The Illuminator (35 page)

It might have been a lamp kicked over in the heat of passion. Or a guttering candle they left behind. Or Rose and Colin might have had nothing to do with the fire at all. But Colin had always been devout. Had the carnal sin he'd committed with Rose festered in his innocent soul until his own guilt heaped on an extra measure of blame?

She listened at the chapel door. Silence. The door creaked on its iron hinges. Inside, the air was stale as though the room had been sealed for hours. The altar was empty. A sense of dread crept down her spine when she saw that the sundial on the wall indicated time for vespers. Colin had always kept vespers, even before the fire.

She left the empty chapel, and closing the door behind her, leaned on it for a minute to get her breath, to think. Colin was just worn out with praying,
that was all, and was probably sleeping in his room, his blue-veined eyelids twitching in troubled dreams. She would go to his room, wake him, find out if his story matched Rose's. If it did, then she would tell him everything would be all right. She would send him on some errand, maybe to Sir Guy, with a message for his brother. That would divert him and buy her time to think. It wasn't that Kathryn didn't understand the need for atonement. But her cherished child, with his angel's voice and his gentle ways—he should not be the one to pay. He'd never hurt anyone in his life, had not even torn her when he was born, slipping from her womb in his lustier brother's bloody wake, like an afterthought.

Her father, and the mother who died when she was only five, slept beneath the chapel porch on the place where she was standing, next to Roderick— opposing, not beside. And opposing both, at the head of a triangle, a place waited for her. She'd planned it carefully: Alfred and his family completing Roderick's side, Colin and his bride making the line to her parents. Now, even that was spoiled. But Kathryn was resolved. When the trumpet of Judgment sounded, no Jewess, with the blood of Christ dripping from her shapely hands, would rise from Blackingham to indict her son.

Colin would not yet know about the baby. Whatever guilt he suffered was for his carnal act, that, and the shepherd's death as the assumed consequence. Rose could not have told him; she had not known herself. If confronted with the fact of the child now, she knew what her son would say. Thinking he could take Rose for his bride, he would answer any charge with protestations of love. And when he learned the truth of Rose's birth, would he do what Finn had done for Rose's mother—give up everything because he was bewitched by a Jewess? Bewitched. Maybe the girl wasn't as innocent as she professed to be. There were stories aplenty about Jews who practiced the black arts—if they could turn lead into gold, it would be a simple art to seduce her Colin. Then she remembered the look in Rose's eyes, a frighted fawn stumbling into a peopled meadow. No. The girl was no enchantress, just a maid whose innocence had failed to protect her. But innocence never did. Innocence was flax for a devil's loom.

Laughter, easy banter from the stable boys warming their hands by a courtyard fire drew her attention. Finn was back. She'd hoped he wouldn't return until the morrow. She needed to talk to Colin before Rose blurted out
the truth to her father. She wasn't sure the girl could be trusted not to tell him, despite her agreement to wait, especially if she saw him now, with the new knowledge of her condition smarting like a fresh wound.

“Finn,” Kathryn called.

He looked up and around, searching for the source, then fastened his gaze on the chapel porch.

“Agnes baked today,” she shouted as she hurried down the three stone steps, her skirts whipping around her. “Your favorite. The
pain demain
you like so much.” White bread, made with finest flour. A nobleman's taste. There had been so many clues she'd overlooked. “You should get some while it's still hot from the oven.”

They were still a few feet apart. Her pace slowed, preserving the distance. He looked up at her, shielding his eyes from the dying sun with his hand. She had a momentary longing to rush to him, be comforted by him. But she'd find little comfort there if he knew the truth.

“I think I need to wash the city from me first,” he said.

Her mind whirred like a mill wheel. He would go to his chamber. Rose would be there, fresh tears still staining her cheek. If Kathryn could just detain him, the girl might be abed by the time he went to his room, and they might be able to buy another day. A day to visit the old woman who lived in Thomas Wood, maybe secure from her some concoction—or even a spell— well, no, not a spell, too dangerous, but a mixture of some wild herbal substance, some virginal restorative for Rose.

“Go to the kitchen and tell Glynis that I said to heat some water for a bath,” Kathryn said. That should be incentive enough. He bathed more than any three men she'd ever known. Was that something his Jewish wife had taught him? The ostler had gone inside the barn, leading Finn's horse. She lowered her voice. “Tell Glynis to carry the water to my chamber. I'll join you there after vespers.” Would he wonder at her sudden piety, her desire to pray alone in a chapel where no priest said the office? “You can chat with Agnes over a mug. Tell her I said to pour the French wine she's been hoarding.”

He hesitated, ran his fingers through his gray-streaked mane that her own fingers twitched with wanting to touch. Had she lost the power to charm him?

“We need to talk,” she said.

“I'm too weary to do much else, Kathryn.”

There was hurt in the look he turned on her, and mistrust. She felt a momentary pang for the deception, but had not he deceived her first? She reached for the leather satchel.

“You don't need to go to your chamber. You might disturb Rose. I think she's resting. She's been working very hard on some task you've set her. My husband kept a change of clean linen in my garderobe.” She heard a vestigial longing in her voice. She hoped he heard it too, and would read a promise there.

“Pain demain,
you say? With honey? ”

“With honey. Still warm.”

“Don't pray too long,” he said, a bit of the old tease returning.

“Here. I'll take that satchel and place it on your worktable.” She touched his sleeve in a half-stroke before taking the scrip from him.

“Now, go. Before your bread gets cold.”

She passed his chamber on the way to Colin's, tiptoed in and placed the leather satchel in the center of the worktable. The curtain to Rose's alcove was drawn. No sound. The soothing tea she'd sent up was working.

