Jack Chauncey bent and pulled the knife from the breast of the gyrfalcon, then he picked up the once magnificent bird by its feet and hurled it into the rushes like a dirty rag. He remounted and took the bridle of the trembling, injured mare. He glanced once toward the lords of Ravenspeare, then followed Simon, leading the roan. The rest of the cadre fell in behind him.

The piebald galloped over the drawbridge and into the castle. Simon bellowed for assistance as he drew rein and the animal came to a panting halt. Servants ran from the Great Hall.

"One of you take Lady Ariel." He handed her down to the brawny footman who stepped forward with alacrity. "Carry her to her chamber." He dismounted and followed the servant into the castle, limping as rapidly as he could, cursing his inability to carry his wife himself.

"Set her in the rocker by the fire. Send up that maidservant, what's her name, Doris. Have someone bring up hot water and a bathtub and replenish the log basket. And bring a warming pan, oh, and hot bricks for the bed." He rapped out orders as he threw more logs onto the fire, bellowing over his shoulder, "Hurry, man!"

The servant put his burden into the rocker and ran from the room. Ariel huddled in the cloak. Her soaked clothes were plastered to her skin, and her hair dripped down the back of her neck. She couldn't feel her hands or feet. The cold was in the marrow of her bones, as if the river ice had penetrated her skin.

Simon dragged off her boots and stockings. Her feet were the dead white of parchment. He took them between his hands, chafing them desperately.

"Oh, sir, what's 'appened?" Doris came running into the room with a warming pan. "Sam'l says summat's the matter with Lady Ariel."

"She fell in the river. Help me get her clothes off."

Doris thrust the warming pan under the covers on the bed and hurried to help. "Oh, lord, sir, Lady Ariel gets powerful bad when she takes cold," she said, tearing the buttons on Ariel's shirt in her haste to get it off her. "Weak chest she's got, and once she gets the cough and the wheezes, she's bad for weeks."

"Don't talk rot, Doris," Ariel remonstrated through violently chattering teeth. "I'll be fine once I'm warm again."

Two maids arrived laboring under a copper hip bath and several jugs of steaming water. "We'll fetch up more water directly, m'lady," the younger of the two said with a bobbing curtsy.

"An' Mistress Gertrude's warmin' 'ot bricks, ma'am," the other chimed in, pouring the water into the tub.

Simon and Doris between them had managed to get Ariel's clothes off. Simon noticed grimly that her skin was angrily reddened with the cold. He'd seen men chilled like that in the bitter winter battles, after slogging through frozen mud and icy streams. And he knew what frostbite and ague could do.

"Get in the water, sweetheart." He pushed her toward the tub.

"I'll get chilblains!" Ariel protested. "I can't plunge icy skin into hot water."

"On this occasion you can and you must." Simon lifted her off her feet and deposited her in the tub. Ariel yelled as the hot water seared her. "Chilblains are better than the ague," he declared. "Sit down, for God's sake."

Ariel would have refused if she'd had the strength of body and will. She knew she was right and Simon was wrong, but she hadn't the energy to resist as he pushed her down into the water. But despite the heat that warmed her skin, she couldn't stop shivering. She was cold deep inside and a tub of hot water made no impression on that inner freeze.

Simon hid his concern as he knelt before the tub and scrubbed her with a washcloth, desperately trying with friction to get some heat back into her. The maids were thrusting hot bricks wrapped in flannel into the bed. Doris was drying Ariel's hair in a thick towel. Steam rose from the tub, the fire was built to bonfire proportions, and sweat dripped from everyone in the room but Ariel, who continued to shiver.

Both Simon and Doris dried her. "She needs a nightgown or chamber robe," Simon instructed. Doris produced a thick woolen chamber robe.

"I hate that robe. It makes me itch," Ariel protested through chattering teeth. But no one took any notice of her, and in a very few minutes she was in bed, quilts piled up high on top of her, hot bricks pressed against her body. But still she shivered, and there was an ominously hectic flush on her cheeks.

