Conquering William (34 page)

He knifed his legs into his belly and yelled.

“William.” Ivy grabbed his face and held it firmly. “Listen to me, William. Does your stomach hurt?”

“He was sick.” Alice indicated the mess on the floor.

Cedric hovered in the doorway, retching as his horrified gaze locked on the befouled floor.

“Get some buckets and rags.”

Cedric pressed his hand to his mouth.

Alice raised her voice. “Cedric!”

He blinked at her.

“We need to clean this up so we can attend Sir William.”

Cedric backed out of the room, hit the doorjamb, and froze.

“Go, Cedric.”

Ivy murmured to William as she pressed gently on his belly. She glanced at Alice, the concern on her face setting light to Alice’s simmering worry. “What did he eat?”

Her stupid mind refused to function. She had not seen William all day. “I do not know. He was out and he came in not long ago.”

“Get somebody who will know. I need to know what he ate and drank today.”

“What is it, Ivy?”

William jerked onto his side and was violently ill.

“It cannot be.” Ivy pressed him down again.

William thrashed out, and Ivy ducked his arm just in time.

“What is it?” Alice wanted to grab Ivy and make her look at her, but Ivy’s entire being stayed intent on William.

“Help me strip him,” Ivy said.

Glad of something to do, Alice wrestled William out of his boots and chausses.

Constant thrashing from William made the task doubly hard. His dazed eyes locked on something only he saw.

“Ivy!” Alice yelled the other woman’s name in a desperate plea. “Tell me what ails him.”

Ivy looked up at her, her face deathly pale. “William has been poisoned.”

Alice shook her head. “Nay.”

“Aye, Alice.” Ivy ran the washcloth over William’s soaked chest. “I have never seen it before, but all his symptoms suggest black nightshade.”

“Nay.” Every child knew not to touch the deadly black nightshade berries from the day they could understand. Routinely, Gord had the plant searched for, pulled up, and burned. The berries, the flowers, they were unmistakable. “It could not be. There are none here.”

“Alice.” Ivy gripped her arms. “I know what I am seeing. William has been poisoned, and deliberately. He would never eat the berries, mistaking them for something else. I saw him take Adam and Richard out at Anglesea and show them the plant and warn them.”

“Dear God.” Alice’s legs crumpled and she grabbed the bedpost for support.

“Aye.” Ivy hurried to the door. “I am going to find some vinegar. We will attempt to purge him. You stay with him and make sure he does not harm himself.”

“Legs.” William writhed on the bed. “They cut off my legs.”

“The purge will work, will it not?” Alice took William’s arm and held it. “He will be fine once you get the poison out of him.”

“I do not know.” Ivy slumped in the doorway. “I need to know how much he took and when he took it.”

Cedric appeared with two cleaning women.

Ivy drew her shoulders back and marched from the chamber.

“Find me Aonghas.” Alice caught Cedric by the arm. “Or anyone else who went scouting with William.”

“Alice.” William knifed into a tight ball.

“I am here, William.” She pressed her hand to his forehead. It was clammy and blazing hot.

He stilled and turned his dead stare in her direction. “Alice.”

“Aye, William.”

He calmed enough for her to straighten his legs and get him to lie back.

“You must be still.”

“They cut off my legs, Alice.”

“Nay, William.”

He turned his head and stared at her.

“Your legs are right here. I can see them, and touch them.”

With a sigh, William closed his eyes. He lay deathly still, his chest rising and falling too slowly.

“The boy said you were looking for me.” Aonghas panted as if he had run all the way. “He said it was desperate.”

“Ivy says…” The words caught in her throat as if by uttering them she made them real. She could not collapse like this. William needed her. “She says Sir William has been poisoned. Nightshade. We need to know what he ate and drank today.”

Aonghas gaped at her. He raised his hands and dropped them again. “Ate? Took no food. My lord said better scouting on a sharp belly.”

Could Ivy be wrong? If William had not eaten aught—

“His water skin.” Aonghas smacked the door.

“Find it.” Hope crashed to the floor.

Aonghas left at a run.

“What is amiss?” Beatrice entered, chuckling. “Aonghas near plowed into me. Are that boy’s braies on fire?” She moved deeper into the chamber and her smile vanished. “William.”

