He must have fallen face-down, slightly to the left. He had dislocated his left shoulder and he had a huge bump in the middle of his forehead. The impact appeared to have broken his nose, which had bled freely, drenching his lower face, throat and the front of his chemise with scarlet. Pain and possibly concussion were making his mind wander: when Josse asked him his name, he began to say ‘Pa—’, then a dazed look came into his eyes and he stopped.
‘Where am I?’ he demanded, his wide eyes skittering wildly around the room and the faces looming over him. ‘What house is this?’
‘It is Southfire Hall,’ Isabelle said soothingly, as with swift, assessing hands she felt up and down his left arm and around the damaged shoulder, ‘and you are welcome here. We will take care of you.’
He murmured his thanks.
‘Can you tell us your name, and where you are bound?’ Josse persisted.
Isabelle caught his eye, carefully miming an instruction, raising her eyebrows in silent query. Josse swallowed, nodded, and flexed his hands. ‘Keep him talking!’ she hissed.
‘Whoever is expecting you, your kin or friends,’ Josse improvised, ‘will surely be worrying, and we will send word, if you will say where to send it.’
There was a long pause. The man was young – perhaps in the mid-twenties, Josse thought, staring down at him – and his blond hair was thick and wavy, reaching to his shoulders. Beneath the dirt and the blood, the structure of his face was good, with well-defined cheekbones and a firm jaw. He tried to speak, swallowed, and tried again. ‘Peter,’ he managed.
‘Peter, aye, very good. Go on,’ Josse said chattily. He braced himself.
‘My name’s Peter Southey,’ the young man said, his voice stronger now, ‘and no concerned soul awaits me, for I was bound for some inn in Lewes, if any would have opened its doors to one arriving so late on a night such as this. I – aaaaagh!’
His scream split the air. Josse, with Isabelle watching him hawk-eyed as if to reassure herself he really did know what he was doing, had taken advantage of the young man’s temporary distraction, as he answered the questions, to thrust his knee into the man’s armpit and reduce the dislocation.
For a moment, Peter continued to sob softly. Then he fainted.
‘Well done,’ Isabelle said. ‘If you warn them what you’re about to do, they tense up and the job becomes twice as difficult. It’s good that he’s unconscious,’ she went on, staring down critically at the patient, ‘for now we can get on with tending him without him yelling out and waking the whole household; not that they’re likely to hear, since they’re all over in the original extension.’ She was gently palpating the grossly swollen nose. ‘I’m sure it’s broken,’ she observed. ‘What do you think, Helewise?’
For some time the three of them worked over the insensate form of Peter Southey. Leaving the two women to discuss and treat his wounds, Josse concentrated on removing the clothing. The heavy, padded tunic was wet with melted snow, and would need drying. The chemise would have to be soaked to get the blood out. As, with great care, he eased the sleeve off the left arm and finally got the chemise free, Josse noticed that the young man wore something around his neck, hanging on a fine leather thong. He sponged the pooled blood off the chest – quite a hairy chest, he observed – and then reached down to pick up whatever hung from the thong.
Not a crucifix, or a medal bearing the image of the Virgin or a favourite saint, but a small, soft suede bag, tightly tied closed with fine thread wound in an intricate knot. Josse held the little bag in his hand. It was roughly as long and as broad as the top joint of his thumb, and it contained something hard. A precious stone? A piece of gold jewellery? ‘None of my business,’ Josse muttered, and he laid it gently back on the young man’s chest.
When there was nothing further that could be done for Peter Southey, Isabelle politely but firmly sent Josse and Helewise off to bed. ‘I will stay with him,’ she said, in the sort of voice you didn’t argue with, ‘so that, when he wakes, I shall be able to reassure him that he’s all right. Go!’
They went.
Quite a short time later, they lay side by side in the luxurious bed, trying to get warm. They had kept most of their clothes on; the thought of icy sheets on bare skin was not to be contemplated.
Josse tried to lie still, for he knew Helewise was worn out and needed to sleep, but he was restless. There was a question he had been burning to ask almost since he and Helewise had arrived at Southfire Hall, but, somehow, the occasion to do so just hadn’t presented itself. Now, unless he was prepared to get out of bed and return to Isabelle in her vigil, he was going to have to wait till morning.
