Part 51 (1/2)
I moved over to the bed but let out a stifled gasp as I saw the covers move, and a moment or two afterwards a naked man and woman slipped from beneath the covers and unselfconsciously donned the clothes they had left on the floor. The woman bobbed a curtsy.
”I believe the chill is off the sheets now, mistress, but a maid will be up in a minute or two to renew the hot bricks. . . .” and with that the pair of them disappeared downstairs, leaving me open-mouthed. What luxury! Was this the way it was done among the rich? Come to think of it, many times at night my mother had insisted I retire first ”to warm up the bed for my old bones. . .
.” A maid scurried in with hot bricks wrapped with flannel, which she exchanged for those that must have already cooled. The bed looked very inviting, piled high as it was with furs.
The merchant came back with Gill, now s.h.i.+vering. ”Into bed at once. Shall we put him on this side? No, I think it better if he is in the middle, then with you and me on either side he will keep warmer.” He helped Gill under the covers and slipped into bed beside him. He nodded at the curtained recess. ”Take a candle with you, little lady,” and I headed for the garde-robe.
When I returned another maid was handing Gill a posset; she waited till he drank it then snuffed all the candles but two slow burners, in case we needed to relieve ourselves during the night. She bobbed away, but I hesitated. I knew it was the custom for a host and his lady to share their bed with guests, but even in the ill-a.s.sorted places in which Gill and I had slept we had never shared a pallet. In the open we had slept with more intimacy, but the animals had been there too. . . .
Matthew Spicer propped himself on his elbow. ”Something the matter?”
”Er . . . No. That is . . . I think I'll just stay here by the fire for a while. I-I'm really not tired-”
”Nonsense, young lady! You've been yawning and blinking for the past two hours!” He scrambled out of bed and came over to me, the long night-s.h.i.+ft flapping round his ankles. ”It's something I've done, isn't it? Or not done . . .
Tell me.” For a successful merchant, he had the least self-confidence I had ever seen. But perhaps women made him nervous. Mama had always said that men like that were a pain to begin with but sometimes made the best lovers.
Eventually.
”No, no! You've been kindness itself. It's just that-” I glanced over to the bed: Gill was snoring softly. ”You see, even at home I never shared a bed with my brother, and on our travels I slept separately also. I have never shared sleeping s.p.a.ce with a man. Perhaps I'm being silly, but-”
He struck his forehead with the palm of his hand. ”Of course, of course! Being a widower I don't have someone to remind me of the niceties. Come to think of it, if we had people staying overnight they were always married couples who shared. Since then all my guests have been men. Do forgive me! I shall have a pallet made up for you immediately. I-Whatever in the world is that?”
”That” was Growch.
He must have escaped from the stables and somehow infiltrated into the kitchen, for in his mouth was a large piece of pastry. He was soaking wet and smelled like a midden, but he rushed to my side and sat on my feet, growling softly through the pasty, his eyes swiveling from me to the merchant, the servants who were in pursuit, and back again.
He ”spoke” through his full mouth. ”Found you! What's goin' on then?”
”Nothing is 'going on'! You've no right up here! Why couldn't you stay where you were put?” To Master Spicer: ”I'm sorry. It's my-our dog. I left him in the stables, but he's been spoiled, I'm afraid, and is not used to being on his own.”
To Growch I added furiously: ”Just get back to the stables right now, and behave yourself!”
”No way! Needs lookin' after, you does. . . .” He belched, having swallowed the pastry whole. ”My place is with you.” I could see him eyeing the fire greedily.
”Never tell what mischief you'll get into without me. No, here I am, and here I'll stay.” He looked up at me through his tangle of hair. ”Send me back down there again and I'll howl all night, full strength. Keep yer all awake . . .
Promise!”
I turned to the merchant apologetically-my exchange with Growch had taken no more than a couple of silent seconds. ”I'm sorry if he has been a nuisance.
May he stay up here for tonight? I'll-I'll make some other arrangement tomorrow.”
He considered. ”I have no objection, though in the morning he might reconsider his decision. I happen to share the house with a rather large cat. . .
.” He smiled. ”Saffron will sort him out. In the meantime he could do with a bath. While they make up your bed.”
No sooner said than done. Up came a large tub, in went Growch, and by the time his outraged grumbles had subsided, the bed was made up and he was clean and combed-probably for the first time in his short life. In the meanwhile Matthew Spicer sent for more wine and little spiced biscuits and we sat by the fire together. He didn't ask any questions, but I decided I had better tell him our names and our story. Not the real one of course: I used the one I had told everyone so far, but this time I killed off our parents and for some reason didn't mention my ”affianced,” or the dowry.