“He is ill.” Alice grabbed Beatrice’s hands and clung. “Ivy says he has been poisoned.”

“Nay.” Beatrice squeezed Alice’s fingers. “Who would poison William?”

Dear God, the room swayed about Alice. Who indeed hated William enough to do this?

“Aye.” Grim-faced, Ivy bustled through the door. “You two, hold him. He will not want to swallow this. And get some buckets and washcloths ready. This will not be pretty.”

If the poison did not kill William, the purge might finish the task. Time and movement blurred into one endless, nightmarish blur.

Alice lost count of the sheeting she stripped from beneath William, the washcloths she and Beatrice used as William expelled the poison from his body.

Agonized screams ripped from him as he convulsed and flailed.

It took hours, with Beatrice and Ivy beside her, working alongside her.

Finally, he stilled and drifted into a restless sleep.

“He is strong.” Alice wiped her brow as she stood frowning over William. Damp tendrils of hair stuck to Ivy’s face. Her dress bore the stains of William’s hard battle against the nightshade. “We have done all we can and it is up to him now.”

Beatrice collapsed onto a rug by the hearth. If anything, she looked worse than Ivy. The beautiful gown she had worn for dinner was ripped in places from holding William.

“My lady?” Domnall the older tapped on the doorframe. “Is he…?”

“He must fight the poison now.” Alice’s voice seemed to come from some part of her that still clung to sanity. “What is it?”

“Aonghas has all the men who scouted with Sir William rounded up in the hall. We added a few malcontents to the bunch. What should we do with them?”

“Find out who did this to him.” Beatrice rose from the hearthrug like a soiled, avenging angel. “Break every one of them until you know who tried to kill my brother.”

Domnall nodded, his expression fierce and unbending.

“Wait,” Alice called before he left. “I might know who did this.”

Domnall jerked his head back. “Tell us, my lady.”

Alice sagged against the wall at her back. As they battled for William, she had chained her bitter certainty deep within her and kept it there. “The crofter’s hut. The one by the tarn. I know who was in there.”

“Alice?” Beatrice staggered toward her.

“Sister Julianna.” Alice dared not look at Beatrice. She had lied to Beatrice, and William now paid the price of her deceit and foolishness. “She escaped from the Nunnery. She is quite mad and she would have been more than capable of doing this.”

William’s uneven rasps of breath sounded loud in the deathly hush about her.

“You knew she was there?” An eerie calm inhabited Beatrice. “The night you came in so late, you came from that awful woman.”

“Aye.” Alice stood in the condemnation of Domnall’s gaze. She had done this to William, as surely as if she had administered the poison. “I thought I could persuade her to return with me and we could send her back to St. Stephen’s.”

Beatrice’s blow caught her across the cheek, so powerful it smashed her head back into the wall.

“You knew.” Beatrice hit her again. “Were you in league with her?”

“Nay, Beatrice.” Ivy stepped between them. So tiny Beatrice’s looming rage dwarfed her. “Alice would not have done that.”

“She lied to me.” Tears ran down Beatrice’s cheeks. “She lied to me and she may have cost my brother his life.”

“William is not dead yet.” Ivy cupped Beatrice’s face in her palms. “And he will not die. Not as long as there is strength in me and in him.”

“She killed him.” Great sobs wracked Beatrice. “She killed my brother.”

“Stop it.” Ivy shook Beatrice’s head. “She would not kill him because she bears his child.”

Beatrice drew herself up, pushing Ivy’s hands away and stared at Alice. “For that reason, and no other, I will not kill you.”

* * * *

“She does not mean it.” Domnall patted Alice’s shoulder as he led her down the stairs. “It is her grief and worry that speak for her.”

Beatrice would not allow Alice to remain in the sick chamber. Her shouts upset William, and Alice had left. William needed his strength for the battle to come. “Aye, I know that, but if I had told William about Sister when Seamus first brought me the message, none of this would be happening.”

“Seamus knew?” Domnall’s bellow echoed off the walls. “I will strip an inch of the little turd’s hide.”

“Nay.” Alice squeezed Domnall’s arm. They had enough to contend with without the brothers fighting. “It was not his fault. He is young, and Sister put the fear of God into him. I know of what I speak. She did the same to me for years.”

