The Illuminator (25 page)

The wind had shifted to the north and blew a rattle of dead leaves across the dead grass. Hadn't Agnes enough of grieving? And then Kathryn thought about Finn. Not her husband—he would never be her husband because the king would never give permission for a noblewoman to wed a commoner— and yet how hard she would find it to leave him in the lonely churchyard,
ringed with its black yew trees, like lonely sentinels. She wrapped her shawl tighter, and blew on her hands to warm them.

When she could endure the chill no longer, she approached Agnes gently, put her arms around her shoulders, tried to lift her, much as she had done the day of the fire.

“Come, Agnes. We've done all we can for your John, this day. I'll buy masses for his soul. It's time to go now. You need some warm food.”

“You go on, milady. If it please ye, I'd like to be alone with John for a little while. When I come back I'll see to yer needs and that of young Master Colin, and the illuminator's daughter.”

Kathryn had little choice but to walk the two miles home alone, leaving Agnes in the graveyard, but she was determined that they would see to their own needs. Surely, this once she could put the needs of this woman, who shamed her with her loyalty, before her own and let her grieve in peace. At least they would not have to feed the sheriff. Kathryn had seen Sir Guy leave just after dawn, feeling much slighted, no doubt, that Buckingham's hospitality had been lacking, and he would lose no time in noising that fact abroad. She'd noticed how he turned up his nose at the dinner she and Rose had prepared. Now, she had to scrape something together for Colin, Rose, and herself. Had the lackeys remembered to keep the great kitchen fire stoked in the cook's absence? Probably not. She'd have a cold hearth to contend with as well. How tiresome it all was. She longed for the comfort of her chamber fire.

As she approached the house—why had she not worn sturdier shoes; the rough clods of earth in the rutted road bruised her feet—she saw smoke curling from the double chimneys. Thank God that was one chore she'd not have to do.

As she crossed the courtyard, she heard a man's familiar voice. The sound of it made her forget her weariness and her sore feet. She picked up her skirts and ran into the kitchen. Rose was there, and so was Finn, breaking eggs onto a smoking iron griddle.

“You're back,” she said, feeling stupid, wanting to rush to him and fling her arms around his neck, and knowing that she should not—not in front of Rose.

“My condolences, my lady, Rose has told me about the fire,” he said, but she read something else in his face, some secret language that lovers speak with their eyes and not their mouths.

Suddenly she was ravenously hungry.

“Have you enough eggs to share?”

He laughed his honey-graveled laugh. “We prepared them for you; however, we will be honored if you invite us to share.”

But halfway into the meal of bread and cheese and eggs—whenever had such simple fare tasted so good—Rose turned green and rushed outside to disgorge hers on the ground of the courtyard. Finn rushed after her, held her head, and when she had done retching, wiped yellow-speckled spittle from her lips with his lawn handkerchief.

“I think I'd like to lie down awhile, Father, I feel faint,” she said when she had emptied her stomach of the offending eggs.

Lady Kathryn held the back of her hand to Rose's forehead. “She is not fevered. It is probably just her reaction to all that's gone on in your absence. She's been a very brave girl and a great help to me. A true daughter of Blackingham could not have served better.”

The girl smiled wanly at this praise delivered in front of her father, but she was still a sickly shade of green.

“Take her to your quarters and put her to bed. I'll bring her a soothing tea, a physick I used to make for my father whenever he was bilious.”

Finn led his daughter away, looking for all the world like an old mother hen, while Kathryn tried to make good on her promise. After a cursory search—she was becoming more acquainted with the innards of this kitchen than a lady should be—she found a mortar and pestle and pounded anise, fennel, and caraway seeds to a powder. By the time she'd taken the seed tea upstairs, Rose was already in bed. Her father clucked over her, tucking the coverlet under her chin, unhooking the heavy tapestry over the window to shut out the early-afternoon light.

“I feel better. I think I can get up now. I should help Colin mix the colors. You'll be wanting them now that you're back, Father.”

“Colin is resting, too.” Kathryn held the pungent tea to the girl's lips. “I haven't seen him since the burial. It has been an ordeal for us all. I've instructed Glynis to take a tray to his room, and left some bread and cheese and a glass of wine for Agnes.” She glanced at Finn, sent a signal with her eyes. “I'll be seeking my own respite soon.” But he was too preoccupied with Rose to read her invitation. If invitation it was. Even she was no longer sure. She thought she could sleep forever. Rose drank her tea and when her eyelids
began to droop, Kathryn tiptoed from the room. Finn was sitting beside Rose's bed and didn't appear to hear her leave.

A sluggish fire had been laid in her chamber and Kathryn was poking this back to life when she heard a knock at her door. Probably Alfred. Come to make amends after the fight. He always did. Would he have to be fed, too? Or had Simpson's housekeeper given him breakfast before he left? More like, he'd drunk a morning repast in a friendly Aylsham alehouse. Wearily, she pulled a robe around her—she'd stripped down to her shift.

“My lady, may I come in?” A throaty, husky pleading. Not Alfred.

She moved to the door, lifted the bar but opened it only slightly. “Shouldn't you be with Rose?”

“She's sleeping like a babe. My presence would only disturb her. As you said, it's probably just a girl's nerves. Open the door. I have something for you.

