Rhiannon (18 page)

“Well, if he
did
escape the gaol, he'd have only had to get as far as the iron latch upon the church door,” Mam mused, tapping her chin as though she were seeing these things in the fire, which, of course, was Granna's territory. “Once he had a hold of that church latch, none could lay hands to take him back to prison. Still, the church is halfway through town, and Jim could not go fast.”

“And he could not pass unnoticed,” Rhia added sadly. “Not with his missing leg so apparent, setting him apart.”

“Know what
I
say?” Daisy piped, all straight-backed and sassy. “I say he got
help
!”

The other three looked at her.

“Why not?” she insisted, raising her thin arms. “
I
would have helped him reach the church, had I been nearby! Queen Tildy and I would have garbed him in a costume what covered up his bottom half so's he'd not be recognized as he went!”

Queen Matilda was herself costumed just then, wrapped in rags and flowers.

Mam smiled at Daisy and bent to reach her hand, giving it a squeeze. “Well,” she said to them all, “this is only guesswork until we hear it straight from Almund. At least Jim
has
somehow got sanctuary, so now he'll have forty days to ready his soul with prayer before he goes to God. Had he languished at the gaol, his punishment would likely be . . . near immediate.”

Rhia gulped and felt her fingers go cold at the idea of Jim hanging on Gallux Hump. “I just can't believe he confessed to doing any such a thing,” she whispered.

None of them could, she could see it on their faces.

“Do you see anything bearing on this in the flames, Mother?” Mam asked quietly.

Rhiannon was shocked, as Mam scolded Granna constantly for her heathen habit of flame-watching.

Mam played casual. “Do you, Mother?” she repeated.

“Well, it's hard to say, daughter.” Granna peered into the fire in the same way she had been peering all through this discussion, no harder and no easier, as the sights came or they didn't. “I see nothing at the moment, but when I rose this morn I followed my usual routine and looked into the flames to see what the day might hold. And at that time, I saw churchmen opening the door for a fellow churchman who knocked with the iron petitioner's ring. I figured the fellow clutching that latch to be some cowled brother here with the new bunch. But I suppose it might have been Jim I saw.”

“I
told
you!” Daisy squealed. “It was Jim in the
costume
of a churchman!”

Rhiannon stood and turned to her mother, throwing up her arms in exasperation. “You have to go
down
, Mam! We have to know and not just guess! I can't
bear
it!”

Mam dropped her head. “I just cannot, Rhia. There are the new folk to think of now. They must have bread and drink and medicinals, and I must see if I can talk with one of them today, regarding some sort of . . . arrangements.”

“What
is
rangents?” Daisy piped. When no one answered, she picked up Queen Matilda and started dancing that gaudily bedecked reptile about on the reeds.

Rhiannon, meanwhile, paced, trying to work up the nerve to ask if she herself might go down in Mam's stead. She'd gone alone to market many times, but just to take some seed packets and their honey to be sold.

When Mam had given her charge over the group that went down to the laying of hands, the dire result had been
sure
proof that she was not up to anything beyond selling a little honey and buying a bit of salt. She'd lost Jim! No, Rhia felt sure Mam thought she was the
last
person to be trusted with this further mission regarding their friend.

“Rhia, you go down in my place,” Mam suddenly said. “Tomorrow is weekly market day. Go then and you'll not so likely be deemed suspicious as you seek to find some answers. The crowd will be roiling, and everyone bent upon their own business.”

Rhiannon went plain speechless, so grateful did she feel for this second chance.

“Once more we've let the morn slip away, so now to our work.” Mam slapped her knees and stood, all business. “Mother, will you help me fix our meal? Daisy, you go to the bees and see what honeyed comb is ready for Rhiannon to take to market on the morrow. Rhiannon, fetch the gruel pot, as the invalids surely grow hungry.”

Very soon all were bustling about, doing as she'd ordered. Rhia crouched beside the firepit, tilting the large gruel kettle upon its fire-hook while she carefully poured a steaming portion into the smaller pot so she could feed the invalids. But then all of a sudden she felt Mam standing behind her, waiting for her to finish her task.

