Music of the Distant Stars (27 page)
Read Music of the Distant Stars Online
Authors: Alys Clare
I thought she’d be furious. Instead, an expression of such intense love spread over her face that I, too, felt like crying. ‘And you still took me in and looked after me, even though I’d lied to you,’ she said wonderingly.
My father said, ‘That’s what families do.’
There didn’t seem anything else to add.
I left them soon after that. I would have to speak privately to Zarina some time soon; the conviction that she was still hiding something just would not go away, and I cared far too deeply for my brother’s happiness to ignore it. With Derman dead, there was no longer any impediment to the marriage. Always assuming, that was, they didn’t come along and arrest Zarina for murder.
Had she killed her brother? No, came the answer, but it was tentative, and I wished I could have been certain.
I wandered back aimlessly through the village towards Edild’s house. As I approached the path up to it, I remembered what I had intended to do today: I had promised to pay another visit to Lady Claude. I had my satchel with me – I rarely go anywhere without it – and so I changed direction and headed on along the track out of the village towards Lakehall.
I was ushered into Lady Emma’s presence with such urgency that my immediate thought was she herself was unwell. Unfastening my satchel even as I hurried towards her, she saw my anxiety in my face and said quickly, ‘No, Lassair! I am well, thank the dear Lord, and –’ she lowered her voice to a whisper – ‘the baby thrives.’
‘I am relieved to hear it, my lady.’ I tried to catch my breath. Bermund had been standing by the gate as if he had been waiting for me; he had grabbed my arm and made me move so fast that my feet had hardly touched the ground. Now I realized why. ‘You sent for me.’ It was not a question, for I knew she had.
‘I did.’ She frowned, looking puzzled. ‘You arrived very quickly, I must say.’
I smiled. ‘I was on my way here already, Lady Emma. I have another patient here besides you and, when I came to see her three days ago, she was not in her room.’
‘Of course,’ Lady Emma murmured. ‘Well, Lassair, it is indeed on Lady Claude’s behalf that I summoned you.’
‘She is unwell?’ In my head I ran through the symptoms she had complained of when I’d first seen her, recalling the remedies I had suggested and the doses I had prescribed.
Lady Emma put her head close to mine, although the only other people in the hall were a group of servants too far away to overhear. ‘She is anxious about the coming wedding,’ she whispered, ‘and, indeed, she was already tense and nervous on her arrival here a month ago. Then poor dear Ida died, for which Claude blames herself since it was she who brought Ida here.’
‘No blame can attach to her for that!’ I exclaimed. ‘The servant goes where the mistress bids.’ I imagined – although I did not say so – that, while Lady Claude might have been a hard taskmistress, nevertheless Ida would have been the first to appreciate that she could have done a lot worse. In an uncertain age when starvation was always lying in wait for most of us, a good job where the work was not too arduous and, above all, was indoors, was not to be sniffed at.
‘Yes, yes,’ Lady Emma was saying, ‘and both Lord Gilbert and I have repeatedly said as much to Claude.’ Her frown returned, deepening. ‘Now this morning we hear the dreadful news of the death of the simpleton. We tried to keep it from Lady Claude, but unfortunately she was entering the hall as Sir Alain was told the news.’ She sighed deeply. ‘Poor Claude begins to speak of this being an accursed place –’ she looked slightly indignant, as indeed she might – ‘and I do fear, having listened to her wild talk, that her very reason is threatened by these foul deeds.’
I would not have been at all surprised. My impression of Lady Claude was of a driven woman, fierce in her desire to do her duty, intolerant of sin and of sinners. I sensed that there was something . . . not quite right about her, was the best way I could describe it to myself. Well, the poor soul had been thwarted of her vocation. Perhaps this reaction to the horrors she perceived around her was a symptom of a woman in torment.
‘Shall I go to her?’ I suggested. Lady Emma clearly meant well, for hadn’t she just sent for me? However, there was little good I could do for Lady Claude standing there chatting in the hall.
‘Of course, of course!’ She shook her head at her own thoughtlessness and, gathering up her skirts, hurried away, with me on her heels. We left the hall, went along the passage and up the steps to Lady Claude’s room, where Lady Emma tapped gently, listened for a moment and then carefully opened the door.
