was always cold...’
‘She was,’ Matilda said. Her mother had constantly stretched her hands and feet to the fire, even in summer. Now her father seemed determined to put all fires out.
Slowly they walked him to the door. Her father’s words made her heart soar, but Nicholas’s presence did not.
Behind them, Rohesia lowered her spoon. ‘Does this mean I’ll get finer flour?’
‘If there is any,’ Matilda called back.
‘I’ll ensure it.’ Nicholas’s voice rang through the tiny hut at the same time.
Matilda didn’t care for the authority behind Nicholas’s words, nor his sentiment. Did he think he could fix this just because he’d returned? He didn’t deserve to repair this private part of her life. He wasn’t—had chosen not to be—family.
Her father gained his footing and she released his arm to get his own door open. Just a few short steps and they were inside. Stable enough, Holgar let go of Nicholas as well.
‘You can go now,’ she said as her father sat.
The fire was no more than embers. She’d build it, and then he could stretch his own hands and feet to the heat.
There was silence as the door closed, but she knew Nicholas was still there.
‘It’s fine. I’ll fix the fire, then some food,’ she said.
‘Are you tired, Holgar?’ asked Nicholas.
‘Always,’ he said.
He asked. Her father answered. And she couldn’t be sad about his response, for when would he go away again?
Fire done, she decided to just take this moment. Ever restless, Nicholas would leave soon enough. Taking her father’s hand, she sat down next to her father and stared at the flames.
‘What can I do?’ whispered Nicholas.
‘There’s vegetables in the bucket by the door. Bess brought them earlier, to m
ake soup,’ Holgar said.
Matilda squeezed her father’s hand and laughed. She’d get to making soup in a moment, when Nicholas had left.
But he didn’t leave. Instead, soon the sound of the chopping of potatoes and turnips filled the air.
As her father regaled them with tales of his prowess in wooing her mother, she turned to look behind him.
Nicholas’s back was to her, his head bowed to his task. She realised that the table was under the ceiling beams and he would probably crack the top of his head if he stood tall.
She watched the rhythmic way his shoulders and arms moved as he performed such a domestic task, the cradling of his large hands and long fingers as he shoved the chopped vegetables he’d done to one side before beginning again.
He was...efficient at it, which surprised her. The Nicholas of old wouldn’t even have planted a vegetable. The lone time he had been in the fields after his father’s death he had spent tearing through the soil.
A few more moments passed as he found a pan and filled it with water. Then came the heavy tread of his boots as he walked it to the fire.
All the while she carried on listening to her father and tried to ignore the giant in the room.
When Nicholas was done, and had nestled the pot in the flames, Holgar turned to him. ‘Will it poison me?’
‘Do you want it to?’
Her father chuckled, but there was a strange look to his eyes now. Not lost or confused, but pained. She squeezed his hand and he, in turn, squeezed hers. She was certain that Nicholas would leave, but then her father began a conversation with him, so she didn’t say anything.
She’d hold his hand and rest a little, for the sake of the baby growing in her womb. After the meal, her father would most likely need sleep and Nicholas would go. He needed to go. He was too big for this room and, despite his help, he didn’t belong here with her and her father.
Yet she was loath to upset this moment of peace.
Except Nicholas did not share in this peace. His feet were apart, as if he was bracing himself against a storm or preparing for an attack. The fingers that had so effectively taken care of the vegetables were flexing at his sides, and even as he talked his jaw was tight.
His eyes actively refused to look her way. So she kept hers on him as they ate and conversed.
But through it all she could see Nicholas wasn’t at peace at all, though he held himself still and took methodical mouthfuls of soup, though he talked with her father on matters of the past and about the time he was away.
He never avoided her father’s questions, but he was always careful about what he said of his mercenary life. As for the tale of his lost eye—he said nothing at all.
When her father leaned back in his chair, his eyes slumberous, she stood. ‘I’ll clean up.’
Nicholas glanced to her then. His gaze was steady, as if he hadn’t been avoiding looking at her, but she could read nothing in it.
‘I’ll do it,’ he said.
Now wasn’t the time to argue. With a nod, she helped her father up, but as she walked behind him, to follow him in the other room, her father patted her on the shoulder. ‘Not tonight,’ he said, and then he turned around.
Slowly, something sombre and dark surfaced in the room between all three of them. It was there in her father’s searching eyes and in the tenor of Nicholas’s reaction. It rose suddenly, as if it had been waiting and watching until this moment.
‘You’ve returned,’ Holgar said.
Her father’s eyes roamed the room, rested on her, on her swollen belly. Then his eyes met hers. Her father was definitely here now. All the conversations they’d had since Nicholas had left were there in his eyes.
At first he had argued with her, told her to give it more time. But as months had gone by and no messages had come, when her mother had passed, they’d both wanted some joy.
When Roger had asked to marry her, her father had given his blessing. She’d always wondered if he’d had reservations about it, as she’d had. If the happiness they’d sought had ever been found.