Rhia reluctantly stood and turned to her, dreading what Mam had to say. Surely she'd thought more and decided against entrusting Rhia to venture down tomorrow.

“Daughter,” Mam said quietly, and the next thing Rhia knew, Mam had taken the small elmwood cross she always wore about her own neck and slipped its leather thong over Rhia's head. The cross felt light and cool upon Rhia's skin, and when she looked down upon her chest, it glowed as though it were golden. She looked up, beaming, to give Mam thanks for such a precious thing, but Mam was back at work as though it had not happened.

 
Rhia dropped gingerly to her sore knees beside Dull Sal in her little cot. She stirred the steaming gruel she'd brought, then spooned a large portion to Sal's bowl.

“Sally, tomorrow I go to town alone, to find what I may about Jim!” she confided. “And Mam has given me her own cross.” She held the graceful little cross out from herself by its cord, so's Sal might better see it.

Sally looked at her and smiled. “Three fish,” she said. “I'll have three of those fish.”

And right then Rhiannon had a sudden thought she'd not had before about Sally. It just came to her out of the blue, as will happen sometimes when you're thinking of something else, and it made her feel queasy with its awfulness.

She put down the bowl and placed her hands on Sally's shoulders.

“Sally, is that the last thing your bad brother said to you before the cuffing?” she asked, her mouth gone dry. “Did he want three fish to eat, and did he think you were slow bringing them and deserved such foul treatment as to have your head smashed?”

“Three fish,” said Sally, her blue eyes wide and empty. “I'll have three of those fish.”

That had been it, then. Rhia would've sworn it. And she could scarce see her way to Sally's mouth with spoonfuls of gruel for the sick feeling she had. The cost of beautiful Sally's good life had been so little! It was even sadder than if Sally had stolen coin, or taken some other thing valued high by her horrible brother.

This was positively the worst thing Rhiannon had ever heard of. She had been light-heeled with excitement coming to Sal's cot, but she was dragging her heels as she went to the other one, her heart awash with grief for Sally, valued so low. In truth she was so upset by it that she forgot to brace herself as she pushed open the pirate's door, slouched across the threshold, and went to ladling gruel into his bowl.

She carried the bowl to the raised pallet, so teared up over Sal's so lightly ruined life that she barely noticed that the man was still a frozen effigy, his ankles neatly crossed.

“Mam's right and I've merely dreamt you awake,” she murmured, moving beside him with a deep sigh and prying at the man's lips with the maplewood spoon he'd nearly spoilt the day before. “Yet, Sir Pirate? Even your constant stillness canna rattle me on a day when I've considered a brother bashing in a sister's brains for three stupid fish.”

His eyes came open and he grabbed her wrist and swirled to a sit so's the bowl was knocked to the floor and clattered there.

“Adela, are we finally given privacy?” he demanded in a hoarse whisper.

Rhia stifled a scream at this shock, but once she'd had a cat's whisker of time to get back her wits, she decided it was flattering, really. Most folk wanted Mam, never her.

And as for him calling her that false name, Adela? Well, she'd seen dim-brained misrecognizing before among the invalids. For instance, an old grandfather had been brought to them with his hands and knees constantly ashake, and he'd called Rhiannon his good wife's name, Bertha, the whole two months they'd had him, though his Bertha'd died of ague some forty years before.

“Yes, for certain we are alone,” Rhia answered, swallowing down the dregs of her fear. “Calm yourself,” she bent to whisper, “as any commotion may bring the others.”

He nodded quite readily and loosed her wrist. “Where are we, Adela? Pray tell me we've caught the tide and are all safe returned to Francia again. It seems we're lodged for the night in some fisherman's sheds, yes?”

Last night she'd told him plain and clear that he was come to England. But she'd not mention it again if she could avoid it, as it had occasioned such a heartbreaking outburst.

“Well, sir, if you so say.” That wasn't lying, was it?