I followed her into the room. Lady Claude sat straight-backed on a stool, dressed as before in black, the stiff white linen framing her face covered by a long black veil. She looked more nunlike that ever. Her face was deadly pale, her mouth was a small, tight line, and her eyes were dull: the grey semicircles beneath them seemed to extend halfway down her cheeks. There was a young woman attending her – one of Lady Emma’s maidservants – and, with an imperious wave of her hand, Lady Claude dismissed her. ‘Go,’ she said. ‘The healer is here now.’
The maid scuttled out. I caught sight of her face as she passed me. She was young, not much more than twelve or thirteen, and it was clear from her expression that she couldn’t wait to get away.
Studying Lady Claude, I didn’t blame her.
Lady Emma bent over her guest. ‘Would you like me to stay, Claude dear?’ she asked.
Claude shook her head.
Lady Emma followed the maid out of the room, and I sensed it was only her good manners that stopped her relief from being equally visible.
I approached my patient. I knew how much pain she was in, and I was already calculating potions and proportions. ‘I will give you a mixture for your headache,’ I said, keeping my voice low and even. I have often heard skilled grooms soothing restless horses, and I sometimes think a healer speaks in much the same tone.
Lady Claude looked up at me. I read horror in her eyes, and I wondered how I could best reassure her. It was an interesting phenomenon, I thought absently, how her distress at the death of her seamstress and, now, of some man she didn’t even know, had somehow got tangled up with the abrupt end of her hopes of being a nun and her fears concerning her impending marriage, knotting her up so tensely that the searing pain in her head was the result. I realized that her life just then must be all but unendurable. Edild and I often talk all evening about the human mind. All we ever resolve is that its mysteries are so far beyond us that the solution might as well be hidden away on the furthest star.
My present task, however, was not to speculate on the workings of the mind, but to alleviate my patient’s agony. Quickly, I set up the tools of my trade on a small side table placed against the wall, going over in my mind what else I needed. I put my head out of the door and, seeing Bermund hovering in the passage below, asked him to send up both the hot water I would need for mixing certain ingredients and also some very cold water, with which to make a compress for Lady Claude’s head.
While I waited, I suggested she lie down on her bed. To my surprise, she agreed. I helped her, for she staggered as she stood up, and took her hands. They were icy-cold and shaking. I supported her while she lay down, then covered her with a soft woollen blanket. As I straightened up from my ministrations, my eye caught something different in the room; something that I knew had not been there on my previous visit.
Behind the wooden bed head a small square of embroidery had been pinned to the wall. I peered closer; Lady Claude had closed her eyes, probably from the relief of lying down, and would, I hoped, not notice my curiosity.
I thought at first that it was another in the Seven Deadly Sins series, for some of the figures were recognizably similar: Lust in her scarlet gown, Wrath with his furious, cruel face. Then I noticed that the intricate, beautifully-worked border was made up of tiny letters. Concentrating hard, I began to make them out, and then I knew the subject of this little piece that Lady Claude had chosen to hang over her bed. She had embroidered the Ten Commandments.
My first reaction was a stab of pity for Sir Alain, who was to take as wife this peculiar, fanatical, devout woman. My second thought was that the pity surely belonged rather to Lady Claude.
The hot and cold water arrived, brought by a manservant under the watchful eye of Bermund. I needed privacy now. I thanked the servant, nodded to Bermund and, as they left, firmly closed the door. Then immediately I bent to my task.
We call the extraordinary substance that leaks out of the white poppy
lachrima papaveris
, for it does indeed resemble the poppy’s tears. It can be found in our country, although it is rare, with nowhere near the spread of its cousin the red poppy. Only the white poppy will do in cases such as the one I now tackled, and healers generally conserve their supplies of its tears jealously, for it is costly and hard to come by. I mentioned this once to Hrype, and he went off into a sort of trance and told me an extraordinary tale, of traders from the east who brought with them out of the mysterious lands there great blocks of a magical substance that took away pain, brought beautiful dreams and, if taken to excess, brought about a sleep from which you didn’t wake up. Edild, when I told her, sniffed and warned me never to experiment with this miraculous substance, although she refused to say why. Pressed, she merely said that repeated use would give me diarrhoea so badly that I would not dare to venture more than five steps from the jakes.
lachrima papaveris
, for it does indeed resemble the poppy’s tears. It can be found in our country, although it is rare, with nowhere near the spread of its cousin the red poppy. Only the white poppy will do in cases such as the one I now tackled, and healers generally conserve their supplies of its tears jealously, for it is costly and hard to come by. I mentioned this once to Hrype, and he went off into a sort of trance and told me an extraordinary tale, of traders from the east who brought with them out of the mysterious lands there great blocks of a magical substance that took away pain, brought beautiful dreams and, if taken to excess, brought about a sleep from which you didn’t wake up. Edild, when I told her, sniffed and warned me never to experiment with this miraculous substance, although she refused to say why. Pressed, she merely said that repeated use would give me diarrhoea so badly that I would not dare to venture more than five steps from the jakes.
