A Passionate Magic (7 page)

“I have already told you that you may not
attend my son,” he said in a low voice.

“I understand your reasoning, my lord, and I
will not quarrel with you about it. There is another matter on
which we must speak, and this moment seems to me remarkably
appropriate.”

”What is it?” Dain turned to face her again.
He looked inexpressibly weary.

“My lord, I am possessed of excellent healing
skills. From the glimpse I saw of Robert’s wounds, no one could
have saved him, but it may be that I can help others. It is your
duty to protect and care for your people. As your wife, it is my
duty to do the same.” When he made no objection to what she was
saying, she went on, “While you were gone I borrowed the key to the
stillroom.”

“Borrowed?” he repeated, eyebrows raised in
clear disbelief. “Are you sure that’s the correct word? The cook
would never give it to you.”

“She did not, so don’t blame her,” Emma said.
“I did take the key, but I use the word
borrowed
because I
kept it for less than an hour before I replaced it. It did not
require very long for me to see that the stillroom is but poorly
supplied with the herbs necessary to make medicines. Nor are the
necessary plants growing in the kitchen garden, which is turned
over primarily to vegetables and cooking herbs.” She paused, trying
to think how to explain what was needed without appearing to
criticize his mother.

“What is it you want?” he asked.

“Your permission to leave the castle, to
explore the countryside in search of useful herbs. Some I can
gather and bring back here to dry in the still-room. Others I can
dig up and transplant into the kitchen garden. Once I have an
adequate supply, I can begin to prepare various tinctures for open
wounds, ointments for rashes or sore muscles, mixtures of dry herbs
to use for brewing hot drinks that will clear stuffy noses and sore
throats.

“Dain, if you give your permission, I may be
of some real use to our people, and all of us will be healthier
when winter comes. When you first came into the hall I heard you
tell Sloan that you have eliminated the outlaws from the vicinity
of Penruan, so I should be safe from the threat of abduction that
you cited days ago as a reason to keep me here at home.”

For a few long moments she thought he was
going to refuse her offer, and she feared if he did, she would go
mad, for she could not endure many more days of nothing to do.

“Our people?” he repeated softly. “Keep you
at home? Do you truly see Penruan as your home?”

“Since we are married, anywhere that you live
is my home,” she responded, deliberately defying his earlier hint
that he did not consider theirs a real marriage,

“An interesting idea,” he said. “It’s a pity
I have no time to discuss it with you just now. Very well; you may
tell the cook that I have given the stillroom key into your
keeping. Do whatever you want with the stillroom, and with the
kitchen garden.”

“Thank you, my lord. I will need a horse for
myself, and one for Hawise. There are baskets in the stillroom that
we can attach to our saddles to carry the herbs we gather.”

“You will also need a man-at-arms for
protection,” he said.

”A man-at-arms will only grow bored with my
kind of slow, quiet work.” At that point in the discussion Emma
noticed Blake standing alone in the great hall, staring after the
men who carried Robert’s body to the chapel. Blake’s face was white
and he held his slender shoulders stiffly. He looked as though he
was trying hard not to weep.

“My lord, would you give me Blake,
instead?”

“Blake?” Dain’s glance took in the boy, who
chose that moment to sniffle loudly before bracing his shoulders
again. “Blake is only a child.” Dain’s words could have been
disdainful, but they were softened by the compassion on his face,
which indicated his understanding that Blake, too, was suffering at
the loss of Robert.

“He is a page who soon will be old enough to
become a squire,” Emma corrected her husband. “It is my duty as
mistress of the castle to train him in manners and in how to attend
upon a lady’s wishes. I can do so while he is assisting me. I do
think fresh air and sunshine will be helpful to his growth. From
what I have observed of young boys, I also think Blake will enjoy
the chance to tramp around in muddy streams or dig up plants.”

“As you wish,” Dain said. “Just be sure to
tell Sloan or me when you plan to leave the castle, so we will know
where you are. If anyone questions what you are doing, send that
person to me.”

“Thank you,” she said again.

