By the end of March, spring began to touch
the land around the castle. The pastures turned pale green, while
in the cultivated fields pease, wheat and barley were sprouting.
Buds were swelling on trees and badgers were stirring. The birds
had begun to return from warmer climes. During the few days when
there was no rain and the clouds lightened a bit, butterflies and
bees also took wing, dining on nectar from the earliest primroses
or the flowers of the lowly coltsfoot and ground ivy.
Knowing how the weather could change with
little warning and, in the area around Wroxley, usually change for
the worse, humans were more wary than the other creatures. It was
still too early to begin the traditional spring cleaning of keep
and muddy baileys, and in both the castle and the village just down
the road from the castle, winter sicknesses lingered.
Donada was not feeling well. Her appetite was
poor and she had grown pale and listless, not at all like her usual
energetic self. Mirielle insisted her friend must take an herbal
preparation which, so far, had done little to alleviate the
ailment. There were several other castle folk with similar
complaints. Putting the illness down to weariness at the end of a
long, damp winter and the effects of a steady diet of salted or
dried foods, Mirielle dispensed tonics with a free hand and assured
the patients they would feel better when warmer weather came to
stay and fresh food was once more available.
Busy though she was in these weeks, still
Mirielle could not stop thinking about Giles or wondering where he
and Hugh might be. She missed him with all the sadness of a woman
who knew she would never again see the man she loved. The knowledge
that she was responsible for his safe escape was poor comfort when
her heart was aching. Struggling with her pain, telling herself she
must go on, Mirielle threw herself into the daily work. But that
work only filled the daylight hours. Each night she retired to her
room, where no one but Minn could see her, and there she wept for
loneliness and from a pervasive fear for Giles.
There came a night when the need to know if
he was safe overcame her and she took out the crystal globe.
Holding it up before the single oil lamp that lit her bedchamber,
Mirielle sat down on her bed, steadying her elbow on her knee.
“I understand Cerra’s warnings about not
using my power for my own benefit,” Mirielle whispered. “But
please, just this once, let me see Giles, or at least something to
show me he still lives. I promise, I will not ask again.”
The crystal glowed in the lamplight. Mirielle
held her breath, staring into the globe, concentrating. Slowly the
crystal clouded with swirls of thick gray. Through that drifting
mist a man stepped. He wore a hooded black cloak with the hood
pulled back just enough so that, for the first time in all her
visions of him, Mirielle could see his face.
In the gray dimness of the globe, wherein
everything else constantly shifted and changed shape with the
movement of the fog, the man’s features were curiously distinct.
His brow was wide and high, his nose long and straight, his jaw
square. Seldom had Mirielle seen a jaw so determined. The man’s
mouth was a hard slash to match the firmness of his jaw. She could
not see the color of his hair or his eyes. In a mysterious way that
Mirielle could not explain even to herself, those features were
familiar to her. She frowned, concentrating still harder, certain
that in a moment or two the memory would return to her and she
would recognize and understand…
“Meow?” Minn jumped onto Mirielle’s lap,
purring.
Mirielle jerked in surprise. Her
concentration was broken. The vision in the globe vanished.
“Oh, Minn, how could you? Now I’ll never know
what would have happened. There was something in that vision I
needed to learn and, thanks to you, it’s gone.” Still purring, Minn
pushed her head against Mirielle’s arm. “Go to sleep, you silly
cat,” Mirielle said, choking back tears of disappointment.
Knowing the vision would not return and
feeling oddly tired from her efforts, Mirielle put the globe away
and got into bed. Minn settled down at her side, curling herself
into a furry ball. Mirielle scarcely noticed. She dropped into a
deep, dreamless sleep from which she did not awaken until well past
her usual hour the next morning.
That day the weather turned unseasonably
warm, though the constantly threatening clouds still lingered. In
mid-afternoon Mirielle set out for Wroxley village. She went on
horseback, taking Robin with her, no men-at-arms being necessary
for so short a trip in the heart of Wroxley lands. Mirielle knew
Robin was worried about his mother’s illness. Having lost his
father to sickness only a little more than a year ago, the boy
quite naturally feared the loss of his remaining parent. Mirielle
hoped an hour or two outside the castle might cheer him up.
