Free The Illuminator by Brenda Rickman Vantrease Page B

illuminator is hard at work. I wish you good journey. You also, Sir Guy.” The
sir
did not trip easily from his tongue.
    â€œBut you haven’t opened your message,” the sheriff said.
    â€œIt might be from a lady,” Finn replied, “and therefore better enjoyed in the privacy of my chamber.” He pushed back from the table.
    For the second time that evening, Lady Kathryn loosened the tension by inserting herself into his conversation. “In that case, Finn, we will bid you good night and speed you to your pleasure.” She took a rushlight from a sconce, but when Alfred reached to take it from her, she frowned at him and summoned her other son, whom Finn had hardly noticed. Handing him the rushlight, Lady Kathryn said, “Colin will light your way. The stairs are dark and unfamiliar. You would not want Rose to stumble.”
    With a measure of relief, Finn turned his back on the whole lot of them. As they mounted the stairs, he thought about the hurt child for the first time since his arrival at the manor. How easily she had slipped from his memory. How had she fared? Of course. Half-Tom. The seal of the holy cross. Themessage was from the anchoress. When they reached their room, he grabbed the candle beside his bed and tore open the seal.
    The child had lived only three days.

    â€œYou sent for me, Mother?” Alfred wiped the sleep from his eyes, trying to keep reproach from his voice. He stumbled in the pale light of pre-dawn that scarcely penetrated Lady Kathryn’s bedchamber. The torches flickered in their sconces, wicks burnt low.
    She didn’t answer him right away, but paced back and forth, her leather-bottomed slippers making little shuffling noises in the stillness of early morning.
    The bedcovers of his mother’s bed had already been replaced, or maybe, Alfred concluded after noticing the bluish circles that ringed her eyes, maybe the bed had never been slept in. Was it one of her headaches? He forgot his own annoyance at being summoned from his dreams and watched her anxiously as she paced back and forth. She was still wearing the clothes she had worn the night before. Sweat stains ringed the silk of her tunic beneath the armpits. She had removed her headdress, and her silver hair fell in a tangled, unkempt mass below her waist. Her face looked haggard in the gray light.
    â€œMother, are you all right?”
    She halted in her pacing and glanced at him as if startled by his appearance in her bedchamber.
    â€œAlfred, you’re up early. Is something wrong?”
    â€œMy lady mother sent for me,” he said, unable to mask the irritation in his voice. He had only just gotten to bed. His head felt foggy and his tongue thick. He’d gone out with some lads from the village to a cockfight. But best not tell her that.
    â€œI didn’t mean for Agnes to awaken you so early,” she said.
    â€œWell, the old cow did, and seemed to delight in it, too.” He waited for his mother’s chiding, but it didn’t come. Instead she just stood there looking at him, as though she didn’t know what to say. Unusual for his mother to be at a loss for words, she who wielded words like a rapier.
    â€œAre you unwell, Mother?” he asked, feeling suddenly like a child again, panic rising inside him. What if they lost her suddenly, too, like their father? Alfred had loved his father, but it was Lady Kathryn to whom he and Colinlooked for support and whose wrath they feared whenever they strayed. Roderick had often been away for months at a time, fighting the French or playing courtier to the king.
    She shook her head, sat down on the bed, and patted the space beside her, inviting him. “I’m all right. Come. Sit beside me. I need to talk to you about a matter of great importance.”
    Now, this was a change. She was usually either autocratic or indulgent with him: sometimes stern disciplinarian, occasionally doting mother; but this tone sounded