‘Hell and damnation!’ he muttered softly.
Not softly enough: ‘What’s the matter, Josse?’ came Helewise’s drowsy voice in the darkness. ‘Can’t you sleep? Are you too cold?’
‘I’m warm enough, sweeting,’ he said, hugging her close. ‘It’s not that which keeps me awake.’
‘What, then?’ There was a rustle of crisp linen as she propped herself up. He had detected a note of resignation in her voice, as if she knew quite well she wasn’t going to get any sleep either until he had shared what was on his mind.
‘I have been wondering since we got here about Aeleis,’ he said. ‘She’s the third of my cousins, Hugh and Ysabel’s youngest daughter, and she was—’
‘The tomboy, the mischief-maker and your constant companion,’ Helewise finished. ‘Yes, you told me. And you’re right; she’s not here, obviously, and I haven’t heard anybody mention her name.’
‘Neither have I,’ Josse agreed. ‘It worries me. If she was dead, surely they’d have said so? They’d have sent word to us at the House in the Woods, wouldn’t they?’
‘I don’t know, Josse.’ There was a pause, then Helewise went on, ‘What do you remember about her? Tell me all you can, and then perhaps we may hazard a guess at what has become of her.’
Josse stretched out his arm, and Helewise moved so that she could rest her head on his chest, held warmly against him. ‘Although I was always very fond of Isabelle, and Editha too, Aeleis was my favourite,’ he began. ‘When I first came here I was very homesick, although I dared not admit it, and Aeleis understood. I thought she would scoff at me for being such a baby, but instead she decided to distract me.’ He grinned in the darkness, remembering. ‘And her idea of distraction was to take me exploring with her.’
‘Was she still at Southfire Hall when you visited for that Yule season?’
‘Aye, she was.’ An image of Aeleis’s laughing face came into his head. She was such a pretty, vivacious woman … ‘She’d been widowed a year or so previously.’
‘How tragic!’ Helewise exclaimed softly. ‘She must have been young, to have lost a husband, and the husband young to die.’
‘Aye, you’d think so,’ Josse agreed. ‘But she gave no sign of grief. Editha told me it was a blessing, in some ways, that Godric – Aeleis’s husband – had gone, for he had been twelve years Aeleis’s senior, and, according to Editha, so elderly and pernickety in his ways that he might have been older by twenty years or more. He used to wear himself out, apparently, fussing and fretting about his lively young wife.’ He paused, thinking back. ‘Editha also said Aeleis was better off without him,’ he added. ‘She said Aeleis could breathe again, once he was dead.’
They lay together in quiet companionship for a while. Then Helewise said, ‘I might be very wrong, and please don’t think I am in any way disparaging your cousin, but do you think it possible that she left to find some excitement?’ Josse drew breath to reply, but she hadn’t finished. ‘You said she always sought adventure – danger, even – as a child. She was married, at a young age, I’d surmise, to a fussy old man who must surely have seemed very dull to her, and who constantly tried to restrict her freedom. When he died, might she not have come to the conclusion that, if there was any chance of her having the excitement she craved, she would have to seek it for herself, outside the family home? Why, they might have come up with another dull old man for her if she stayed, especially if her exploits threatened to embarrass her kin.’
Suppressing his instant reaction to leap to Aeleis’s defence, Josse thought about it and realized he didn’t really need to. Helewise hadn’t been criticizing her; what she had just said showed both understanding and compassion. And she was right: kicking up her heels in some sort of wild, romantic fling, yearning for thrills and not stopping to consider her family’s reaction, sounded exactly like Aeleis.
He gave a huge, jaw-cracking yawn. ‘Let’s ask Isabelle,’ he said. ‘We’ll find a private moment tomorrow – maybe visit her at her patient’s bedside – and I’ll ask her to tell me what’s happened to Aeleis.’ He drew the bedding more closely up around his ears. ‘Sleep now?’
‘Sleep now.’
It was apparent the next morning that the household had been informed about the unexpected guest. As the family convened, the injured man was the sole topic of conversation. Helewise observed Isabelle, looking somewhat harassed, trying to deal with several people’s questions all at once.
