Lady Eliwys is too worried over her husband’s trial to notice my mistakes, and the girls are too young. But Lady Imeyne notices everything and is probably making a list like the one she has for Father Roche. Thank goodness I didn’t tell her I was Isabel de Beauvrier. She’d have ridden to Yorkshire, winter or no, to catch me out.
Gawyn came in after dinner. Maisry, who’d finally slunk in with a scarlet ear and a wooden bowl of ale, dragged the benches over to the hearth and put several logs of fat pine on the fire, and the women were sewing by its yellow light.
Gawyn stopped in front of the screens, obviously just in from a hard ride, and for a minute no one noticed him. Rosemund was brooding over her embroidery. Agnes was pushing her cart back and forth with the wooden knight in it, and Eliwys was talking earnestly to Imeyne about the cottar, who apparently isn’t doing very well. The smoke from the fire was making my chest hurt, and I turned my head away from it, trying to keep from coughing, and saw him standing there, looking at Eliwys.
After a moment, Agnes ran her cart into Imeyne’s foot, and Imeyne told her she was the devil’s own child, and Gawyn came on into the hall. I lowered my eyes and prayed he would speak to me.
He did, bowing on one knee in front of where I sat on the bench. “Good lady,” he said. “I am glad to see you improved.”
I had no idea what, if anything, was appropriate to say. I ducked my head lower.
He remained on one knee, like a servitor. “I was told you remember naught of your attackers, Lady Katherine. Is it so?”
“Yes,” I murmured.
“Nor of your servants, where they might have fled?”
I shook my head, eyes still downcast.
He turned toward Eliwys. “I have news of the renegades, Lady Eliwys. I have found their trail. There were many of them, and they had horses.”
I’d been afraid he was going to say he’d caught some poor wood-gathering peasant and hanged him.
“I beg your leave to pursue them and avenge the lady,” he said, looking at Eliwys.
Eliwys looked uneasy, wary, the way she had when he came before. “My husband bade us keep to this place till he comes,” she said, “and he bade you stay with us to guard us. Nay.”
“You have not supped,” Lady Imeyne said in a tone that closed the matter.
Gawyn stood up.
“I thank you for your kindness, sir,” I said rapidly. “I know it was you who found me in the woods.” I took a breath, and coughed. “I beg you, will you tell me of the place you found me, where it is?” I had tried to say too much too fast. I began to cough, gasped too deep a breath, and doubled over with the pain.
By the time I got the coughing under control, Imeyne had set meat and cheese on the table for Gawyn, and Eliwys had gone back to her sewing, so I still don’t know anything.
No, that’s not true. I know why Eliwys looked so wary when he came in and why he made up a tale about a band of renegades. And what that conversation about “daltrisses” was all about.
I watched him standing there in the doorway looking at Eliwys, and I didn’t need an interpreter to read his face. He’s obviously in love with his lord’s wife.
Dunworthy slept straight through till morning.
“Your secretary wanted to wake you up, but I wouldn’t let him,” Colin said. “He said to give you these.” He thrust a messy sheaf of papers at him.
“What time is it?” Dunworthy said, sitting up stiffly in bed.
“Half past eight,” Colin said. “All the bellringers and DT’s are in hall eating breakfast. Oatmeal.” He made a gagging sound. “It was absolutely necrotic. Your secretary chap says we need to ration the eggs and bacon because of the quarantine.”
“Half past eight in the morning?” Dunworthy asked, blinking nearsightedly at the window. It was as dark and dismal as when he’d fallen asleep. “Good Lord, I was supposed to have gone back to hospital to question Badri.”
“I know,” Colin said. “Great-Aunt Mary said to let you sleep, that you couldn’t question him anyway because they’re running tests.”
“She rang up?” Dunworthy asked, groping blindly for his spectacles on the bedstand.
“I went over this morning. To have my blood tested. Great– aunt Mary said to tell you we only need to come once a day for our blood tests.”
He hooked his spectacles over his ears and looked at Colin. “Did she say whether they’d identified the virus?”
“Huh-unh,” Colin said around a lump in his cheek. Dunworthy wondered if the gobstopper had been in his mouth all night, and if so why it hadn’t diminished in size. “She sent you the contacts charts.” He handed the papers to him. “The lady we saw at the infirmary rang up, too. The one on the bicycle.”
“Montoya?”
“Yes. She wanted to know if you knew how to get in touch with Mr. Basingame’s wife. I told her you’d ring her back. When does the post come, do you know?”
“The post?” Dunworthy said, looking through the stack.
“Mum didn’t have my presents bought in time to send them on the tube with me,” Colin said. “She said she’d send them by post. You don’t think the quarantine will delay it, do you?”