“Is that all?” he asked.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Very well.” Dain raised his voice. “Blake,
you are to obey Lady Emma’s orders and attend to her wishes. As of
this day, I make you her page.”

He left her then, and Emma thought he went to
the chapel with a somewhat lighter look to him, and a less dragging
step. Perhaps her genuine interest in helping the folk who lived in
Penruan was of some slight comfort to him. Possibly, her mention of
the grubby activities in which young boys delighted had raised some
happy memories for him. She hoped it was so. She could see that
Blake looked a bit more cheerful after hearing Dain’s order to
attend her.

“If you can do what you’ve promised,” said
Sloan, pausing beside her, “if you can ease the winter aches and
pains and stop the hacking coughs, then every person in this castle
will be grateful to you.” With a warmer glance than any he had
bestowed upon her during the past week, Sloan followed Dain toward
the chapel.

“Every person in the castle,” Emma repeated
softly, “with the exception of Lady Richenda, who from all I have
heard will be dreadfully offended by what I plan to do.”

Dain did not join Emma in the lord’s chamber
that night. He was keeping vigil in the chapel, where Robert’s body
lay with lighted candles at the head and foot of the bier.

The funeral was the next morning, and Dain
spent the second night after his return in the great hall tending
to his wounded men. According to Blake, Dain also served the dawn
watch on the battlements. The day after the funeral he and Emma bid
farewell to Gavin’s men-at-arms, who were returning to Wroxley.
Once Gavin’s men were gone Dain rode off to Trevanan to oversee the
rebuilding of the houses ruined by the outlaw attack. He stayed
there for several days.

Emma understood that he did not want to lie
with her so soon after his son’s death. She could not imagine how
terrible it must be to lose a child, and she longed to comfort him,
but for the present she was not going to object to anything he did.
She would not do or say anything that might increase his distress.
In the meantime, until he was ready to think about lying with her,
she held his permission to begin to make herself a vital part of
life at Penruan.

She started by ordering the stillroom
cleaned, from its cobweb-hung ceiling to its dusty floor. At first
the maids objected, but the cook and Sloan both bore witness that
Dain had granted her the right to open and use the room.

By midday after Dain’s departure for Trevanan
the stillroom was scrubbed and all of the old, dusty herbs had been
removed. It was time to begin replenishing the herbal supplies.
Emma and Hawise spent the hours after the midday meal in the
kitchen garden, cutting the few herbs grown by the cook.

“We have made a good start,” Emma said as she
hung the last bunch of mint from a ceiling beam. She jumped lightly
down from the stool on which she had been standing. “Tomorrow we
will begin searching the countryside for wild herbs.”

The two women set out on horseback in early
morning, taking Blake with them and heading for the high inland
moors. The day was fair and warm, with only a few clouds dotting
the deep blue sky. It was Emma’s first real look at the Cornish
countryside, and she was surprised to see how few trees there were.
Most of the moorland was covered in low bushes, heather, and
grasses. What trees did grow in that wild landscape were clustered
near the streams and they were poor, stunted things, their branches
permanently stretching toward the south, having been shaped that
way by the constant wind that blew off the sea.

Most of this information was imparted by
Blake, who possessed an apparently endless supply of knowledge
about the area around Penruan. Emma supposed his knowledge was the
result of boyhood explorations.

“We must take care to keep to the path,”
Blake said as they rode along. “Don’t ever go wandering on the moor
alone. You will have to live here for a long time before you learn
just where the dangerous bogs are. Once, shortly after I came to
Penruan, I was almost sucked into a bog.”

“How did you escape?” Emma asked. She
expected to hear a tale of boyish courage that involved Blake
desperately grasping the branches of a nearby bush at the very last
moment and slowly, with great effort, pulling himself out of the
muck by his own strength. His actual response startled her.

“I am sure I would have drowned,” Blake said,
almost somber in his unusual seriousness, “but my life was saved by
the beautiful lady who haunts the moor.”

“You were saved by a ghost?” cried Hawise,
her eyes going huge and round at Blake’s words.