‘Thank you, Jenna, yes, I’d be most grateful if you’d see to having his garments laundered, and no, Editha, there’s no need to offer him your specially soft blanket because he is already as comfortable as we can make him. As far as I know, Cecily, his horse is not going to die, but if you wish to reassure yourself fully, I suggest you go out to the stables and ask.’ Finally, Isabelle turned to the short figure standing right beside her. Watching closely, Helewise thought she saw Isabelle make an attempt at a kindly smile. ‘Now, Cyrille, what were you saying?’
‘I was offering to sit with the patient and attend to him,’ Cyrille said grandly. ‘I am, as you know, experienced in caring for the elderly and the sick, and I have my own little ways and methods of making people cosy.’ Something in her tone made it plain that she was quite sure nobody else could possibly possess such skills.
‘What a kind thought,’ Isabelle murmured. ‘However,’ she went on, as Cyrille began to speak, ‘I have already made the necessary arrangements for the nursing of our guest, and I myself will be in charge.’
‘Oh, is that wise, when you always say how busy you are, and how there are never quite enough hours in the day?’ Cyrille asked, an expression on her round face that contrived to be both pitying and vaguely critical. ‘Why not relinquish this task to me?’
‘I don’t—’ Isabelle began. Helewise caught her eye; Isabelle’s good temper seemed rapidly to be running out.
‘Isabelle has already asked me to help her,’ Helewise said. She hoped she had interpreted Isabelle’s look correctly; Isabelle’s expression of relief suggested she had. ‘After all, as a guest, I have nothing else to do. Besides, Josse and I were with Isabelle when the injured man was brought in,’ she went on, improvising swiftly, ‘and he knows my face. Better, we think, not to have too many unfamiliar people going into his room.’
Cyrille had turned to glare at her. ‘Are you experienced in nursing the sick and the dying?’ she demanded rudely. Helewise heard Josse give an indignant snort, but, to her relief, he didn’t speak. ‘It’s a particular talent, you know, to make a patient feel reassured and at their ease. Only a very few of us possess it,’ she added self-importantly; in her own eyes she was clearly one of the foremost in this select group.
Isabelle had heard enough. ‘Our guest is not sick, neither is he elderly, and I sincerely hope and pray that he isn’t dying,’ she said with asperity. ‘Now, if you will all excuse us, Helewise and I will be about our duties. Come, Helewise.’
With a quick glance at Josse – who, she observed, still seemed to be fuming at anyone having the temerity to question her nursing skills – Helewise followed Isabelle out of the hall.
‘Thank you for that,’ Isabelle said. ‘Will you really help me?’
‘Of course. I know you didn’t actually ask me, so I apologize for having involved you in an untruth, but I could see that you didn’t welcome Cyrille’s offer.’
‘Really? That was observant,’ Isabelle said.
Again, Helewise suppressed a smile. Isabelle, she reflected, couldn’t have made her antipathy plainer had she stood up on the table, stamped both feet and shouted.
Quietly, Isabelle opened the door to the room where the injured man lay. A grey-haired servant in a white headdress and plain dark gown was seated on a stool beside the bed, and, seeing her mistress, she stood up and came over to the doorway. ‘He’s been sleeping, my lady,’ she said softly. ‘Restlessly, at times, and moaning. His injuries pain him, I’ll warrant.’
‘No doubt,’ Isabelle agreed. ‘Thank you, Agnes – you are relieved.’
With a bob of a curtsey, the servant disappeared along the passage. Helewise and Isabelle, moving to opposite sides of the bed, stared down at the man in their care.
‘The fall hasn’t improved his good looks,’ Isabelle remarked after a while.
‘No, indeed,’ Helewise agreed. This morning, the lump on his forehead was even bigger, and the broken nose was grossly swollen and purple with bruising. Peter had two black eyes, and the puffed-up lids were shiny, bright scarlet. He was bare-chested, and the white linen bandage supporting the dislocated shoulder looked pale against his skin.
Perhaps sensing their close scrutiny, Peter tried to open his eyes. ‘Ouch,’ he murmured. ‘What’s happened to my face?’ He put up an exploratory hand; his left one. He gave a cry of pain.
