Free Candle in the Window by Christina Dodd

you took that barbarian of Kirkoswald prisoner?”
    “Arthur, trust you to avoid the talk of
England’s welfare and appear only to reminisce.”

William’s tone echoed a disdain for the light-minded man
who’d never grown up.
    “You look well.” Arthur’s
footsteps pattered across the floor, childlike and frisky, like a
puppy greeting his master.
    “I thank you.”
    Over the top of William’s head, Arthur spoke
to his hunting companions. “Is he still blind?”
    “He is,” William interrupted.

“But he’s not deaf.”
    Impervious to William’s frustration, Arthur
poured himself a goblet of ale. “The greatest knight in all
of England, fallen from glory by a single blow. What a
shame.”
    “A greater shame to dwell on it,”
Charles suggested. “So shut your mouth, Arthur.”
    “I will, but I wonder if his liver’s
turned white?”
    William slammed down his cup and rose to his feet,
but Raymond grasped his arm and pulled him back down, saying,
“Do you no harm to the little coward. ’Tis his liver that’s white, and his mouth
blathers of matters better left to greater men. Apologize,
Arthur.”
    “My liver’s not white!” Arthur
said.
    “Apologize, Arthur.” It took only one
demand from Nicholas’s cool, smooth voice, and Arthur mumbled
an apology.
    The moment was fraught with unspoken tensions, the
apology unacknowledged by the recipient, and Charlesbroke the silence with a false jolliness. “Do
you remember how the barbarian shrieked when you demanded his
horse?”
    Their voices droned on, recalling events of past
glory, and Saura set her jaw and gestured. Bartley stood by her
side immediately. “M’lady?”
    “Send for young Kimball and Clare at once.
They will want to see these good knights, I am sure, and we need
pages to serve the head table. Order the panter up here to trim the
bread. Summon Lord Peter again. And hurry the meal
arrangements.”
    “Aye, m’lady.”
    She cocked an ear to the conversation, disliking
its flavor. It contained the potential to destroy William’s
progress. She dated the events at Burke Castle with two labels:
prebath and postbath. Prebath William fought against blindness as
if his refusal to accept his fate would alter his circumstances.
But that day in the bath, William had truly returned. The creed
governing his life motivated him once more and he vanquished
despondency.
    Now Saura understood why his vassals and servants
worshiped him. The chair in front of the fire rested bare, no
longer the haven of an angry man. What needed to be done was done
promptly and with no complaint, and what he required was the
guidance to dominate his handicap. In a few short weeks he had
learned everything she could teach him, absorbing knowledge as a
freed prisoner absorbs sunlight. He ate with knife and spoon, he
ordered the work in the stables, he disciplined the boys. Desiring
freedom, he’d ordered that ropes be strung from the castle
into the woods, providing him with a guide along the path he
preferred to walk.
    It had been a time of triumph for Saura. Her pupil
proved himself to be a nonpareil , and
she had proved herself in amanner that bemused
and flattered her. She was no longer an outsider, no longer a
temporary chatelaine or a surrogate to be endured. The churls
treated her well, for she had shown she had the ability to capture
their lord’s attention with her feminity. That was a skill
they respected, and it held a power they understood.
    Still, it was not the thought of her enhanced
prestige that brought a smile to her face when she lay on her bed
in the dark, but the memory of a man’s strong arms about her
and his golden voice saying, “I don’t know who she is,
but she is unforgettable.”
    “Your blindness, William, is such a
tragedy.” Saura jerked back from her dream and clenched her
fists, for Arthur’s voice throbbed with pity. “What do
you do with yourself all day?”
    William laughed, a pleasant sound that fooled all
but her trained ear.