Castle of the Heart Page 10

  Arianna folded away her good linen undershift and looked about contentedly. She had never enjoyed a room to herself before. She had always had to share with Selene, or, when Selene went away to the convent school, she shared with several maidservants. Now she had her own private place, an almost unheard-of luxury in a crowded castle. She had useful work to look forward to, helping to nurse Reynaud back to health and, in the process, learning all she could from Meredith. She had friends in Guy and Meredith, in Selene, and in Thomas, too, if she could only control her unreasonable, foolish love for him and never let him see it. She was blessed beyond anything a penniless orphan ought to expect. She was grateful for what she had, and she knew she ought to ask for nothing more. And yet…and yet…some rebellious corner of her heart yearned for Thomas, forbidden to her, husband to her dear friend and kinswoman.

  Arianna had bathed and washed her hair, and the tub and buckets of water had been carried out, when she heard a tap on the door.

  “Come in,” she called, assuming it was Meredith. The door opened to disclose, not the mistress of the castle, but a small, slender girl, nine or ten years old by the look of her.

  “I pray your pardon for disturbing you, my lady,” the girl said, all politeness and careful manners. “Are you the Lady Arianna?”

  “I am.” Arianna looked down into huge blue eyes and smiled at the child’s serious face. Her copper-gold hair was in two thick braids which hung over her shoulders, glowing against her dark blue woolen dress. Curls had come loose from the braids, to make a halo about her head. Arianna noticed a sprinkling of freckles across the delicate nose.

  “I am Cristin,” the child said formally, “daughter of Lord Guy and Lady Meredith, and I am sent to escort you to the great hall for the evening meal, my lady.”

  “Cristin.” Arianna considered the carefully composed demeanor and wondered what this girl was really like. “I’m not quite ready. Will you come in and wait? I won’t be long.”

  “Yes, my lady.” Cristin advanced a few steps into the room and stood primly, watching while Arianna picked up a comb and attacked her thick curls. They were still damp and thoroughly tangled after being washed, and as she tugged at them the comb caught on a snarl and flew out of her fingers. It clattered upon the floor and disappeared from sight.

  In an instant the well-controlled Cristin was gone, changed into a young hoyden who dove to the floor to retrieve the comb, leaving Arianna staring at bare legs and tiny feet in leather slippers while the rest of the child was underneath the bed. She quickly came out again, dusting off her dress as she stood up.

  “I have the same problem with my hair,” Cristin said, handing Arianna the comb.

  “I can see you have.” Arianna could not help laughing. More hair had come loose from Cristin’s braids and it stood up all over her small head in a mass of curls.

  “Try braiding it,” Cristin said wisely, hoisting herself onto the bed and swinging her legs against the side.

  “I have. It never stays. It doesn’t seem to stay for you, either.” Arianna went to work again, this time with more success. She finished the combing and picked up the blue ribbon with which she habitually tied back her hair.

  “I like horses and hawks,” Cristin announced, kicking her heels against the bed frame, “but not dresses and ribbons. My mother says I’ll change when I grow up, but I don’t think so.”

  “It will be a few years before you grow up, Cristin.”

  The swinging legs stilled, the childish face took on a solemn expression.

  “Are you going to marry Geoffrey?” she asked, tilting her head to watch Arianna.

  “You mean Sir Geoffrey? Why should you think that?”

  “You’re so pretty, I thought he might ask you. If he does, say no.”

  “I thank you for the compliment, Cristin, but I have no intention of marrying Sir Geoffrey.”

  “That’s good,” Cristin nodded approvingly, “because I am going to marry him myself. Later, when I’m old enough.”

  “Have your parents arranged it with him?” It was not at all unusual for a girl as young as Cristin to be contracted in marriage, but somehow it did not seem the sort of thing either Guy or Meredith would do. Cristin quickly relieved Arianna of this supposition.

  “Of course not,” she said scornfully. “They don’t know about it. It’s my own secret. I did tell Geoffrey. I had to, so he’d wait for me and not marry anyone else.”

  “I see,” Arianna said weakly, not certain how to deal with these revelations. “What did Sir Geoffrey say to your plans?”

