Imeyne wouldn’t let it rest. She would bring it up again, putting forth argument after argument why they should go to Sir Bloet, who had sugar and rushes and cinnamon. And an educated chaplain to say the Christmas masses. Lady Imeyne was determined not to hear mass from Father Roche. And Eliwys was more and more worried all the time. She might suddenly decide to go to Courcy for help, or even back to Bath. Kivrin had to find the drop.
She tied the dangling strings of Agnes’s cap and pulled the hood of her cloak up over her head.
“I rode Saracen every day in Bath,” Agnes said. “I would we could go riding here. I would take my hound.”
“Dogs don’t ride horses,” Rosemund said. “They run alongside.”
Agnes pooched her lip out stubbornly. “Blackie is too little to run.”
“Why can you not go riding here?” Kivrin said to head off a fight.
“There is none to accompany us,” Rosemund said. “In Bath our nurse and one of father’s prives rode with us.”
One of Father’s prives, Gawyn could accompany them, and she could not only ask him where the drop was but have him show it to her. Gawyn was here. She had seen him in the courtyard this morning, which was why she had suggested the trip to the stable, but having him ride with them was better.
Imeyne came over to where Eliwys was sitting. “If we are to stay here, we must have game for the Christmas pie.”
Lady Eliwys set aside her sewing and stood up. “I will bid the steward and his eldest son go hunting,” she said quietly.
“Then will there be no one to fetch the ivy and the holly.”
“Father Roche goes out to gather it this day,” Lady Eliwys said.
“He gathers it for the church,” Lady Imeyne said. “Will you have none in the hall, then?”
“We’ll fetch it,” Kivrin said.
Eliwys and Imeyne both turned to look at her. Mistake, Kivrin thought. She had been so intent on finding a way to speak to Gawyn she had forgotten everything else, and now she had spoken without being spoken to and “meddled in matters” that obviously didn’t concern her. Lady Imeyne would be more convinced than ever that they should go to Courcy and get a proper nurse for the girls.
“I’m sorry if I spoke out of turn, good lady,” she said, ducking her head. “I know there is much to do and there are few to do it. Agnes and Rosemund and I might easily ride into the woods to fetch the holly.”
“Aye,” Agnes said eagerly. “I could ride Saracen.”
Eliwys started to speak, but Imeyne interrupted her. “Have you no fear of the woods then, though you are only lately healed of your injuries?”
Mistake upon mistake. She was supposed to have been attacked and left for dead, and here she was volunteering to take two little girls into the same woods.
“I didn’t mean that we should go alone,” Kivrin said, hoping she wasn’t making it worse. “Agnes told me that she rode out with one of your husband’s men to guard her.”
“Aye,” Agnes piped up. “Gawyn can ride with us, and my hound Blackie.”
“Gawyne is not here,” Imeyne said, and then turned quickly back to the women scrubbing the table in the silence that followed.
“Where has he gone?” Eliwys said, quietly enough, but her cheeks had flushed bright red.
Imeyne took Maisry’s rag away from her and began scrubbing at a spot on the table. “He has undertaken an errand for me.”
“You have sent him to Courcy,” Eliwys said, and it was a statement, not a question.
Imeyne turned back to face her. “It is not meet for us to be so close to Courcy, and yet send no greeting. He will say we have cast him off, and we can ill afford in these times to anger such a man as powerful as—”
“My husband bade us tell no one we were here,” Eliwys cut in.
“My
“What did you bid him say to Sir Bloet?”
“I bade him deliver kind greetings,” Imeyne said, twisting the rag in her hands. “I bade him say we would be glad to receive them for Christmas.” She lifted her chin defiantly. “We could do aught else, with our two families to be joined so soon in marriage. They will bring provisions for the Christmas feast, and servants—”
“And Lady Yvolde’s chaplain to say the mass?” Eliwys asked coldly.
“Do they come here?” Rosemund asked. She had stood up again, and her sewing had slid off her knees and onto the floor.
Eliwys and Imeyne looked at her blankly, as if they had forgotten there was anyone else in the hall, and then Eliwys turned on Kivrin. “Lady Katherine,” she snapped, “were you not taking the children to gather greens for the hall?”
“We cannot go without Gawyn,” Agnes said.
“Father Roche can ride with you,” Eliwys said.
“Yes, good lady,” Kivrin said. She took Agnes’s hand to lead her from the room.
“Do they come here?” Rosemund asked again, and her cheeks were nearly as red as her mother’s.
“I know not,” Eliwys said. “Go with your sister and Lady Katherine.”
“I am to ride Saracen,” Agnes said, and tore free of Kivrin’s hand and ran out of the hall.
Rosemund looked as if she were going to say something and then went to get her cloak from the passage behind the screens.