Gently Helewise took hold of his wrist, laying the hand back against his bandaged chest. ‘Best not to move that arm,’ she advised. ‘You injured your shoulder when you fell, and you need to rest it while it heals.’
Peter gave a brief nod of understanding. ‘And my face?’ he repeated, now investigating with his right hand. ‘Dear Jesus,’ he cried in panic as his fingers found the grotesquely enlarged nose, ‘what’s happened to me?’
‘Hush, now,’ Helewise said soothingly. ‘You appear to have fallen on your face and left shoulder, and your face took much of the impact. Your nose is broken, and you have a bump on your forehead.’
He peered up at her, trying to see through the slits between his eyelids. ‘Will I mend?’
‘You’ll mend. Now, rest, lie back, and Lady Isabelle and I will look after you.’
He turned his head to look at Isabelle. ‘Where is this place?’ he asked. He had, it seemed, forgotten asking the same question the previous night.
‘Southfire Hall,’ Isabelle said, exchanging a glance with Helewise. ‘We told you—’
‘You told me last night; yes, of course, so you did,’ Peter said. ‘I had forgotten. Is this place near Lewes?’ He opened his eyes more widely, staring innocently up at Isabelle.
‘Nearby, yes,’ she replied. ‘The road descends from the downland a short distance further on, and Lewes lies in the valley.’
‘I fell,’ Peter said, sounding amazed. ‘Yes, it’s coming back to me now. My horse’s feet slid from under him, and – my horse!’ He tried to sit up, but slumped back with a moan.
It was Isabelle’s turn to soothe him. ‘Your horse is being well cared for,’ she said calmly. ‘My head groom is very experienced, and he told me this morning that your horse has suffered no serious damage. Bruising and some cuts, but rest in a warm stable under my groom’s care will soon put him right.’
‘It seems,’ Peter said, ‘that I have much to thank you for.’
Isabelle inclined her head in acknowledgement.
Helewise, watching, was struck by the odd thought that, for some reason, Peter resented having to be grateful. She told herself not to be silly.
The cold, overcast day slowly passed. For long spells, Isabelle left Helewise alone with the injured man, and Helewise, admitting guiltily to herself that it was a relief to have a worthy reason to absent herself from the bustle of family life, sat contentedly watching over him. It was warm in the little room; the grey-haired servant returned from time to time to mend the fire in the small hearth, and brought food for Helewise. The patient needed little attention, sleeping for much of the day. Once or twice Helewise offered food, but he declined, although she persuaded him to drink some water. Periodically she put a hand on his forehead, testing for fever, and, whenever he stirred, she would speak to him to make sure he remembered who and where he was. If he had suffered concussion last night, then it was possible he might descend into that frightening, mind-wandering state which usually implied some injury within the skull.
As she sat there beside him, Helewise prayed that that would not happen.
Some time in the afternoon, Isabelle’s daughter Jenna came to keep Helewise company. Tall and strongly built though she was, she moved with quiet grace, and Peter did not wake as she pulled up a stool and sat down beside Helewise. ‘How is he?’ she asked softly.
‘Sleeping more peacefully now. The pain is subsiding, perhaps.’
Jenna nodded. There was a brief but not uncomfortable pause, then she said, ‘It was good of you to come to my mother’s rescue this morning. She finds Cyrille trying, and it would have been hard for her if she’d had to accept her help.’
‘Yes, I saw as much,’ Helewise replied. She wanted to find out more about Isabelle’s antipathy towards Cyrille, but hesitated to ask what might be seen as intrusive questions. ‘I’m sure Cyrille meant well, and was thinking only of the well-being of the wounded man,’ she said mildly.
Jenna’s response was surprising. ‘That is a generous remark but, if I may say so, one that only a stranger to this household would make.’ She paused. Helewise was about to prompt her, but then, as if she had tried but found she couldn’t keep her emotions to herself, Jenna said in a furious hiss, ‘Cyrille de Picus very rarely means well, and the only person whose well-being concerns her is herself.’
‘Oh. I see,’ Helewise murmured.
‘My lady, I very much doubt that you do,’ Jenna flashed back. ‘Oh, she dresses it up very prettily, always pretending that she acts only for the good of others, but she’s a mean-spirited, cold-hearted woman with an extremely high opinion of herself that she believes everyone else should share, she is a know-all who thinks she is always right about absolutely everything and an expert in so many skills it’d make your head spin, and nobody in this house is safe from her intense scrutiny and her rigid judgement.’
