‘My housekeeper says you have tattoos. Why does a sister of the great order have tattoos?’ Ghause smiled like a cat with a bird.
‘Once, I lacked the power to stop others from imposing their will on me,’ Amicia said gently. ‘I no longer lack that power.’
‘It pleases you to think you can match me,’ Ghause said. ‘I know what you dreamed,’ she said, almost cooing. ‘I watched it.’
‘I know of no reason that I should have to match you,’ Amicia said. ‘If you know what I dreamed, then you also know what I did with it. I am not your foe, madam, but if you attempt to enter my head again, I might feel myself attacked.’
Ghause licked her lips. ‘You admired my son.’ She put a hand to her bosom. ‘This interests me profoundly, woman. Tell me!’
Amicia dropped another curtsy. ‘My lady, I am a sister of the Order of Saint Thomas and my only bridegroom is Christ. You may impose on me with your manipulations – I will only see them as torments. I admire your son as a good knight and a good man.’
‘By Lady Tar!’ Ghause hissed. ‘My son Gabriel is not a good man or a good knight. That horseshit is for the peasants. I made him to be like a god!’
I should never have come here.
The air was full of Ghause’s power, and the impulse to speak lay on Amicia like a shirt of heavy maille. But she resisted. God has the ultimate power. Christ be with me. Virgin, stand with me, now and in the hour of my death.
‘Who gave you that ring?’ Ghause asked suddenly.
Amicia opened her mouth to speak, her own will broken by the sudden question, but a voice behind her cut her off ruthlessly.
‘Stop bothering the girl. Christ on the cross, woman, you are at her as if she’s a maid who’s stolen a silver spoon. Never mind the old hag, sister, she likes tormenting pretty women, and look, you are one.’ The Earl leaned in the door of the solar.
Trapped between them, Amicia knew a moment of true fear. It was like being a fawn caught between two giants.
‘She’s no maid. She’s a sorceress of immense power, she has more secrets than Richard Plangere, and I think she’s lying to me. I wouldn’t have let her in my wards, but now that someone else has, I mean to know her.’ Ghause stood with her hands on her hips. ‘You’re no nun.’
Amicia’s breath caught. ‘My vocation is not for you to criticise,’ she snapped.
‘Look at those breasts!’ the Earl said, slapping his booted thigh. ‘Sweet Christ, breathe harder, sweet.’
Amicia stood straight-backed, as if she was the equal of an Earl and the King’s sister. ‘May I be excused?’ she asked. ‘If this is your courtesy, I’ll stay with the servants.’
She ducked under the Earl’s arm and got down the steps to the main hall without a voice being raised.
With help from servants, she made her way to Ser John’s room, where the old knight was lying in a closed bed with heavy curtains. His colour was good and he was awake, and his squire was reading to him from a book of chivalry. He rose, but Amicia waved to the young man to sit.
‘Do you know Muriens?’ she asked.
Ser John shook his head. ‘Met the Earl in forty-nine or fifty. We was on the same side after Chevin, and I played dice with him once or twice. That’s all.’ He raised his head. ‘You, my girl, are red as a beet.’
‘Lady Ghause has been interrogating me. The Earl would like to peel me and perhaps eat me as well.’ She threw herself into a chair. ‘I’m a terrible nun. I want to burn her to ash. I need to go to confession for fifty things.’
Ser John nodded. ‘Well – you’re safe enough in here, and I don’t think I could muster an assault on your chastity, even if I was moved that way. How about I’ll just tell you my confessions, and then you can give me a nice easy penance. Jehan, go fetch us some nice hot wine.’
‘Thanks, Ser John.’
‘Think nothing of it.’ He managed a smile. ‘You save me from monsters, and I’ll save you from the Earl.’
She read to him from the gospels – he had a travelling set, writ plain and with no illuminations. After a few minutes, Jehan returned with wine, and sat on the settle near the fire and sewed his master’s ruined arming cote. Later, she reinforced all her healing work on him.
The Earl, dressed in green velvet, came to the door. ‘There you are,’ he said. He pushed in. ‘How’s your patient?’
Ser John sat up. ‘Well enough to tell you to get your teeth out of the nun before I get out of this bed and come after you with a mace.’
The Earl laughed. ‘I’ve heard you are a hot one, Ser John. May I pay her my respectful admiration?’
Ser John looked at the nun and then shook his head. ‘I’m thinking the good sister wants no admiration of that sort at all. Having, as you understand, got a bellyful of it from a company of mercenaries during a siege.’
The Earl laughed. ‘Damme, Ser John, she must have had them baying like wolves. And full of witch-power, too?’ He grinned. ‘Sister, I’m not really the spawn of Satan. I’ll keep my hands to myself – although, if you ever change your mind-’
Getting no response, he shook his head. ‘You’re better,’ he said to Ser John. ‘I gather you went after a stone troll with a dagger and won.’
Ser John laughed. Then he grabbed his ribs and wheezed. ‘Sweet Christ, Your Grace, but you can tell it that way. And while the words are true, it’d be just as true to say the evil thing tripped over me!’
The Earl laughed. ‘Well – there’s a spot at my Christmas high table for both of you. And my wife will keep her place with you, sister.’ He grinned at her, and his gaze fell from her face to her breasts, which were, she thought, buried in two layers of wool gowns. But some men-
Supper was served to the three of them without comment. Sister Amicia went to the chapel and prayed with the priest, who seemed distant. She found a clean white wool bed gown on her bed, and she wore it, and the only dreams she had were of swimming in a clear lake under stars so big that they were like berries on mistletoe.
Christmas Day dawned at Ticondaga with a long spell of snow followed by brilliant sunshine. Amicia went to mass, and spent the morning on her knees. As the whole garrison, their wives and sweethearts, processed out of the chapel and through the halls, Amicia found Ghause had left her husband’s side and joined her. As Ser John was tottering along at her side, she felt secure from immediate assault. Master Amato was close by, and smiled at her.
‘Relax, girl.’ The older woman put a familiar hand on her arm – skin to skin – and Amicia flushed. ‘When you are old and powerful, you will not fancy having some young sprig burst into your refuge either, dripping with ops and smelling of power.’ She nodded and arched an eyebrow. ‘The more so when the girl is your son’s lover.’
Amicia met the woman’s eyes. ‘I don’t plan to have a refuge. I will use my powers for good, and make people happier and better.’ She nodded curtly. ‘No man is my lover.’
At that moment, there was a pulse in the aethereal. The ring gave a flash of heat, and she felt her own store of potentia – blessedly unneeded in the fortress of Ticondaga – suddenly expended at a prodigious rate. Someone cast a working of healing – she felt it.
Ghause stepped away from her, and put a hand to her jewelled throat. She smiled in triumph. ‘But surely that was my son! You two are linked !’
Amicia sighed. ‘Your Grace, I know your son, and I am fond of him, but he and I have made different choices. I will give my love to all people – not one person.’
‘People are generally harder to like than horses or cats,’ Ghause said. ‘Come – pax. Eat with us at our feast – we will have carols.’ She nodded to Ser John. ‘Bring your patient. My husband wants to know if he really attacked a troll with his dagger.’ The older woman’s mouth twitched in mockery. ‘Men. There are so many more interesting things to discuss than war. Don’t you think?’