As it happened, the diversion did not take as
long as Mirielle had planned. After visiting all of her patients
and with her supply of herbal medicine depleted, she and her
youthful companion turned homeward through the forest rather sooner
than Mirielle had anticipated. She sought for an excuse to keep
Robin distracted for a while longer.
“Let us stop by the stream,” she suggested.
“It is pleasant to be outside the castle walls after being enclosed
for so many days. I was beginning to feel like a falcon confined in
the mews. I yearn to fly free before returning to my perch.”
They dismounted to drink from the stream and
while Robin watered the horses, Mirielle sat upon a dry rock. She
lifted her face into the warm, damp breeze. It was all she could do
to keep from crying. Her mood had been ever more depressed since
the first exhilaration had faded after her successful rescue of
Giles and his subsequent secret departure out the postern gate. Her
aborted effort to learn his whereabouts from the crystal globe had
further saddened her.
With a sigh she told herself it was unlikely
that she would ever learn what had become of Giles. She would be
wise to accept that fact and make her peace with the life heaven
had allotted to her. The love of a man, children, her own household
to manage, were all blessings denied to her, but still she could
make a useful place for herself. She did have a few treasured
friends on whom she knew she could rely. Hearing Robin whistling a
funny little tune, her spirits began to rise and she tried to turn
her thoughts to more cheerful matters than the sad absence of the
man who held her heart.
The castle had been peaceful for weeks. Alda
had been in a remarkably mild temper of late, perhaps in
anticipation of the journey to court that she and Brice would make
in another month, when they would leave the castle in the care of
Mirielle and Captain Oliver. And, thought Mirielle, if Brice and
Donada were continuing their liaison, they were being remarkably
discreet about it. Clearly, Alda did not know of it, or there would
have been a screaming scene with Brice, and Donada would have been
turned out of Wroxley with her son. Mirielle smiled, thinking about
the busy spring to come and hoping there would be no new
disturbances.
“My lady.” Robin stopped his whistling to
break into Mirielle’s daydreaming. “I can hear horsemen coming this
way. We should return to the castle at once.”
“Horsemen?” Mirielle repeated, at first
unwilling to give up the pleasant thoughts she was determined to
keep in mind. Then, noting Robin’s serious face, she returned to
reality. She listened for a moment until she, too, could hear the
steady drumming of horses’ hooves along the castle road. “It sounds
like a large group of men. I think they are coming too fast for us
to reach the castle before they do.”
“Then we must hide. I do not think these can
be friends.” Robin’s gray-green eyes were round in his pale face.
“If a large group of visitors was expected, you would know about it
so you could have food and beds prepared for them. It is my duty to
keep you safe, my lady, but I am sorry to say I have no sword.”
“You needn’t worry, Robin. We are a good
twenty feet off the castle road and if you stand here beside me,
next to this rock -”
“My lady, the rock might hide us if we crouch
down behind it, but those men will certainly see our horses!”
“They will not. Come here.” Mirielle took the
horses’ bridles from the boy’s hands, pulling the animals toward
the rock. “Stand close beside me, Robin, and keep still. Now, you
must be absolutely certain in your mind that we will not be
seen.”
“What are you going to do?” Robin whispered,
as if the oncoming horsemen were close enough to hear if he were to
speak in his usual voice.
“Do you trust me, Robin?”
“Oh, yes, my lady. With my life.”
“Then do as I tell you and we will be
safe.”
Mirielle waited until the troop of horsemen
was in sight before she spread her arms. Reminding herself that
this was something she could do so long as she believed she could
do it, she concentrated as Hugh had shown her how to do on the
night when she had released Giles from the dungeon. She moved her
left hand and the two horses went perfectly still, as if they were
frozen where they stood. Mirielle gestured again, including Robin
and herself in the spell. All that was left was for her to believe,
and wait, and maintain her concentration when the horsemen drew
nearer.
