“And the other men, aye,” Silene told her, narrowing her eyes on Matilda. Was she jealous? Silene would never tell her that he’d slept against her door.
“Good. Ye should always have witnesses when ye are alone with him,” Matilda continued, looking around conspiratorially. “The captain is known to be extremely comely, and it would be difficult to convince the church that ye could resist such a man. That nothin’ happened between ye.”
Was Matilda trying to frighten her, Silene wondered, staring at her? She didn’t look away and prove her guilt. “If the church would think so little of me that I would give up my body to a man because he is handsome, then why would my opinion of my uncle hold such weight?”
Matilda’s jaw stiffened for only an instant and then her defenses faded into a smile. “I only wish to keep all suspicion off ye. Ye know how men are.”
“Nay, I do not,” Silene said with a smile of her own.
“They are the same, whether religious or not. They think we are all harlots. Deep down, they all believe it.”
Silene hoped that wasn’t true. She was sure the captain didn’t think she was a harlot. Either way, she didn’t want to fight with her aunt. “Tell me about the babe.” She turned around and looked down at the child lying in her mother’s bed.
“Aye, my Lizzie. She suffers a fever.”
Silene stepped back involuntarily. “Are you certain ’tis not the Black Death?”
“I am certain.”
Silene wasn’t worried about catching something, even the Black Death. In the past, she had gone to a few villages with the other novices and nuns to nurse the sick. She’d been around terrible disease and had never become sick. If she did now, so be it.
She hurried around Matilda and leaned over the bed to examine little girl. Her fever was low, her breathing a bit labored.
According to her mother, physicians had done all they could. The child was not in dire distress. But they could not defeat the fever that plagued her.
Silene knelt beside the bed and looked up at Lizzie’s mother. “May I pray for her?”
“Of course,” Matilda whispered with a softer, kinder smile.
“What is it?”Galeren asked after the steward told him all about the sickness tormenting his daughter.
“’Tis not the plague,” John assured.
“How d’ye know?”
“No one has died. Still, the illness is difficult to go through. No one wants to get it.”
“Understandable,” Galeren muttered and threw himself into the nearest chair in John’s private solar.
“The novice will likely fall ill,” the steward proclaimed and fixed them a drink.
Galeren felt the alarming need to go get her, take her away from the sick child. But he knew she wouldn’t leave.
It was his fault. He overrode John’s order that she not go near his wife and child. “Ye didna tell me that the babe was a danger to her.”
John handed Galeren his drink and sipped some wine from his own cup. “She willna die. And I did tell her not to go.”
Galeren relented and nodded. God would care for her.
John took a seat in a dark wood chair with a hand-sewn cushion and cast Galeren a hard look. “Tell me, Galeren. It seems that ye and my niece grew close on yer short journey here. Is she fond of ye?”
“Most likely,” Galeren told him honestly. “I saved her from almost bein’ defiled.”
The steward’s eyes went dark. “Did ye kill him?”
“I did,” Galeren told him with satisfaction, causing him to smile.
“Good,” John said. “What else?”