The Skeleth

Chapter 28

"Papa," murmured Katherine, hunted through the shadowed forests of sleep. A hand reached out for her, blooded and trembling. She tossed and turned onto her back. "Papa."

She woke. The cloak she used for bedding lay crumpled down around her ankles. Sweat chilled in beads on her skin. She sat up, shivering, trying to hold on to the substance of her dream—why Papa, and not Harry?

More than a hundred people huddled close in slumber on the floor of the great hall, whole families rolled under blankets all together in the only decent shelter they would ever know. The fire in the great stone hearth had gone to embers—it cast just enough light for Katherine to pick her way amongst the sleeping forms at her feet. Men and women, young and old, lay entwined all around her, piled over with their children, dogs and cats, all at peace, all breathing out into the frigid air in their separate meters and registers. Katherine stopped in the middle of the room and listened, entranced for a time, then picked her way between them and slipped out into the courtyard.

Silence was everywhere. The dark walls of the inner ward held it cupped. A lone watchfire shone atop the keep, its feeble light drowning in the sky. Katherine crossed the courtyard, shoes rustling in the tended grass, her eyes on the stars framed four-square above her. She shot a glance up the walls, to where candlelight shone through the arrow-slit window of Harry's room. She spared herself time for one more pleading wish, then opened the door on the long day's work ahead.

Goody Bycross turned from the washpots with a scowl. "Girl, you begone." She waggled her laundry-stick in Katherine's face. "You're wanted in the stables today."

Katherine stopped at the threshold of the laundry shed. "What? Why?"

"Request from Lord Wolland." Goody Bycross looked a good deal less than pleased to be bearing such news. "The lords go a-hunting today, and they want you to come along with them. Well, don't stand here with your jaw as wide as the door, shut them both and get on with you!"

Katherine closed the door on the row of women washing clothes and breakfast linens. She turned and raced back to the hall to change into a tunic and breeches. She would have skipped through the grass on her way to the stables, but for the light in the arrow-slit window above.

A boy slept on a bed of straw by the door of the stable. He awoke as Katherine approached and challenged her in a whisper: "Who goes there?"

"They say I'm wanted here today." Katherine peeled the melted stump of a candle from the shelf by the boy's bed and took up flint and steel to light it. "Do you know why?"

"Not a clue." The boy rubbed his eyes and let out an apple-wide yawn. "You're the old marshal's daughter, aren't you? You might as well do some work, while you're here."

"I'd like that." Katherine carried the candle down the passage, holding it to the wick of each lantern hanging on the wall. Boys uncurled from the straw and stood blinking, dogs gained their feet and shook themselves out, and the horses woke one by one as she passed.

"Here." Katherine held the apple she had brought along under Indigo's nose and stroked his mane as she fed him. Sorrow returned—Indigo was Wulfric's now, won by the custom of the joust. He would soon be gone, taken away to Wolland, never to be seen again. She could bear to stay with him no longer, though she would have wanted to linger until someone came to throw her out. She snuffed the candle and left.

The stables warmed with the heat of activity. Boys drew water, poured oats and mucked out stalls. They danced past one another in the narrow passage with tack and saddle in hand. The faint rumor of the sun's rising seeped in around the shutters, and with it the first of the knights and ladies coming for their horses. Katherine kept in the thick of the work, moving swiftly from one noble personage to the next, ensuring that they all left with steeds well fed and prepared. She cleaned out the shoes of a visiting stallion, then ran her hands through his tack, checking it for frays. She walked over to the storage stall and hauled up a sack of grain with her back to the door.

A voice spoke from behind her: "My son does not love you."

Katherine felt her insides give a squeeze. She dropped the sack and turned to curtsy. "My lady."

Lady Isabeau had not slept, and no amount of careful arrangement of her hair, veil and dress could disguise it. "He thinks he does, but he cannot. I do not say it to wound you."

A stablehand brought Lady Isabeau her riding mare, then bowed and backed away. Lady Isabeau led the mare off down the passage, causing everyone to stop and make their reverences. Katherine followed her outside, then bent to make a step from her hands.