By Right of Arms

by Robyn Carr

  “This is the work of my poison,” Nima said.

  “Thea brought this tray to Aurélie, but my lady refused it. She could not abide even the aroma.”

  Nima turned watering eyes toward Hyatt, who still stood in the doorway. “Messire, this is the work of my granddaughter. Yea, Faon is of my flesh, though she kept it secret. She was twisted with bitterness and hate. I beg you to believe that I would not do such a thing. My mixes have always been for healing only, and not for death.”

  “Then how do you explain possessing dangerous mixings, if not to use them?”

  “It is many years of mixing and testing that I have endured to find the best of this and that. A certain root mixed with a certain vine can cure the flux, but the same root mixed with another plant can kill. ’Tis a mysterious occupation. The same potion that will draw pus from a wound and help it to heal will kill if swallowed. But I give my potions to stray animals to be assured they are not harmful and some of my strongest liniments have healed an aching back, but killed a rat. I have never meant to harm anyone, but Faon made me keep my talents mostly secret. I have been wrongly accused of witchcraft.”

  “She was your granddaughter, then? And you lied when you said you were her nurse.”

  “I am her grandmother and her nurse. I helped to raise her. Montrose threatened to have me tried and killed for sorcery, but I was only a healer, never a witch. Anyone who came to ill after my ministrations was not hurt by them, I swear. Faon protected me.”

  “To have your witchcraft at her disposal, no doubt.”

  Nima’s face fell. “You are right, seigneur. She wished to have me mix brews that would be useful to her … but I did not. Betimes I told her something would work, but I tricked her and never gave her anything that would do any harm. I am an old woman. I have to have a means to live.”

  “Hyatt?” Aurélie murmured. “What do I hear? Thea is dead by Faon’s hand?”

  “It seems that Faon meant to kill you, madame. You had better tell me what you’ve eaten.”

  “Naught, Hyatt. The last I ate was beside you in the hall, from the same plate. We drank from the same pitcher. Poor Thea; is it too late?”

  “Aye,” he said. He glanced briefly at Perrine and then turned with Aurélie in his arms, taking her back to the pallet in the weaving rooms rather than to a room befouled with death.

  “Hyatt, bring the old woman to me. I have heard she is skilled. I will do anything to save this child I carry. Anything.”

  He laid his wife down and looked at her through pained eyes. “You are young, Aurélie. If this child does not live, you will have another in a year. But without you, there cannot be another. ’Tis your life I would save.”

  Aurélie lifted her hand and touched his brow as if she would smooth away the lines of worry. She knew not how pale her face was, how dull her eyes, how weak her touch. She did feel that her sickness worsened. “Hyatt, my besotted knight, how poorly you conceal your heart when you are met with some crisis.” He looked away uncomfortably. “ ’Tis of no matter, the words. You need not speak them. But know you this, lest even the old woman cannot help me. I love you.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I perceive that I am not gravely ill, but beset by some temporary difficulty and must see it through,” Aurélie told Hyatt. When Thea’s body had been removed, a brigade of women had entered Hyatt’s chamber and scoured the place from floor to ceiling. A new mattress stuffed with freshly cut, sweet-smelling grass replaced the old one, which was swiftly burned, even though the death that had befouled it was wrought of poison and not plague. It came as no surprise to find all the castlefolk of De la Noye to be concerned about their mistress, for it was well known they loved her. But fully panoplied warriors wearing the red and black of Hyatt clamored about, restless for any chore that would somehow aid the lady. When Hyatt selected one hulking lad to take Thea’s body from his chamber, the young knight did so eagerly, as if chosen for some elite position. Only a few hours had elapsed when Aurélie had been returned to her bed, her room, and despite Hyatt’s worried frown, Nima sat at her side.

  “I do not feel well,” she said, “but neither do I prepare to die. A few days of peace and rest will do me well enough. Especially with Faon and Ryland both gone from my house.” She smiled weakly. “Your house,” she whispered, closing her eyes.

  Hyatt meant to sit at her sickbed, perched on the edge and holding her hand, but after an hour of this Aurélie protested.

