While Angels Slept (39 page)

Myles wriggled
his eyebrows in sympathy. “I do not disagree,” he replied. “But I should at
least tell Val.”

“Why?”

“Because she can
read my mind. She has already learned this skill and we have only been married
two months.  If I do not tell her, she will beat it out of me.”

Tevin gave him a
half-grin. “Then it would be wise to tell her,” he said. “Moreover, she knew
Louisa. If anyone can confirm the woman’s identity, Val can.”

“I am not
entirely sure I want my wife around a sick woman until we can determine
whatever she has cannot be spread.”

“Agreed. Make
sure the physic examines her in short order so we know what we are dealing
with.”

Myles simply
nodded and the pair of them watched the ox cart, which was now lumbering
beneath the yawning portcullis as it made entrance into the enclosure of
Rochester. 

With wonder,
disbelief, and perhaps some fear, they followed.

***

It was noon
before the physic could be found and instructed to examine the woman in the
cart, mostly because the castle physic of Rochester, although a knowledgeable
man, was something of a drunk and it had taken that long to find the man
sleeping off a binge in a muddy crevice of the castle. 

Myles had
man-handled the old surgeon to one of the unused smithy shacks where they had
the woman called Louisa sequestered. Tucked away on a straw bed with a serving
woman to watch over her, the surgeon took his time in examining the woman,
struggling to shake off the after effects of too much drink with the big knight
glaring daggers at him.  The man felt her pulse, looked in her eyes and ears,
and listened to her lungs.  He also poked and prodded a good deal, and thumped
her several times on the back and listened to the results. 

Myles stood in
the entry to the shack, watching, glancing over his shoulder now and again to
make sure Val or Cantia weren’t around to wonder why he was hanging around an
old smithy shelter. Cantia was curious but Val was worse; she had the senses of
a trained knight and he swore the woman could move like a phantom and read
minds like a witch.  He rather liked it, though.  The past two months had been
the best of his life.

Grinning when he
thought of his lovely, strawberry-blond wife who was trying very hard to learn
to be a good chatelaine, he refocused on the old surgeon as the man thoroughly
examined the patient, who was by now becoming semi-lucid. Folding his arms
across his big chest, Myles leaned against the door jamb, his mind wandering,
when someone stuck a finger in his ear.

“Boo!”

Myles jumped as
much from the finger in his ear as the voice, turning to see Val grinning back
at him.  He returned her smile as he turned his back on the door to block her
view of the interior. Then he wrapped her up in his embrace.

“Greetings,
wife,” he kissed her sweetly.

Val put her arms
around his neck, accepting his affection. “Greetings,” she kissed him in
return, savoring the gesture. “What are you doing?”

He shook his
head, trying to distract her with sweet kisses and moving away from the shack
at the same time. “Nothing of note,” he said, trying not to lie to her. “More
importantly, what are
you
doing?”

Val had her arms
wrapped around his neck as he picked her up and began to walk off with her, her
legs trailing down his long body. She giggled as he swung her around playfully.

“Walking with
Arabel,” she said, removing an arm and pointing over to her niece several feet
away.  “She wanted to come outside on this lovely day.”

Myles smiled
over at Arabel in her specially built chair with wheels on it, being tended by
the two women who had raised her.  She lifted a weak hand to wave at Myles and
he waved back.

However, as
Myles was smiling and waving, he was also quite frantic to move them both away
from the old smithy shack.  He couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen them coming. His
mind must have been wandering more than he realized. But to take the blame off
himself, he silently reiterated that his wife moved like a wraith and he was
paying the price for it by being surprised at her appearance.

“Arabel,” he
called over to the girl. “I saw that a dog had a litter of puppies over in the
stables. Do you want to see them?”

As he hoped,
Arabel was properly distracted. She cried out gleefully. “Aye!” she clapped her
hands. “Perhaps my father will allow me to have a dog like Hunt does!”

Myles grinned at
her enthusiasm. “Perhaps,” he said. “But do not tell him I told you about the
puppies. He will berate me when he is unable to refuse you.”

