She held her father’s surcoat close, her fingers playing absentmindedly with the burnt and frayed ends of the fine material. His image was faded around the edges now, his features a little more blurred, his figure slightly further away in the distance. Broken memories left her with only an old, empty surcoat to hold.
*
So he calls me cold. Well he certainly wasn’t saying that back then when my hand ran up his thigh and he murmured incoherently into my neck. Looking back I suppose there was always a bitterness to our relationship. But then things always have that funny way of seeming so different now, don’t they? It’s not like we didn’t know what to expect. Even I couldn’t have imagined though how he would have turned against me at the end.
*
“Excuse me, I’m looking for Freddie.” The question was addressed to somewhere between her knee and ankle. With a barely concealed sigh of annoyance she looked down from her lofty height upon the ladder. An impatient movement caused a branch to sway dramatically and shed water-heavy blossom onto the ground, and onto the elegant suit of the waiting man. The casual flick of a hand sent the petals careening to the grass to finish their journey. She bridled inwardly at the carless gesture and turned resolutely back to the tree with the loppers.
“Well you found her.” She muttered to the thick trunk.
“I beg your pardon?” He asked, wondering if the woman had misunderstood his question. If he had not still been feeling the effects of jetlag he would perhaps have made a better attempt at politeness. Instead he merely reiterated tiredly.
“I’m looking for Freddie. He’s the head gardener apparently.” The woman turned gesturing towards herself with the loppers.
“As I said. I’m Freddie. And yes I’m the head gardener. What do you want?” She demanded with a frown.
*
The summer storm which brewed that humid night was of little consequence to the man who lay still, his eyes fixed sightlessly on the lightening filled sky.
*
The tear rolled down her cheek, but she didn’t move to catch it. She let it dry on her skin in the warmth of the night air, her body stiff and tense as she watched her slumbering husband. His features were lax in sleep, his mouth slightly open as he blew gurgling bubbles, hardly the image of a rich and dangerous mercenary feared for miles around. Lying sprawled on his front with not even a stitch to cover his modesty she realised that he would never be as vulnerable as he was now. Her hand itched for the thin blade concealed amongst her carefully folded gowns. Imagining him gutted, his blood running between her fingers, caused her tears to cease. Of course she knew she couldn’t do it. She had sacrificed too much already to give up now, but the thrill of the power she momentarily held over him was a sharp bite of pleasure.
*
The tear started small. A quiet huff of breath, a shudder and a splash. But its ripples expanded until the entire bowl of water trembled with her emotion, the waves threatening to submerge her under the swell of sensation.
*
It matched! Flushed with success she slumped back into the unyielding leather chair and attempted to control the spark of excitement which caused her hand to shake. Her loud exclamatory breath had caused several stern pairs of eyes to turn her way. She sent nervous fingers brushing through her fringe before locking her gaze once more on the manuscript before her. It was true. And she had found it. Not even a hundred glaring librarians could contain the little rock of joy that creaked the chair beneath her.
*
“Girls can’t be knights stupid.” This was announced with all the disdain an eleven year old boy, weeks away from becoming a squire, could muster.
*
Sir Godfrey Pulford was dead. Isabel Woodville regarded the body slumped over her table with dismay. Death had not come easily to Sir Godfrey. The abject fear felt at the moment of death was captured in his unblinking pale blue stare. His coarse hands were stretched out across the table, and his fingernails had scored panicked marks in the wooden surface. Isabel stumbled across the threshold of the room towards the body. Sir Godfrey had been in his fifties, and the battle hardened body of his youth had run to fat. His once handsome features had bloated with the effect of regular over indulgence in good wine. It was this weakness that had eventually killed him.
Isabel’s sharp green eyes had taken in the goblet that had been knocked to the floor and spilt its contents over the rushes. She knelt carefully, picked up the goblet and sniffed. She then knew with certainty that it was not a brew that she had served at her table the previous evening. She rose and hesitatingly moved towards the body. Isabel swallowed her disgust and examined Sir Godfrey’s mouth. It, like his eyes, was wide open and she could clearly see tiny red blisters around his lips and inside his mouth. There could be no doubt that Sir Godfrey had been poisoned.
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