“If you don’t sit still, Miss Ellie, wedding day or no wedding day, I’ll be tempted to box your ears.”
High up in the keep of Hartslove Castle, a fat old nurse was braiding Eleanor de Barre’s smooth hanks of auburn hair and threading them through with gold. It was early afternoon, but the candles were lit because it was snowing lightly and darkness had already begun to fall. Lurking by the door, two smaller girls, identically dressed in long red tunics, were staring at the bride.
Ellie colored slightly. “It’s only hair,” she said defiantly, and made a face into the tin disk that hung on the wall. Old Nurse opened her mouth, but something in Ellie’s face made her shut it again.
One of the smaller girls moved forward to help, but the other looked mutinous and kicked the door with the edge of her foot. Bang, bang, bang. The girl knew it irritated Ellie, but she didn’t care. Marissa cared about very little except her twin sister, Marie, and not always about her. It was just over a fortnight since they had been brought to Hartslove Castle in a cart and dumped, so it seemed to Marissa, because after their father was killed on crusade, Gavin de Granville was the only person who would agree to take them in. It was his duty, so she had heard him say. Fourteen-year-old girls could not be left to fend for themselves. Duty!
She kicked the door harder. Bang, bang, BANG. If she were to be considered a duty, she was going to make the duty a hard one. Now Gavin was to marry this Ellie, who clearly resented having two children foisted on her and scarcely bothered to conceal the fact.
Bang, BANG, BANG! Not that Marissa was jealous of Ellie. Who on earth could really want to marry a knight with one arm, even if he had lost his arm heroically on crusade? Ellie was welcome to Gavin. Yes, she was welcome to him, particularly since that got her out of the way of Gavin’s younger brother, Will.
At the thought of Will, Marissa temporarily suspended the banging and, quite without thinking, smoothed her own hair. Old Nurse threw her a glance—which was a mistake, because Marissa immediately dropped her hands and began banging again. Will had been nice to them, when, that is, he could be dragged away from that red horse, with whom he seemed unhealthily obsessed. Horses were just animals—animals Marissa hated. She kicked the door harder than ever.
Will had only stayed a day before going off to take possession of lands in the west given to him by King Richard, along with the title Earl of Ravensgarth. After he had gone, Marissa had written, in the careful hand her mother had taught her before she died, “Marissa, Countess of Ravensgarth” on a vellum piece, leaving it purposefully out for Ellie to see. She knew Ellie had burned it, pushing every piece into the flames with a poker. This gave Marissa particular pleasure. Ellie was marrying Gavin. She couldn’t have Will, too. BANG, BANG, BANG, and a smile of triumph.
Irritated beyond endurance, Ellie turned round, causing Old Nurse to huff like a hippopotamus as her neat handiwork was whipped out of her hands. “Why don’t you both go and find some mistletoe or something to thread through the dogs’ collars?” Ellie tried to make it a suggestion rather than an order. “You’ll find piles of greenery in the great hall. The dogs should look nice today as well as us.”
Marissa gave her an insolent stare, which Ellie, forgetting herself entirely, returned in kind. “Come, Marie,” Marissa said, glaring at Old Nurse. “They don’t want us here.” Then giving the door a final kick, she stamped unevenly down the stone steps.
Marissa had been lame for about three years, and when the sleeve of her dress fell back, it revealed that she also had two red and unsightly marks on her left forearm. Just before the twins’ father, Sir Hugh de Neville, left on crusade, he had come to visit the steward’s house in which his children were lodging. He was riding a new Spanish stallion purchased for the journey, and while Marie smiled and nodded but kept her distance, for she was nervous of all animals except kittens, Marissa had been thrilled, desperate to show her father how brave she was. At that time horses held no fear for her. She had laughed with delight when Sir Hugh tossed her into the saddle, in front of him, and rode around the water meadows. If he went a little fast, Marissa was not going to complain. She basked in his adulation, while Marie was ignored.
But the evening before Sir Hugh was to depart, Marissa had gone back into the stables to give the stallion an apple. The horse was restive, but she fearlessly climbed onto the manger and held out her hand. He backed away and stamped his foot. Marissa leaned a little farther, then lost her balance and, clutching wildly at the animal’s tethering rope, fell into the straw. Terrified and angry, the stallion reared and plunged down to attack. By the time his teeth had buried themselves in Marissa’s arm and his weight had crushed her leg, the child was almost unconscious, and when the stable boys finally severed the rope and beat the stallion off, Marissa was given up for dead.
She was not dead, however. Flung roughly onto a bed by her father, she came to just long enough to hear his diatribe about her stupidity and how the horse, the most expensive animal he had ever bought, had injured his knee. He had not the money, he said, to pay for a surgeon for his daughter as well as medicines for his Spanish stallion, and he was clear about which creature was the more important. He could not replace his horse, but Marissa was a girl—a twin girl at that—so her loss would be no loss. As Marie cowered behind a chair, too frightened of her father to plead on her sister’s behalf, the steward was told to leave Marissa to die. Without a further word Hugh stormed off, cursing the day his daughters had been born. It was the last time they ever saw him.
Since then, great, hovering hooves and bared teeth featured almost nightly in Marissa’s dreams, and every day she cursed first her father; then the steward, who had spent much of his own gold on a surgeon; then the steward’s wife, who had nursed her so carefully. She cursed Marie, whose gentle hands had eased her fever with cold cloths and tears. She cursed the local apothecary, who had taught her to swim so that her leg might not wither through lack of exercise, and most of all Marissa cursed herself.
