Page 35 of Exile's Return

‘Yes, she is,’ Agnes replied.

Thornton relaxed, and for the first time, a smile lifted his lean face. ‘Then he is in good hands. A poor welcome I am afraid, Mistress Fletcher. You continue on your errand, I’ll not detain you.’

Despite the vague directions, Agnes found the still room. Dried hanks of herbs hung from nails in the ceiling and the walls were lined with shelves of jars and bottles. The room smelled of herbs and honey. It reminded her of her mother’s still room from which had issued unguents and potions for all ailments and ills.

Ellen looked up from stirring a pot over a small fire. ‘Come for the brew, have ye?’ she said.

Agnes hovered uncertainly in the doorway while Ellen stirred the kettle. Anyone more like a witch would have been hard to imagine.

‘I’ve come for water and cloths,’ she said.

Ellen’s sharp eyes appraised Agnes. ‘Don’t ye fret,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen worse.’

‘I’m not fretting,’ Agnes said, but her voice lacked conviction.

She couldn’t imagine herself being cast adrift from Daniel Lovell, not that he had given her the slightest encouragement to form any sort of attachment. She had clung to him because he had shown her kindness when she needed a friend, and he was her means of getting to Charvaley. Nothing more but he was all she had.

‘I’ve plenty of lasses come to me seeking the means to turn a young man’s head,’ Ellen said.

Agnes stared at her, aghast. ‘I’ve no need of love potions and no wish to use one,’ she said archly.

Ellen nodded and turned back to her work. ‘As ye wish. We need to bring the fever down. There’s cold water in that jug.’ She indicated a large clay jug sitting beside a metal basin. ‘Take those up, and ye’ll find some clean cloths in that cupboard. Tell Mistress I’ll be a while yet. It needs time to steep.’

The sound of voices drifted out of the half-open door as Agnes, balancing jug and basin and cloths, reached the guest bedchamber.

‘Have you seen his back?’ The voice was Jonathan Thornton’s.

Agnes paused, her hand on the door, as Kate’s soft voice responded, ‘Dear God, who would do that to another human being?’

‘Ah, Kate. These are cruel times we live in. Have you forgotten how ill they treated me?’

‘No,’ Kate’s voice held a tremor. ‘I’ll never forget…or forgive.’

Agnes knocked on the door and opened it slowly. She had thought to allow the couple sufficient time to collect themselves but found them in an embrace, Kate’s head resting on her husband’s chest, his arms around her.

The tenderness of the gesture touched her. James had never been outwardly demonstrative with her, or indeed his wife, in public or private. Whatever rumours may have been rife in Charvaley, their public behaviour had never been anything less than entirely proper.

The man on the bed moaned and flung himself onto his side, the sheets tangling around his hips, exposing his back to her. Agnes recoiled, the metal bowl slipping from her grasp. It hit the floor with a deafening clang. Jonathan retrieved it and set it on a table. Recovering her composure, Agnes set the jug down.

She understood now what Daniel had not wanted her to see. James had once had a miscreant whipped for stealing fruit from the orchard and had made the entire household watch as a deterrent. The man had twisted and screamed under the lash but the result had been nothing like this.

The interlaced pattern of heavy scars across the hard muscles of Daniel’s back had been laid on with a vicious ferocity that should have killed him.

‘They used a whip with a metal end,’ Jonathan Thornton said, ‘It would have torn the flesh from his bones.’

Agnes tore her gaze away from Daniel and looked up at him. ‘How does anyone survive such a thing?’

Kate Thornton straightened. ‘Luck and a strong will. Where did this happen?’

‘It must have been Barbados,’ Agnes said.

Jonathan raised an eyebrow and gave a low whistle. ‘They sent him to Barbados? Good God, they may as well have given him a death sentence.’

As if aware of the audience gathered around him, Daniel rolled back onto his back and opened his eyes. He squinted up into Agnes’s face.

‘I thought I told you to go away,’ he mumbled.

‘You did, but I’m not going anywhere. It would be extremely inconvenient if you were to die on me,’ Agnes responded.