How long had he sat there sobbing? Had it been the first lightening of the sky which heralds the dawn that had finally driven him away, into his pathetic and inefficient hiding place among the willows? I thought of his pain, his grief. It was all but unbearable.
I let myself into the house carefully and quietly, anxious not to disturb Sir Alain. Edild looked up from her place beside him. She smiled at me and said, in a voice only a little softer than usual, ‘Did you find any?’
The water pepper. Of course; that was why I had gone out. ‘Yes, the basket’s half full. I left it outside by the outhouse.’
‘You covered it? The stems should not be left out in the sunshine because-’
‘Yes, I covered it, and anyway it’s in the shade.’
‘Good.’
I crept towards Sir Alain. ‘How is he?’
She glanced at him. ‘Much the same.’
‘Will he live?’ I breathed the words so quietly that Edild must have read my lips rather than heard what I said. If he were conscious, I did not want him to hear the question, which might have sounded callous. On principle, too, it’s usually best not to let a patient know how ill he is.
Edild shrugged. ‘I hope so.’
I sat down beside her, desperate to share my new thoughts with her. ‘Edild, what if it happened like this?’ I began, my voice low. ‘Someone killed Derman’s beloved Ida, and he found the body and put it in Granny’s grave. Someone else saw him do so and, believing Derman had killed her, they killed him too, so that Ida was revenged.’
Edild nodded slowly. ‘And who do you think this second someone might be?’
I had been thinking of little else all the way home. There was really only one possible answer. He had told me he honoured her far too much to try to seduce her when he was bound to a wife he loathed. Then, suddenly and unexpectedly freed by that wife’s death, he had hastened to find Ida, declare his love and ask her if she would be his. Except he was too late, because Ida was in her grave — my Granny’s grave — and he witnessed the moment when a big, shambling, simpleton of a man put her there.
I said, ‘Alberic.’
Edild considered that. Then she said, ‘You may very well be right, Lassair. It would explain, I think, why Alberic also attacked Sir Alain.’ She glanced down at her patient and, as she spoke his name, I thought I saw the tiniest of movements behind his closed eyelids. I watched carefully to see if he would stir, but he lay still.
I believed I understood what Edild had said. ‘You’re suggesting,’ I said slowly, thinking as I spoke, ‘that somehow Alberic discovered that Ida was pregnant. Perhaps he saw her from a distance and noticed she looked different? Perhaps he spoke to her!’
I realized, with some surprise, that it was perfectly possible. When I had met him in the graveyard, I had been so busy trying to prove I’d been right and he had fathered Ida’s child that it had blinded me to everything else. Suddenly, I remembered how he had looked at me when I’d asked if he had been her lover. His expression had been a wild mixture of emotions and, picturing his face now, I wondered if the anger I had seen was because, aware he had not been her lover, he knew that someone else had been. He had told me himself that Ida had admitted no village lad to her bed; the only man who could possibly have fathered her child had to be someone she had met after she went to work for Lady Claude at Heathlands. . He knew who it was.
‘He killed Derman, and he tried to kill Sir Alain too because he knew Sir Alain had seduced her, left her pregnant and abandoned her to marry his rich Lady Claude,’ I said, breathless as the words tumbled out, ‘and-’
‘I did not abandon her,’ a husky, tremulous, but determined voice said. ‘I would never have done that.’
Edild jerked as if someone had stuck a pin in her. Her attention fully on her patient, she crouched over him, her hand on his forehead. ‘How do you feel?’ she asked anxiously. ‘Are you in much pain?’
He was trying to put his hand to the bump on his head. Gently, she took hold of it and replaced it on top of the blanket tucked around him. ‘Better not to touch,’ she said. ‘I have a draught ready for you which will ease the pain. Lassair!’ she said curtly, turning to me and bringing me out of my amazed state of shock. She nodded in the direction of the cup she had set ready, and I reached for it and handed it to her. She raised his head a little, supporting it with one arm, and held the cup to his lips while he drank, making a face at the bitter taste. He drained the cup, then she helped him lie back on his pillow.
Edild was watching him. He glanced at her, then up at me. He said, ‘I will tell you the story of my love for Ida, then you shall judge for yourselves.’
Edild opened her mouth to speak — probably to tell him he ought to sleep, not talk — but he made a small gesture with his hand and so she didn’t. I turned to look at him, and he began.
‘My family has long wished for a union by marriage with the de Sees of Heathlands,’ he said, ‘for money is little use without position and influence, and the converse equally applies. It is true that, in the end, money can purchase position, but these things take time, and Claritia de Sees is not a patient woman. The better way, in her eyes, was for her daughter to marry into the de Villequier family, riding high, as we do, in royal favour and destined for great things.’ He paused, drew breath and then said, ‘I was not averse to the match, for, like the rest of my family, I saw the advantage of a sudden influx of wealth into our coffers. I agreed to visit Heathlands and, when I was presented to Lady Genevieve, the elder of Claritia’s two daughters, I saw no reason not to agree to our betrothal. She is very lovely, prettier than Claude and with something wistful in her face. I did not know then, of course, about-’ He broke off. ‘I must tell the story as it happened,’ he muttered.
He paused again, for longer this time. Then he said, ‘Ida sewed for the de Sees family before she was engaged to help Claude, although only on occasions. One day I met her as she was hurrying home to the village. Typically, Claritia had detained her, and it was already growing dark. Ida was scared, although she tried to hide it.’ His expression softened. ‘I saw her to her home. Once she got over her shyness at being with Lady Claritia’s future son-in-law, her true, delightful personality emerged. We started talking. She made me laugh.’ He smiled. ‘I think I fell in love with her that first evening. I give you my word that I did not seduce her — ’ he looked up at me — ‘although, in truth, I know I was wrong to allow our love to develop, bound to marry as I was. But — ’ he made a small, helpless sound, as if at a loss to explain — ‘I could not help myself. I loved Ida, she loved me, and when the opportunity arrived for us to become lovers, neither of us hesitated.’
Two tears spilled over his eyelids and slid away down his face. ‘I must tell you now of Genevieve,’ he said, ‘for of all the tragic things that have happened, it is the suffering that I caused to her that bites the most cruelly. As the days went by and I grew to know her better, I realized with dismay that she was a chronically shy woman, modest in the extreme and very frightened at the prospect of matrimony.’
Suddenly, it was not his voice I was hearing but Gurdyman’s. I was back in the little enclosed Cambridge garden, and the wizard was speaking. Genevieve was an innocent. She had been told by her mother what a wife is to expect on her wedding night — knowing Claritia, who is a somewhat coarse and insensitive woman, I do not imagine she spoke gently or cautiously — and she was fearful and apprehensive.
Poor Genevieve. I was sorry for her — what woman would not be? — but I could not see why Sir Alain should feel responsible for her state of mind. He was speaking; I listened.