The Needle in the Blood by Sarah Bower

Author:Sarah Bower
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2012-03-01T08:00:00+00:00

“You may ask,” replies Sister Jean cautiously next morning, when Margaret approaches her, saying she has a request to put to her. Sister Jean is supervising the restoration of the embroidery panels to their frames, checking that none has been damaged on the journey, that they are stretched at the correct tension and display the right points in the narrative. Alwys is busy sorting needles; Freya and the women not engaged at the frames are winding and hanging wool. Gytha is nowhere to be seen, but now Margaret has made up her mind; she needs only the recollection of Tom’s blank eyes and suppurating wounds to give her the courage to proceed.

“I wondered how long we might be staying here, Sister?”

“We’ve hardly arrived, girl. I don’t intend returning until I’m sure it’s safe to do so.”

“Yes, but how long will that be?” Margaret persists.

Sister Jean gives her a searching look. “What’s your hurry? Surely you are happy to see Gytha?”

“Of course I am, Sister, it’s just that…it’s Brother Thorold’s patient. I would like to visit him again.”

Ice water trickles in Agatha’s veins. “He will either have recovered or died by the time we leave here. You should put him out of your mind.”

“But Brother Thorold told me he would keep him by until he was back in his own mind. That might take some time, I expect.”

Scarcely able to bring herself to look at Margaret’s hopeful, childlike expression, Agatha asks, “What is this man to you?”

As Margaret tells her, she feels a tingling in her feet the way she does when she hears a good dance tune. Her brother. Her brother. Only her brother. The phrase has the rhythm of a jig.

“Of course you must go,” she says, “as soon as we return.”

“Could I not go back straight away? Just in case?”

“I’m afraid not.” She is kind, but emphatic. “I have no one to accompany you and no one to take your place if you go. But if Brother Thorold says he will keep your brother, then you may rely upon it that he will.” Patting Margaret’s freckled hands, feeling the ridges of bone beneath her skin, she adds, “Trust in God, Meg, He is merciful.”

“If you say so, Sister.” Glancing down at the frame closest to her, she recognizes Emma’s hand in the face of King Edward on his deathbed, all haggard concentration, his bed hangings like furled sails, waiting to catch the wind for Valhalla. Around him are arrayed a number of unfinished figures, and at the foot of the bed his weeping queen, dabbing her eyes on a fold of her headcloth. Though what she is weeping for, thinks Margaret, Heaven only knows, for he had, they say, never touched her. How can you feel the loss of what you have never had?

***

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