  “There is nothing you can do, messire. Seek a pallet of your own. Or lie here beside me and sleep.”

  “I would stay, Aurélie. I do not wish to sleep and I am best placed watching over you.”

  “Though Faon wished me harm, this ailment is not wrought of her evil hand, but the hand of fate. I will recover. No one else here means me harm. These are my friends. Go about your business and come to me when I am well.”

  Thus he was rousted from the sickroom and left meandering about the hall and grounds without his mind, for his thoughts were in his chamber with his wife. His gaze was faraway, his steps errant and unguided, and his attention difficult to draw.

  Percival approached him. “Sir Hyatt, is there anything my family can do for the lady?”

  “Nay, Percival. It is best that we all leave her be for now. She needs rest.”

  A knight who had ridden with Hyatt for six years sought him out. “The word passes through your troop that Lady Aurélie is ill, Sir Hyatt. She has always been kind to us; is there a way to help her now?”

  Hyatt smiled with a touch of melancholy. “There remains some doubt that I have completely conquered this castle, but I see the lady has quelled my troop. Nay, there is nothing to do but hope that she recovers quickly.”

  As the sun set and the hall emptied after the evening meal, Hyatt was without purpose. He could not find a comfortable place to roost, and he chose not to disturb his wife’s rest. He would have preferred a place at her side, but the old woman sat near and he would find no sleep with a spectator.

  He tried the chamber that had been Giles’s and now housed ten men-at-arms, but could not abide their undisturbed snores. He tried the stable, seeking work to ease his tension, but both the animals and serfs protested with grunts and snorts at such an ill-planned venture in the dead of night. He walked the wall, finding his guard ever alert and awake, for those hearties took their chores seriously, but Hyatt was not in want of conversation, so this did not suit him either. And of course his distressed presence and wakefulness bore out the proof that he was plagued with worry over a woman.

  The setting moon had begun its downward path to yield to dawn and he had not blinked even once with sleep. He crept to the chamber where Aurélie lay and opened the door with all the silence of a thief. He moved quietly toward the bed and stood looking down at her peaceful face. In sleep there was nothing to indicate the tortures of fear or illness. Her hands were relaxed at her sides and her eyelids did not even flutter. He turned his head toward Nima, whose weak gray eyes glittered slightly by the light of a single candle.

  “You do not sleep?” he asked in a whisper.

  “A curse of old age, seigneur, is that one sleeps but little.”

  “Old woman, will my wife die?”

  “Nay, messire. The child moves in her womb, and her rest is peaceful. This illness need little concern you; I cannot say what plagues my lady, but I think that rest, food, and peace of mind will see her fit in a short time. You need not fear.”

  “Would you harm her, old woman? I would kill you if you …

  Nima slowly shook her head. “Sir knight, I tried in vain to help my granddaughter. I prayed to the saints and gave her good counsel. I did not have the courage to betray her to you, but now she is gone, and if I can undo but one of her wrongs, I shall be satisfied.”

  “I fail to understand why you seek to win my favor by helping my wife now. You do not know her goodness as I do; you do not owe her good service as I do.”

  Nima smiled patiently. “You are
wrong, my lord. She will raise up my great-grandson and by her love he will be as strong and powerful as you. I owe her a great deal. And I will not rest until she is well.”

  “Derek … ?”

  “Do you think your success in life has been born of the pain of your father’s betrayal? Do you think you were driven only by hate?” Nima laughed softly, a cracked chuckle of an old hag. “I know your sad story. Perhaps you are strong because a good woman once loved you. Perhaps Derek will thrive on this lady’s love. I know she is capable of it.”

  “If that is so, old woman, explain Ryland’s evil. He was more coddled and protected in childhood than I. He had much of our mother’s devotion, for he was sickly when he was small.”

  Nima smiled tolerantly and reached out a crooked, withered hand to touch Hyatt’s. Her whisper was strained. “Ryland is still sickly and small. It is a pitiful waste when one does not accept one’s gifts. Faon did not accept all the good that befell her, but demanded more. She would never have been pleased with her life, and she will not find pleasure now, though she seeks it with a miser’s zeal. Had she been a virtuous maid, seeking to do good and not evil, she would be a proper lady now.

