girls into church? And the flowered drapes and hangings for your bed she embroidered… all your ‘special’ flowers?”
“Oh,” breathed Yseult. “I’d forgotten.”
Remembering Mary’s tender hands dressing her and carefully braiding her hair in a complicated pattern. She’d been eight and so proud to be old enough to lead the girls with their baskets of flowers up to the altar.
“She did the white work herself. I still have it, carefully put away. Or, I did. She changed. She changed… when?” she asked, puzzled.
“Some when our father died, Lord Chaka says. I was just a baby. He told me she became obsessed with revenge. But it was the fortunes of war, for heaven’s sake! He wasn’t slain by treachery, that would be grounds for a feud. He died sword in hand with his face to the enemy. What better can you hope for? A man drops it once the war is over. But she was just a woman widowed and grieving.”
“Hummmphf!” Yseult snorted, and Huon waved it aside. “Then, then Uncle Jason died in Corvallis and she had to struggle along with just Sir Richart Reddings to help her besides Guelf, and he kept thinking he should be in charge. And Sir Harold’s father; but he was already old and sick. And he didn’t like her very much.”
“Was it then?”
“Later, I don’t know. I know that she wouldn’t let me leave to become a page, again. There were at least five offers that I heard of, good ones, Houses it would be smart to have links to, but she wouldn’t even discuss them. That was three years ago, but I never knew why. I think, I think that was the start of a… a… worse change, but even Lord Chaka didn’t know the true answer. He only had guesses.”
Yseult pondered, picking at the crusty scabs on her cheek, before giving up on the conundrum.
“I wish I knew. It hurts to think of Mama being a traitor. It hurts the honor of House Liu and I don’t know how we’re going to make it clean.”
Huon nodded. “Yes. But she never really accepted that the Lady Regent was her ruler. She felt… I’ve heard her say… that Gervais was an independent Barony, or should be, after the Lord Protector died.”
“But that’s nonsense! We’re tenants in chief, we hold directly from the Crown, and that’s an honor, it makes us equals of the Counts even if we’re not rich. It was the Lord Protector himself who gave Gervais to Mama to hold in ward for Odard after Father was killed. We were there at court with Mother when he made the decree!”
Huon shook his head. “I would have been, what, under two? I don’t remember it. We’ve been to court enough that it’s all a blur that far back for me. But why couldn’t Mother just be happy that the estates weren’t put in Crown wardship until Odard came of age? What more did she want?”
“Oh, I know when that happened!” exclaimed Yseult. “It was a year or so after the war. Everybody’d lost a lot of peasants with the new law that they could move if they wanted to. And we hadn’t. Somebody noticed and told on us. The Lady Regent sent a couple of spies. Mother and Guelf and Sir Czarnecki, the older one who died a couple of years later, had all blocked the ’tinerants from coming in and letting people know and they were keeping people against their will. And Mother was still running tolls on the highways and roads.”
“She did what?” Huon pulled away from Yseult. “I am certainly learning a bit more dirty laundry than I thought was in the basket!” He shook his head in disbelief. “That was part of the peace treaty! And Gervais is really too close to Mount Angel and the Bearkillers and even the Mackenzies to risk any accusation of bad faith.”
Yseult laughed, a catch in her voice. “Oh, Huon. I’ve never thought things out, just watched them happen and never questioned. Mama was called to court and given strict orders. Sir Czarnecki and Uncle Guelf were fined. So was Gervais, but the Lady Regent told Mama that she was fining everybody who should have known better. She never forgave it.”
Huon sighed. A discreet tap at the main door panel announced their dinner.
“Two o’clock? I’m famished!” said Yseult. Huon nodded. The fare was very simple but filling and they ate quietly.
“I’d forgotten how happy we were once,” Yseult said. “Before it changed. I feel sorry for Mother almost, but she… made it all go bad.”
She picked at the crusty yellow scab again and Huon made a wordless sound of impatience and took her wrist.
“Leave your cheek alone! You’ll scar if you pick at it! What happened?”
“I fell onto the embers. My wrist still hurts, too.”
Huon scowled and released it at once. “Has the chirurgeon come?” he asked.
“No, why? I haven’t asked for him. Do you think…”
The thirteen-year-old boy strode to the door and pounded on it.
“Ho-la!” he yelled, his voice deep and then cracking. “Guard, to me, to me, the Guard!”
The door jerked open and two feet of steel poised its point on Huon’s breastbone.
“What?” asked the man-at-arms, gruffly, his face hidden behind the visored sallet helm.
“My sister was injured and nobody has bothered to send a chirurgeon to her. Her wrist and her face need attention! And put that blade down and your visor up! Don’t you know better than to draw on a gentleman, and in the presence of a lady, you mannerless barking dog?”
Yseult held her breath as the barely visible eyes studied her brother and then her. Abruptly the steel was withdrawn and the man showed his face before the door slammed. There was no doubt that Huon was brave!
He turned, frowning. “Sister, tell me again about Mama and what they did to her when they took her prisoner.”
When she was done he began to pace, frowning; some corner of her mind noticed that he took fewer strides to cross the strait confines of the room.
“Laudanum?” he said, half-incredulous. “A straitjacket? And she never used to have hysterical fits. I wonder…”
The chirurgeon came, a middle-aged man with a short grizzled beard. He clicked his tongue angrily when he saw the neglected burns and wrist.
“The wrist will need exercises. I’ll talk with Gallardo; he can add it to your morning routine. I wish he’d told me, he’s supposed to report on your condition.”
“I didn’t tell him, it’s not his fault,” said Yseult. “I didn’t know it mattered.”
The chirurgeon snorted. “Any injury that doesn’t heal is a problem, and it gets worse if untended, young mistress. The face is a problem now. It’s impetigo. Luckily we don’t seem to have brought any serious diseases like MRSA through the Change but it’s not good. I’m going to soak it, gently debride it and then paint it with Gentian violet. You will wear gloves all day, and keep your hands completely away from your face. Young Master Gervais, will you go to your chamber?”
Huon jerked out of his reverie. “Why?” he demanded imperiously; the man was a commoner.
“Because this will hurt your sister. I can’t have you hit me because I hurt her,” said the chirurgeon impatiently.
Huon glared at the chirurgeon and sat down next to Yseult and put his arms around her. “Hold on to me, sister, we’ll weather this together.”
“Oh, that was awful!” Shawonda Thurston said.
Yseult jerked a little, wrenched back across the years. She used an exercise one of the Sisters had taught her, thinking about a candle burning before the altar, to relax her mind; the muscles of her shoulders followed, and the pain in her knee faded.
“What happened after that?” Shawonda said.
“Do you want that last piece of the apricot tart?” Janie added.
Yseult laughed at her angelic expression. I wish I’d had some sisters. We were always such a small family, just the three of us youngsters, and I was the only girl. She realized that she was going to enjoy being a lady-in- waiting again, once things settled down. It had been the first time in her life she could be one of many of her own sex and age, and she wanted that again for a while.
“Go ahead,” Shawonda said. “What happened?”
“Then… then I saw the Lady Regent, a few weeks later.”
“Weeks?” Shawonda said indignantly. “How could she be so cruel to you, leaving you in that little hole? For weeks!”
“It wasn’t so bad after Huon came. I knew he was all right. And I had my books and… well, the Lady Regent isn’t cruel.”
