so fortunate. Always being in a different place is a very lonely life indeed.’
‘But an endlessly fascinating one, I am sure.’
‘I did say I would tell you some tales of my travels.’ He stared up at the painted ceiling for a moment. ‘Amsterdam, for instance. It is a city built on water, as Venice is, but the two are very different despite their canals. Venice is old, full of crumbling stones and ancient bridges, of mysterious eyes peering from behind shuttered windows. Amsterdam is clean and orderly, with barges going about their marketing business and tall, painted houses along every walkway. And Portugal...’
‘Is it as sunny as everyone says?’
‘It might be, but it’s hard to know, since the houses are built so close together. Their roofs almost touch on the streets overhead, blocking the light, until one comes to the river. Then, all the lanes open up on to wide wharfs and ships bound for every port wait at anchor to set sail for the New World, or mayhap for India.’
‘India.’ Alys sighed, thinking of silks and spices, and warm sunshine. She did have dreams of the royal court at London, which sometimes seemed as distant as India could be, but she thought there were more worlds to be seen than anyone could ever dream of. Amsterdam, Venice, Paris...
‘How many adventures you must have had,’ she said sadly.
He knelt down beside her next to the fire, watching her closely. He seemed to hide nothing from her now, his eyes clear, speaking of a sadness she could barely fathom.
‘Lady Alys,’ he said softly. ‘There were many reasons I was on that ship, but I am bound by my honour not to speak of them. I only want you to know that you and your father’s household have naught to fear from me. I will do nothing to harm you and never would have.’
Alys studied him very closely for a long, tensely silent moment. For that time, they seemed bound close together with shimmering, invisible cords that could not break. Their breath, their very heartbeats, seemed as one. ‘I—I think I always did know that. We do live in such a world of secrets, and as I said I know little of the lands beyond Dunboyton. But I do know that the Queen’s throne is not a steady one and she needs help from the shadows.’
He suddenly leaned back, away from her, and she glimpsed the surprise and suspicion on his face. Had she found out something, then? Guessed correctly about his work?
She quickly turned away. He still needed his bandages changed and she mixed up her herbal poultice with trembling hands. ‘How will you find your way to where you are going? After you have recovered your strength, of course.’
‘I will find some way, Lady Alys, never fear. And I will not burden you with my presence here long at all, I promise. I think I am strong enough to move now, thanks to you.’
She glanced back at him and saw that even sitting there talking to her, holding tight to his secrets, had tired him. His skin was pale again, his eyes dark-shadowed. ‘I vow you are not! You need more rest and good food. Here, sit here and let me look at your bandages, then you must have some of this spiced wine. It does strengthen the blood.’ Alys busied herself with those familiar tasks, the herbs and the bandages, to try to force away one desolate thought—Dunboyton would be even lonelier, even more dull, when he was gone.
He sat down on the stool near the fire and went very still as she eased back the laces of his borrowed shirt and unwound the old dressings. He was warm now, but from the fire and not fever, and his skin was so deliciously golden she longed to touch it, to feel the silken heat of him under her fingers. If she closed her eyes, she could picture exactly what it would be like to do, to breathe in the scent of him, and lean closer and closer until...
Nay! She had to focus on her tasks, not on things that were impossible.
‘Tell me of your days here,’ he said quietly.
Alys smiled. His wound was healing well, no streaks of reddened infection at all. She smoothed on the new poultice, trying not to linger. ‘They are dull indeed, especially compared to what you must have known in your travels. Sometimes, when my father has visitors, I must play hostess to them in the great hall, but that is not often. I go to market in the village, I oversee the laundry and the kitchens, I work in my stillroom...’
‘Where you learned your great knowledge of healing herbs?’
‘My mother taught me. The stillroom is my little sanctuary.’
‘Your sanctuary from what?’
Alys shook her head. ‘I should have not said that. Dunboyton is not so terrible as all that. But sometimes I have to escape the quarrels of the maidservants. They do find an extraordinary number of things to disagree about. Or escape from doing the same things every day. The stillroom is always quiet and it smells lovely...’
‘So that is where you get it.’
She looked up at him, confused, and found him smiling down at her. ‘Get...what?’
‘You smell so lovely, Lady Alys. Like a meadow in the summertime.’ He caught up her loosened strand of hair and lifted it to his nose to smell it. It was as if he inhaled all of her, all she was and knew.
She felt her cheeks turn warm and pulled away. Her hair slid between his fingers. ‘ʼTis lavender and rosewater.’
‘Is that what you are using to heal me, too?’ he said, gesturing to the herbs in her basket.
Alys was most glad of the change of subject. ‘I doubt rosewater would help you, though a rosehip syrup couldn’t hurt. This is feverfew and yarrow, to bring down your fever. And I will give you some valerian for your wine for tonight, to help you sleep and purify your blood.’
He was silent for a moment, studying the dried and powdered herbs as she pointed to them. ‘So when do you read, if you are so busy gathering your herbs and physicking everyone? When you walk here to the abbey?’
‘Sometimes. The abbey is a bit like the stillroom—an escape. It isn’t often we get new books here and I like to savour them with no one to interrupt me.’
‘And what do you read? Poetry? History?’
Alys bit her lip, afraid he would think her rather—unfeminine. ‘Whatever I can find. I read my prayer books, of course, and histories of England. I do love poetry, tales of adventure and romance. When we receive French volumes, they are the best, but that’s a rare treat. And I like reading of courtly life. I want to...’
His head tilted as he studied her. ‘Want to what?’
‘Well, imagine what life is like there, I suppose, at the Queen’s court. What it would be like to meet her, serve her, see people from foreign lands. The fashions, the music. My father often shows me drawings of London and I would like to see it for myself.’
‘Will he send you to court as a Maid of Honour, perhaps?’
Alys thought of all the letters that had come to her father, all the messages refusing to summon him to court because of his Spanish wife. She feared a palace life could never be hers. ‘Perhaps one day.’
‘I am surprised you are not yet married.’
His voice sounded tight when he said the words and she glanced up to see a flash of something like jealousy cross his face.
