Soulvine 03 A Bright and Terrible Sword (37 page)

‘What is it now, Maggie?’ I say, looking at her in sheer pleasure. Maggie is good to look at. That was always true, but six months of good food and pretty gowns have made her even better. Her fair curls are bound with a purple ribbon, and her face flushes from the heat of the kitchen.

‘Look at this filthy cloth! And that girl was going to wipe tankards with it! I am going to dismiss her, Roger.’

‘You should
not
,’ says another voice, coming in the door with Tom in her arms. ‘Margery would not use that cloth on tankards, only on the floor.’

‘She would!’

‘Would not. Did ye ask the girl?’

‘Da,’ Tom says, and holds out his arms to me. Or maybe I just want the babbled syllable to be ‘Da.’

‘Give him to me, Joan,’ I say, and Joan Campford dumps Tom on my lap, where he immediately reaches for the tankard of ale. I slide it across the table beyond his reach, and he puckers up his little face. I retrieve the tankard, which Tom promptly spills on himself and me.

I don’t know how to be a father. Rawley, Hartah – these were the only ‘fathers’ I had known, and I would cut off my other arm before I would act as they had. Tom,
now a sodden happy lump on my lap, is infinitely precious to me. His fine, sparse hair, as fair as Maggie’s and threatening to curl as soon as there is more of it, tickles my nose as I hug him. I breathe in his sweet baby smell, tighten my arm around his plump little belly. He spills more ale.

Meanwhile, the argument over Margery the scullery maid continues. ‘I will dismiss her tomorrow,’ Maggie says.

‘That’s for the master to say,’ Joan retorts.

Maggie does not argue this point; she changes weapons. ‘I will not run a dirty kitchen. Our custom depends on good food, good service, and cleanliness!’

‘Half your custom stinks too much from months at sea to notice clean or not!’

‘And you a laundress!’ Maggie says.

‘Not now. I now be a nurse,’ Joan points out.

Both women are enjoying themselves. In a moment Margery, no put-upon timid underling but a stout seaport lass well able to defend herself, will dash out from the kitchen to join the fray, which will continue until the first patron arrives demanding ale. Then everyone will go back to work, the dirty rag forgotten. Margery will not be dismissed. Maggie ran through three scullery maids before she found one that could stand up to her and to Joan, and Maggie values Margery as much as she fights with her.

Which means she no longer fights with me. Our days, and our nights, are sweet and peaceful together. That was not true in the first weeks after a web woman found us at the Sign of the Three-Winged Dove. I knew immediately what the woman was, although Maggie did not, and I realized that Mother Chilton, and now Philippa, had these women of the soul arts everywhere in both city and palace. Lord Robert has no idea how much of his
queendom is ruled by this shadow parliament.

The woman led us out of Glory and to a village several miles away, where Joan Campford lived with our small son as her own. On reflection, I realized that there was no one – or, at least, no one left living – whom I would have trusted as much. We spent a month in that cottage, and then journeyed east to the coast. Joan came with us, as little Tom’s nurse. I had seen in that fortnight that much as she loved her son, Maggie would never be happy as a lady cottager waited upon by another woman. She needed to direct, to organize, to create. And I still feared being recognized that close to Glory.

So, thanks to Stephanie’s money, we travelled comfortably to the far coast and bought two large cottages side by side. We live in one. The other Maggie has turned into the Red Boar, the best inn in this seaside city. Through the rainy window I can see the harbour, where ships come and go constantly with cargo from Benilles, from Gorwen, from a dozen other exotic ports. Running this prosperous inn is completely different from our poor alehouse in Applebridge. Here there is always news, interesting people, something happening. And there are no sheep.

The argument over the dirty cloth, so relished by all three parties, gives way as Maggie notices Tom. ‘He’s spilled ale on himself! Joan, why were you not watching him?’

‘A little ale never hurt a babe,’ Joan says. She lifts Tom off my lap. ‘Let me take him, Roger.’

Tom clings to me for a moment, but then catches sight of window rain gleaming in the light from the bright fire on the hearth. He stretches his chubby fist towards the pane. ‘Da!’ Joan bears him off to be changed into fresh clothing, and I scrub at my ale-soaked tunic with the disputed cloth, which does not look all that dirty to me.

I am happy, although I know it is ‘despite’. Despite the deaths of Tom Jenkins and Mother Chilton, of Lady Margaret, Alysse and Nell. Despite the loss of my hand. Despite the rumours of war, since Tarek son of Solek son of Taryn still claims to be the husband of Queen Stephanie. Perhaps that is what happiness always is – ‘despite’. I do not know for certain.

‘Roger,’ Maggie says, ‘can I bring you anything?’

I shake my head and smile at her. One thing I do know for certain: I will not cross over again. There is no need. Everything I want is here.

The door opens, and I rise to greet our first patron of the evening.

Copyright

An Indigo eBook

Copyright © Anna Kendall 2012
All rights reserved.

The right of Anna Kendall to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in Great Britain in 2012 by
Indigo
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company

This eBook first published in 2012 by Indigo.

A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78062 074 9

All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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