“But, forgive me, don't you know Lady Edith herself resides here?”
Hild nodded her head with a faint smile.
“I know she does. Though she does not glance upon commoner nuns, and even if she did, she would not recognize me. I’ve always been beneath her notice, less than the dust beneath her feet. She barely knew my name when I worked in her household. And I am certain she's forgotten it although she stole my daughter from me. One day, as I walked by, she looked at me and did not truly see me. So we have naught to fear from her.”
“H-How is she?” Emma asked, unable to stop herself from asking because, for so long, she’d believed that woman her mother.
“Just as vicious as always, though older and frailer of health. She just sits locked inside her cell most of the day, musing of revenge upon King Henry who, she claims, dispossessed and killed her second husband. She took hard her defeat in the rebellion and I think she may never recover from her spite. Her sister’s also here, Lady Fenice, the one who is quite mad.”
Emma nodded, thinking of Edith’s second husband and of his son Raymond, and of her cousin Judith, who had all been kind to her indeed whenever they had chanced upon her, but who could do nothing when her mother and her uncle had decided upon her marriage to a lord in Normandy. Often, she’dthought upon how different things would have been if she’d been able to have the first match her mother had thought upon. At first, Lady Edith had wanted Emma to marry Bertran FitzRolf. And Emma herself had been in favour of the match. FitzRolf had been kind and courteous, unlike most lords of her acquaintance, yet he’d rejected the match because Emma had been but fifteen, and, in his view, too young to have as his bride at the time.
“Arthen will soon come, once the bell has tolled,” Hild said, breaking the train of Emma’s thoughts.
“May I come to see you again? Mother?” Emma asked hurriedly, liking the sound of the word on her lips.
“Aye. As often as you can, my daughter! And I wish… I wish you to be happy. As Arthen’s new wife, now that Rowena has chosen another path for herself.”
“You do not think this is a sin? He is, in truth, Rowena’s husband,” Emma found herself voicing the thoughts which had plagued her in these last days.
“Nay, not a sin. I believe it is God’s will to undo the wrong Lady Edith and I once did.”
“Youdid no wrong!” Emma said ardently.
But Hild shook her head sadly.
“Yet, daughter, you forget it is I who raised Rowena. And I who have to live with the shame of what she’s become.”
Emma said nothing, as she now perceived Arthen in the distance now striding to where they were. Hild followed her gaze, and smiled.
“I will not tell you of Arthen, because you’ll come to see for yourself how he is. A fine man – one I once thought my daughter may learn to love. But perchance I was not so wrong. My daughter may grow to love him yet,” Hild said softly, as she rose to her feet, still holding Emma’s hands in hers.
At first, Emma did not get her meaning, but then she found herself blushing fiercely.
“Love… I do not think… Besides, he does not even know who I am. I've already wronged him. And I’m still deceiving him.”
“You’ll tell him in your own time, I’m certain. Just as I am now certain all will be well, daughter.”
As Hild bent to kiss her cheek and enveloped her into a warm embrace, Emma felt her eyes moisten again. After she and her mother parted, she was, for a long while, shaken and musing upon what had taken place, and she felt grateful Arthen did not prod her with questions. They made their way back to the inn in silence, and it was much later that she was able to perceive Arthen’s searching gaze upon her. He looked at her with his penetrating eyes, but said nothing. And at this time, Emma felt too ashamed by the way she was deceiving him to say anything in return.
When dusk fell, they went back to the quarters they shared with so many others, and as they finally lay upon the pallet side by side in the darkness, Emma was careful not to let her thigh or any part of her body brush against Arthen's body. She tried to close her eyes, but sleep would not come. And he was also lying awake next to her.
“They’re gone,” he muttered.
“Who?” Emma asked uncomprehending.
“The lusty lovers. Just when I’d gotten used to their moans of rapture.”
In spite of herself, Emma couldn’t help but smile in the darkness. When he was not grim and bitter against Rowena, Master Archer loved to jest. And she recalled the way his keen eyes sparkled with mischief whenever he taunted her. She simply could not resist. And at this time she added her own taunt.
“Will you be able to sleep without their moans, I wonder?”
“Will you?” he countered.
“I guess. Though the night won’t be even half as diverting as the last one,” Emma said.
Belatedly, she recalled Master Archer was a dangerous man to tease, because he seemed far more mischievous than most men of her acquaintance.
“Diverting... I can now think of several ways to make it more diverting,” he said in a soft voice which made Emma’s heart skip a beat.