Page 34 of Exile's Return

Daniel clutched at the arm of the older woman. ‘I have Jesuit Bark. Agnes…’ He raised his head, looking around the room as if searching for something. ‘It’s in my bag.’

Standing at the end of the bed, feeling utterly useless, Agnes jumped at her name. Daniel’s back arched as a spasm of fever went through him, and the two women turned to look at her.

‘What does Jesuit Bark look like?’ she asked.

The older woman gave her a withering glare. ‘It looks like what it is, the bark of a tree. Hurry, lass.’

Agnes went through Daniel’s leather satchel, scattering his few possessions around her until she found a parcel wrapped in oiled cloth at the bottom of the pack The other women gathered around her as she unwrapped it.

‘I’m sorry, I have not introduced myself. I am Lady Katherine Thornton,’ the woman in the blue dress said. ‘And this is Ellen Howell.’

‘Lady Thornton?’ Agnes looked up and the woman nodded. ‘I’m sorry we had to arrive in so dramatic a manner. It would not be how Daniel planned it.’

‘And you are?’ Lady Thornton prompted. Like the older woman, her voice bore traces of a northern origin.

Agnes felt the heat rise to her cheeks. ‘Agnes Fletcher — Daniel’s…’ she was going to say “sister”, as she had said at every inn for the past days. She shook her head. ‘Daniel’s friend…travelling companion…’

Lady Thornton smiled. ‘There will be time enough for explanations later.’ She held up what looked to Agnes to be sticks of dried bark. ‘So this is Jesuit Bark.’ She turned back to the bed. ‘You are fortunate to be carrying it, young man.’

‘Always have it…never know when the fever will hit…’ He squeezed his eyes tight shut as another tremor ran through his long body.

Lady Thornton handed the sticks to Ellen. ‘You know what needs to be done?’

The woman nodded. ‘I’ll go and prepare an infusion,’ she said.

‘And we will make our patient more comfortable. Mistress Fletcher, will you help me strip him?’

Daniel’s eyes shot open and he clutched at his jacket fastenings with shaking hands. ‘Not Agnes.’

Agnes regarded him, with her hands on her hips. ‘I’ve seen a naked man before.’

‘But not me…’ Daniel protested, with a clarity that belied his fevered state.

Lady Thornton looked across at Agnes, her lips tight with compressed laughter. ‘If you’re going to be coy, Master Lovell,’ she said, ‘Perhaps Mistress Fletcher had better leave the room.’

The man beneath her hands stilled. ‘Please. I can see to myself…’

‘With these tremors?’ Kate picked up one of his hands. ‘We’ll make do and mend. Mistress Fletcher, perhaps you can find Ellen and bring up water and cloths. She will be in the still room. Go down the stairs to the ground floor, and the still room is just before the kitchen.’

Agnes hurried down the stairs. As she reached the next level a door flew open, and a tall man in his late thirties stood in the doorway, his hands on his hips. His shirtsleeves were rolled up and a smudge of ink ran across the bridge of his long nose as if he had been scratching it with the wrong end of a pen.

‘What is all this commotion?’ he demanded and, seeing Agnes, he frowned. ‘Who are you?’

Agnes dropped a curtsey. ‘Agnes Fletcher — and you are Sir Jonathan Thornton?’

‘Yes, but…’ He ran a hand through his dark hair, the light catching silver strands. ‘My apologies, Mistress Fletcher, I am working on the accounts and it makes me forget my manners.’ He rolled the cuffs of his shirt down. ‘I wasn’t aware we were expecting guests. What brings you to Seven Ways?’

Agnes glanced at the stairs. ‘My friend, Daniel Lovell…’

He started at the name. ‘Lovell? Daniel Lovell, did you say? Good God. Where is he?’

‘Unfortunately, he has been taken ill — I was just going to find Mistress Howell.’

Thornton waved a hand in the direction of the lower floor while looking up in the direction from which Agnes had come.

‘She’ll be in the still room. Is Kate with him?’

Kate? Katherine …