A Passionate Magic (20 page)

A wrenching cough brought Emma’s attention
back to the emaciated figure on the bed. Lady Richenda glared at
her with feverish eyes.

“I do not want her here,” Lady Richenda said
to Dain. “I gave Blanche orders to tell only you that I am not
entirely well today.” She transferred her angry gaze to the
meek-looking maidservant who stood by the bed.

“Blanche obeyed your orders,” Dain said. “It
was I who told Emma, because I want her to help you.”

“I will not ask an enemy for help!” Lady
Richenda exclaimed.

“You don’t have to. I have already asked
her,” Dain said.

“I do not believe in treating illnesses,”
Lady Richenda declared. “This affliction is visited upon me in
retribution for a life that has not been completely holy.” With a
gasp she stopped, her body going stiff under the covers.

“My lady,” Emma cried, “I can see you are in
pain. Please, let me help you.”

“I can bear it,” Lady Richenda said. “Do not
imagine you can soften my heart with offers of aid. I will not
relent. I will have vengeance against your family before I
die.”

“While you are yet alive, you live under my
rule,” Dain told her sternly. “I command you to answer Emma’s
questions honestly, and to allow her to touch you as seems
necessary to her.”

“My lady, if you will tell me exactly where
the pain is,” Emma began.

“No! You will not put your hands on me.” Lady
Richenda gave way to a fit of coughing that left her wheezing and
clutching at her abdomen.

“Please, let me help. It grieves me to see
you in such pain.” Emma knelt by the bed and reached to press on
Lady Richenda’s abdomen. When Lady Richenda attempted to strike
her, Dain caught his mother’s wrists and held them. Emma shot him a
grateful look and began to examine the sick woman.

“Well?” Dain asked when Emma was finished and
Lady Richenda lay with her eyes closed, trembling in outrage and
pain.

“She is suffering from severe spasms of the
bowel,” Emma said, “and an inflammation of the chest. The hard
coughing makes the spasms worse.”

“Can you treat it?” Dain asked.

“Yes, if only she will take the medicines I
prepare for her,” Emma answered.

“I will see to it that she does.” Dain fixed
her with a cold eye and added, “I will trust you in this because I
must for my mother’s sake. Do not disappoint me, Emma.”

“
I
am disappointed to know you think
you have to say such a thing to me,” she responded with
considerable heat. ”I am bound as a healer to do all I can to
alleviate suffering wherever I find it, and to cause no harm by my
treatments.”

“Then do for my mother whatever you think is
right,” he said in a kinder tone.

Emma sent Blanche to find some extra pillows,
which she was instructed to use to prop her mistress into a higher
position, so Lady Richenda could breathe more easily. While this
was being done, Emma went to the stillroom. There wasn’t much poppy
syrup left from the supply Emma had brought to Penruan with her,
but it was definitely the best medicine for Lady Richenda’s severe
abdominal pain, and to ease the cough that was making her pain
worse.

Since the syrup also acted to befog the mind,
Emma hoped it would help Lady Richenda forget, at least while she
was under its influence, how much she despised her daughter-in-law.
Thus, Emma’s nursing tasks would be easier, and Dain would not be
obliged to remain with his mother to be sure she followed Emma’s
instructions.

Two hours later Lady Richenda lay quietly in
a half-sleeping state, suffering very little pain and coughing only
occasionally. Emma sent the exhausted Blanche to her pallet to
rest. The servant had been awake all night, tending to her
mistress.

“Dain, I know you have duties,” Emma said. “I
will stay with Lady Richenda. Hawise will look in on us
occasionally, and if I need your help, I’ll send for you.”

“Tell me the truth, Emma. Will she live?”
Anxiety showed in every line of Dain’s handsome face.

“I am confident that she will recover this
time,” Emma said. “However, Lady Richenda is not in good health. I
noticed the first time I saw her how thin and drawn she is. There
is an underlying ailment that I believe no physician can treat. I
think she may live another few years, but not much more than
that.”

“I see.” Dain’s gaze was on his mother’s
quiet face, taking in every detail of her shadowed, sunken eyes,
her hollow cheeks, and the thin gray hair that was usually hidden
beneath her wimple. “Thank you for being honest with me.”