Now, for Colin.

But Kathryn saw, to her dismay, that Colin was not in his chamber, and his bed had not been rumpled. He could not have gone far. His lute lay on the lone chair in the corner. She'd never noticed before how plain he kept his quarters, how cell-like. She lifted the lute and strummed it. He'd taught her a few notes, once, a long time ago. But her anxious fingers would not hold the strings.

Finn would be waiting for her, might become impatient and seek out his daughter—she returned the instrument carefully to its chair. A piece of parchment fluttered to the floor. She stooped to pick it up. She recognized Colin's fine script.

She had to read it twice before her mind could comprehend its meaning.

Her first thought was to go after him, bring him back. She could send Finn. She could guess which way he'd taken. Not to the Norwich monks, or even Broomholm. These would be too close to home. West, maybe, to Thetford, but more probably north to Blinham Priory, to the Benedictines, the wild lonely cliffs of Cromer, desolate, isolated.

But, if she brought him back, he would find out about the baby, and he would marry Rose. It wouldn't matter that she was a Jewess. That would just make his atonement more complete in his eyes.

No, better this way, she thought, as the tears began to flow. Better this way, for now. She might not have the strength to send him away, even for his own protection. This way he would never have to know about the baby, would never have to make a choice. He was too young to take a monk's vows; he would be a novitiate for years. Time enough to bring him back after she'd sent Finn and Rose away. She would keep Blackingham safe for him. For Alfred, too.

One day they could both come home.

She sat for a time on the floor, rocking herself back and forth until the room grew dark. In his note, he said he would dedicate himself to God, his hours to prayer. He said he was going to take the vow of silence. Little Walshingham and the Franciscans? It would help if she could just know where he was. The music in his voice hushed forever. She could not bear it. The room was almost in total darkness now. She must pull herself together.

She tucked the note carefully inside her bosom and stood up. Finn would be waiting for her.

He (God) suffereth some of us to fall more hard and more grievously than ever we did before, and then we think
—
for we are not all wise
—
that all we have begun is brought to naught. But it is not so.

—J
ULIAN OF
N
ORWICH
,
D
IVINE
R
EVELATIONS

F
inn lingered over his supper to give Lady Kathryn time to return from vespers. He chatted with the cook, telling her of the hanging at Castle Prison, of the tension building in the city. She complained of the poll tax.

“ 'Tis the second one in three years. Thank the Holy Virgin, Lady Kathryn agreed to pay mine, but now there's me girl to pay for.” Agnes waved a stirring spoon in the direction of the scullery maid, who was scouring a kettle with as much concentration as he would have given the mixing of a crimson wash.

“If Lady Kathryn paid your husband's head tax,” he said between bites, “she'll be no more out of pocket for the girl's.”

Agnes nodded, doubling her ample chin, but the creases on her brow showed she was less sanguine. “Aye, but that was before she lost the wool in the fire. Last time, she paid for crofters as well. But there's only so much juice in a turnip, and I'm afeared when the king's uncle has squeezed all the juice, there'll be a riot.”

“The threat of a noose is a powerful silencer.”

“Not when ye figure a rope is quicker than starvation.”

Finn agreed to the simple wisdom of that statement and pondered it as he made his way up to Kathryn's chamber, though he soon banished it for more personal thoughts. He'd had enough of crime and punishment for one day.

He tapped softly on the door of Lady Kathryn's chamber before letting himself into the empty room. The room was dimly lit against the gathering gloom by a sputtering fire and two rushlights, and in front of the fire sat a tin tub whose bottom was barely covered with water, no more than five fingers' worth. Finn tested the water. Tepid. Not enough to chase the cold from his bones but sufficient to remove the travel stench. He disrobed and folded his body into the tub. A draft from the flue caused him to shiver, and he winced as his back touched the cold tin. He rubbed his arms for warmth and looked down at his shriveled manhood. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. His body had never yet failed him when desire was awakened, but there was always a first time, and he was no longer a young man.

As he scrubbed his gooseflesh with Saracen's soap, he heard the clatter of horses' hooves and the raucous barking of stable curs drifting up from the courtyard, muffled by the heavy wall hangings of Kathryn's chamber. Pilgrims, probably, seeking hospitality against the frigid December night. He knew they would not be turned away, but would be allowed to spread their bedrolls—some in the great hall, some in the stables—depending on their social standing. The Norwich beggar boy who'd held his horse outside the tavern stalked across his mind, giving him another cheeky salute, another wink and grin. Who would pay his head tax? What could the king's bailiffs extort from him—the ragged shirt off his back, the blanket Finn had given him—and where would he sleep tonight?

The soap was fragrant, mingling its own lavender scent with the earthy smell of the peat fire. It reminded him of Kathryn, the smell that lingered in her clothes, her hair, the enticing hollow between her breasts. Thoughts of Kathryn awakened a familiar stirring. Good. The blood was warming. If he'd read her right—and one could never be totally sure when a woman was concerned—there had been a promise of reconciliation in her eyes. She must be as eager as he to end the coldness between them. She had made the first move.

One of the dogs in the courtyard below yelped as though it had been kicked. Loud voices, unintelligible words, muted by the tapestries and closed
window, followed by raucous laughter. Then, pounding on the door as though with the hilt of a broadsword. Boisterous, for a company of pilgrims.

He sluiced the lather from his shoulder with cupped hands, dried himself with the scrap of linen, and stepped out of the tub. Kathryn had said something about her husband's smallclothes. He eyed a chest in the corner but reached for his own mud-stained garment. He'd not stoop to wear Roderick's clothing. Frowning, he brushed at a spot on his tunic.