There was no ease in the gathering beside the other hearth. Only Dame Claire, the hurt man, Meg and her son, and an older boy were left. Another son, Frevisse thought. That was good; even if her husband died, poor Meg would still have her sons, and the older boy looked old enough to inherit. Lord Lovel’s steward was a fair-minded man; if they could keep up their duties and rents they would keep the holding even if Barnaby died.
She went to stand where she knew Dame Claire would be aware of her, not intruding, willing to wait until there was pause for the infirmarian to tell her if there was anything she could do. The man’s hurts had been cleaned and the worst of them bandaged, including the gash along his head. Closely covered in blankets, with his shoulder in place, he did not look so hopeless a matter as he had at first. He was still unconscious, or asleep, his head rolled to one side and his mouth slacked open, though he was breathing with such heavy effort through his nose that it was probably broken, too.
Dame Claire, with great care, was picking up his injured hand. Barnaby moved his head toward her, but his eyes did not open until, tentatively, she moved his forefinger. Then he made a wordless cry and opened his eyes wide. They were glazed and bloodshot and seemed to see nothing. She let go of his finger and he subsided to silence, his eyes closing again.
“Please don’t do that!” whispered Meg hoarsely. “It’s no good. His hand’s no good and never will be anymore.”
The first horror was gone from her now, if not the shock. She was sunk down on the floor on her husband’s other side, one hand clenched into a fist and pressed between her meager breasts, her other hand holding tightly to her younger son’s arm as he sat leaning against her. Her strained, haunted eyes stared at the ruin of her husband’s hand as Dame Claire gently put it down, and she did not seem to notice her older son, hunched down on his heels behind her, reaching out to rest a hand on her shoulder.
As often is with brothers, the two boys were not much alike. The younger had his mother’s small bones, the fair skin and blond hair she might have had when she was young, though she was years past showing either of them now. The older boy was more like his father, tall and big in bone, with coarse dark hair, his boy’s face already beginning to flesh out in what would be heavy-jowled manhood. A manhood that was going to come on him sooner than it should have even if his father lived.
“Now, Mam,” he said, “let her be. Maybe she can mend it.”
“Nothing can mend him, Sym. Hush you,” Meg said without emotion, not looking around at him.
Dame Claire touched the first two fingers of the swollen hand laid on Barnaby’s stomach. “By some wonder,” she said, “these bones right here seem to be the only ones broken, but they’re broken right back to his wrist, and they’re not bones I can set, being so small and many jointed. All I can do is wrap his hand close to its proper shape, and pray it mends so he can use it.”
“He’s going to live?” asked the younger boy.
“I don’t know. If he’s taken hurt inside, if there’s something broken where I can’t tell it, or he’s bleeding where it doesn’t show…” She drew a deep breath and said more firmly, looking at Meg, “We just won’t know for a while and a while yet. If he lasts the night and recovers his wits, then there’s hope. Do you mean to stay here or would you rather go home? Dame Frevisse or I will watch by him all night if you would rather go home and rest.”
“We’ll watch by him,” Meg said without hesitation. “He’s ours and we’ll keep the watch. Better there’s faces he knows when he awakes. Or when he goes,” she added in a lowered voice, her gaze returning to his face.
“I’ll see to their bedding,” said Frevisse. “Tell me what I should watch for, then go to your supper and Compline. I’ll manage here.”
“You haven’t eaten, either,” Dame Claire said. “I’ll bring your supper along with what he’s going to need to cover the pain when he wakens.”
Meg stood up. “I can fetch the lady’s supper, by your leave,” she said. “I work in the kitchen and know my way.”
“That’s where I know you from,” Dame Claire said. “You brought the posset I wanted for Domina Edith when her cold was so bad two days ago.”
“And I fixed it myself,” Meg said a little eagerly.
“It was excellent and served her well. Yes, bring Dame Frevisse’s supper. I’ll see to the medicine.”
4
MEG MADE A low curtsey, glanced at the boys in silent warning to stay where they were and not make noise or mischief, then hurried away. She left the guesthall for the cold darkness of the courtyard, crossed it quickly, and let herself into the cloister by the nuns’ gate. It was not the way she usually came in but the corridor beyond it was familiar, and she turned toward the main kitchen and the need to brave Dame Alys’s temper.
But Dame Alys was gone to dine with the other nuns in the refectory. There were only the lay workers in the kitchen, and in return for the chance to pour out their questions about what had happened and how her husband was, they filled a bowl with bread pudding and cheese, and pressed it and a mug and pitcher of hot spiced cider into her arms while they talked.
The kitchen was warm and bright with fire and lamplight. They were among the things Meg treasured from her hours at the priory: fires in the kitchens and the warming room; and another in the prioress’s parlor and even in her bedroom, so she could be warm when she undressed for bed at night, a luxury Meg had never dreamed of before she saw it here in its reality. And lamps and candles lighted when the days were merely overcast so the gloom was pushed away into the corners instead of brooding down on everything. That and how clean all was kept, with stone floors that were scrubbed when the weather was warm, and swept every day no matter what; and nothing left to spoil the wholesomeness of the air, not rushes, nor food more than a few days old, nor animals. Why, the nuns would have been scandalized at the thought of sleeping in the same room with chickens and goats!
It was like dragging herself away from some corner of Heaven to go out again, leaving the warmth and friendly gossip behind her, to the chill night of the courtyard and then the lesser comfort of the old guesthall. Dame Claire was gone but the other nun-Dame Frevisse, she was, a brusque person to be in charge of the priory’s main charity, the minding of its guests-had built up the fire. By its light she could see Hewe and Sym sitting beside their father, their two faces dissimilar even in expression, Sym brooding and Hewe looking lost in prayer. She smiled at them when they looked up at her coming but she went directly to Dame Frevisse and held out what she had brought.
“This is more than I need, surely,” Dame Frevisse said.
Meg flung desperately through her mind to find an apology, but the nun only continued, as if it hardly mattered, “So let me take a little of this and a little of the cider. The rest of it divide among you. You’ll need something if you mean to watch all night. I’ll set the pitcher by the fire to keep it warm.”
Meg hardly knew what to say, but Dame Frevisse did not wait for a reply, only went to speak with the band of players.
Meg took the food and drink to the fire. The bread pudding was full of raisins and sugar, treats she had not managed for years. Even the bread was mostly wheat, not bran, and the whitest she had ever eaten. The boys crowded eagerly, and she was glad to share, but she kept a close eye on them, and stopped them far short of it all being finished. “We’ll save some for later in the night. If your father wakes, the cider will help warm him,” she said, and for once even Sym did not protest.