Free The Cross Legged Knight by Candace Robb

now.’
    Lucie lay in the darkness just before dawn. Owen had come to bed only moments ago and had fallen asleep at once. She listened to his deep, steady breathing, such a counterpoint to her own pounding heart. She fought against rising and going to see the children. Too often of late she had done so, only to wake them and spread her fear. They sensed a tension in her, that she was not the same, and she could see it frightened them. Even if they had been old enough for her to explain to them that she had lost a child, a half-formed soul, and now she woke each night terrified that God had takenanother, she had no right to give them such a dark gift, rob them of all joy. They were too young to learn that life did not go on for ever. There was time enough for them to learn of death.
    She would go down to the hall and watch the dawn in the garden, but Magda was in the kitchen. She felt she had told Magda too much already.
    A cock crowed, a sound that both heartened and saddened Lucie, the end of the long night, another day in which her steps faltered, her attention wandered. People noticed her strangeness. Her friend Emma Ferriby had yesterday come for a draught to induce a dreamless sleep. Lucie had noted at Sir Ranulf’s requiem how her friend had stood with her gloved hands clasped tightly against her middle, her lips pinched, her back too stiff, fighting the anger and grief that warred in her.
    ‘You are unwell?’ Lucie had asked.
    ‘I cannot sleep – no, that is not true. I fear sleep. I am plagued by bad dreams.’
    Lucie had searched her friend’s eyes for a desperation mirroring her own, but had seen only sorrow and exhaustion. ‘I can give you something to help you sleep, but I cannot promise it will be dreamless.’ She had taken Emma’s hands. ‘You must swear to me you will take only as much as I tell you.’
    How strange she must have sounded. Emma had tried to laugh, but it came out an uneasy sound. ‘Sweet heaven, of course. I fear the night, I fear the dreams and it is all the worse for knowing nothing can be done, nothing. But I would not harm myself.’ She had withdrawn her hands from Lucie’s. ‘I swear it.’
    ‘I did not think you would,’ Lucie said. ‘I shall mix something for you. But it is a potent sleep draft. Too much will make you senseless.’
    ‘You are looking pale. Should you be in the shop?’
    Lucie turned over in bed, dispelling the memory. The shop was precisely where she needed to be, mixing what she had promised Emma. The accounts and then the fire had distracted her from the task. But first she would check on the injured servant. She would tell Magda that is what had wakened her at dawn, concern for the man who lay so near death in her kitchen.
    Owen reached out for her in his sleep. Lucie kissed his forehead. Strange how she could distinguish the smell of the smoke in his hair as something foreign, not from their own hearth fire. She reached out to trace the lines that had lately deepened on his forehead, but stopped herself, not wanting to wake him. She wished she had been able to stay awake last night, alert enough to ask what he was keeping from her. He had learned something troubling, she could see that in his eyes, in the way he held himself. Now she might need to wait until the end of the day to learn what it was, when they were alone again. But he must sleep. Gently she slipped out of his grasp, rose to dress herself.
    She opened a shutter wide enough to see the dawn. A soft rain had begun to fall, but to the east the sky was bright. She used the light to examine the clothing Owen had worn the previous night. Sometimes it helped to do ordinary things. He had worn his own clothes, not the livery of the archbishop. The simple russet tunic was singed and grimy with water and ash, the leggings past saving, she feared. His boots had been soaked, but they could be worked back into good condition. She lifted them to the chest, catching his belt with them. The scrip that