The echo of her angry words died away. Helewise said, ‘You don’t seem to like her much.’ Jenna spun round to glare at her, saw the smile hovering on her lips, and, to Helewise’s relief – for the remark had slipped out – first grinned and then began to laugh.
Quickly, glancing at the sleeping man, she stopped. ‘I’m sorry, Lady Helewise,’ she said. ‘It is no concern of yours if we suffer difficulties with her, and wrong of me to involve you.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Helewise said. She waited, hoping very much that, having begun to open her heart, Jenna would go on.
She did. ‘It’s her pernickety, fussy ways that really annoy me,’ she said. ‘She never stops picking on the three little girls – my Cecily, and my cousin’s two, Brigida and Philippa. Oh, I know they can be a handful, and very often they do indeed need correction and sometimes punishment, but, for one thing, it’s been a long, hard winter, and they’re full of high spirits and sick of being cooped up indoors. For another – and this is my main argument with Cyrille – it’s not up to her to discipline them. She makes the children ten times worse, following them around, spying on them, as if she’s just waiting for one of them to misbehave. And, since those naughty children know quite well what she’s up to and that the rest of us don’t approve, sooner or later one of them – usually my Cecily, I’m afraid – provokes Cyrille by some act of mischief performed right under her nose.’
‘What sort of—’ Helewise began, but Jenna, well into her stride, needed no prompting.
‘She’s always telling them to be careful they don’t dirty their gowns, or to make quite sure they don’t kick the wall when they take their boots off, and she looms over them when they’re eating as if she’s just waiting for food to be spilt or a mug to be dropped,’ she said, her voice tight with anger. ‘In truth, the matters with which she concerns herself are so petty that anybody else would ignore them. Oh, but not Cyrille, for she watches, she remembers and she insists the girls must be brought to account and made to answer her accusations. Very often, of course, the children deny them, and then Cyrille says they’re lying.’ Jenna paused. ‘She has the habit of creeping around when nobody’s about, checking whether the house is neat and tidy, as if the responsibility is hers.’ Again, she hesitated, brows drawn down in a frown. ‘It’s not so much what she does,’ she said eventually, ‘since, in fairness, most people prefer a well-run, clean household to the alternative. It’s the way she does it, as if it’s all such a trial and she’s being heroic to take on such a grave responsibility.’
‘Perhaps,’ Helewise suggested, ‘she hasn’t got enough to do?’
Jenna snorted. ‘That’s true, my lady, for my mother runs the house with great efficiency. We all have our duties, and the servants are well trained and long practised in their daily routine. Cyrille has precious little to occupy her but her needlework and her devotions. She is very devout, and an example to us all,’ she added, as if, aware that her remarks had been uncharitable, she had hurriedly cast around for something complimentary to say. She looked down at her hands, folded in her lap, and muttered something that Helewise didn’t catch: it sounded like The house doesn’t like her, but it must surely have been The household doesn’t like her …
Helewise thought for a moment. ‘Why do you think she acts in this way?’
‘Because she believes she’s the most important person in the house,’ Jenna replied. ‘She’s Herbert’s wife, and he’ll inherit from my grandfather Hugh when Hugh dies, and already she sees herself as the lady of the manor. God alone knows what she’ll be like when she really is,’ she added with grim intensity.
‘Does she perhaps feel insecure?’ Helewise wondered aloud. ‘Anxious, perhaps, in case she may not be up to the role when the time comes?’
‘Huh!’ The abrupt sound eloquently expressed what Jenna thought of that. ‘Feelings of insecurity and anxiety are utterly foreign to her, my lady.’
Silence fell, but Helewise felt the aftermath of Jenna’s furious remarks still rebounding in the close-shuttered room. ‘I am sorry for you all,’ she said eventually. ‘I cannot see a solution, unless perhaps your brother might be persuaded to speak to her, and suggest to her that she moderates her behaviour a little.’