Temptation. Just to be held. To be able to forget the grinding-down abrasion of the last two days. “Not now. Not in my chamber. Colin or Alfred might come.”

“Would that be so bad?”

She remembered how circumspect he'd been with his own greeting in the kitchen, how he'd not embraced her in front of his daughter. The blood rushed to her temples. She should just send him away.

“Come on. Open the door. We'll just talk.”

Kathryn was warmed at last, less by the neglected fire on the hearth than by the sinewy body curled around her. The room was pungent with smoke from the sputtering embers and the smell of their lovemaking. A delicious lethargy covered her like wool. If she could just stay thus forever, her limbs entwined with his like tangled skeins of silk thread; her lips touching the smooth crown
of
his head where the hair had thinned to a perfect
O
.

She was aware of every rhythm of his body when they lay together, his breath matching hers, long after their passion had burned itself out. There was a great mystery in the way the “two became one flesh.” It seemed no less
a miracle than the Holy Eucharist, the transformation of the bread and wine into Christ's blood and bone. That miracle she was only told about, having never experienced the taste of flesh and blood in her mouth—was that because she was unworthy? In her mouth the wine remained wine and the bread, bread. But this sacred rite, this communion of two souls, she experienced for herself. It had never been like that with Roderick. In her marriage blessed by Church and king, she had been nothing more than a brood mare, and her husband a stallion, copulating according to their natures.

“I brought you a present from the market at Norwich,” Finn said.

“I don't need a present. Having you here with me is present enough.” Each word was a feathery kiss against that perfect $$$.

“Ah, having me here. I understand. The abbot sent your fee for ‘having me here.' And a heavy purse it is. Must be a burdensome task indeed.”

His words were teasing, and he smiled and chucked her under the chin when he delivered them, but she bristled. She knew he judged her to be selfish, thought her uncaring of those not of her own noble estate. She remembered their discussion about who should pay the poll tax for her servants. As he kissed her throat and lifted a strand of hair to expose a bare breast to his tongue, she pushed him away—gently—and pulled the coverlet up, securing it under her armpits.

She propped herself up on one elbow, facing him. “Don't mock me. That's not what I meant by ‘having you here.' I merely meant your presence. Though I'll not deny I'm glad enough of the abbot's generosity. Especially now that I've lost the wool house. Not to mention the profit from the wool sack.” Why did she say that about the profit? Because she knew it would annoy him?

Because his tone had held an unpleasant insinuation. He'd practically called her a whore—not something to joke about.

“You didn't mention the shepherd.”

“Well, of course the shepherd. He'll not be easily—or cheaply— replaced.” Might as well feed his low opinion of her greediness.

He lay back, arms crossed behind his neck. He wore a hazelnut mounted in a pewter casing on a leather thong around his neck. She had asked him about it, and he said it was a gift from a holy woman. Suddenly she found it annoying, as though it represented some hidden part of him withheld from her. She pushed it aside, tracing the outline of his breastbone with the tip of
her finger, lightly, teasing. But he was no longer smiling and had stopped looking at her, frowning instead at the ceiling as though he watched demons cavorting in the recessed shadows of the tarred roof timbers.

“Is that the only reason?”

“What do you mean, ‘the only reason'?”

“Profit. Is
profit
all you think about?”

“Obviously, not all,” she said, indicating the disheveled bedcovers with her hand.

Where was he when she was bathing the shepherd's corpse? Where was he and his overblown notions about charity when she was comforting Agnes? He was hobnobbing with bishops, discussing philosophy with holy women. Dining on wine and cakes in the fine luxury of the abbot's quarters.

“I have the welfare of my sons to think of. I have their inheritance to protect. You, on the other hand, are an artisan.” She saw his eyebrow lift and regretted the heavily inflected “artisan.” “I mean, you can depend on your skill to support your daughter. That's not something that Church or king can wrest from you.”

She sensed a quickening in his blood, a tensing of his limbs, the muscles in his face, his whole body as taut as a harp string newly tuned. She touched the hollow beneath his rib cage where the skin was loose, the muscles slack but not gone to fat. No slackness now.

“I depend upon my skill as an ‘artisan' because I have no choice. King and Church have already stripped me. As clean as a willow wand.”

Her hand remained on his stomach, her fingers weaving tiny whorls in the hairs surrounding his navel.

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean, Kathryn, is that you're not the only person to feel the heel of tyranny pressing on your neck. Ask the crofter who cards your wool; ask the yeoman who tills your fields for a pitiful wage; ask the villein whose labor you own. But for them
it's your
dainty foot that presses their faces into the mud.”

Her hand ceased its exploration.

“You may be a fine dabbler in paints, Master Illuminator, but you know nothing of what it takes to run a fiefdom the size of Blackingham.”

His hoot of derision resonated with righteous indignation and wounded pride. His eyes were not smiling. He was genuinely angry, his pride wounded.

“This little brick enclosure with its few acres of sheep! I'll have you to know,
my lady,
that I once was heir to a holding—a stone castle with motte and bailey, a retinue of my own retainers—that makes Blackingham look like a … like a guild master's house.”

Had she heard him right? Her hand flew to her throat to still the jump of pulse.