  “He laughed at me at first, but after I kicked his shins he said when I grow up my father will arrange my marriage, and in the meantime I must behave circ – circumspectly and just be friends with him. Are you ready to go? I’m hungry. I’ll die if I don’t eat right now.“ After this dazzling change of subject Cristin slid off the bed and headed for the door. A bewildered Arianna followed her down to the great hall.

  She watched Geoffrey of Tynant carefully during the evening meal, quickly concluding that he had no serious interest in Cristin. His attitude was that of a tolerant adult toward an adoring child who followed him everywhere. Although he might not want to hurt Cristin’s feelings, he clearly was not, as Arianna had at first feared he might be doing, planning to use Cristin to further his own ambitions. Arianna did not think Geoffrey was ambitious at all. He seemed devoted to Guy and quite content to rule Tynant as Guy’s vassal. Arianna also decided that both Guy and Meredith were well aware of their daughter’s feelings for Geoffrey, but aside from a gentle controlling word from Meredith now and then, they were ignoring the situation.

  “You’ve noticed,” Meredith said, amused. “You could not avoid noticing. She’s always under his feet, worshipping. We feel he’s much too old for her, though otherwise quite suitable. Guy and I are hoping she will outgrow it, and Geoffrey does nothing to encourage her beyond ordinary friendliness. In another year or two, she’ll be sent away for fostering, and perhaps that long separation will end her adoration.” Meredith dropped that subject and began to talk of her plans for Reynaud’s treatment.

  Now that she was relieved of any anxiety over Cristin, Arianna tried to keep her eyes from straying toward Thomas. She was not successful. Time and time again during that first night at Afoncaer, while Thomas, Guy, Geoffrey and young Sir Kenelm sat at table with their wine, talking together with Captain John, who headed Afoncaer’s men-at-arms, Arianna found herself looking toward Thomas, until Meredith jokingly chided her for not paying attention.

  “I’m overtired,” Arianna apologized. “With your leave, my lady, I think I’ll seek my bed.”

  “And because you are tired,” Meredith said, leaning toward her and putting a hand on Arianna’s arm to detain her, “you are also weak. You must find strength inside yourself, Arianna.”

  “Will I outgrow it, like Cristin?” Arianna whispered, desolate.

  “Perhaps not, but you can overcome your desire for something forbidden to you. I’ll help you all I can, but in the end you must do it yourself. I know you can. You are stronger than you think.”

  “She avoids him. Watch her.” Arianna did not add that she would never have moved out of the reach of Thomas’s arm as Selene had just done. Thomas’s wife sat next to him, but separate, wrapped in cold dignity, apparently listening to the minstrel who sat nearby singing of ancient battles, and yet Arianna was certain Selene did not hear the singer. He was only an excuse to remove herself from Thomas.

  “She’s new to marriage,” Meredith said, warning in her low voice. “It takes time for some women to grow accustomed to a husband. Do not interfere, Arianna.”

  “How could I,” Arianna asked sadly, “when he is mad with love for her? He sees no one else. He hardly knows I’m here. There is nothing to fear from me.”

  Later that night, when for the first time since Thomas’s and Selene’s wedding she was left to herself for more than a few moments, safe in the enclosed silence of her own small room, A
rianna wept all the tears she had had to hide before others. Great, wrenching sobs shook her until she had to stop pacing back and forth across the room and lay upon the bed, knotting the blue-green coverlet in her fists, trying at first to stifle the sounds she made lest Reynaud, next door, should be disturbed by them.

  There came an hour when she no longer cared if anyone could hear her. She recalled the first time she had seen Thomas, and her instant recognition of the one man she could love for all her life. Such things should not happen, it was beyond all reason, but happen it had, and each time she had seen Thomas since that first time, every encounter she had with him, every action of his she observed, had only confirmed and increased her feeling for him. And he could never love her. Never. His own heart was fixed on Selene and there it would remain. And she, Arianna, must learn to accept that and somehow live with the pain of it without destroying herself or hurting either of them.