Arabel nodded
happily and her women began to wheel her off in the direction of the stable.
Just as Myles settled Val in beside him to follow, the physic emerged from the
shanty and called out to him.

“My lord!”

Myles came to a
halt, inwardly groaning as the physic made his way towards him. In fact, he was
rather desperate to remove Val so he gently turned her in Arabel’s direction.

“Go with
Arabel,” he said. “I will join you in a moment.”

Val started to
agree but the physic started talking before she could move out of earshot.

“My lord,” the
physic said again. “It would seem the woman has a disease of the lungs. I have
seen it before.  It is indeed contagious but should not create an issue if we
keep her isolated and keep her mouth covered so she cannot breathe out her
disease on others.  I believe I can keep her contained.”

Val heard him. 
She came to a halt, looking at the physic curiously even as Myles tried to turn
her around.

“What woman?”
she wanted to know, then looked at her husband with concern. “Do we have
sickness at Rochester?”

Myles shook his
head and started to reply to her, but the physic interrupted. “They call this
disease
phithisis
,” he said to them both. “The woman coughs up black
blood. I can hear her chest laboring.  She is far gone with the disease and
will not live much longer.”

Val looked very
concerned as well as puzzled. “But I have not heard of anyone at Rochester
being ill,” she said to Myles. “Is this woman from the village?”

Myles sighed
heavily, glancing at the physic and making a gesture for the man to vacate. As
the old surgeon wandered back towards the shack, Myles turned his attention
back to his wife.  Gazing in to her dark eyes, he knew he had to tell her.  He
could easily make up another story to satisfy her, but his conscience would not
allow it. He had never lied to her before and wasn’t about to start. Moreover,
Tevin was sure Val could identify the woman if, in fact, it was Louisa.  He put
his arm around her shoulders and turned in the direction of the shack.

“Early this
morning, we had visitors,” he said quietly. “I must ask you now to keep this to
yourself until Tevin informs Cantia. It is important.”

Val nodded
seriously. “Of course, Myles. What is it?”

Myles began to
escort her towards the shanty. “Did Cantia or Tevin ever tell you about
Gillywiss?”

Val nodded.
“Cantia told me,” she replied. “He was the outlaw who saved her from Dagan, was
he not?”

Myles nodded.
“Indeed,” he said. “He also formed some kind of strange attachment to Cantia.
He made her a promise.”

“What do you
mean? What promise?”

“That he would
discover Louisa’s fate so that Tevin and Cantia could be married.”

Val’s brow
furrowed. “Why on earth would he do that?”

“As I said, he
formed a strange attachment to Cantia. When he appeared this morning, he said
that he did it because they had something in common, wanting things they could never
have. He also did it because she saved his sister’s life and he felt indebted
to her.”

Val came to a
halt at the door to the shack, looking at him with an utterly baffled
expression. “What did he do?”

Myles lifted his
eyebrows at her. “I am hoping you can tell me.”

He pushed the
door open, exposing his wife to the dark and unsettling world inside.  The
physic and the serving woman were there, washing out some clothes in vinegar to
put over the patient’s mouth so she could not cough out her germs.  Wary, Val
stepped in with Myles behind her.  He took her over to the straw mattress where
a small figure lay, now with a cloth over her nose and mouth, and still swathed
in jumbles of dirty blankets. She smelled like a sewer. Myles glanced over his
shoulder at the physic.

“Remove the
cloth on her mouth,” he instructed. “I want to see her face.”

The physic slid
into the space between Val and the bed, peeling off the vinegar-soaked cloth. A
very pale, very fair face came into view and the physic pulled back the
blankets around the woman’s head so her hair and features could be more plainly
seen. 

“Tell me who
this is,” Myles whispered to his wife.

Perplexed, Val
bent over to gain a better look.  She truly had no idea who she was looking at
until the woman shifted and more of her features came into view. Then, an
inkling of suspicion gripped her and Val peered more closely at the woman,
drawing on distant memories to put a name to the face.  When the woman sighed
faintly in her sleep and a big dimple appeared on her chin, Val was seized with
recognition.  She grabbed Myles as if something had just terrified her.