  “I am glad for you that you have taken everything that was given to you. You made use of all that came your way and did not cast one gift onto the waste heap. You took mother’s love and let it make you strong. You took your father’s betrayal and let it firm your strength with determination. You took the bastard child into your keeping and let him know your loyalty, though I know you saw his conception as one of your mistakes. You even pitied poor Faon and allowed her too much tolerance, but I think you have made good use of even the gift of her treachery, for she showed you a way to judge the worth of a mate.

  “Go about your duties to keep this precious jewel safe, Sir Hyatt. I shall guard her for you.”

  Hyatt looked down at Aurélie. Her lips were parted slightly in sleep, her breathing slow and easy. He stooped and touched his lips lightly to hers.

  He made to pass the old woman, placing a hand on her shoulder as he did so. “Make her well, old woman. I need her.”

  Hyatt went to the stable again, but this time he did not seek work to occupy him. Instead he found a change of clothing and some light gear and woke Girvin. Knowing there was nothing he could do in his own bedchamber to make Aurélie well, he sought an escape from the oppressive fear that she would not rise. He gave Girvin the command of his house and learned the way to Guillaume’s camp from the older knight.

  No horse could manage the way to the secluded place that Guillaume and Girvin had occupied for better than a month and Hyatt walked through ten hours of the heat of day. Dark clouds that promised a drenching storm gathered in the west, and the lightning in the distance brightened the graying sky with intermittent flashes.

  There was a break in the trees and brush, and silhouetted against the purple-orange sky was the tall, broad-shouldered figure of Guillaume, standing on the path fifty paces in front of him. The older man smiled. “You’re in luck, Sir Hyatt. The storm will drive in a thousand renegades and wild beasts, and we can enjoy the warmth of a fire.”

  Guillaume turned and led the way up a brush- and tree-covered hill, along a steep and winding path to a shallow cave. All the comforts of a long established camp lay behind the bushes that concealed the opening. The first large drops of rain began to patter down onto their heads as they entered and Hyatt sank gratefully onto a pallet of skins. Guillaume passed him a wineskin and worked at starting a fire while Hyatt eased the tensions of the trek, the fear, and the exhaustion.

  “You are not the man I expected, Sir Hyatt.”

  “Nor did I think to see your camp, Guillaume. I had need to be away from De la Noye. My lady, your mistress, is sick abed and I cannot abide the role of nursemaid.” He shrugged lamely. “I am unable to make any sound decision as to her care, so I left her in the hands of my betters.”

  “How has she come ill?”

  “I thought at first that it was by some evil hand, but it appears that it is the simple work of fate, and not an enemy.” Hyatt related the story of Faon’s attempt to poison Aurélie, the fate of Thea, and Faon’s disguised departure from De la Noye with Ryland.

  But his conversation with Guillaume did not end with the events of the past few days. Rather, he talked on about himself as though the whole of his life were burning a hole in his gut and the time to expel the demon was at hand. Guillaume as a chosen confessor was an odd choice, or perhaps not so odd, since the seneschal was both devoted to Aurélie and one of the few men Hyatt knew who was not familiar with all the events of his life.

  “Lord Lavergne allied himself with the English and traveled to a conference with King Edward when the Prince of Wales was forming and collecting his armies for this siege. He bemoaned the state of his daughter’s life with the Sire de Pourvre and asked that if De la Noye would be conquered, Lady Aurélie would be spared. Yet she mourned Giles grievously, as if he were a great lord.”

  “He was a good lad,” Guillaume said. “Not all men are born to be kings and lords.”

  “I have not understood why she loved him so,” Hyatt confessed. “I did not travel here with the notion to kill him and wed his widow, but the events made that solution the best for all, including her. I believe that, Guillaume.”

  “I think it is true,” the seneschal said, a grave concession on his part.

  “Explain her devotion to Giles. I must understand that.”