  Toward morning, her bitter grief spent, empty of all tears and weary of hopelessness, she found within herself the strength Meredith had said she possessed. Arianna prayed for forgiveness for the love she held toward another woman’s husband, and then swore fervently to put that love aside, to lock it up tightly within her innermost heart, and be a true and honest friend to both Thomas and Selene.

  It was a different Arianna who went to Mass the following morning in the chapel built just off the second floor of the tower keep. She was pale and hollow-eyed from lack of sleep, but she had herself well under control. She would weep no more for what could not be, and she would take full advantage of the opportunity Meredith had presented to her. She broke her fast with dark bread and a cup of ale, then went to Reynaud’s room.

  “He looks dreadful,” she whispered to Meredith.

  “He’s bone-weary from the journey,” Meredith said. “But it’s more than that. He’s in terrible pain and he has fever again. I wish the swelling around his eye would go down. That worries me most, but his leg is inflamed, too. Arianna, find Joan and tell her to choose the strongest wine we have and send me several pitchers of it. I’ll be in the stillroom.”

  Arianna did her errand, and then herself took a large pitcher of the wine to the stillroom. She looked around at it, fascinated. Bunches of herbs were hung from the exposed rafters to dry, and baskets of dried flowers and leaves were lined up on narrow shelves, along with jars and vials of preparations Meredith had made. The room smelled marvelous, the pungent scent of lavender mingling with rose and mint, hyssop and sweet woodruff, tangy rue, and too many other fragrances for Arianna to separate and identify. She watched Meredith mix rue into the wine.

  “And betony and rosemary,” Meredith said, tossing them into the jug. “Here’s Joan with more wine. You mix this next pitcher, Arianna, while I watch you. Then you may help me heat it, so the herbs will give up their healing qualities to the wine.”

  “But if I make a mistake?” Arianna hesitated. “I don’t want to harm Reynaud.”

  “You won’t. I’ll make certain of it. But this,” Meredith told her, selecting a jar of ointment from the shelves, “this I will not let you make until years have passed.”

  “Trust my lady,” Joan said, her complacent manner reassuring Arianna as much as Meredith’s confidence had done. “Lady Meredith is the best physician I have ever known.”

  They heated the wine, stirring all the time, then strained the mixture back into the pitchers. When they were done they took the wine to the sickroom, along with the ointment and bunches of crackly dry rosemary and rue and hyssop to strew on the floor.

  “These herbs will sweeten and cleanse the air, and their fragrance helps to stop inflammation in severed limbs,” Meredith explained.

  After she had sent Joan off to make an omelet for Reynaud, with rue and sweet marjoram and parsley in it, they removed his bandages and bathed his wounds with the wine they had prepared. Meredith gently applied the special ointment she had selected to Reynaud’s battered eye and then wrapped his head in clean linen.

  “At Wenlock they told me to rest and pray,” Reynaud observed wryly. “They gave me poppy syrup when I was in pain, but not much else. I suspect they thought I would die whatever they did, and so they expended their greatest efforts on those who were less seriously injured.”

  “Whereas we know you will not die,” Meredith said firmly. “We need you, Reynaud. Guy wants you well again by the time building season comes.”

  “I shall do my best to help you,” Reynaud answered, his pale blue gaze on Arianna’s bent head and her timid fingers as they removed the lamb’s wool with which Meredith had packed the stump of his left leg. “Don’t fear hurting me, girl, I can bear it. I’ve stood worse. This is healing pain. No, Meredith, I’m not going to die just yet. I foresee an interesting future for Afoncaer, and I wouldn’t want to miss a thing.”

  Arianna was rapidly learning to watch her tongue and her expression before this clever patient. She secretly thought Reynaud might very well die of his injuries, but she realized it was important to make him believe he would live. Now, to distract him from the pain she was certain he would feel as she began to peel off the last of his bandages, she asked, “Are you a prophet, Master Reynaud? How can you see the future?”

  “The introduction of one elderly cleric and two beautiful young women into an isolated outpost on a dangerous border must cause at least a few interesting changes.” Reynaud smiled into Arianna’s startled eyes. “You are beautiful, though I think you do not realize it. Now, lady, don’t hesitate. You are far too gentle with me, and I’m braced for it. Pull off that linen and have it over with.”

