Almost Innocent by Jane Feather Page A

issuing from a toothless mouth set in a near skeletal head, the scalp gleaming white beneath lank wisps of dirty gray hair, the cheeks fallen in, eyes sunk so deep in their sockets they were almost invisible.
    Hesitantly, Magdalen held out her hand. The twisted claw grasped it, turned it palm up. “Raise the candle; my eyes fail.” Magdalen lifted the reeking tallow candle from the floor by the pallet and held it up. There was silence in the frigid gloom. Then Jennet fell back on the pallet. “Love,” she said. “There is love, much of it, the love of men; there is love and blood in your hand, daughter of Isolde.”
    “How could you know that was my mother’s name?” Magdalen felt a fear greater than she had ever experienced. She knew nothing of her mother beyond the bare bones of circumstance she had been given.
    “Send the friar to me. I would have absolution.”
    Magdalen stood irresolute, unable to believe that Jennet would not expand on her cryptic statement. But then she heard the piercing call of the bugle, announcing the approach of her future, and she knew that her time of hiding in the shadows was drawing to a close. “I will tell Father Clement.”
    She slipped outside and hurried into the donjon.
    “Oh, there you are!” Elinor came down the staircase into the hall, her cheeks pinkened by her morning’s exertions. “I have been looking everywhere for you.” She tucked a straying gray lock back beneath her linen coif. “I had thought you were to give order for fresh rushes to be laid in the hall, but when I came in a minute ago it was not done and now there is no time before they arrive.”
    “Your pardon, madame.” Magdalen looked at the floor at her feet. “It slipped my mind. But indeed they are quite fresh, still. They have been down but a week.”
    “Maybe so, maybe so,” Elinor muttered. “But I would not be lacking in due courtesy to our guests. Have you made all seemly in your husband’s chamber?I have ordered matters in the Lord de Gervais’s apartment, and the dorter for his knights and attendants, but I think it is for you to look to your husband’s comfort.”
    “Yes, madame, and I have done so,” Magdalen said, tossing back her hood, revealing the rich dark coils of hair confined with a delicate silver filigree fillet. “There is a good fire and water heating. The sheets and hangings are new washed, the floor swept.”
    “And are you yourself clothed to do him honor?” Elinor peered shortsightedly. She was very flustered. She had had little or nothing to do with weddings and beddings in her reclusive spinsterhood, but she wished to conduct matters correctly. Since the bride and groom had been separated immediately after the wedding feast, Elinor saw this coming reunion as a simple extension of the wedding, but whether it should be conducted on those lines or not she did not know. They were, after all, a married couple of some years’ standing.
    Magdalen loosed her mantle, exposing her gown of turquoise silk and the cream brocade surcote, trimmed with the royal ermine to which her paternity entitled her. “Will this do, madame?”
    “Oh, yes, it is most suitable.” Elinor looked relieved. It did appear as if Magdalen were able to take charge of this situation herself, so perhaps Elinor could let matters go their own way. “I must repair to the kitchens. There was some difficulty with the roasting of the swans. One of the scullions neglected to oil the spit. Do you be ready to greet your husband in the court.”
    Magdalen smiled as the lady whom she no longer called aunt hastened into the kitchen, muttering anxiously. It was strange how these two, who had governed her early life with such absolute authority, had now become quite ordinary souls, with their faults and foibles, their kindnesses and virtues. Magdalen called one of the servitors to her and sent him with Jennet’s summons to the chaplain, then moved restlessly to the door of thegreat hall. The wind was