The bells chimed for Compline. Henry waited in the cloister for Brother Wulfstan. If there had been a patient in the infirmary, he would have relieved Wulfstan for the service. But when there were no patients they attended service together. Oddly, the kitchen workers beat Wulfstan this evening. The Infirmarian had been acting distracted. Perhaps he was unwell. It would be like him to hide it. Henry went after him. The silly Michaelo darted past, from the direction of the infirmary.
So Michaelo had delayed Wulfstan with another headache. Henry ducked into the infirmary to see if he could help.
'Henry?' Feeble, faint, he could just hear his name. Henry turned round and round. Merciful Mother, Wulfstan lay on a cot, clutching at his heart.
Henry dropped to his knees beside him, felt his brow. A cold sweat. 'What has happened?'
Wulfstan lifted his head to speak, choked, leaned off the cot to vomit. Henry went for towels and a basin. Wulfstan lay back on the cot while Henry cleaned him. Then Henry helped him sit up a bit.
'Do you know what it is?'
'Foxglove. In drink’
'What drink?'
'Mic-' He closed his eyes. Shivered, then bent double. Henry smelled the diarrhoea.
Dizziness, slow, pounding heartbeat, vomiting and diarrhoea. Foxglove poisoning.
'Michaelo gave you something to drink?'
Wulfstan nodded.
It would have to be a strong dose. 'Where are the cups?'
Wulfstan pointed a shaking finger at a small table. Henry smelled the little cup. It had been rinsed. He looked around for the water. Saw a damp spot by the garden door. Brother Wulfstan had been in no condition to rinse out the cups and take the water to the garden. And lazy Brother Michaelo was not so fastidious.
Unless he wanted no one to examine the evidence.
Wulfstan began to choke again, and Henry hurried over.
Dear God, what was he to do? To call for help was no use. All the brothers were at the evening service. Wulfstan might choke if Henry left him to find help. And he must clean him. The poor man could not be left to lie in his own excrement.
But Michaelo might escape.
Twenty-two
Dame Phillippa stood in the kitchen doorway watching the icy rain, silver threads in the darkness. The air was different from the air at Freythorpe. Here the spicy fragrance of the moors was muted by the damp river air. Perhaps she had been wrong to let Lucie come here. Not just because of the air. No, that was a minor worry compared with what Lucie and the apprentice had just told her.
Nicholas Wilton had murdered Geoffrey Montaigne. It was difficult to accept. Phillippa had never imagined Nicholas Wilton capable of harming anyone. That is why she had been able to forgive him for Amelie's death. She thought of the frail man up in the sickroom. His illness was the clue to understanding it all. What he had done was killing him. He was a good man who had been driven to commit a sin he could not live with. Phillippa could not believe anything else of him. And she had to convince Lucie of that. Lucie had to realise that if Nicholas had indeed committed murder, he had done it to save himself. Or to save Lucie.
Phillippa turned back to Lucie and Owen, who sat quietly, waiting for her to rejoin them. Lucie stroked the cat, who had curled up in her lap as if she sensed Lucie needed comforting. Blessed Mary and all the saints, with her husband dying upstairs and her past revealed as a knot of lies and half-truths, the child did need comforting. The best comfort Phillippa could give Lucie now was to tell her everything.
'When you were little, you had a cat much like that one. You called her Melisende, the queen of Jerusalem’
'This one is also Melisende’ Lucie said. 'She is as stubborn and beautiful as the other.'
Phillippa was glad. 'So you do not remember only the sorrow. That is good.'
'My memories of Freythorpe before my mother died are good memories, Aunt.'
Phillippa nodded. 'Then perhaps what I say will count for something. I want you to understand Nicholas. You must not condemn him, Lucie. Or your mother. I will tell you what you need to know’ Phillippa sat down, poured herself a generous measure of brandywine, and took a mouthful of it before she began. 'You must first understand Amelie. She was only seventeen. Given away to a stranger who took her far from her family, her country’ Phillippa shrugged. 'But it's the way things are done. Daughters are chattel. And then they say we cry too much. As if we had no cause’ She looked at Lucie. 'I vowed it would not happen to you. You must believe that I permitted this marriage only because you agreed to it — indeed, seemed set on it — and it gave you the chance to become your own woman’
Lucie said nothing,
Phillippa sighed, took a sip of her brandywine. 'Amelie clung to me, pathetically relieved, when I spoke court French to her. Other than Geoffrey Montaigne, a young squire in my brother's company who had been very kind to her — more than kind, I could see — she had had no one to talk to, no one in whom to confide her fears. I need not tell you, Lucie, that your father was no comfort. That is what he's spent these years repenting, of course. She never should have been brought here, so far from her home. A war prize, Robert called Amelie, Can you imagine?' Phillippa looked at Owen. 'I'm sure you've no trouble imagining that, being Lancaster's Captain of Archers all those years.'
'He's not like Sir Robert,' Lucie said in a quiet voice. 'Let him be.' To Owen, Lucie said, 'You must not blame Aunt Phillippa for her discourtesy. She has known little pleasure with men.' Owen swallowed the retort he'd prepared.
Dame Phillippa merely shrugged. 'I want you to understand Amelie's — Lady D'Arby's — unhappiness. My dear brother was angry when a year passed and the marriage bed produced no son — or daughter. And he made his anger known. Poor Amelie. Robert's behaviour made matters worse. You see, her monthly flux had stopped, I'm sure from unhappiness and fear and loneliness and whatnot. I told Robert it was his own doing, that from such fear as she had for him there could come little good, but of course he could not believe me. His pride could not accept that he might be to blame. Men are so arrogant about their seed. Amelie was to blame. He had to believe that. And he convinced her. She brooded over it. She wanted nothing more than to have a child, a babe to love. She was ripe for all sorts of nonsense. That was when her maid took her to Magda Digby.
'Poor child. She had hope, but the concoction ran out and still no monthly courses. Amelie asked me about the herbs in my garden. I began to show her. And I'm afraid I told her of Nicholas's garden, and that they were of an age, and he already hard at work learning his trade. His garden was a masterwork of plants that would yield common and exotic medicines. I never thought. .' Phillippa shook her head.
'Much of what I tell you now was got from Nicholas himself. He came to me and told me all before he asked for your hand. I think he wanted to be refused. He sought penance.'
'For her death?' Lucie asked.
Phillippa waved the question away. 'But I liked him. Now, after I tell you all this you may say, "Silly old fool, how could you like him after knowing what he'd done?" And to that I say, "How could I not?" He did all with the best — '
'Aunt Phillippa, please get on with it!' Lucie said.
'Well.' Phillippa straightened up. 'So.' She brushed an imaginary crumb off her skirt. 'Amelie came here, sought out Nicholas, saying she wished to see the garden. Nicholas was a charming young man. Gentle, not strong. But that raven hair and those piercing blue eyes. Like hers, but with a different mood. Where Nicholas was angelic, Amelie was tragic. There was something in her eyes.' Phillippa paused, thinking of those eyes.