“I don't mind a night's stay in such rough lodgings all that much,” he allowed, wrinkling his nose as he looked around the cottage. “This is crude and dank, of course, but it smells a bit better than some such places. And, well, a soldier's up for anything.”

Rhiannon considered that a right stingy description of their nice, clean cot, but she tried not to show her feelings. Instead, she cleared her throat, and said, “Sir, I hear you are a soldier, but now I'd hear you speak your name.”

He smiled, though his smile was wan. “Quit your jesting, Adela, and tell now of the others. Are all the knights put up in these lodgings? I'd prefer you ladies were taken to lusher halls, but if these are the best in the vicinity, tell your gentle maids to take heart, as God willing we can try for England again upon the morrow.”

And then, his faced pinched up and he turned strange. He reached out like a blind man and gripped Rhia's shoulders with both hands, squeezing tight. “Adela, good sister, all of a sudden I have pictures in my head I cannot account for!” he cried. “Nightmare sights, Adele! My head fair
splits
with the pain and sickness of such hellish visions!”

“Lie down now,” Rhiannon said firmly, using the nursing authority Mam had taught her. She took his shoulders and pushed him down, then lay her palm upon his eyes to close the lids. “I'll find you a draft to ease your head, but you
must
lie still.”

He caught her wrist as she turned. “Don't leave me, Adela! I'm lost and afraid!”

Rhiannon bent close again. “I'll be back straightaway with the draft, I promise you.”

“I . . . know not what my name is.” He was whimpering now, like a small boy who's lost from his mother. “I know not how I've come to overnight in this place!”

“Sir, you've been here some time, and came with some injury. You'd a hard blow to your forehead that raised a knot the size of a hen's egg and kept you sleeping for weeks. In fact, we'd not figured you'd ever awake, so now that you have, give thanks to God.”

He looked at her with a misery in his eyes worse than any she'd ever seen, and she'd seen plenty of misery among those brought up to the bluff.

“Lady, I'd that God had left me sleeping until I slept eternal,” he whispered.

Then he closed his eyes and slowly crossed his wrists and ankles, his limbs going back to their contrary places all natural, as they'd got used to such positions.

And just like that, he was a stone effigy again, with no need for headache draft.

Rhia stood looking at him. He was young when awake, much younger than he seemed when he was so gravely sleeping. Why, he seemed not much older than Thaddeus, hardly a grown man at all. He was to grown man what she was to grown woman, about that.

Whatever his story and whatever his true Christian name, he surely had times when he felt at least half child still, as she so often did. That had showed in the fit he threw.

But what could possess him to say he'd sleep eternal if he could? Mam, who had such sympathy for the invalids, would not countenance
that
dark wish from anyone.

 
Rhiannon felt itchy and restless back inside the cottage, taking a casual meal with the others. She had this large important secret filling her up right to her tongue, and here they talked willy-nilly of this and that, none of it mattering one sparrow's breath.

Daisy giggled at some standoff between the uppity tortoise and their six chickens. Granna watched her, greasing her bread, then pointed out, “It's that quick laugh made you heal fast, Daisy. When God Almighty opened wide your mouth to put your soul into you, he was laughing at some good joke. That blessed laughter still circles around your innards and healed them right up, whilst Aigy's good salves worked on your outsides.”

A small subject, Daisy's laughter-made soul, whilst Rhia had such a huge thing to talk about that had to go unspoken! Well, didn't
have
to go unspoken, but Mam had not believed her one whit this morn about the man, so why speak again of something that would only be met with smiles? The man had chosen
her
as confidant—her alone!

One of the chickens gave Queen Matilda a smart peck, which sent her bald head into her shell. She stayed in there, all asulk, till Daisy bent to try and lure her out with bread.

“Child, don't waste that, as your pet finds greens aplenty outside,” Mam said quickly. “The bread we make will have to go further now, with the folk in the woods to feed. We'll likely need more rye and barley than we can manage to grow.”

“We'll have to pad with acorns,” Granna allowed, nodding. “Else I'll send down some wax effigies to be traded in town tomorrow for more flour.”