‘Oh, my poppets,’ said Kate, and tears sprang to her eyes. ‘If anything could mend it, I think that would.’
Footsteps on the stair down from the main house made her hastily rearrange her skirts, but only heralded the arrival of a flustered Jennet.
‘There you are, you wild bairns!’ she exclaimed. ‘Come and be dried before you catch your deaths! I’m sorry for this, mem, I turned my back a moment to find them clean shifts and they were away. Come back up, the pair of you.’
‘No,’ said Ysonde.
‘Do as you’re bid, now,’ said Jennet, trying to get hold of their hands. Wynliane allowed herself to be captured, but Ysonde squirmed out of reach.
‘Talkin’ to the lady,’ she said indignantly.
‘You can talk to Lady Kate the morn,’ said Jennet, ‘for she’ll be here then and all.’
Ysonde looked searchingly at Kate. ‘Will you?’
‘Yes, I will,’ said Kate. ‘Go with Jennet now. Maybe she’ll tell you a story, if you go to bed quickly.’
‘Oh, aye,’ said Jennet. ‘A’body needs a story once they’re in their bed.’
The child stared at Kate a moment, lower lip stuck out; then she looked consideringly at Jennet, sighed heavily and offered her hand to be led away.
‘And ask Lady Kate for her blessing,’ prompted Jennet, ‘like good wee lassies.’
Kate, taken aback, recalled her own nurse giving her the same order before carrying her up the wheel stair to the chamber she shared with her sisters. She had a moment’s panic as she tried to recall the blessing her mother had used, and then found her hand raised to make the sign of the Cross and the words coming readily to her tongue.
‘Christ and His blessed mother guard your sleep, my poppets.’
‘Amen,’ said Jennet firmly, and led the children away.
‘The linen is of the best quality,’ said Alys, ‘but it has been neglected. We found a pair of sheets fit for use, and good blankets, and you should be comfortable enough here.’
‘I should say so,’ agreed Kate. ‘We’ve shared worse, Babb and I.’
‘And I tightened the strapping,’ said Babb. ‘Sagging to the floor, it was.’ She prodded the pile of blankets on the truckle bed and it creaked in a satisfactory way.
‘You would hardly have slept in the great bed,’ said Alys, ‘but it must be cleaned before anyone does, or they will choke on the dust.’
They were in the chamber next the hall, at the head of the short stair down into the stone kitchen wing. Maister Morison’s best bed stood against one wall, imposing in a set of very dusty hangings of dark blue dornick. Two plate-cupboards, bare and equally dusty, occupied two other walls; the plate was presumably locked in the iron-strapped kist at the foot of the bed which completed the major furnishings of the chamber. Several stools had been rounded up and set aside, and the truckle bed drawn out and made up on the inmost side of the room, away from the window.
‘The moon’s well past the full,’ continued Alys, ‘but I thought best to keep you out of its light just the same. You must be very weary, and it might keep you awake.’
‘At least I have my other crutches now,’ said Kate.
Babb snorted. ‘The laddie took his time about getting back wi them. As for that Matt, down here speiring how you were — ’
‘My uncle will have sent him,’ said Kate.
‘Aye, very likely. But coming in here, looking about him and going away with never a word,’ said Babb indignantly, ‘was that not just like him, my leddy?’
‘I must go home,’ said Alys. ‘I will come back tomorrow, and we will consider what to do next.’
‘About what, exactly?’ asked Kate. Their eyes met, and Alys nodded.
‘There are many different problems,’ she acknowledged. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow,’ agreed Kate.
Lying awake in the dark, listening to Ursel’s snores from the upper floor and Babb’s quiet breathing at her back, Kate found the problems crowded in on her without waiting for the morrow. They tangled round her like ropes, and whenever she tried to pick at one, another tightened its grip. She could not bear to think about her experience this morning, of the end to her hopes of a miracle or the bitter flavour left by the words of the man in her dream, but if there was to be no miracle, what of the other things which had happened in this very long day and which somehow demanded her attention? Here in Maister Morison’s own house, it seemed impossible not to help him in his difficulties, but what could she do, thumping about on two sticks or carried up stairs by her muscular servant, that could not be done faster and better by another? Would he wish to be helped, or was it simply meddling?
The house itself, neglected for two years by a dwindling succession of careless servants, cheerless and disordered, begged to be put right. It needed willing workers and someone to direct them. As for the two little girls — the older one, whatever was wrong with her, had a sweet face and seemed to have the nature to match. Her sister, on the other hand, reminded Kate of a nest of wild kittens she and Tib had once found. The mother was a house cat, not a wildcat of the woods, but she had reared the kits away from people, and they were fierce and furious, with no smatch of timidity in them, spitting and lashing out with sharp little claws at a grasping hand.
She smiled into the dark, thinking of what had happened after Alys left. Not yet ready to sleep, Kate had taken herself into the hall again, to look at the jumble of dusty instruments in the corner. A lute with five broken strings lay on top of a harp-case, two recorders had rolled against the panelling, and under all was a painted box. Babb, with much argument, had dragged this out and set it on a small table for her, and she had opened the lid. As she had suspected, it contained a set of monocords, the dark keys and brass wires dull with disuse but clean inside their case. She opened out the folding prop for the music.
‘Now, my doo, that’s none of yours,’ Babb had protested. Ignoring her, Kate pressed one or two of the boxwood keys. To her surprise, the little instrument was out of tune but otherwise in good order.
‘It’s a good set,’ she said, reaching for the tuning-key in its slot at the side of the lid. ‘It’s not been touched for a while.’
‘No, and you shouldn’t be touching it,’ grumbled Babb. ‘It’s time you were in your bed, my doo.’
‘I wish we’d never sold mine.’ Kate bent down to hear the faint silver notes. ‘Mother never got the price we’d paid for them.’ She tapped one key, tightened the string again, then tested the other keys which struck the same string. Satisfied, she moved the tuning-key to another pin. Babb snorted, and stalked away.
Once she had brought the whole instrument into agreement with itself, and confirmed the tuning with the proper broken chords and scales, she picked out a few familiar turns and trills, then moved on to such music as she could remember. The stiff keys eased as she worked on them, and the sound they struck from the wire strings was sweet and delicate.
She had no idea how long she had been playing when there was movement in the corner of her eye. Caught in the tune, her hands kept going of their own accord as she glanced sideways, to find a pale little figure almost floating at the foot of the stairs: Ysonde in her clean shift, unaware that she was observed, dancing barefoot to the music.
She kept the tune going, glancing up from time to time, noting that the small feet kept exact time with her fingers. When the dance wound to its end she took her hands from the keys and held one out to Ysonde.
‘Where’s Jennet?’
The child paused, staring at her across the shadowy hall. ‘Asleep.’
‘So should you be.’
‘It was dancy. Do some more.’
‘Not now,’ said Kate, ‘but if you go back to bed I’ll play some more tomorrow.’
Ysonde considered this. ‘Will you say that thing again?’ she bargained.
‘What thing?’
‘Christ a blessed mother.’ Ysonde held up her hand. Kate, keeping her face straight, delivered the blessing, and the child vanished back up the stair. A bump and a distant murmur suggested that she had returned to bed.