There were at least two dozen riders. The
first man, a squire who rode a little ahead of the others, bore an
upright lance from which fluttered a blue and green pennant with an
identifying device sewn onto it in golden threads. The squire went
by too quickly for Mirielle to see the device clearly. The other
men in the troop were mostly knights, with a few squires included.
They looked ready for battle, with mail coifs raised and rounded
metal helmets on. Every man had a sword belted at his side. There
were maces attached to their saddles, several men also carried
battle axes, and one or two even had dangerous looking metal stars
on chains, but this band of warriors brought with them no siege
machines. On they came, riding hard, their cloaks billowing, the
horses sweating and throwing up chunks of mud from the wet
road.
The troop swept right past the spot where
Mirielle and Robin were standing. With one exception, none of the
riders gave any indication that either woman or boy, or their
statue-like horses, had been seen. The exception was a man riding
half a horse’s length behind the person who, by his garb and his
posture, was the leader of the troop. This companion to the leader
turned his head suddenly as he went by, as if he perceived that he
and his fellow riders were being watched. For an instant the man
looked directly at Mirielle.
Hugh!
Mirielle almost lost her concentration,
almost allowed Robin and the horses and herself to be seen. Unlike
the others in that troop of fighting men, Hugh did not wear armor.
He was richly dressed and the face he wore was a visage Mirielle
had never seen before. Still, she knew him, and she knew that,
despite the aura of invisibility she had pulled around herself and
Robin, Hugh had seen the two of them standing there, beside the
rock.
Who were the men with whom he rode? Was Giles
among them, hidden behind one of those metal helmets? If so, why
were the fugitives risking a return to Wroxley?
Breaking the spell, Mirielle stood with one
hand at her throat, staring after the horsemen as they pounded down
the narrow road. She did not know whether to be terrified or wildly
happy at the possibility of seeing Giles again. She feared she
would be drawn into whatever he and Hugh meant to do at Wroxley.
There might be danger to Brice, danger to herself. She did not
care. All she could think about was Giles, his kisses, his
strength.
“My lady?” Robin dared to touch her arm, a
sure sign that he was frightened. “Do they mean to attack the
castle?”
“There are too few of them for that,”
Mirielle responded, with great reluctance setting aside her
romantic thoughts of Giles. “I see no sign of more men coming after
that first group, or of war machines, either. I think they expect
to gain easy admittance to Wroxley.”
“We should return at once,” Robin said. “We
may be needed. My mother -”
Mirielle understood the thought Robin did not
finish. If there was going to be trouble at Wroxley, he wanted to
be at his mother’s side. For her part, Mirielle wanted to find Hugh
and demand of him an explanation for his sudden reappearance in a
new guise. Most of all, she wanted to find Giles, if he were in
fact among that troop of knights. At the very least, if Giles were
not present, Hugh could give her news of him.
Quickly Mirielle and Robin mounted and rode
to the castle gate. There, above each tower of the gatehouse, new
blue and green pennants were being raised. The light breeze caught
the fabric, making it billow so that Mirielle could make out the
golden device embroidered onto the pennants. It was a single
scallop shell.
The main gate stood wide open. Through it
Mirielle could see signs of extra bustle in the outer bailey, with
more horses than usual being walked by squires and stableboys. The
mounted troop had gained ready entrance.
Mauger was the watchman on duty at the
gatehouse and he was more surly than ever.
“You shouldn’t have been out,” he said to
Mirielle in a rude voice. “You’ll be needed inside, to see to food
and beds for the new men-at-arms.”
“Who are they?” Mirielle asked.
“The squire who rode first shouted the news
to one and all,” Mauger told her in a sour way that vividly
conveyed his opinion of these unexpected events. “The leader of the
troop is Gavin, the new baron of Wroxley, returned from the Holy
Land after eleven years’ absence.”
“I am so glad you are here.” Donada met
Mirielle at the entrance to the tower keep. “I have told the cook
to prepare the finest feast she can on such short notice, but I am
certain you will want to give additional orders. The water is being
heated now for baths. We ought to air the lord’s chamber and have
fresh sheets put on the bed. If you will give me the keys to the
linen press and the lord’s chamber, I’ll see to it.” Donada pressed
a hand to her pale forehead.