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Summer, bright and cruel, reminded him of Marthe.
After the first shock of bereavement his joy had blazed up and burned the grief as fuel, leaving in the ashes a deep sympathy for Jerott but no tears of his own. But it seemed at least one log was left unburnt, waiting an opportune moment to sear his heart with its flames.
The sun’s merciless heat was welcome; he still felt the cold acutely after it had so nearly killed him. If it had killed him Marthe would still be alive, would have completed her errand -- and it would not have mattered, as it had not mattered anyway. Had the Dame de Doubtance foreseen this end for her granddaughter, and made no attempt to change her path? That was almost certainly the case; she had been naught but a sacrificial pawn to her own flesh and blood. No wonder Marthe had been so bitterly jealous of so small a mercy as family who wanted you alive and well.
Would madness be kind? She had asked him once, understanding, perhaps, the temptation to let the deluge of madness submerge one’s conscious mind; but understanding too what words would drag him from the flood. Would prodding one to do his duty be kind? He was sure she had not asked herself that. The situation had left no room for such a question; especially for one such as Marthe, unaccustomed to receiving kindness from surprising sources.
Words reached him across the garden, where he sat contemplating the fragile flowers and young shrubs that sprang up intermittently from the bare earth, valiantly doing their part to remind him that St. Mary was no longer a barracks. “Are ye feeling poorly today, lad?” Archie Abernethy sat down at the other end of the bench. “Yer looking a mite pale.”
How many souls on this earth call you Francis? “I was thinking of Marthe,” Lymond admitted. “Archie, you might call me Francis.”
“If I wanted to be familiar with ye,” returned Archie, who above all men had always been familiar with him, “I might call ye son.”
Surely he could not have guessed that Lymond’s thoughts had strayed to Gavin Crawford; Gavin who, if he had had his way entirely, would have broken his wife’s bastard son and let his essence reknit into a shape even more like Marthe, a soul who expected a knife with every rare kindness they received and who wielded their own rare kindnesses clumsily. “You might,” he agreed. “You might call me anything you like. You have more than earned the right, if it is even a thing to be earned.”
Archie’s practiced gaze examined him for any sign of distress. “Ye said ye were thinkin’ of Marthe.”
“Yes. Something she said once, about how few people were close enough to use my name.” He laughed softly. “Hypocritical advice, I suppose, from someone who let everyone use her name but let no one close. Still, I owe it to her to attempt to follow it.”
“Ye owe it to yourself,” Archie said bluntly. “But ye dinnae think it’s about the name, surely. We know ye for our friend. And ye are afflicted by the blindness yet if you cannae see how much yer friends care about ye.”
“I see,” Francis said softly. “I have seen, and have pretended not to. I thought it would be safer. And yet.”
“And yet we all made our own choices. Marthe included.”
Francis heaved a sigh. “I will try to accept it.” He turned and held his friend’s gaze. “Archie, I am very glad you chose to stay.”
“As am I, lad.” Archie’s eyes caught the movement of horses on the path. “I think Mistress Philippa has brought Kate and Adam back with her.”
She had; and there was no retreating into pleasantries, for all of the newly-arrived could tell when Francis Crawford was troubled. So he told them, too, why Marthe had come to mind.
“Marthe was wronged by everyone who should have cared about her,” Kate said. “But I think you did her what kindness you could.”
There was no answer to make to that. Surely there should have been some kindness that would have let Marthe live. Francis said, “I think I will ride to Midculter tomorrow, if anyone wishes to join me.”
At Volos he had thanked her, inadequately, for saving his life; she had saved it again, inadvertently, at the cost of her own, and there was no repayment he could make except to live the life of which she had been so jealous. In the end she had had nothing from the Crawfords except a resting place; and that, had it not been so final, he guessed was what she had needed from them, if not what she had wanted.
Oh mill, what hast thou ground?...not oats…but the offspring of Kervall.