The Widow's Tale (Sister Frevisse Medieval Mysteries Book 14) Read Free Page B

happens,” Edward’s voice hardened, “it’s going to be without them.”
    Laurence stood up. “If you’re depending on Cristiana or Sir Gerveys, you’re a fool. She’s a woman and he’s away to Ireland with York, who’s worth nothing to anyone anymore.”
    “I doubt you’re wise to discount my lord of York, Laurence,” Edward said.
    “York is finished. Don’t threaten me with York.”
    “That wasn’t a threat, only something that ‘little fish’ like ourselves would do well to remember.”
    Laurence made a disgusted sound and started for the door, but as he reached it, he swung around, pointed at Edward, and said angrily. “You’re dying. When you’re dead, I’ll still be here. Just you think on that.”
    Gerveys. took an angry step toward him, but Laurence wrenched open the door and went out, slamming it behind him. Cristiana, more quickly than her tears could come, rose from her chair and went to Edward, sat beside him and put her arms around him. He wrapped his around her, too, and they held tightly to each other, Cristiana not knowing whether the tears on her cheek pressed to his were all her own or not.
    Only when Gerveys made quietly to leave them, Edward drew back from Cristiana without letting go of her and said, “Stay, please. There’s something I must tell you both.” Gerveys’s answer was forestalled by an eager knocking at the door and Mary calling, “It’s time to go for the bonfire!” Cristiana straightened farther out of Edward’s arms, wiping her face dry as Gerveys went to open the door. Smiling, he said to his niece, “The bonfire? Surely you don’t want to go to that old thing, do you?”
    Mary seized his arm and tugged. “Yes, I do, and so does Jane. It’s time.”
    From the shadows stretched long outside the window, the sun must be sunk well toward sunset. Everywhere around the manor all the hearth and kitchen fires would be out by now and folk be gathering to the high-piled wood waiting unlighted in the pasture beyond the orchard. From all the other years, Cristiana knew there would be merriment there now, talk and laughter, but a hush would come as the darkness deepened until everyone was waiting, silent, while this year’s chosen man set to work with flint and steel to make the year’s new fire out of nothing, silence and darkness deepening around him until the struck sparks finally caught in the waiting tinder. The flames would creep then along twigs, growing until it leaped into the larger branches and burst crackling among the piled logs. Then there would be cheering, followed by dancing and drinking well into the night.
    Everywhere it would be the same, in manors, villages, and towns: the breathless wait in the darkness, as if this year maybe the needfire would not happen and all the cold hearths and kitchen fires stay unlighted. That the fire always came never changed that almost fearful waiting. Without that brief fear, the triumph and merriment afterwards would have been less, and Cristiana, like Mary, had never willingly missed a May
    Eve bonfire. But this year Edward would not go to it. And next year he . . .
    She shivered the thought away before it had fully formed. “Mary, come here,” Edward said, beckoning.
    Reluctantly she gave up her hold on her uncle and crossed the parlor. “It’s time,” she pleaded.
    Edward put an arm around her waist and drew her to his other side from Cristiana. “I know,” he said gently. “But I fear I’m not feeling well enough to go.”
    Mary burrowed her head against his shoulder. “We thought you were feeling better, Jane and I.”
    “I am, but I still tire too easily.” He lifted her head by her chin and kissed the tip of her nose. “I’d hoped to hold together until after the bonfire, but I have to rest instead. Even worse, I need to talk with your mother and Uncle Gerveys a while longer. They’ll come later but it will have to be Ivetta who takes you and Jane.”
    “Ivetta?” Mary protested. Ivetta had