Men packed the hall in an eerie silence. Some sat, most stood, tense and alert. Heads spun their way.

“Sir William?” Aonghas rose from his place at the nearest bench.

“Fights for his life.” Alice had no words of comfort for him.

Nuns sat amongst the men, their black lifeless habits like doom portents amongst the men. Nuns? Alice knew she stared, but exhaustion and nagging worry bogged her thinking.

The Prioress pushed between two men. “We arrived just before Compline. We brought you the news that Sister Julianna escaped from us.” She took Alice’s hands in hers. “I hear you have already discovered so.”

“I believe she poisoned Sir William.”

A low murmur from the men greeted her words.

“Not these. Wager my life.” Aonghas gestured to the gathered men. Amongst the men were a number of bruises, black eyes and split lips. “Made sure.”

“We need to find her,” Alice said.

Men surged to their feet, eagerness to take action pulsing from their taut posture.

Dubhghall stepped forward. “We will tear Tarnwych apart if we must.”

“Do it.” This she could do. Later, when it would not upset William, she would brave Beatrice again, but for now she needed to do something.

As men streamed from the hall, Sister Margaret stood with her. “I brought a larger party with me this time. Most of my sisters hold prayer vigil for Sir William. Others will join in the search.”

The hall spun about Alice and she dropped onto a hearth chair. She could not afford weakness. William needed her to stay strong and do what must be done. Thus far, as a wife, she had been a dismal failure.

Sister Margaret sat across from her. “You must eat, Lady Alice.”

Alice’s stomach roiled. “I cannot.”

“Change at least. Your appearance will increase the speculation and fear throughout the keep.”

The prioress was right, and Alice nodded. “My clothes are all in my bedchamber, and I cannot go in there.”

Sister Margaret fixed a keen stare on her. “And why is that, Lady Alice?”

How to explain what she had done? Under Sister Margaret’s fox-stare she had only one course. “I knew Sister Julianna was here, and I did not tell anyone.”

Sister Margaret rearranged her skirts about her knees.

“And now William has been poisoned, and we are certain it was Sister Julianna. Lady Beatrice blames me for William being so ill and will not allow me near him.”

“I see.” Sister Margaret adjusted her crucifix. “It was certainly foolish not to say something about Sister Julianna being back as soon as you knew.”

William’s poisoning weighed on her until she could barely sit straight. “It is my fault he might—” That tiny word that she could not utter. It meant a life forever empty of William’s smile, the twinkle in his clear-sky eyes, his arms about her, the resonant murmur of his rich voice.

“No tears, Lady Alice.” Sister Margaret offered her a handkerchief. “The time has not yet come for tears. This is the time for firm resolve and strong prayers.”

Alice did her best to stem the flow of tears, but she did not feel resolved. She wanted to crawl into a corner and weep the pain out.

“But I have a more pressing matter to discuss with you.” Sister Margaret frowned at her crucifix. “Whilst you were above, I did some thinking. I spoke to a couple of those who have been here for as long as you have.”

“There is nothing more pressing than William. For me.”

Sister Margaret snorted. “And yet here you sit, too frightened to brave your sister by marriage and take your rightful place by your man’s side.”

Alice jerked in her seat. If nothing else, Sister had stemmed her tears, and replaced them with a strong urge to smack the woman about her wimpled ear. What did a nun know of these matters?

Raising her brow, Sister Margaret chuckled. “Aye, you did not like that, did you?”

“Our hot words were upsetting William. That is why I left.”

“Ah.” Sister Margaret smiled.

The smile irked Alice further. “It is. He needs his rest.”

“He needs his wife.” She flapped her hand. “But whilst you are finding your courage, tell me of your other husbands.”

“Eh?”

“Sir William came to see me a few days ere. We spoke of Sister. We believe she used his departure to escape.” Sister Margaret leant forwards. “Amongst other things, we spoke of your husbands. The ones who came before William. They all met with an early death, did they not?”

“Aye?” Alice’s nape prickled a warning. “The first William died with his friend. They drowned.” It had been a tragic accident. “John slipped in the rain and fell from the castle walls.” Unease grew with each word she said.

“Is it possible he was not alone on the battlements?”

“Aye.” As sure footed as any knight, John walked the battlements nightly. “Steven died from a summer chill.”