  Guillaume chuckled low in his throat and tipped the wineskin. The rain collected at the orifice of the cave and ran in little rivers into the enclosure, but did not dampen the men or douse the rare fire.

  “Why is it necessary to understand her devotion to her dead husband, Hyatt? Like all men, Giles did what he thought was best. If he misspent his life, he did so in innocence, for Sir Giles was not wicked. If he was weak, it was because he could not be strong. He did not abuse her, unless it was abusive for him to wed her though he did not want a wife. He did the best he could.” Guillaume shrugged. “His best was not much.”

  “His reverence for Christ should have given him strength.”

  “Perhaps it did. He did go to battle.”

  “But …” Hyatt stopped himself. He would not divulge the secrets of the battle.

  Guillaume did not press Hyatt for those details. “You must understand, Hyatt, that for Giles to don his mail and take up his shield required more courage from him than you need to face one hundred strong, skilled, armed knights. Giles was a coward. But he tried harder than any coward I have ever known. At least he did not creep up to the backs of his opponents and strike from behind, as many cowards do.”

  “Did he love her?” Hyatt asked.

  Guillaume smiled wistfully. “He worshiped her, placing her above all other women. He believed that God had given him an angel to guide his errant step and protect him from himself. Indeed, as the Sire de Pourvre stumbled, Aurélie spread her angel’s wings and shielded him from the slurs of those who were stronger or wiser. She never chastised him for his weaknesses, nor did she criticize his failures. I never heard a complaint from her lips, never saw her look in his direction with scorn. I was not so strong. I rose in fury when Giles squandered too much on the Church and left us short of necessary supplies. My lady cautioned me to be silent and promised that we would make do as we always had, but she would not blame Giles.

  “Love her? Perhaps not in the way other men love their women. He praised her for her loyalty, her fortitude. He envied her, for he believed she was stronger and wiser than himself. Once he said to me, ‘I know not why God set me to the task of keeping this precious flower, for I do not deserve the right, but when the purpose is known to me, I shall rejoice and give thanks.’ ”

  Guillaume looked at Hyatt with sentiment misting his eyes. He shrugged. “It was Giles’s way to believe everything came from the Father. He had many failings, Sir Hyatt, and I know he did not keep my lady well, but there is one thing of Giles that I
respect and admire. If he lies in his grave now and knows that his enemy has taken his land, his woman, and his life, but that there is good rising out of the flames of his demise, he will praise it and give thanks. That was his way.”

  Hyatt looked hard into Guillaume’s old eyes. “Did she love him?”

  “She did him honor as his wife and never failed him, to my knowledge. Love? That secret is locked in the lady’s heart.”

  “I would know.”

  “To know the answer to that you will have to exhume her husband’s bones, lay them before her, and ask that she denounce the duty she once paid him. And … the truth, that she loved him true, or that she loved him not at all but paid homage to her duty as a wife, will not change what she feels today. I think it would be foolish of you.”

  Hyatt dropped his gaze to the flames.

  “You could ask her, but not before you are willing to tell the secrets of your own heart.”

  Hyatt’s eyes bolted upright and there was anger in them. Gradually, the anger ebbed and his brown eyes softened. He reached for the skin, drinking deeply of the red wine.

  “We sound like two doddering dowagers, trying to grip the strings that bind a heart or mind; or worse, two old troubadours, too tired and withered to chase our maids, so yet we sing of the entrapment of their musk.” Hyatt drank again. “What good are all such words of promise? What becomes of these boyish words of love once they are all spoken? Bah! Let the poets say the words. A man must live by his actions.”

  Guillaume laughed good-naturedly at Hyatt’s surly protest. “ ’Tis well that your king did not feel so when he extracted his oath from you. That is the good of the words, young man. If you can both say them and live by them, then you are fully a man. To act without promise or to promise without action, these are the boyish whims of one who cannot voice his commitment because he fears he cannot keep it.”

  Hyatt was mute. He picked up a piece of dried meat that lay by the fire, chewed it thoughtfully, and washed it down with another swallow of wine.