That was back in my early days as a healer, before I understood that one of our basic rules is that we never use our precious materials for anything but the desire to heal. That was what I was doing now: with careful hands I prepared the raw drug, then mixed it in hot water with a little honey to sweeten it and took the cup to my patient. Hardly aware now – I sensed her pain from two paces away – she obediently swallowed the drink and slumped back on her pillows.
The poppy juice itself induces sleep, but I added one or two other ingredients that take effect more swiftly. Lady Claude needed rest; I fervently hoped I had just given it to her.
I stood by her side for a while, watching the steady rise and fall of her narrow chest. I wondered, looking at her, if she had bound her breasts or was naturally flat. Her waist was insignificant, her hips angular and jutting under the soft, silky folds of her black gown. I eased the veil away from her headdress, careful to stick the pins that had secured it into the little pincushion by the bed. Then, gently turning her head, I undid the ties that held the stiff white wimple in place and removed it. She would sleep more peacefully without it. I noticed how tightly she had fastened it; no wonder the poor woman had a headache.
Her light-brown hair was greasy and smelled slightly unpleasant; the odour was a little like rancid lamb fat. I fetched a bottle of blended lavender and rosemary oils from my satchel and, mixing some in the hot water – still warm – I shook some drops on my hands and spread the liquid through the thin hair. Lady Claude stirred in her sleep, and I thought I saw a fleeting smile on her narrow mouth.
I retreated to the stool and sat down. I would watch over her a little longer, then leave her sleeping. I could soon be back if I was needed; Lady Emma knew where to find me.
A deep peace descended. The chamber was pleasantly cool, and I felt myself drifting into a doze. I shook myself – it would never do for Lady Emma, or even worse, Bermund, to discover the healer as deeply asleep as her patient. I stood up, quietly gathered my bottles, jars and potions together and slipped out of the room.
SEVENTEEN
I
t was late afternoon by the time I was back at Edild’s house. I was physically exhausted, and I realized, with mild surprise, that I had not had any food all day. I pushed the door open and went in, the thought uppermost in my mind that I must find something to eat.
t was late afternoon by the time I was back at Edild’s house. I was physically exhausted, and I realized, with mild surprise, that I had not had any food all day. I pushed the door open and went in, the thought uppermost in my mind that I must find something to eat.
Edild was not alone. Hrype sat beside her and, seated on a stool with his back to me, I recognized Sir Alain de Villequier. On hearing me come in he stood up, turned and gave me a brief bow. Amazed – it was so extraordinary for a man of his stature to bow his head to someone like me – I managed to stammer out a polite greeting.
The reason for his courteous gesture became apparent as soon as he spoke: ‘You have been looking after Lady Claude, Lassair, and I have no doubt that you have eased her pain. I thank you.’ He hesitated, and I sensed there was more he wanted to say.
‘I was pleased to be able to help her,’ I replied. Then I added, ‘She is troubled, sir. The violence of these two deaths has deeply disturbed her.’
Especially
, I could have added,
since she was already so distressed
. That distress, however, was caused by having to give up her vocation and instead marry this man, and since it would have been tactless to say so, I didn’t.
Especially
, I could have added,
since she was already so distressed
. That distress, however, was caused by having to give up her vocation and instead marry this man, and since it would have been tactless to say so, I didn’t.
‘I cannot reach her,’ Sir Alain burst out. ‘We are shortly to be man and wife and, for all that it suits us and our kin that this union be brought about, still there are other considerations.’ He paused. ‘I would have her happy,’ he said simply.
And you wish to be happy yourself
, I thought. It was understandable – who did not seek earthly happiness, no matter how unreachable it sometimes seemed? – and I did not think the less of him. ‘I believe,’ I said, ‘that her mind may be easier once Ida’s killer has been found.’
, I thought. It was understandable – who did not seek earthly happiness, no matter how unreachable it sometimes seemed? – and I did not think the less of him. ‘I believe,’ I said, ‘that her mind may be easier once Ida’s killer has been found.’
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