The blind woman knelt, felt immediately that it was indeed a person lying on the porch floor, slid her hand toward a shoulder gently, intending to help the person up and froze. Surely her sensitive fingers knew that cloth, the embroidery on that tunic. Holding her breath, she brought her hand up, touched thick, curly hair, a shaven cheek, a long, fine nose, lips oh yes, she knew those lips! Shaking now, she reached out to turn the face more toward her and her hand struck what did not belong, could not possibly be part of the man or his clothing. The breath she had held quavered out in a low, terrified whimper.
A knife hilt! And around it something wet, sticky. The odor struck her now. Blood. He was covered with blood. He was dead! She did not dare cry aloud. Oh, God, if he was dead, she was dead also. Who would believe that she had not quarreled with him, buried a knife in him? She rose to run, but her feet were tangled. Then she would have screamed had not her throat been locked with terror, until she realised it was her own staff across her feet. She snatched it up and fled.
The next few minutes were very uncomfortable for John as he broke the news as gently as he could. Alice stood uncertainly near the door, as her mistress was held close against the breast of this fierce-looking knight. Hilda's eyes filled with tears, but much to John's relief she held back from sobbing as he would rather face a thousand of Saladin's warriors than one weeping woman.
'He was a good man, always kind to me, like another father,' she murmured into his tunic. 'I'll miss him, though he was away at sea for much of the year.' Hilda turned her beautiful face up to John, causing him to think inconsequentially how different it was from Nesta's. Where the Welsh woman had rounder features with a snub nose, Hilda's face was longer, with higher cheek-bones and a slim, straight nose below her blue eyes.
He led her back to her chair and drew up a stool to be close to her side.
'There are many practical matters to be dealt with, Hilda. But I will do all I can to help you with them.'
She nodded, drying her moist cheeks with the hem of her sleeve, then ordered the maid to fetch some wine and pastries. When the girl had rather reluctantly left the room, Hilda laid her hand on his.
'There has been a very special bond between us for many years, John. I wish with all my heart that I could have become your wife instead of Thorgils', but it was not possible.' She leant across and kissed his stubbbly cheek. 'But we must not turn this tragedy to our own advantage I am a new widow and you have your Nesta.'
De Wolfe knew that he was being gently warned off, and it reinforced his determination to be fathful to his Welsh mistress, if not his wife. Yet a trace of disappointment niggled in his mind, though even that was soothed by her next words. 'Time may alter matters, John, so let us have patience.'
'Bring her around!' Esumaro did not mean to scream the order but he saw the danger of capsizing before many more moments had passed.
The men on the tiller, already alert to the danger, were throwing their weight against it, defying the rage of wind and sea. The waves were coming higher and were more curling than before, flinging themselves at the ship like anxious, clawing hands, accompanied by a deafening shrieking wind. Esumaro was praying silently, his skin cold and not from the weather conditions. His breath came in quick, short gasps. For a moment or two, the ship seemed to stand still, defying man and weather to move her, and then, reluctantly, slowly, she swung her bow back on course.
Esmaro's jaws clenched tight and he peered anxiously forward. They must be nearing what the locals called Island Point and Black Point. He knew there were shallow banks there but with such a sea running he should be able to negotiate his way through with plenty of water under his keel.
'A light dead ahead, Captain!' cried Coros.
Esumaro stared in surprise into the blackness of the sheeting rain.