‘Herbert loves her, and I will not ask that of him,’ Jenna said firmly. ‘He lost his first wife, and has been lonely without her. Somehow he has succeeded in finding happiness with Cyrille, and I for one am reluctant to spoil it for him.’ She got to her feet, slowly, as if the movement cost her great effort. Then, looking Helewise in the eye, she said, ‘It is our problem, and we will have to find our own answers. I apologize once more for my outburst. It won’t happen again.’ Then, with a curt nod, she let herself out of the room and quietly closed the door.
Helewise’s next visitor was Josse. He perched himself on the stool Jenna had vacated and, holding both her hands, said, ‘You have done Isabelle a good turn by sitting with our patient here, for she has been busy all day and would have been hard put to find the time to care for him herself, as, indeed, would the other women.’
‘It has hardly been arduous!’ she replied. ‘I’ve really rather enjoyed it.’
‘How is he? Has he been rambling?’
‘No, he’s been quiet. I think we can soon conclude he has suffered no worse injury than those we already know about.’
‘Thank God,’ Josse breathed.
‘Amen. Now, tell me about your day – what have you been doing?’
‘I spent quite a long time with Uncle Hugh this morning, but he didn’t make a lot of sense.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘He’s distressed about something,’ Josse went on, his brow furrowed, ‘and I had the feeling he was looking round for someone he expected to see.’
‘You, perhaps?’
Josse smiled. ‘No, sweeting. I don’t think he knew I was there most of the time, although he did once say with perfect clarity, “We’ll have a game of chess, young Josse, as soon as I think I’m up to beating you like I always do.”’
‘What else did you get up to?’ Leaning closer to him, she added in a whisper, ‘Did you have some nice, cosy chats with the lovely Cyrille?’
He laughed, swiftly suppressing it. ‘No, I’ve managed to avoid her for much of the time, although she did corner me in the solar this afternoon, when the sun shone briefly and we all scurried in there to enjoy it.’
‘What did she say?’
He shook his head, as if in disbelief. ‘You’d hardly credit it, but she said I must go with her and sit with Editha – and this was in Editha’s hearing, mind – because Editha was ailing and had to spend too much time resting while everyone else was out and about, and it was up to us – by which Cyrille clearly meant it was up to her – to tend to Editha and organize constant company and entertainment for her.’
‘Wasn’t that kind and considerate?’
Again, Josse frowned in puzzlement. ‘It ought to have been, aye,’ he agreed, ‘and had anyone else done it – you, or Isabelle – that’s just what it would have been.’ The frown deepened as he went on thinking it out. ‘It was the way she did it,’ he said finally. ‘Clearly, Cousin Editha is frail, and, from what I observed and was told, she’s forced to spend far too much time in Cyrille’s company, as Cyrille keeps insisting she’s the only one who can look after her properly. Why, I heard her myself! She said to Editha, not even bothering to lower her voice – perhaps she thinks she’s deaf as well as frail – “I know what older, weaker people need, the poor, dear souls, and it is my duty to take care of you.”’ He grinned suddenly. ‘I had the impression that Editha had to fight the urge to get up and thump her.’
He had forgotten the need to speak softly. The man in the bed stirred, opened his swollen eyes – both they and his nose looked even worse this evening – and said, ‘I think I’m hungry.’
Josse insisted on taking Helewise off for a short break while the grey-haired woman and another servant brought a light meal for Peter Southey and helped him eat it, and after that, Isabelle said she would stay with him for an hour or so. Later, however, once Helewise and Josse had eaten with the family, she crept back to the patient over whom she had sat all day.
‘He’s just gone to sleep again,’ Isabelle whispered as she went into the room, finger to her lips in warning.
‘Good,’ Helewise whispered back. ‘He ate a little?’
‘Quite a lot,’ Isabelle said with a smile. ‘It’ll be a few days yet before he’s up and about, but I think he’s out of danger.’
‘I am happy to hear it.’
The two women sat quietly for some time. Helewise felt a sense of calm descend. Presently Isabelle said, ‘Do you mind if I leave you? I have a dozen things to do before bed.’
‘Not at all.’
‘I’ll send one of the servants along later,’ Isabelle said as she got up, ‘although I’m not sure he really needs watching tonight.’
