By the time she was finished, her voice was lifting and she was becoming animated. Lenore nodded, cowering in the face of her sister’s irritation.
“I will,” she said. “Shall I go now?”
Barbara looked at Joah, propped up on his elbows. “Can you do this now?”
Joah sat up completely, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “As soon as you pay me, I can.”
Barbara ran for the door. Her money was in the chamber she shared with Lenore in the keep, one of those massive chambers that was luxurious but too vast to hold a goodly amount of heat in the wintertime. Even so, she and Lenore had shared one since their arrival to Blackpool and it was where they kept all of their precious possessions.
“I will return,” she said as she put her hand on the latch. “Lenore, help him with whatever he needs so that he is well prepared. I will locate Isalyn so that you know where to seek her. We must do this swiftly and silently, before Tor discovers what has happened. And, Sir Joah… you must flee faster than you have ever fled in your life. If Tor catches you, he will kill you.”
Joah didn’t seem too concerned. “I need my possessions,” he said. “I need my sword. Where are they?”
“They were brought here,” Lenore said, pointing quickly to a corner where Joah’s possessions had been dumped when he was brought to the chamber. “Everything is here.”
Joah hadn’t noticed them because he’d been in a supine position, but now his gaze drifted over the pile, visually inspecting it.
“Excellent,” he said, returning his attention to Barbara. “Go and get my money. And do not worry… I will make sure Lady Isalyn does not return. You have my word.”
That was all Barbara wanted to hear and she fled the chamber.
The plans were in motion.
Isalyn kept looking at the ring on her finger, smiling and daydreaming even as Isabella was chatting up a storm about the beautiful dress that Tor had purchased for their wedding. Already, she was pulling out her sewing kit, a grand one that she traveled with, preparing to help Isalyn hem up the bottom and reinforce the stitching on both the shift and the dress. Isalyn didn’t have a sewing kit and, worse, she was forced to admit that she wasn’t a very good seamstress.
But Isabella was an excellent seamstress and she was armed with her trusty needle. She was preparing to go to work when a knock in the door interrupted them. Isabella was closer to the door so she went to open it, revealing a pale-looking Lenore on the other side.
Immediately, there was tension in the air.
Isabella and Isalyn knew that Barbara and Lenore were moving freely at Blackpool and they further knew that the sick traveler the women were tending was in the chamber that Isalyn had escaped from on the first floor, but with the heavy density of the stone walls and the way the stairs were built into the walls themselves, they hadn’t heard any of the comings and goings from upstairs. The chamber shared by Isalyn and Isabella was tucked away from the entry door to the apartment building, so they had been quite happy forgetting about the harpies, as Isalyn called them.
Perhaps viper was a kinder name.
But perhaps not.
“What do you want, Lenore?” Isalyn asked impatiently.
Lenore didn’t try to come into the chamber. She stood in the doorway, her gaze moving from Isalyn to Isabella and back again.
“I… I came to speak to you, my lady,” she said, her voice trembling. “May we speak in private?”
Isalyn shook her head. “Nay,” she said. “If you have something to say, you may say it in front of Isabella. We have no secrets.”
Lenore’s features tightened with uncertainty but realizing she had no choice, she nodded and swallowed hard.
“I wanted to say,” she said, stopped, and then started again. “I wanted to tell you how sorry my sister and I are for what we have done. We have no excuse other than to say… well, I suppose you know that my sister and I are orphans. Our parents died of the same fever many years ago and we came to live with our only sibling, Jane, and her husband. When Jane died, Tor was all we had left. He is all we have. Sometimes, when you try to hold tightly to something, it can make one a little… mad.”
Isalyn was listening with a good deal of doubt, but Lenore seemed sincere enough. She looked at Isabella, who looked back at her with the same doubtful expression.
“There are many people who have lost loved ones and they do not go mad,” Isabella said. “What you did wasn’t just madness, Lenore. It was wickedness.”
Lenore looked at Isabella in distress. “I know,” she said. “We know that now. Bella, you do not know what it was like when we were young. My mother and father did not have any servants to take care of them when they were ill, so it was left to Barbara and me. Can you imagine what it was like to watch your parents die as you tried to help them, not knowing what to do? We were just children. We were alone with dying parents and no way to help them. That did something to us. It made us panic with the thought of losing someone. I think… I think that is why we try to hold on to Tor so tightly, any way we can.”
She sounded quite pathetic and her tale, in truth, was a sad one. Neither Isabella nor Isalyn were immune to it. Being women of feeling and compassion, it was natural that they should feel some pity.
“But you are not losing Tor,” Isalyn said, less hostile than before. “If you would just stop to think that when Tor marries, you would be gaining another family member who wants to love you, then your fears would be for naught. But you treat every woman who wants to get close to Tor like an enemy.”
Lenore’s eyes welled. “That is not true.”
“It is.”
“Mayhap… mayhap they are our enemy,” she sniffled. “Look at what is happening – Tor is marrying you and sending us away because of you.”
“He is sending you away because of the way you are behaving,” Isalyn said sternly. “You have left him no choice and I will not be living my life in fear, wondering what you are going to try to do to me next. Your behavior has dictated his actions.”
Lenore sniffled again, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “I-I know you are right,” she said. “I suppose I have always known. Barbara and I had a long discussion about it and we are both very sorry for what we have done and we would like to make amends to you.”
Isalyn wasn’t so sure she wanted any part of this but, on the other hand, she didn’t want to be cruel. It was possible that Lenore meant what she said, that the threat of being sent away had scared them into good behavior.
Still, she was understandably doubtful.
“I am not sure that is possible or even advisable,” she said. “But for the sake of argument, what amends do you mean?”
Lenore pointed towards the inner bailey. “Would you come with me?” she said. “I have something to show you.”
“What is it?”
“Please, my lady. It is a surprise. It is our gift to you, but I could not bring it inside.”
“Where is your sister?”
“She is holding the gift.”
A warning bell went off in Isalyn’s mind. She looked at Isabella, who was equally unsure, but being women of kindness, and forgiveness, that propensity weighed heavily on their decision. They would be hard women, indeed, not to allow a chance for forgiveness. It was against her better judgment, but Isalyn could feel herself relenting.