  Meredith, finished with Reynaud’s head wounds, stooped to see what Arianna was doing.

  “Soak it with the wine first,” she advised. “That way it won’t hurt as much.”

  “You two will kill me with your kindness,” Reynaud groaned as the acidic wine seeped into his raw flesh and the last of the linen was removed. “I think I’d rather drink that wine than bathe in it.”

  Arianna tried to laugh at his brave joke, but could not. Reynaud’s leg was much worse than it had been the day before, and she had to grit her teeth together and force herself to keep a blank face while she helped Meredith to clean and dress it.

  Afterward, when Joan arrived with the omelet and sat cajoling Reynaud into eating all of it, and the bread and ale she had brought along as well, they took the basket of soiled bandages to the laundry to boil them in water infused with cleansing herbs. This separate building near the kitchen was steamy and hot. There were wash-tubs, and boiling cauldrons, and a space fitted with wooden rods on which clean linens and clothing could be hung to dry. Meredith and Arianna stripped off their woolen outer dresses, tied huge aprons over their linen underdresses, and went to work.

  “Do you really believe Reynaud will live?” Arianna asked.

  “He must.” Meredith gave the cauldron a stir with a long wooden paddle. “We need more fuel on this fire, Arianna. That’s enough, thank you. I will not let Reynaud die. He is too important. We owe him too much. Now, these cloths are done. We’ll rinse them in cold water and hang them over there, out of the way, until we need them again. It’s better to dry old bandages in the sunlight, but that can’t be done in winter, can it?”

  They spent the better part of each day caring for Reynaud and preparing medicines either to feed to him or to put on his wounds. Arianna began to appreciate how extensive Meredith’s knowledge was, and under Meredith’s supervision she began to make the simplest preparations. It was tiring, exacting work. There was so much to remember each time she began to measure and stir the herbs, innumerable formulas for her to recite over and over again until they were memorized so well they could never be forgotten. Arianna was grateful when it was time to drop into her bed at night, and she slept deeply, with no repetition of her miserable first night at Afoncaer.

  Except for the midday meal, when all the inhabitants of the castle gathered in the great hall, she seldom saw Thomas. He spent most of his time with Guy and
the other men. Geoffrey had returned to Tynant, and Cristin had been ordered to spend her days with Joan, learning the womanly skills she would need to know when she married and had her own household to manage.

  “I hate cooking,” she confided to Arianna. “I’d much rather go riding.”

  “You can’t do that when it’s snowing all the time,” Arianna said sensibly, “so you may as well learn something useful. The vegetable stew you made yesterday was, well, interesting.”

  “I’m glad Geoffrey wasn’t here to taste it.” And Cristin went off to try her hand at kneading bread.

  Everyone who lived at Afoncaer had work to do, daily chores that were essential to the smooth running of the castle. All except Selene. She spent a great deal of her time alone in her chamber, or alone in the chapel, or sitting before one of the fires in the great hall.

  “Meredith is so busy,” Arianna said after a week had passed. “Couldn’t you take some of her duties off her shoulders, help her just a little? You could see to the bed linens, or check the food supplies, or at least do some mending or spinning.”

  “Joan can do all of that.” Selene watched the flames devour a log.

  “Joan is busy, too,” Arianna cried. “We are all working hard. Only you sit idle.”

  “You were brought here,” Selene said, “to be a companion to me, someone near my own age in a strange new place, yet I scarcely see you. You spend all your time with that disgusting invalid.”

  “You could visit him occasionally, Selene. You could read to him from your Book of Hours. I’m sure he would like that.”

  “Go into that room?” Selene shuddered. “I would probably faint from the smell and the awful sight of him. How can you bear it, every single day? Ugh.” She shuddered again.

  “I hate it here, Arianna. It rains or snows all the time. My bones ache from the dampness. And life is so rough here, so unlike court, or even Brittany. There is no suitable society for a gentlewoman,” Selene went on. “There are only a few ladies married to Guy’s household knights, and they are scarcely worth talking to. There are no noble ladies, or pages, not even another nobleman’s daughter fostering here.”