Helewise heard her footsteps fade away along the passage. All was very quiet. Time passed. In the pleasant warmth, comfortably full after a tasty supper, Helewise felt her eyes begin to close …
She was back in her dream. The small blond-haired boy was back, opening a door into a room that looked remarkably similar to the one in which Helewise sat. Seeing her, he smiled and came shyly to stand beside her. Did you find any monsters? he whispered.
Not one, she whispered back.
The boy stood on tiptoe to peer down at the man in the bed. In a strange fusion of dream and reality, Helewise became aware that, although she had undoubtedly fallen asleep, now she was awake.
And there really was a little boy in the room with her.
She reached out a hand and gently took hold of his arm. ‘Careful,’ she said softly. ‘This poor man dislocated his shoulder last night, and, although he’s been mended, it would hurt him a lot if someone jogged him.’
The boy turned solemn blue eyes to hers. ‘I’ll be careful,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t hurt people, should you?’
‘Not if you can possibly avoid it,’ she agreed.
The boy gave a sad little sigh. ‘I’m not supposed to be here,’ he confided. ‘She told me I have to keep myself to myself, and not go talking to people, and she’ll be very cross if she finds out I’ve come to see you, but I wanted to see the man who fell, and it gets very boring on my own.’
Her heart went out to him. She had guessed who he was, and what he had just said seemed to confirm she was right. ‘You’re Olivar, aren’t you?’ Even as she spoke, she thought: Why has he not been introduced?
He stood up straight and made her a courteous bow. ‘Yes, I am, and you are the lady Helewise, wife of Sir Josse d’Acquin, who is here to see his Uncle Hugh because he’s not very well. Sir Hugh, I mean, not Sir Josse,’ he added, his small face falling into anxiety. ‘I am sure he is very well indeed.’
She took hold of his hand. ‘Yes, I know what you meant,’ she assured him.
She was torn: she wanted very much to keep this lonely little boy with her for a while, for he was surely in sore need of some kindness and some company, but if by so doing she got him into trouble, then her impulse to help him would misfire.
‘Will they—’ she began. But she didn’t complete the remark, for footsteps came hurrying along the passage, the door was flung open and Cyrille de Picus stood there, her plump face flushed and working with anger.
She paused to compose herself, then, pale blue eyes fixed on her son, said in a cold, flat voice, ‘I am not aware of having given my permission for you to leave your room, Olivar. Two days, I believe I said, and the time is not yet up.’ She paused, glaring at him as if she despised him. ‘Another day’s confinement, I think, to drive home the lesson of obedience to my wishes.’ A sob, quickly stifled, broke out of the boy, and he fled.
Helewise fought hard to hold back the instinctive protest. It is not your business, she told herself firmly. For all you know, Olivar did something very naughty, and deserves his punishment. Keep quiet!
When she believed she could speak without revealing her inner turmoil, she said politely, ‘Our injured man is recovering, we believe. He has slept for most of the day, which is, as I’m sure you’ll agree, the best way for the body to heal.’
‘Hmm,’ Cyrille said, craning round Helewise to look at the patient. ‘What is his name? They told me, but I forget.’
‘Peter Southey.’
‘Ah, yes.’ She was leaning over him now, peering at the bruised and battered face. ‘He’s going to wish he’d been a bit more careful, when he looks into a glass and sees what he’s done to himself.’
‘The swelling and discolouration will subside, in time,’ Helewise said quickly; it was scarcely a tactful remark to make over a badly injured man, even if he was asleep.
Cyrille sniffed. ‘Perhaps.’ She stared down at Helewise, one gingery eyebrow raised as if she thought full recovery unlikely. ‘Good night.’
Then she turned on her heel and strode away.
After a moment, Peter Southey said softly and without opening his eyes, ‘Who was that?’
‘Oh! I thought you were asleep!’
He opened his eyes and grinned at her. ‘Unfortunately not.’
‘You will heal,’ Helewise said earnestly. ‘Your face probably feels quite unlike your own just now, but soon you will look like yourself again.’
‘You are kind, my lady. Who did you say our forthright visitor was?’
‘I didn’t. Her name is Cyrille de Picus, or it was, for now she is the wife of Herbert, the son and heir of this house.’
‘I see,’ Peter murmured vaguely. Then he closed his eyes, eased his damaged shoulder and went back to sleep.