‘Less one eye, and with three times the coin I thought I’d have,’ Nicholas replied.
‘Was it worth the delay?’ Holgar asked. ‘Being late? Is this what you wanted?’
Nicholas’s eyes slid to hers. ‘It’s what she wanted.’
There was a gleam to her father’s eyes. ‘As long as you understand that.’
On the way to his room, her father patted her shoulder. Still reeling from the exchanged words, she could only rest her hand on his. There had always been respect between her father and Nicholas, but she hadn’t expected any concession or confession. And she wasn’t certain if what she’d heard was either.
When she turned back, Nicholas was arranging the fire for the evening. Taking her cue from him, she placed their bowls and spoons on the table.
‘Bess will come by in a few hours, and the cordwainer’s wife before dawn,’ she said, though he didn’t deserve an explanation. ‘We can go.’
She didn’t know what to expect from his silence, but he held the door open and she brushed by him. The afternoon light was only just dying, and there were people about. They garnered a few looks, but she studiously avoided them. She’d learned that skill long ago.
‘What’s happened to him?’
For one blinding moment she didn’t know what Nicholas meant. Her father had seemed to be back with them. Completely, forcefully and protectively back. His words still rang inside her, and she suspected in Nicholas as well.
But if things were as they had been for the last few years her father would soon get lost again. She wasn’t so naive as to think that now Nicholas had returned her father would too.
‘It is simply age, Nicholas. It’s not your concern.’
He kept silent, but when they reached the fork in the road where he needed to turn towards his home and she to hers, he stayed beside her. She glanced over at him.
He kept his eyes steady on the road, but he spoke. ‘You need to return. I’ll walk you home.’
She needed rest, but she didn’t need her empty home, which was more difficult to return to every day. With an empty waiting cradle and no husband.
But with certainty she didn’t belong to this man, who had spent hours with her in a tiny cottage, chopping vegetables and telling stories. Not a man who had looked her father straight in the eye and agreed that he had returned too late. What did that even mean? Did he mean because of her marriage to Roger? She had married him because Nicholas no longer wanted her—it wouldn’t have mattered what year he’d arrived.
‘I know the way,’ she said, as politely as she could. She didn’t need him and, more importantly, she didn’t trust him.
‘Allow me,’ he answered.
She’d allowed him since she and Bess had rescued her father from Rohesia. The old Matilda would have stopped and said a few curt words. Perhaps even created a scene in order to get her way. Now she wouldn’t. He’d watched and waited all evening. Now it was her turn to remain quiet and let him reveal his own secrets. She had shown him too much of hers tonight.
‘Louve wrote to me about your mother,’ he said after a few more steps.
Letters. She didn’t want to talk about letters. She would have written to him about her mother if she’d thought her letter would be received.
‘I’m sorry,’ he continued. ‘She was very witty.’
It was from her mother that she’d obtained her own sense of humour and adventure. When her mother had died, it had been as if a light had gone out for her father and her. And when Nicholas hadn’t written...
‘Your words are a bit late, Nicholas, and I’m tired. What is it that you want to know?’
‘Why is your father not with you?’
Those were not the words she’d expected, though she should have. Nicholas and her father had been clo
se. A relationship perhaps born out of the fact that his own father had been obsessed with everything but his son.
However, her father and Roger’s relationship had been different. Cordial, but with no special closeness. Recently she had become more worried for her father, but had seen no solution. Roger had loved his home, away from all the others, and it was only one room. The bed was next to the table. They’d have eventually built something for her father, but there had not been enough time...
‘These matters are not your concern,’ she said.
‘The manor has room, with plenty of people and servants always nearby. As bailiff, you have every right to live there and to have your father do so.’
As his wife she’d have had even more right. ‘He is in his home, where he wishes to remain,’ she lied.
The manor would be a better place for him, but that wasn’t an option she would even consider. It had taken a long time for her to be accepted as Roger’s wife. And she wanted what was best for her baby. That meant she must keep the boundaries clear when it came to where she lived.
‘It may be his wish, but is he capable?’ Nicholas said.
She could hold her sense of patience only so long. ‘You go too far to discuss this. As if you care. As if what I tell you matters. Because I know it doesn’t. Not after—’ She stopped, waved her hand. ‘Not after all this time. I know you have other people to attend to, and I assure you I know my way home.’
‘Who was that little girl?’
The change of subject didn’t confuse her. Nicholas’s mind had always worked like this. What she didn’t like was how familiar it was, or the fact that she answered him.
‘Outside the door?’
‘I walked here with Louve, and there was a little girl with long curly hair, about this height. He took her away.’
There was a dull stab to her belly, and she stopped to rub it. ‘She shouldn’t have been there. We’d only just taken her home.’
Nicholas’s eyes flicked to the movement of her hand, a question in his gaze.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, walking a bit slower.
‘Who is she?’ Nicholas asked after a few slow steps.
‘Agnes. She’s the cordwainer’s daughter.’
