Champernoune so, with my respects. She may wish a like fortune for herself before many years have passed.' He burst out laughing, and then, pointing to the hounds scavenging beneath the trees, said, 'If you have no fear of fording the river where the plank has rotted, I will find an otter's paw which you may present to Lady Champernoune with my compliments. It may remind her of her brother Otto, being wet and bloody, and she can nail it on the walls of Trelawn as a memento to his name. The other paw I will deliver to my own lady for a similar purpose, unless the dogs have swallowed it.' He turned his back and walked towards the trees, calling to his hounds, while Roger, moving forward up the river bank, and I beside him, came to a rough bridge, made out of lengths of log bound together, the whole slippery with the fallen snow, and partly sagging in the water. Oliver Carminowe and his attendants stood watching as Roger set foot upon the rotting bridge, and when it collapsed beneath his weight and he slipped and fell, soaking himself above his thighs, they roared in unison, expecting to see him turn again and claw the bank. But he strode on, the water coming nearly to his waist, and reached the other side, while I, dry-shod, followed in his wake. He walked directly to the edge of the copse where Carminowe stood, whip in hand, and said, 'I will deliver the otter's paw, if you will give it to me.'
I thought he would receive a lash from the whip across his face, and I believe he expected the same himself, but Carminowe, smiling, his whip raised, lashed suddenly amongst the dogs instead, and whipping them from the torn body of the otter took the knife from his belt, and cut off two of the remaining paws.
'You have more stomach than my steward at Carminowe,' he said. 'I respect you for that, if for nothing else. Here, take the paw, and hang it in your kitchen at Kylmerth, amongst the silver pots and platters you have doubtless stolen from the Priory. But first walk up the hill with us and pay your respects to Lady Carminowe in person. She may prefer a man, once in a while, to the tame squirrel she occupies her days with.'
Roger took the paw from him and put it in his pouch, saying nothing, and we entered the copse and began threading our way through the snow-laden trees, walking steadily uphill, but whether to right or left I had no idea, having lost all sense of direction, knowing only that the river was behind us and the snow was falling still. A track packed high with snow on either side led to a stone-built house, tucked snugly against the hill; and, while Carminowe's attendants still straggled in our rear, he himself kicked open the door before us and we entered a square hall, to be greeted at once by the house-dogs, fawning upon him, and the two children, Joanna and Margaret, whom I had last seen riding their ponies across the Treesmill ford on a summer's afternoon. A third, somewhat older than the others, about sixteen, whom I took for one of Carminowe's daughters by his first marriage, stood smiling by the hearth, nor did she embrace him, but pouted with a sort of petulant grace when she saw he was not alone.
'My ward, Sybell, who seeks to teach my children better manners than their mother,' Carminowe said.
The steward bowed and turned to the two children, who, after having kissed their father, came to welcome him. The elder, Joanna, had grown, and showed some sign of dawning self-consciousness, as her father had said, by blushing, and tossing her long hair out of her eyes, and giggling, but the younger, with still some years to go before she too ripened for the marriage-market, struck out her small hand to Roger and smote him on the knee.
'You promised me a new pony when last we met,' she said, 'and a whip like your brother Robbie's. I'll have no truck with a man who fails to keep his word.'
'The pony awaits you, and the whip too,' answered Roger gravely, 'if Alice will bring you across the valley when the snow melts.'
'Alice has left us,' replied the child. 'We have her to mind us now,' and she pointed a disdainful finger at the ward Sybell, 'and she's too grand to ride pillion behind you or Robbie.'
She looked so much like her mother as she spoke that I loved her for it, and Roger must have seen the likeness too, for he smiled and touched her hair, but her father, irritated, told the child sharply to hold her tongue or he would send her supperless to bed.
'Here, dry yourself by the fire,' he said abruptly, kicking the dogs out of the way, 'and you, Joanna, warn your mother the steward has crossed the valley from Tywardreath and has a message from his mistress, if she cares to receive him.' He took the remaining otter's paw from his surcoat and dangled it in front of Sybell. 'Shall we give it to Isolda, or will you wear it to keep you warm?' he teased. 'It will soon dry, furry and soft, inside your kirtle, the nearest thing to a man's hand on a cold night.'
