I told him of Mad Lucy and how she had been found, and that Gerick had not yet been told. “He shouldn’t have to hear such news from me,” I said. “I’m too much a coward to face his wrath. I’m worried…”
“… that he’ll blame you.”
“With Lady Verally’s constant harping on revenge, it seems certain.” And how could I face the child, withholding the fact that I knew his Lucy and had ample reason to despise her?
“Perhaps it would be well if I saw the dead woman first, then spoke to the boy. I’ll remind him of the dangers of age and senility, and also that his mother bore two dead children long before you were in residence.”
“I’d be most grateful. It grieves me to be unable to comfort him. He is such a sad child.”
“You’ve become quite attached to him.”
“I suppose I have.” Somehow, what had begun as a challenge had become a work of affection I hadn’t thought possible. Yet, even after so many months, I scarcely knew the child.
Ren Wesley shook his massive head. “I wish we’d been able to speak with this nurse before she chose to withdraw from life. Perhaps she could have explained the boy to us in some fashion.”
The physician took his leave, following Nancy to Maddy’s room. Meanwhile I sent a message to Gerick, requesting him to meet Ren Wesley in the small reception room in half an hour.
A short time later Gerick’s young manservant sought me out with a worried look on his face. “The duke is not in his rooms, my lady,” he said. Then, with concern overshadowing discretion, he added, “And what’s more, his bed has not been slept in this past night. I asked the guards as were on duty through the night, and none’s seen the young master since yestereve.”
Thinking of my own troubled sleep, and the evidence I had found of Gerick’s disturbance of mind, I wasn’t surprised. “Yesterday was a very trying day for him, James. My guess is that you’ll find him curled up on a couch or chair somewhere. Take two others and search him out. We must speak with him.”
No sooner had James left than Nancy skittered into the gallery, saying that Ren Wesley respectfully requested my presence in Lucy’s room. I hurried along the way, leaving Nancy to intercept James should he return with word of Gerick.
Ren Wesley stood contemplating the still figure that lay on the pallet in the cluttered room. His arms were folded across his wide chest and he was twisting the end of his exuberant mustache with two thick fingers. When I came in, he whirled about, scowling.
“What is it, sir?” I asked.
“My lady, there is something you must know about this woman’s death. There is foul play here.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You must pardon the vulgar description, madam. There is no pleasant way to phrase it. Look at the depth of these gashes; they pass not only through skin and sinew, but right into the bone.”
He expected me to understand, but I shook my head.
“What it means is, she could not have done it to herself.”
“But she was a strong woman.”
“Look here.” He picked up Maddy’s hands and showed me her swollen joints and crooked fingers. I had seen such in several old servants, the painful inflammation that robbed strong and diligent men and women of their livelihood. One who had shod wild horses could no longer grip the reins of a child’s pony. One who had carried the heaviest loads or sewn the finest seams could no longer lift a mug of beer or grasp a sewing needle. “She may have had the strength to do such injury, but never could she have applied it with these hands.”
“Then you’re saying-”
“This woman was murdered.”
I was speechless… and appalled… and my skin flushed with unreasonable pangs of guilt. If anyone learned of my connection with Lucy-Maddy-the finger of accusation would point directly at me.
“Who would do such a thing? And for what possible cause?” Ren Wesley demanded in indignation.
“She was mute,” I stammered, shamed that my first thought had been of myself and not this poor woman. “And, from what I was told, a gentle soul. It doesn’t make sense.”
People were murdered because of passion: hatred, jealousy, fear. Lucy had neither physical beauty nor the kind of attractions or influence that could generate such emotions. People were also murdered for business: politics, intrigue, secrets. She had been involved in such things, but what could she know that could provoke murder? And why now? For ten years she had been out of sight; for five of those she had rocked in her chair and puttered about with children’s toys.
Ren Wesley was looking at me intently. Waiting. “What am I to tell the boy?” His words were precise, his voice cold.
“It would be difficult enough to tell him that she did it herself, but this…” The temptation to hide the truth strained my conscience. What if the woman had somehow let Gerick know of her connection with me?
“He has to be told,” I said at last. “However painful it is, hiding the truth will only compound the hurt.” Someday he would know, even if he figured it out for himself. “And when the duchess is well enough, we’ll have to inform her also.”
The physician nodded. I thought I saw a flash of relief cross his face. “I was hoping you would say that.” My reputation was wicked. If even so liberal-minded a soul as Ren Wesley had felt it reason to doubt me, I couldn’t blame him.
By late afternoon, Gerick had not been found. With my permission, James had started inquiries among the other servants, but no one had seen the boy since he had taken his cloak from his room the previous evening. I directed the servants to start at one end of the castle and search every nook and cranny, inside and out, high and low, no matter how improbable.
Meanwhile, the day dragged on, and we had to take care of Lucy. I dispatched a gardener to prepare a resting place in the frozen hillside beyond the family burial ground at Desfiere. As Nellia, Nancy, and I rolled the dead woman in her blankets so the men could carry her out, Nancy picked up something from the corner and laid it on top of the grim bundle. “She must’ve kept it since summer,” whispered the girl. “Nice for her to have a flower, even if it’s old.”
I looked at what the girl had found and touched it, not quite believing the evidence of my senses. It was wrong, jarringly wrong, like so much I had seen and heard in the past two days. But like a catalyst in an alchemist’s glass, the wilted blossom drew the pieces of the puzzle together: Philomena, whose womb could carry no children to full term… a firepit with no trace of ash or soot, yet bearing a lump of molten lead… a child who would allow no one to know him, not a tutor, not a kind physician, not even the father he loved… a child who lived in terror of sorcery… a woman who was living where she had no reason to be… And now, a lily… in the middle of winter, a lily, wilted, but not dead, its soft petals still clinging to the stem… a lily that had been fresh not twelve hours earlier. I knew only one person who loved Maddy enough to give her a flower, as he had given her straw animals and a reed flute and a hundred other childish creations. But where in the middle of winter would any child find a lily to give the woman who had tended him… from the day of his birth…?
“Nellia,” I said in a whisper, scarcely able to bring words to my tongue. “What is Gerick’s birthday?”
The old housekeeper looked at me as if I were afflicted with Mad Lucy’s malady. “Pardon, my lady?”
“The young duke… on what day and in what year was he born?”
I knew what she was going to say as clearly as I knew my own name.
“Why, it’s the twenty-ninth day of the Month of Winds, ten years ago, going on eleven in the coming spring.”
It was as if the world I knew dissolved away, leaving some new creation in its place, a creation of beauty and wonder that crumbled into horror and disaster even as I marveled at its birth. How could I find my place in such a world? What could I call truth any longer, when that which had been the darkest, most bitter truth of my life was now made a lie? To none of those questions could I give an answer, but I did know who had murdered Lucy and why, and it was, indeed, because of me.