Simon laid a hand on her forehead. "You can physic others, Ariel; what should we get for you?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. It will pass once I warm up. I wasn't in the water that long."

"Long enough," he said shortly. "There must be something…" He stopped when he saw that her eyes were closed and she seemed to be sleeping.

A tap on the door announced Jack Chauncey, who stood in the doorway. "I thought maybe Lady Hawkesmoor would like to know that her mare is back in the stables. Her groom is taking care of her. He said I was to tell Lady Ariel that the wounds were cleaning up nicely, but he would use a paste of saltwort to guard against corruption."

"Tell him to cauterize the wounds first." Ariel's voice was a thin croak. "With a sulphur match. It has to be done, the hawk's claws are filled with poisonous matter." She muttered something that sounded to her listeners like a string of curses from a shipping wharf, but her voice was lost in a bout of hollow coughing.

"I retrieved your knife, Simon," Jack said a touch awkwardly, seeing his friend's grim visage as he lifted Ariel's head and propped more pillows beneath. "I know how much it means to you." He held out the knife.

Simon turned from the bed and took it with a nod of thanks. Jack had wiped the blade, but there remained a few dried rusty drops of the falcon's blood. It had been his father's knife. He thrust it into the sheath in his father's wide belt with the jeweled buckle.

Ariel turned her head on the high pillows. The coughing had ceased but her face was both white and flushed and her eyes were heavy under swollen lids. "Jack, will you remember to tell Edgar about the sulphur?"

"Of course, Lady Ariel."

Her chuckle was a faint thread. "Must we be so formal, sir?"

Jack smiled. "Not if you don't wish it, Ariel."

"I don't," she said, then turned her head away, and the men watched her desperate fight to keep the cough from breaking loose. It was a fight she lost.

"I'll tell Ravenspeare that you'll not be joining the party tonight," Jack said unnecessarily as he left the room.

Simon waited until Ariel was quieter, then he said, "Tell me what I can do for you, sweetheart. If you can help others, you know how to help yourself."

"Ephedra… but I don't have any."

He placed his hand on her brow. Her skin burned against his palm. "Then where will I get some?" he asked patiently.

"Sarah, but she-" The rest of the sentence was lost in a renewed attack of coughing.

"I've brought some 'ot flannels for Lady Ariel's chest, m'lord." Doris entered the room without bothering to knock. "They're soaked in camphor. She uses 'em for chest ailments. Cured Mistress Gertrude like a charm last Easter."

She proffered her strong-smelling cloths. "Shall I put 'em on, sir?"

"Yes… yes, if you think they'll help." Simon drew back the quilts and opened Ariel's robe, exposing her creamy breasts and the taut frame of her rib cage. Her flushed skin was raised in a rash.

"Get the robe off me!" Ariel demanded fretfully, her hand fluttering over her chest.

"Find her another robe, Doris. This is irritating her skin."

Doris carefully laid the aromatic flannel over Ariel's chest before fetching a wrapper of fine lawn from the dresser. "This isn't as warm, m'lord, but like as not it'll trouble 'er ladyship less."

Simon lifted Ariel from the bed as Doris eased off the woolen robe.

"I can do it myself." Ariel flapped at them as she tried to push her arms into the sleeves of the lawn wrapper. But another fit of coughing overtook her and she left them to it. The camphor-soaked flannel seemed to bring her some ease when she was finally lying back again, and her eyes closed.

"She'll get the ague and the lung fever agin, m'lord. You mark my words," Doris said doomfully.

"When did she last have it?"

"Oh, not since she was about ten or eleven. But I don't rightly know, m'lord. Nearly died of it she did, then. If it 'adn't been for daft dumb Sarah, she'd-"

"Lady Ariel just said this woman Sarah has some medicine," Simon interrupted, silencing Doris with an impatient hand gesture. "Where is she to be found?"

