'Nay.' Digby sat a moment, concentrating on turning his faded cap round and round in his hands.
'Sure you won't have that drink?'
Digby shook his head, then slipped away, looking confused.
Lucie woke as Nicholas's writing fell to the floor with a crash of paper and pen. She caught the inkpot as it began to slide. Nicholas jerked awake. 'I am a burden,'
'You are tired. Camden Thorpe's visit exhausted you.'
'I am glad of help for you, Lucie.'
She touched his hand, his face, smiled for him. 'I am glad, too. Now rest. Your notes can wait.'
He gripped her hand. 'I must finish. Write it all down. The garden. My mixtures.'
'There is time.' She gently prised loose his hand, smoothed the hair from his forehead.
He sighed. 'You are too good for me.'
'Nonsense.' She kissed his forehead and he closed his eyes. She turned down the lamp and slid in beside him. Tonight she would allow herself the luxury of sleeping in the bed. Nicholas was calm enough.
But it was not like before. Nicholas did not turn and gather Lucie in his arms. Even if he had, it would not feel the same. Lucie did not feel the solace here that she had before. In this bed she had felt protected from the world. No longer. Her future security depended on secrecy. At first it had seemed a small thing. But lately she wondered. Was it that simple? She wished she knew just what had befallen Nicholas at the abbey that night. Whom had he seen? How had the Summoner come to be there? Was the Archdeacon's interest merely a friend's concern? If so, why did it frighten Nicholas?
She smelled danger everywhere. Even the apprentice. She could not even appreciate Guildmaster Thorpe's granting her request.
Instead she wondered what the Welshman was after. Oh, he would be a welcome help, she'd no doubt about that. But what was in it for him? To begin a new life, he said. Perhaps. Her first suspicion had been that he and the Guildmaster planned to wrest the apothecary from her, to help her until Nicholas died, all the while learning the books, the customers, the flow of trade, and then take it from her when he died, saying she was too inexperienced, a woman after all, the daughter of a sinful Frenchwoman. That was why the nuns had tormented her. So well behaved the other girls thought her a prig, she'd been watched constantly for signs of sinfulness because the nuns knew her mother had had a lover, that it was her sin that had killed her. Day in and day out they'd followed her, watched her, listened to her every word, raking through all her words and deeds for seeds of her mother's character.
Once she'd become so sick of it she'd plotted an escape. Her one friend was Sister Doltrice, the Herbalist and Infirmarian, for Lucie's mother had passed on to her daughter a love of gardens and much lore of healing plants. Sister Doltrice did not keep a hawk eye on her. So after breakfast one day, Lucie complained of stomach cramps. She clutched her stomach and let tears trickle down her cheeks. Sister Winifrith hurried her to the infirmary.
The plan was to creep out after Sister Doltrice had tucked her in for the night, slip out the garden door and down through the cluster of sheds and outbuildings to the part of the wall that had crumbled beneath the weight of a falling tree.
While she waited in the infirmary for nightfall, Lucie sipped the minty tisane that her friend had prepared for her tummy, and drowsed in the warm room as Sister Dotrice puttered with her chores. In the early evening the nun declared Lucie's colour better and let her sit up a little, keeping her occupied with stories of her large family and their busy farm up near Helmsley, a farm cradled between heathery hills beside the cool clear water of Trilicum Beck. They were merry tales, full of silliness and love, and Lucie lost herself in them, gradually nodding off and slipping down into the soft bed, where her sweet dreams kept her until dawn.
As she'd left for her morning lessons, she'd turned and asked Sister Doltrice why the other sisters were so hard on her.
'Because of your mother, child. Because they do not understand that your mother was very young and frightened by the wildness of the North Country and found her solace in a gentle man who loved her and made her smile.'
'Can't you tell them to stop?'
She snorted. 'And let them wonder how I could understand such a thing?'
Lucie looked into the Infirmarian's face and saw what a beauty she'd been — still was, in a comfortable sort of way — and realised what she was saying.
Sister Doltrice took her hand. 'And now we have shared secrets that we must swear never to reveal to a soul.'
'What secret do you have from me?'
That your tummy aches when you need a day of Doltrice's minty concoctions and endless stories. Much better than running away, don't you agree?'
'You knew?'
The Infirmarian knelt down and took Lucie in her arms. She was warm and smelled of flowers and herbs. 'To be a good healer, one must read the heart as well as bodily wastes.'
'It's our secret?'
'Our secret, little one. And you're always welcome.'
Lucie had trusted Sister Doltrice as she'd trusted no one since her mother died. Only Nicholas would later earn such trust.
And the apprentice? She thought not. She'd once asked Sister Doltrice how to tell whether a stranger was trustworthy. 'Look them in the eye and ask them,' she'd said.
Lucie had been disappointed with that answer, which seemed no answer at all.
She still thought it silly. And unwise. For one who asks such a question reveals that she has need of discretion. And she did not want the Welshman to get
curious. Especially with his connection to the Archbishop and the Archdeacon, She wished there were a way to refuse him as her apprentice. But she needed help. Who knew how long the Guildmaster would take to replace him? And to refuse the Guildmaster's offer when she had made such a fuss about needing help would arouse suspicion.
Ten
Nicholas Wilton disturbed Owen's sleep. The man's condition struck him as more than a palsy, It was not that Owen could point to this or that and say this was what was not right about Wilton's condition, that a palsy would not cause the hair to turn grey, the flesh to wrinkle, or the palms to sweat. A palsy might do all that. His suspicion was all in his gut and too vague to be useful.
At dawn he dressed and headed for the Wiltons' garden. His breath smoked in the fiosty air. His boots crunched on the snow. He made his way along the paths and through the holly hedge to the woodpile. In the shed beside it he found an axe. He took off his tunic. Though chilly now, he intended to work up a good sweat. He would want his tunic dry when he cooled down. A habit from his old life on campaign. With the single mindedness he'd used in archery, he attacked the woodpile, pretending it was the Breton jongleur. Ungrateful wretch. He hacked at him. ‘ fought for your life. Another blow. ‘ risked the ridicule of my comrades. He hacked. You and your gypsy. Another. She unmanned me. Crack. Breton bastard.
At first his injured shoulder was painfully stiff, but as his muscles warmed, it loosened up and he rediscovered the satisfaction of physical labour. His mind calmed and cleared. His movements became rhythmic and fluid.
A cough interrupted him.
'You begin the day with remarkable energy.' Lucie Wilton handed him a cloth. 'You'll want to dry off and get dressed. There's a warm breakfast in the kitchen.'
It was plain she'd heard him and hurried out to investigate, thinking him an intruder. Her hair was loose, covered only by a shawl. The pale morning sun caught red-gold strands and caused them to shimmer with life. Dear God, how he would love to touch that hair. Yet even as she stood here, radiant and vulnerable in the morning light, he was aware of a bristly guardedness with which she maintained a cautious distance.