“No, not a ghost,” Blake answered with a
touch of impatience. “The lady is a benevolent spirit who warns
travelers when they stray from the solid paths, and helps those who
become mired in the bogs. Animals, too; I once saw her pull a lamb
out of a bog while its dam stood by, bleating in fear for its
baby.”

“Then, you have seen this mysterious lady
more than once?” Emma asked, her curiosity piqued by Blake’s story.
Mirielle had taught her that there were beings of air or water or
fire, creatures not of the human realm. Like people, though, some
of them were good and some were evil. Thus, she was ready to
believe what Blake said and to agree with him that the lady who
pulled him from the bog was most likely one of the good spirits.
Emma had never met a non-human spirit. She wondered if she would
meet such a creature while she searched for herbs. The possibility
was unsettling, but exciting, too. Blake was obviously not afraid
of the spirit he had seen. But Emma could tell that Hawise was
frightened.

“I am not the only person who has seen her,”
Blake said. “Sloan has spoken to her, though he says she did not
respond when he asked who she was and where she came from, and Dain
has seen her from a distance. I once heard him talking to Sloan
about the lady.”

“And Sloan does not believe she is
dangerous?” asked Hawise. She was looking much less frightened
after hearing that grown men had encountered the wraith of the
moors and had come away alive, with their wits intact.

“Sloan said only that she was beautiful and
very sad. I thought she was beautiful, too,” Blake informed Hawise.
Then, abruptly, he changed the subject. “Lady Emma, just ahead is
the place where I thought we might begin to search for the plants
you want. I remember seeing a few leaves there that looked to me
like the kind of herbs old Agatha gathers, and once I met her
there, collecting mosses. She told me she uses them to pack open
wounds.”

“You appear to spend a lot of time away from
your duties at the castle,” Hawise said in the same severe tone she
sometimes used at Wroxley with Emma’s younger brothers.

“As much time as I can without being punished
for it,” Blake responded with an unrepentant grin. “I like the
openness of the moor.”

“It’s too open,” Hawise said, looking around
at the vast, empty expanse of gorse and heather.

“In the winter it is unpleasant, when the
damp wind sweeps in from the sea,” Blake said. “But in the warm
weather, when the castle begins to stink and feel overcrowded, the
moor is a lovely place and the breeze can be refreshing.”

Having reached a spot where a few stunted
bushes grew, Blake halted his horse and dismounted. He assisted
Emma and Hawise to the ground, then looped the reins around one of
the bushes.

As soon as she stepped off the narrow path,
Emma understood why Blake had stopped just there. Mosses grew
around a dip in the ground where water collected when it rained.
There were a few rocks nearby with lichens on them, three different
kinds of ferns growing in the soggy turf, and in the shade of the
rocks delicate fungi sprouted.

“No wonder Agatha comes here,” Emma
exclaimed, delighted by their find. “This little area contains more
ingredients to cleanse and heal open wounds than I have ever seen
in one place before. Look, there’s adder’s tongue fern. Hawise,
bring one of the baskets.” She moved toward the clump of fern,
intending to begin gathering there.

“Don’t stray too far from the path,” Blake
warned again. “There is bog land just on the other side of those
rocks.”

“It isn’t much of a path,” Hawise grumbled,
detaching a basket from her saddle as she spoke. She squinted,
looking into the distance. “In fact, I can hardly see the path. It
wanders here and there, never in a straight line, and in some
places it disappears altogether.”

“The path marks out the solid ground,” Blake
said, unperturbed by the criticism. “If you are wise, you will stay
on it.”

They fell silent then, all three of them on
their knees to collect plant materials as Emma instructed them.

“Don’t take too much from any one place,”
Emma warned. “Leave enough root and leaf for the plants to grow
back after we’ve gone. And leave enough for Agatha to gather when
next she comes here.”

Emma wished Agatha would come that day. She
wanted very much to meet the healer of whom Blake spoke so fondly.
But they labored alone, the only humans to be seen in all the wide
landscape. There was so much to be gathered that it was a long time
before Emma stood to stretch legs grown stiff from kneeling. She
pressed a hand to her lower back and wriggled her shoulders. Then
she turned slowly, looking toward the horizon.