Free Lindsay Townsend by Mistress Angel

the house-step, now only feet away from her. She took a step
nearer, then another step, certain and at the same time wanting to be
absolutely sure…
    He was still there, still wonderfully real.
A small, fair-haired boy dressed in a creased blue tunic, sitting with a
forgotten whip and top beside him as he doodled in the dust. My little boy .
    “Matthew,” she croaked. Intent on his
drawing, he had not seen or heard her yet. She drank him in as a man that is
dying of thirst will fall upon a sparkling fountain: his long, trembling
eyelashes, the sweet infant curve of his forehead, his long, narrow arms and
legs. He will be tall, like his father, but nothing like Richard in nature.
    I wish I had a gift for him.
    She did not realize she had spoken aloud
until she felt a warm hand on her shoulder.
    “Here,” said Stephen softly. He offered her
the gold and silver flower that he had caught from her hand when she had
floated in the golden cage above The Street in London. “I would have
been sorry to lose it, for ‘tis a lovely thing,” he went on, smiling down at
her, his gray-green eyes a sea of feeling, “but will gladly give it to your
son.” He twirled the jewel, the glints of gold shining across his face.
    “Thank you,” she whispered.
    He put the trinket in her palm but she
could not hold anything right now and it slipped through her nerveless fingers.
The flashing bauble fell to the ground, brighter still as the sun broke through
the clouds.
    Matthew must have spotted the sparkle for
he looked round. His eyes widened. “Mamma,” he said, and laughed. He rose to
his feet on unsteady,  heron-thin legs and held up his arms to be picked up and
gathered in. “My mamma.”
    Isabella flew to him.
    ****
    Sitting on the house-step, Matthew and
Isabella were at last united. The boy was in his mother’s arms and lap, holding
up his fingers to be kissed one by one. Isabella rocked him, crooning a
lullaby. Her face, transfigured by exultation, shone brighter than the sun so she
was as gold and blue as any Madonna, sun, moon and stars in one. She wept and
laughed, at one point swinging Matthew up off her knee to show him to the
world. “My boy, my beautiful boy.”
    Stephen knelt to this miracle and was swept
into it, Isabella flinging an arm around his shoulders, weeping and laughing
against his chest. He kissed her and Matthew, delighting with them, wishing his
daughter were here, so she could join in.
    “Ami!” Matthew held up his arms again.
    Coming up rapidly to join them, Amice swung
the child into her embrace, standing beside Isabella and stroking her friend’s
golden hair. “All done, all safe,” she was saying, over and over. As Isabella
shuddered, Amice crouched to release Matthew, who toddled instantly back to his
mother.
    “Hurry,” Amice hissed against Stephen’s
back, and he nodded. He knew they were too visible, that at any instant there
could be a shout, a warning to the Martinton household, but how could he
interrupt this reunion?
    Thank God the villagers are at their
suppers so they do not see. It
was surely part of  a larger neglect that Matthew was not at supper, was even
unattended, but right now that was a blessing. Newington, too, like other
English places since the pestilence, had fewer souls to keep watch.
    Besides, there was no need to hurry his
golden girl. With her little boy riding on her hip Isabella pushed herself from
the step and began to walk steadily back toward the wood where she and Amice had
waited for him.
    “Look at her!” Amice hissed, with a jab of
an urgent finger. “Sees nothing but Matthew, strolls as if she is in heaven
already, sails straight past the backside of my roan who kicks like a mule. Has
she noticed that I have brought the horses? Have you?”
    “I grudge her nothing.” He could hear her
singing another lullaby.
    “She is not safe for human company.”
    “Not yet.” Stephen smiled. “She will be.”
    ****
    He wanted to hasten back to London,