“If you wish,” Emma said, “I can talk to
Agatha and describe Lady Richenda’s symptoms and explain how I am
treating her. It will be a good idea for me to see Agatha in any
case. What poppy syrup I have will only last for another day or
two. I noticed poppies growing in Agatha’s garden, so she may have
her own supply, or she may know of some combination of other herbs
that will be almost as effective.”

“My mother will not approve of Agatha knowing
she’s sick,” Dain said. A faint smile quirked his mouth, then
disappeared. “But we don’t have to tell her you’ve spoken to
Agatha, do we?”

“Of course not,” she agreed.

“I’ll send a man to Trevanan and ask Agatha
to come here.”

“Ask her to come tomorrow,” Emma said. “I
don’t want to leave Lady Richenda today. By tomorrow she ought to
be recovered enough that I can leave her in Blanche’s care while I
meet with Agatha.”

Dain left her, and Emma settled down on the
stool that Blanche had brought from the great hall. Lady Richenda
slept for a while. When she woke she remained in the semi-lethargic
state that often overtook patients treated with poppy syrup, and
she made no protest when Emma raised her head to give her just a
little more of the medicine. Even so, she soon made it plain that
she was not going to allow Emma full control over her care.

“I don’t want your help,” Lady Richenda said
a short time after swallowing the poppy syrup. “I don’t need it. Go
away.”

“You are too ill to be left alone,” Emma
said, “and I have sent Blanche to take a nap. There is no one else
available to sit with you just now. Try to sleep again. Rest will
do you good.”

“I can’t sleep.” Lady Richenda tried to
moisten her lips. Emma responded to the motion by providing a few
sips from a cup of water mixed with wine. “Why should you take care
of me? You ought to hate me, as I hate you.”

“I cannot,” Emma said. “I don’t know how to
hate.”

“Fool,” Lady Richenda muttered. “Your mother
didn’t raise you well. I taught Dain to hate, never to love.”

“And I fear I shall spend the rest of my life
trying to undo your teaching,” Emma said quietly. In a louder voice
she added, “Other nobles have gone to war against each other,
fought and been wounded or killed, and when the conflict was over
the survivors returned to their ordinary lives without continuing
their family hatreds. I do wonder why you are so set upon pursuing
the feud with my family long after the men who began it are
dead.”

She knew Lady Richenda’s mind was wandering
under the influence of the poppy syrup, so she did not expect a
sensible response to her remarks.

“You do not understand,” Lady Richenda
said.

“No, I do not.” An idea struck Emma. She
wasn’t at all sure it was the right thing to do, to question Lady
Richenda in her present state, when she was probably talking more
freely to her daughter-in-law than she ever would again. But Emma
could not neglect a chance to glean information that might lead to
a peaceful resolution of the feud that had persisted for far too
long.

“Lady Richenda, perhaps I will be able to
understand better if you will tell me your version of the quarrel,”
Emma said.

“Why would you care about my opinion?” Lady
Richenda asked.

“Because I am trying to find a way to make
peace between our families,” Emma replied.

“There is peace only in heaven,” Lady
Richenda said. She lapsed into silence while Emma waited and tried
to think of words that would encourage the older woman to reveal
something of the past. It seemed that Lady Richenda was only
pausing to gather her thoughts, for she slowly began to speak. Her
words were a bit slurred from the effect of the medicine, yet they
were clear enough for Emma to understand perfectly.

“Thirty years ago, in the time of King
William Rufus,” Lady Richenda said, “my father-in-law, whose name
was Dain, laid claim to a piece of land in Shropshire. The same
land was also claimed by Udo of Wroxley. Neither man would back
down, nor was either willing to accept any other land in
substitution. They were both incredibly stubborn.”

“So that is how the feud originated?” Emma
prompted when Lady Richenda fell silent once more.

“Dain and Udo took their rival claims to the
king,” Lady Richenda said, “to William Rufus, that wicked man. I
heard whispers about him even as a young and sheltered girl,
stories claiming he was no Christian king but a pagan. He levied
forbidden taxes on church property and spent the money on jewels
and silk clothing. He lured pretty boys to his bed and debauched
them.