"We could send fer 'er, sir, but I don't rightly know as 'ow she'll come." Doris said. "But per'aps blind Jenny could come on 'er own if we send Edgar to fetch 'er."

"Why wouldn't the woman come if she's a friend of Lady Ariel's?" Simon demanded harshly.

Doris shook her head. "Oh, she'd go through fire an' water for Lady Ariel, but powerful afraid of Ravenspeare she is. Lady Ariel won't never ask 'er to come 'ere."

"Well, Lady Ariel isn't asking her. I am. Tell me where to find her."

Doris looked doubtful. "Best to send Edgar, m'lord. You'd need to drive the gig, and then the lane to the cut is powerful rutted, an' with this ice an' all."

"It needs a man steady on his feet. I understand you." His eyes were as bleak as his voice. "Then send Edgar with all speed. And tell him to bring the daughter too."

"Aye, m'lord." Doris, with a scared look, dropped a curtsy and raced from the room.

Simon returned to his vigil beside the bed, his eyes darkening as he stroked back the hair that clung damp with sweat to the broad brow.

Chapter Fourteen

Sarah sat at her loom beside the hearth, her fingers never ceasing their busy threading and weaving, as Edgar explained his errand, his voice uncharacteristically hurried. Sarah's fingers worked like automatons, her expression was serene, but behind her eyes the maelstrom raged.

Jenny stood by the table where she'd been slicing carrots for the women's midday meal, her hands now stilled.

"How bad is she, Edgar?"

"Eh, Miss Jenny, Doris says the cough's already in 'er lungs, she thinks." Edgar pulled at his cap in his hands. "'Is lordship of 'Awkesmoor is beside 'isself, Doris says."

The man who had come in peace, Sarah thought. Ariel had laughed bitterly when she'd first told of the Hawkesmoor's absurd ambition-to bring an end to the blood feud between their families. She had laughed bitterly and in complete disbelief, convinced that mere greed had prompted the man to instigate such an unnatural connection. But then Sarah sensed that Ariel's attitude had changed, that she now believed the earl of Hawkesmoor had genuinely if unrealistically wished with this marriage to heal the wounds of history.

And Sarah could have told her that Hawkesmoors, for all their passion and driving ambitions, were always more interested in love than in hate. And Geoffrey's son would be no exception.

"How long's it been since Ariel fell in the water?" Jenny asked.

Edgar frowned. "Two hours, per'aps." Jenny nodded briskly. "That's good. The fever may not yet have taken a grip." She began to move around the small room as deftly as if she were sighted, gathering things together. "Ephedra, Mother?"

Sarah nodded, and although Jenny couldn't see the gesture, she clearly sensed it. She kept up a running commentary of what she was putting together, "Slippery elm bark, coltsfoot, ground ivy, horehound, chamomile," and Sarah, listening intently, affirmed each selection in a silence that spoke as clearly as words to her daughter.

Sarah rose from her loom and went to the back of the room, where she unlocked a small corner cabinet. She took out a vial of smoked glass and added it to Jenny's basket.

Jenny touched it with an identifying finger, then said, "Ariel won't take laudanum, Mother."

Sarah simply laid a hand over her daughter's, and Jenny shrugged acceptingly and left the vial in the basket.

"I'm ready, Edgar." She looked expectantly toward the door where she knew Edgar still stood.

"The earl wants Mistress Sarah to come too," he stated, glancing at Sarah, who now stood stock-still beside the table.

Only now did Sarah fully acknowledge what she had known in her most secret heart since Ariel had first come with the news that she was to wed the earl of Hawkesmoor. She needed to see Geoffrey's son for herself. The son she never knew Geoffrey had had. If he had never come to Ravenspeare, she could have continued to live in the ignorance she had so long ago sworn never to question, but now she had the opportunity, she could no longer resist the need to see and to know.