The old nurse had just recently reported a cessation of the nightmares that had plagued both children, but especially his daughter, after the death of Julia. And now it was likely the nightmares would begin all over again—and they would have no nurse to comfort them.
Unless…But no. He had already decided that having the young Englishwoman anywhere near him would only lead to trouble. He was not going to be foolish just because she was here precisely when his children needed another female to look after them. There were plenty of women in the village who would gladly take over as nurse to the lord’s children, yes, and be glad for a position in the castle that would give them a better existence than they had had. He would not court trouble by giving that position to a stranger.
Alain found the children huddled against Haesel in front of the fire, sobbing. She had her arms around them and was swaying softly, rocking them.
He saw Peronelle look up at the sound of his footsteps, her eyes betraying a wild hope.
“I am sorry, but it is true,” he said, keeping his voice gentle. “Ivy is dead.” As Peronelle’s renewed wails rose around him, he said, loudly enough that he hoped she would hear him, “She did not suffer, Perry. She was old, you know, and ’twas likely her heart just gave out. ‘Twas like falling asleep for her, children.” He included Guerin in his gaze. The boy was trying so hard not to cry, but his lip trembled and he shook, and Alain felt sorry for him. “’Tis all right to weep, Guerin, when someone we love dies. But we must remember Ivy is with God, for she was a good and pious woman, and she is happy in heaven.”
As Guerin gave in and the tears began to flood his cheeks, Peronelle raised tear-flooded dark eyes to Alain. “I want my Ivy! What will we do without her, Father? She’s been here forever—s-since before I was born!” She choked on a sob, and buried her face again against Haesel’s waist. He saw the Englishwoman caress the trembling shoulders of his daughter.
What indeed? he thought. Since they were without a mother, it was a question that would have to be resolved quickly, for they were not old enough to fend for themselves, and he could not always be with them.
“We’ll find someone in the village,” he promised, avoiding Haesel’s troubled eyes, worrying that although she could not speak French, she would certainly hear her name mentioned and wonder what they were saying about her. “I’m sure there is a good woman in the village who would like to come to the castle and be your nurse—”
“I want Haesel,” came Peronelle’s muffled voice.
“Nay, Haesel does not belong to this fief, and there must be somewhere she is obligated to be,” he said, giving a stern look at Haesel that warned her not to speak. “We must not keep Haesel from her duty.”
“But she’d stay here, if you asked her, Father. She’s already here, and I like her. Why can’t she stay? She says she is a free woman,” Guerin argued manfully, then sniffled. “Please say that she may remain as our nurse! Perry has already said she would obey her, and I will, too.”
There was little chance Haesel had told the truth about being a free woman, but without a brand on her forehead proclaiming that she had run away before and been caught, he had no way of proving it. And now his children were watching him, their eyes pleading.
He saw her watching him too, but he could not read her gaze. Certainly there was no pleading there. She was too proud for that.
He must stand fast, he knew, for his own sake if not his children’s. This woman was trouble. But he found himself murmuring instead, “What say you, Haesel? Are you willing to stay and be my children’s nurse? To be trustworthy and kind to Perry and Guerin day in and day out? It is not a position to assume lightly, woman, for my children are very important to me, as you have seen, and I would be merciless to anyone who harmed them.”
Some cloud passed over those blue eyes as she faced him, darkening them and then vanishing before she opened her mouth and said, “I will stay, my lord, and care for yer children. And I thank ye, my lord.”
He concentrated on Peronelle’s and Guerin’s expressions of joy, so that the Englishwoman would not see how pleased he was that she would stay.
“Very well. Children, perhaps you and Haesel could go to the kitchen for a while—no doubt Cook has some fresh-baked manchet loaves that you may sample. Then later you may help Haesel get settled in your chamber while I see to the prisoners.” In an undertone he added to Haesel, “I will see that the old nurse’s body is taken to the chapel while you are gone.”
“Very wise ye be, my lord,” Haesel whispered back. Then, just as the children began to tug at her hands, she smiled slightly before she allowed herself to be pulled after them.
He felt as if Rouquin, his mighty red destrier, had just kicked him.
An hour later, after Claire had been told Ivy’s body had been moved, she and the children left the kitchens, crossed the bailey and again ascended the stairs to their bedchamber. The children’s faces were besmeared with traces of the fresh butter that had been spread on the bread they had devoured warm from the oven, but beneath the shiny surface the cheeks of both children were pale as they hesitated at the threshold of the chamber they had shared with their old nurse.
“Is it…is sh-she gone?” Peronelle asked fearfully, her hands covering her face. But Claire saw that the child was peering between her fingers at the chair in which the old nurse had been sprawled, almost as if she expected the body of the nurse to reappear. Guerin, behind her, kept his hands at his sides, but Claire noticed his eyes kept darting into the shadowy corners of the room, as if he thought Ivy might be hiding there.
“Yes, she be gone. They took her body to the chapel, Peronelle,” Claire said, remembering to speak as an ignorant English serf woman would.
“But her spirit,” persisted Guerin, “what of it? Her soul? Will she come back—and haunt this chamber, because she died here?”
Claire felt a rush of sympathy for the frightened children, who were suddenly bereft of the woman who had been as a mother to them. She was sorry they had been the ones to find their beloved nurse dead, but perhaps it was really better that way, if one took the long view. Death would have a reality for them that it had not had for her when she’d been just a little girl—a bit younger than Peronelle. Claire had been told her mother had “gone away for a long time,” when in reality she had died in childbirth along with the son she had been struggling to give birth to. But Claire wanted them to remember their old nurse with joy, not with terror.
“Nay, she’ll not haunt this room, Guerin!” she said bracingly, laying a hand on both children’s shoulders. “How could she, a good woman like that, who loved ye both so much? She’ll go right to heaven to be with the saints, she will. But she’ll look down from heaven on ye here, and intercede with our Lord for ye. But ye’ll always remember how good she were to ye here in this chamber, won’t ye—taking care of ye, sleeping at night with ye…So in a way a part of her will always be here, in a good way, don’t ye see?”
The boy nodded, and the furrows in his forehead relaxed.
“But will they leave her body in the chapel? So we can see it there forever and ever?” queried Peronelle, sounding half hopeful, half frightened at the thought.
“No, lovey,” she said, kneeling in the rushes so that she and Peronelle were on the same level. “The castle women will wash her and lay her out on a bier, and someone will stay with the body until it’s buried.”
“Buried?” repeated Peronelle, horrified. “Put in the