“Worst of all, William Rufus scorned the very
idea of knightly honor. He laughed and mocked both men when Dain
and Udo insisted on settling the dispute by hand-to-hand combat.
But he allowed it, and he sat in his chair of state and watched
them fight, watched while Udo slew the older Dain. Then he granted
the disputed land to Udo, clasping Udo’s hand over Dain’s bloody
body. I thank all the saints I was not present. My husband told me
about it years later.”

“Even today it is not unusual for disputes to
be settled that way,” Emma said. “The death of one of the
combatants, and the king’s decision, should have been the end of
it.”

“Before he met Udo that day, Dain made his
son swear to continue the battle if he should fall.”

“Over a piece of land so far away from
Cornwall?” Emma shook her head in despair at the stubbornness of
men.

“It was valuable land,” Lady Richenda said.
“After his father’s untimely death, Halard continued to insist the
land should be his.”

“Halard, your husband?” Emma asked,
fascinated by details she had never been told before and wanting to
know all of the story.

“He wasn’t my husband yet. At the time of the
combat, Halard was married to a girl he claimed to love.” Lady
Richenda made an irritated noise. “What foolishness. Love is a
weakness and Halard was never weak, not for a moment. He could not
have loved her, for no sooner did his first wife die in childbirth
and her baby with her, than Halard arranged with my father to marry
me. Halard was a hard man, but an honest master, and I respected
him. I learned all about the feud from him, and I agreed with his
claim that his family had been cheated. Halard got me with child at
once, so he would have an heir, and then he rode off to wrest the
land that was rightfully his away from Lord Udo.”

Emma did not think it appropriate to inquire
whether Lady Richenda had cared for Halard. It was clear to her
that softer emotions held little sway over her formidable
mother-in-law. Emma could not imagine Lady Richenda in an amorous
embrace. She had probably thought of consummation as a matter of
doing her duty and had found no joy in her husband’s
attentions.

And what of Halard? Did he grieve for his
first bride and compare her to Richenda? Emma could not help
feeling a degree of sympathy for the unpleasant Richenda. Perhaps
she had once been an eager, naive young girl, yearning for the
affection of a stern husband who had none left to give her after
the loss of his first, best-beloved wife, and of the child who
should have been his heir.

“You gave your husband Dain for his heir,”
Emma said, speaking out of pity for a life lived without love.
“Halard must have been proud of his son, and of you.”

“Such a beautiful baby,” Lady Richenda said.
“That pale hair, those wonderful eyes. But
she
was always
there, always present. He loved her. I could not bear it.” She made
a sound as if she was about to burst into tears.

“Lady Richenda, you have talked so much that
you must be tired.” Emma laid a hand over the other woman’s thin
fingers. Lady Richenda grabbed her hand, holding tight, hurting
her. And she kept on talking.

“Halard rode north and attacked Udo while Udo
was visiting the disputed holding. In the melee Halard lost his
left arm. He came home alive, but the wound never completely
healed, and when Dain was five years old, Halard died.

“Shortly before his death he made another
attempt to have the ruling changed, but King William Rufus
reconfirmed Udo in his possession of that cursed piece of land, and
after King Henry came to the throne he also declared the land
belonged to Udo. I swore to Halard that I would continue to fight
Udo’s family on behalf of our son’s rights. I ruled Penruan while
Dain was a child, and I taught him to hate the barons of Wroxley as
his father and grandfather did, and as I still do.”

Emma longed to say that the tale of the feud
was the saddest, stupidest story she had heard in her lifetime. She
wanted to say that no piece of land, however valuable, was worth
three generations of bloodshed and hatred, especially not after one
king had twice made a decision on the matter and his brother,
ruling as king after him, had made a third decision, all of them in
favor of the baron of Wroxley. It was madness to continue the
fight. But she could see that Lady Richenda was worn out by so much
talking, and so Emma held her own tongue.

When Lady Richenda became restless Emma gave
her a few drops more of the poppy syrup, and when Blanche appeared
in the room to say she could sleep no longer, Emma turned her
patient over to the maidservant and went to the great hall to find
something to eat. Having spent the day in a darkened room with the
shutters closed, she was not aware of the passing of time. She was
a little surprised to see that it was after sunset.