She shrieked in affectation and backed away, while he pursued her, laughing, and I saw by the expression in Roger's eyes that he had fully grasped the relationship between guardian and ward. The snow might remain upon the hills for days or weeks; there was little at the moment to tempt the master of this establishment back to Carminowe.
'My mother will see you, Roger,' said Joanna, returning to the hall, and we crossed a passage-way into the room beyond. Isolda was standing by the window, watching the falling snow, while a small red squirrel, a bell around its neck, squatted upon its haunches at her feet, pawing at her gown. As we entered she turned and stared, and although to my prejudiced eyes she looked as beautiful as ever I realised, shocked, that she had become much thinner, paler, and there was a white streak in the front of her golden hair.
'I am glad to see you, Roger,' she said. 'There have been few encounters between our households of late, and we are seldom here at Tregest these days, as you know well. How is my cousin? You have a message from her?' Her voice that I remembered, clear and hard, defiant, almost, had become flat, toneless. Then, sensing that Roger wished to speak to her in private, she told her daughter Joanna to leave them alone.
'I bear no message, my lady,' said Roger quietly. 'The family are at Trelawn, or were, when I last had word. I came out of respect for you, Rob Rosgof's widow having told me you were here, and were not well.'
'I'm as well as I ever shall be,' she answered, 'and whether here or at Carminowe the days are much the same.'
'That's ill-spoken, my lady,' said Roger. 'You showed more spirit once.'
'Once, yes,' she replied, 'but I was younger then… I came and went as I pleased, for Sir Oliver was more frequently at Westminster. Now, whether from malice through not obtaining Sir John's position as Keeper of the King's forests and parks in Cornwall, as he hoped, he wastes his days keeping women instead. The present fancy is hardly more than a child. You have seen Sybell?'
'I have, my lady.'
'It's true she is his ward. If I should die it would be convenient to both of them, for he could marry her and instal her at Carminowe in all legality.'
She stooped to pick up the pet squirrel at her feet, and, smiling for the first time since we had come into the small room, which was as sparsely furnished as a nun's cell, she said, 'This is my confidante now. He takes hazel nuts from my hand and regards me wisely all the while with his bright eyes.' Then, serious once more, she added, 'I am kept prisoner, you know, both here and when we are at Carminowe. I am prevented even from sending word to my brother Sir William Ferrers at Bere, who is told by his wife that I have gone out of my mind and am therefore dangerous. They all believe it. Sick in body, indeed, I have been, and in pain, but so far it has not sent me mad.'
Roger moved silently to the door, opened it, and listened. There was still the sound of laughter from the hall: the otter's paw continued to cause diversion. He closed the door again.
'Whether Sir William believes it or not I cannot say,' he said, 'but talk of your illness there has been, and for some months. That is why I have come, my lady, to prove it a lie for myself, and now I know it to be so.'
Isolda, with the squirrel in her arms, might have been her small daughter Margaret as she looked at the steward steadily, weighing in the balance his trustworthiness.
'I did not like you once,' she said. 'You had too shrewd an eye, casting about you for your own advantage, and, because it suited you to serve a woman rather than a man, you let my cousin Sir Henry Champernoune die.
'My lady,' said Roger, 'he was mortally sick. He would have died anyway within a few weeks.'
'Perhaps, but the way he went showed undue haste. It taught me one thing — to beware of potions brewed by a French monk. Sir Oliver will seek to rid himself of me by other methods, a dagger's thrust or strangulation. He won't wait for nature to put an end to me.' She dropped the squirrel on the floor and, moving to the window, looked out once more at the still falling snow. 'Before he does,' she said, 'I'll rather take myself outdoors and perish. With the country covered as it is today I'd freeze the sooner. How about it, Roger? Carry me in a sack upon your back and cast me somewhere at the cliff's edge? I'd thank you for it.'
She meant it as a joke, if somewhat twisted, but crossing to the window beside her he stared up at the pall