”You have had a hard time, Mistress Somerdai. That is a pretty name, by the way: most unusual. If I may say so, it suits you. . . . I see your bed is made up.
We shall talk further in the morning.”
Shyly I knelt before the prie-dieu to give hearty thanks for the temporary haven we had found, then cuddled down in the pallet by the fire. I lay awake for a while, tired though I was, listening to the gentle contrapuntal snores from the bed, and the occasional stifled cough from Gill. There was a soft flumph! from outside as a load of snow slid off the roof to the yard below. The fire crackled pleasantly but there was another, less endearing sound: Growch was scratching his ears, flap-flap-flap, and snorting into his coat as he chased fleas made lively by the heat. It seemed a bath wasn't enough.
I raised myself on one elbow, my head swimming with the need for sleep. By the light from the night-candle and the fire I could see that my scrawny little black dog was black no longer. He looked half as big again, now his cleaned coat had fluffed out-though nothing could lengthen those diminutive legs- and he was not only black, but tan and brown and grey and ginger and white also.
He sneezed six times.
”Can't you stop that?”
He glared at me from under a fuzzy fringe. ”Sneeze or scratch?”
”Both.”
”Listen 'ere . . . Never mind. All I can say is, if'n you 'ad these little b.u.g.g.e.rs chasin' around, you'd scratch.”
”You wanted to be beside the fire! And don't pretend it was all concern for my welfare, 'cos it wasn't! Anyway, why the sneezing? Caught a chill from the unexpected bath?”
”Nar . . . Stuff they washed me in: smell like an effin' wh.o.r.e, I do.”
In the morning Gill was definitely worse, tossing and turning in a fever, his cough hard and painful. Matthew Spicer shook his head. ”He needs treatment right away.” He flung open the shutters: snow was still falling. He closed them again, and shook his head. ”Don't worry; one of the servants will get through.”
Up and dressed-my clothes returned clean, mended, pressed-I slipped across the cleared yard to the stables. The others were fine; Mistral had been given fresh hay, Basher was still asleep, and I found grain in the bins for Traveler. The Wimperling's nose peeped out from a nest he had made for himself.
”Everything all right?”
I told him about Gill, and the merchant sending for treatment.
”Don't let him bleed the knight; he needs all his blood.” I wondered what on earth he knew of doctoring, but let it pa.s.s. After all, he had been right before.
”Are you hungry?”
”A little grain will do. I've had a nibble of hay already.”
The ”apothecary” arrived an hour or so later, in a litter. I don't know what I had expected, but it was certainly not the small, scrunched-up man with the brown skin, hooked nose and black eyes whose candle-lit shadow on the stairs was the first I saw of him. The stooping silhouette with the grotesque reaping-hook nose at first made me cross myself in superst.i.tious fear, but face to face there was nothing to alarm, quite the reverse. The black eyes sparkled with a keen intelligence, the mouth curved easily into a smile and the thin, hunched shoulders and long, clever fingers emphasised everything he said: a shrug of the body, a wave of the hands more expressive than mere words. These he spoke with a heavily accented touch, at first a little difficult to follow.
Matthew Spicer introduced him with pride. ”My friend Suleiman, who comes from the East and specializes in many things, including medicine. We have worked together for many years. He has for a long time been my agent in Araby, but now he has been caught by the weather, providentially for us, I might add! I know of his healing powers and salves of old, and he has consented to treat your brother, Mistress Somerdai.” He noted my expression of doubt-so did the visitor. ”You couldn't do better, I a.s.sure you!”
This was soon evident, at least in Suleiman's meticulous examination of Gill.
The Arab first questioned his patient thoroughly, asking for all the symptoms, their duration and severity, before he even touched his body. Then he felt his forehead, looked in his eyes and ears with a little gla.s.s, put a spatula in his mouth and peered down his throat, then counted the pulse at his wrist.
He glanced up at me. ”Your brother has a high fever; to bring this down is our first priority, but first we must find the seat of it. I believe it is in the chest, and I shall now listen to this.”
”How?” I was by now too interested for politeness.
”Watch.” From the folds of his capacious red robes he brought forth a metal object shaped like a Madonna lily with a hollow, twisted stem. He held it out to me. ”Copied from the horn of a rare antelope in the sands of the desert.”