This time she did laugh. She hugged him. She didn’t want him to leave. Graelam was known to her, loved by her, and now he would leave and it could be years before she saw him again. She felt tears swim in her eyes. “God go with you, Graelam.”
“Aye, God and my man Northbert.”
Hastings, holding Eloise’s hand, watched Graelam and his men ride out of the inner bailey, Severin and several of his men riding with them.
“It is time for her prayers.”
Hastings turned slowly to face the woman Beale. “What did you say? ” It is time for Eloise’s prayers. She must pray for three hours before she can eat her evening bread. It is what her mother wanted. Come, Eloise.”
The child was leaning one way and then the other. It took Hastings ut a moment to figure out what was wrong. “First, Beale, Eloise must visit the Jakes.”
« was in the jakes that Hastings saw the raw sores on the child’s knees.
I*
“Hold still, Eloise. This won’t hurt. Indeed, it will make your knees feel cool.” Very carefully, Hastings laid the soaked bramble blossoms on Eloise’s raw knees. She hadn’t felt such anger in a very long time. Well, she had, but this was a very different anger from the sort she felt at Severin. She wanted to hurt someone. She wanted to hurt the child’s dead mother. How could a mother do such a thing to her child? Severin had said it-Lady Joan believed her own daughter to be the Devil’s spawn.
Eloise didn’t make a sound. Hastings wrapped her knees with strips of soft white wool. “There, you will be doing no praying on your knees for a good long time. Try not to bend your knees so that the bandages will stay tight.”
“But I must pray. My mama said I would go to hell if I didn’t purify myself each day.”
“What did your mama say when she saw your knees?”
The child hung her head. “She didn’t know. I never told her. She wanted me to pray, she wanted it so much.”
“Beale must have seen them when she helped you to dress and bathe.”
fifoiste just nodded, her face still down. “Beale told me it was God’s punishment because my heart had black spots on it, black spots from my wicked father.”
Hastings turned at the sound of her chamber door opening. Beale was standing there, peering into the room. “The child must be at her prayers, my lady. I have come to get her. We will be in the chapel.”
Hastings slowly rose. “I don’t think so, Beale. I have seen Eloise’s knees. I have treated them. They will heal but she will do no kneeling for a very long time.”
“You have no say in this, my lady.” Beale came closer. The black mustache on h«r upper lip quivered. “I am the child’s nurse. It is I who must see to her soul now that her mama is dead, poisoned by that devil.
7 2
I ise carries his blood and his foulness. She will be cleansed. It matters not if her knees are a bit scraped.”
Hastings turned to see Eloise standing tall and straight beside her. “I will come with you, Beale. I don’t want Mama to suffer if I am wicked.”
“Your mama is in Heaven,” Hastings said. “She suffers no more.” She turned again to Beale, who was looking at the child as if she would beat her. “No, Eloise, you will stay with me. I will teach you about herbs. You will learn how to use them to help people. Beale, have you ever considered that Eloise is Lady Joan’s child, that she has the goodness of her mother and not her father, that she has no need for all this purification?”
“She looks like him, just like him, with those sly blue eyes and a tongue that twists with lies. She must be purified or she will become like him, evil and remorseless. She will die and none will mourn her.”
That did it. Hastings said even as her hands fisted in the folds of her gown, “I have decided that you will no longer tend to Eloise. I will see that you are returned to Sedgewick.”