your daughter’s illness, to bring her back to health, I will do it. I’ll start by advising you to give her lots of fruits and vegetables. Oranges, if you can get them. Or lemons or limes. Vitamin C, but you don’t know what that is. It can’t hurt. Try chicken soup. Go to Sylvanne, and tell her what Daphne’s been eating, and what medicines her doctor has been giving her. Tell her, make her listen, and I will hear it.”
She studied Derek’s face. He looked back at her neutrally.
“And one more thing,” she continued. “I know Lady Sylvanne has already tried to attack you with a sword, so your guard is up. Keep it that way, don’t ever drop it, because she wants your head. She means to kill you. Her husband planted the seed on his deathbed, he told her to learn the story of Judith and Holofernes, from the Bible—if you don’t know how it ends, well, Judith got into his bed and cut off his head.”
Meghan took a deep breath and exhaled. It felt very good to get that off her chest, regardless of what Derek might think of her. “There. That’s it, I’m done,” she said.
Derek looked around for his hammer. “All right then,” he declared. “This fence will be finished in just a bit.”
Meghan watched him pick a slat up from the ground and pull a nail from it with the hammer’s claw. “Thank you for taking this so well,” she said.
“How do you know how I’m taking it?” he asked. “All you’re seeing is the surface politeness.”
“And what’s underneath?”
“Loads of things. Bemusement. It’s kind of cute. Then bewilderment. What the fuck is she talking about? But mostly it’s a pleasant surprise—it’s nice, it makes you more interesting. You’re more complicated than I thought.”
“Now you’re smirking.”
“Am I? It’s hard not to.”
From inside the house they could hear Betsy’s rendition of Good King Wenceslas collapse into childish random bashing of the keys.
“I better go keep her on course,” Meghan said. Derek nodded and turned back to his work.
18
Thomas had for many nights been in the habit of staying up late at Daphne’s bedside, propping himself up with pillows on a divan, watching his daughter by candlelight. Some nights he called for the night nurse and returned to his own bedroom to sleep; on others the soft pillows and dim flickering light caused his eyes to droop and shut, and in the morning he would awake to a cold room, sore-necked and fully clothed. This night was something new—when he awoke the candle was still lit, and the night nurse stood over him with a look of concern on her face.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I thought you called me, Sire.”
“I did no such thing.”
“You were talking quite strenuously,” she suggested.
“Was I? Yes, likely I was.”
He remembered now, and remembering, he sprang to his feet in excitement, colliding with the hapless nurse in his zeal. He caught her by her arms before she fell, righted her, then hurried to the bed and his sleeping daughter. He leaned in close and whispered eagerly, “She hears me, Daphne. The woman of my dreams hears me.”
To the nurse he barked, “Go and see that Lady Sylvanne is roused and brought to me—No, on second thought, I’ll pay her a visit. I must speak to her at once.”
“Then should I—” the night nurse began, but he had already hurried past her out the door.
THE GUARDSMAN ON DUTY outside Sylvanne’s room had fallen asleep, a young soldier hardly more than a boy propped up against the stone wall, resting his cheek on the pole of his halberd. When Thomas snatched it from him and brought the bayonet-like tip to his chin, the poor lad nearly died of fright. “Forgive me, m’Lord,” he pled.
Thomas tested the blade of the oversized axe and proclaimed, “I should behead you here and now.”
“As you wish Sire, as you wish,” the young man sputtered.
“I wish you would stay awake,” Thomas scolded him. “Now find the key and let me in. If you’re unlucky I’ll remember this later, but for now I’m intent on a greater purpose. Hand me that candle.”
The soldier did as told. Thomas entered a small anteroom, where he could make out the maid Mabel lying on a small cot against the wall. Fussing in her sleep, she turned and rolled away from the candle’s light. The door to Sylvanne’s room was open a crack. Thomas pushed it wide and entered. She lay upon a large