“Louisa!” she
gasped. “It… it is
Louisa
!”

Myles held on to
his stricken wife. “Are you sure?”

Val nodded, so
hard that her hair flopped over her cheeks.  “My God,” she breathed, blinking
back tears. “I
knew
her. I thought we were friends. That is her, I swear
it.”

Myles pulled her
away from the bed, gesturing to the physic, who went to his patient and covered
her mouth and nose up again with the soaked cloth. Meanwhile, Myles pulled his
wife all the way to the door, kicking the panel open to get her out of the
diseased hut. He had a strong grip on her because she was shaken and upset.

“Listen to me,”
he whispered. “You cannot tell Cantia. Tevin must tell her.”

Val lost the
battle against the tears. “It is not Cantia I am worried over,” she wept.
“Arabel will be devastated. All she knows of her mother was that she abandoned
her and did not love her. Dear God, why is that woman here? What will we tell
Arabel?”

Myles put his
arms around her to comfort her. “You will tell her nothing,” he said
soothingly, steadily. “That is for Tevin to decide.  I simply needed your
confirmation that it is indeed Tevin’s wife. You have done that.  You must let
your brother take care of the rest.”

Val was wiping
at her eyes with shaking hands. “That… that outlaw actually
found
her?”
she was flabbergasted. “How did he find her?”

“He has family
in Paris,” Myles replied. “Since Paris was the last known location of Louisa,
Gillywiss apparently went there looking for her.  It took him months to track
her down, but he did, finding her in a brothel.  He brought her back because he
promised Cantia he would.”

Val was gazing
at him with wide-eyed expression, full of incredulity. “
Promised
her? But
I simply do not understand. For what purpose?”

“I told you,” he
said patiently. “I can only surmise that it is so Cantia can know the woman’s
fate and, in knowing, pave the pathway for her and Tevin to be married. At
least, that was the gist of what I understood.”

It made some
sense, but Val was still reeling. “I can hardly grasp all of this,” she
breathed. “Louisa has actually returned.”

“Aye, she has.”

She started to
reply but the words caught in her throat and her expression changed from
disbelief to one of sorrow. Her gaze moved to the mighty keep of Rochester
soaring over their heads.

“I must speak
with Tevin,” she said, moving for the keep and pulling Myles with her. “He must
know… my God, what must he be thinking to all of this? He must be astonished at
the very least. The woman humiliated him, abandoned him, and now she is returned.”

Myles took her
hand to both slow her down and steady her. “Your brother can well handle his
feelings, Val,” he said softly. “I know you want to protect him, but he is a
grown man. He can handle himself.”

Val knew he was
right but she didn’t like his answer. Val had been watching out for Tevin for
many years, as the younger sister to a powerful brother.  There was something
vulnerable about Tevin in her eyes and her protective instinct for him had only
gotten worse when Louisa had deserted him and their month-old infant. She could
feel her anger rise.

“You were not
there when that… that woman discarded Tevin and Arabel like so much rubbish,”
she said, pointing angrily in the direction of the smithy shack. “She ran off
with another knight, a man from her home land. She never wanted to be married
to Tevin but she went through with the marriage anyway, eventually leaving him
with a sick baby and humiliating him. I know my brother can handle himself in
any situation but it does not stop the sense of protection I have for him and
for Arabel. I have tried very hard not to hate Louisa for what she did but
right now, all I can feel is fury.”

Myles was calm
as he watched her. “Then what would you have me to with her?” he asked softly.
“Do you want me to dump her in a church somewhere, with a charity where she
will be cared for until she dies? Do you want me to send her away from
Rochester to save your brother and Arabel’s feelings?”

Some of Val’s
fury seemed to abate and she grew uncertain. “Tevin already knows she is here.”

“He does, but he
is not sure it is Louisa. He said you would know for sure. Would you lie to
your brother and tell him it is not Louisa and we can simply rid her from
Rochester?”

More of her fury
took a dousing.  After a moment, she shook herself, struggling to calm.