Marie could hear curses echoing in the stairway now, and had Marissa not been adamant that Ellie was to know nothing of the accident, Marie would have explained everything so that Ellie could understand. But Marissa had made her promise, and anyway, this was not the time. Marie could see that Ellie wanted to be rid of her, too, so she just said shyly, “I think you look beautiful. Please don’t mind Marissa.” Then she fled.
Ellie turned back to her mirror and felt ashamed. It was not the twins’ fault that they were here. “Everything is changed,” she said to Old Nurse plaintively. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” And she burst into tears.
Old Nurse shifted her great weight, clucking with dismay. She patted Ellie’s shoulder, then settled her fat knees a little wider apart and picked up the hank of hair once again. “There, dearie,” she said. “There. Not on your wedding day. There’s all the guests down in the hall, and Master Will will be here soon. He’ll want to see you happy. With Hosanna in his old stable for at least a night or two, it will seem quite like old times, or at least the best that can be done.”
Ellie stopped crying. Old Nurse was right. It was the best that could be done. She wiped her eyes and looked out through the glassless window. She would concentrate on how pretty the snow was, with each flake landing serenely in its allotted place—just as she was filling her allotted place by marrying Gavin, for whom she had been earmarked from childhood when his father, Sir Thomas de Granville, had taken her in; just as Gavin in his turn was taking in Marissa and Marie.
“What’s more,” Ellie told herself, “I’m really very lucky. Gavin needs me, and there is no reason at all why we should not be happy. No reason at all.” She repeated these sentiments several times as Old Nurse’s fingers, though rough and pudgy, bound up the glossy wedding plait surprisingly deftly and immediately transformed an impish girl into an elegant young woman.
“I wish Sir Thomas could see you now,” Old Nurse murmured, dabbing her eyes on her apron. “I don’t know why he had to die on crusade when so many wicked people survived. Mistress Cranby’s husband got himself home, and I know for certain that he is a thief.” She made a loud, harrumphing noise and took a swig from a small, stoppered pot. “Now, my sweet, are you ready?”
But Ellie felt far from ready. “Just a few more moments,” she begged, and as Old Nurse lowered herself, puffing, onto a chair she suddenly ran over and plumped herself onto the old lady’s lap. There was always comfort to be found in Old Nurse’s familiar, lumpy softness, and she needed it very much now.
Sighing, Old Nurse enfolded Ellie in her great arms and began to rock and sing in a low, cavernous voice, which ebbed and flowed like a full tide. Ellie leaned her head against the welcoming shoulder and shut her eyes, forgetting for the moment about the wedding and remembering only her childhood, when Will and she had been inseparable playmates and marriage to Gavin was something for a future still far-off. She remembered the day Hosanna arrived at Hartslove and how exciting it had been. That time seemed to have passed before she had ever properly appreciated it, for all too soon, the Hartslove horses and men had left to fight the dreaded Saracens on crusade. Ellie shuddered slightly, and Old Nurse held her tighter. But Ellie knew that not all Saracens were wicked. After all, one of them had saved Hosanna’s life. Old Nurse felt Ellie relax a little.
Hosanna. It was impossible to be sad when thinking about him. The horse had some quality that made you feel that the world was a good place. Ellie couldn’t say quite what this quality was. Nobody could. But everybody recognized it. When Hosanna was at Hartslove, tempers were a little better and smiles a little wider. Ellie smiled now, rather wistfully, at the round face of the woman who had tended all her childish illnesses and injuries. Dear Old Nurse, she thought, and planted a spontaneous kiss on the old lady’s soft cheek. Tasting tears, Ellie felt a lump rise in her own throat, and she slid to the floor. It was time for them both to be strong.
“Come on,” she said as cheerfully as she could. “Time to put on my necklace,” and she reached over to pick up the small box that contained carefully threaded ovals of silver and deep green jasper, her wedding present from Gavin.
“Red jasper for love, white for gentleness, but green for faith,” he had said. “I had a hard time deciding, but in the end I chose green, Ellie, because we must keep faith with each other, and also because green goes with your hair.”
Ellie tried not to remember that their laughter had been very uncomfortable, since neither could quite get used to thinking of the other as bride or groom, and holding the necklace up to catch the light, she also tried not to dwell on the fact that since his return from crusade, Gavin was only occasionally the energetic tease of old, a shadow of the vigorous, impetuous knight who had once delighted in making Ellie giggle and driving Will mad. The terrible wound he had suffered had changed him. It would have changed anybody, Ellie thought, but surely it does not mean that we cannot be content together?
As Old Nurse fastened the necklace the girl tried her best to recapture the feeling that had overwhelmed her when she had first seen Gavin, broken in spirit and body, crossing the drawbridge as he returned from the war. At that moment she had known with absolute certainty that she alone could make his life whole again. The feeling had been so strong that all doubts and all worries over his injury had been pushed to one side. She had tried to explain the feeling to Will, but he had not wanted to listen. In fact, he had acted very strangely ever since.
“I must have faith,” the girl whispered as she felt the ovals warm against her skin. “Gavin’s right. That’s the key to everything.” In the candlelight the green jasper glowed.
