Dark Angels. Katherine Langrish

       C H A P T E R 3

      Nest — that was her true name, though she tried to think of herself as Agnes — came out of her freezing bedchamber, clasping a cushion in front of her chest like some kind of round, padded shield. She’d endured the cold as long as she could, just for the luxury of being on her own. She’d sat reading by candlelight until her fingers were numb and shaking, and she was afraid she’d tear the precious pages. Now she stood on the high landing at the top of the stairs, her shivers gradually decreasing in the mild smoky air of the Great Hall, and looked over the rail into the vast, fire-flickering space below.

      Rain burst against the shutters. The Hall was warm, silent and pleasantly gloomy. Soon it would fill up with noisy men and their muddy boots, and the smells of sweat and wet wool and wet dogs. But for now they were all out — except the unlucky few stuck at their posts on the watchtower and the gate. The only two people downstairs were Howell the priest, and her nurse Angharad. It was probably safe to go down…

      She leaned further over the rail. Just as she’d thought, Angharad and old Howell were both asleep. Howell’s white head nodded forward over his stick, which he clasped between his knees. Angharad was sitting on a stool near the fire. Her sewing had slipped from her lap, and she snored softly.

      Nest drummed her fingers on the taut fabric of the cushion. She didn’t mind Howell, but Angharad was such a chatterbox. If she woke up, she would want to start gossiping about Godfrey of La Blanche Land. Again. Nothing could stop Angharad once she started. She would go on talking even if Nest refused to answer.

      “You’re very quiet,” she would giggle. “Dreaming of Lord Godfrey? Don’t you worry, my cariad, it won’t be long before he comes and then we’ll know all about him. What a handsome little boy he was, the day you were betrothed! You won’t remember, you were only little. He had dark hair just like yours — though I prefer a fair-haired man myself, like your noble father. My own second husband was a fair-haired man, God rest him. The first was an old dotard I would never have picked for myself, but of course I had no choice in the matter. Thirteen I was at the time, just the same age as you are now. But it wasn’t long before a cold on the chest carried him off, the poor silly fellow. He should have listened to me when I told him to wear his old brown cloak with the double lining. ‘You should wrap up,’ I said, ‘you’re not as young as you were. At your time of life it’s better to be warm than smart.’ But oh no, he knew best, off he went and came back coughing. ‘It’s your own fault,’ I told him, as I sat at his sickbed. ‘You have nobody to blame but yourself.’ He died, in spite of the fact that I never left his side, and then I was free to marry my Dafydd. Thirteen is young to wed, but I believe in girls marrying young. It keeps them steady. If only you hadn’t lost your dear lady mother, and your noble father hadn’t taken the Cross and gone off to fight those wicked Saracens —” here she would cross herself “— curse them, then you might have been married already! At least Lord Godfrey’s a young man. Many a poor lady has to marry a greybeard old enough to be her father. I don’t hold with that. Winter marrying spring, I call it. January and May should never wed, but with you and Lord Godfrey it will be like May marrying June!”

      Nest picked viciously at the cushion, tugging out a loose thread. She didn’t feel a bit May-like. If she had to be a month, she thought it would be a very early, chilly March, with frost on the ground and ice on the puddles. But it was no use saying that kind of thing to Angharad, because Angharad never listened. She could go on for hours, wondering aloud whether Godfrey was tall or short, sporting or bookish, plain or handsome — until Nest had to bite the insides of her cheeks and twist her ankles around each other and clench her fingers in her lap to stop herself from flying to pieces.

      Down by the fire, Angharad twitched and let out a soft snore. Nest decided to risk it. Plucking up her skirt she tiptoed quickly downstairs. In the pool of light cast by the fire, the rushes covering the floor glowed a bright, summery green. They were clean — swept out and replaced every week — and gave off a faint, fresh scent. Nest dropped her cushion, sat on it, and kicked off her leather shoes. She wrapped her arms around her knees and pushed out stockinged feet to the blaze.

      The hearth was octagonal, flat, with a border of old roof tiles sunk edgewise into the earth in a herringbone pattern. The big logs burned on an iron grid, dripping bright flakes on to a dragon-hoard of glowing embers. The heat played on her skin. Her face baked, and the folds of her green woollen dress were soon almost scorching. The last of her shivers died. It was glorious.

      In the warm drift of ashes at the edge of the hearth something stirred — something the size of a very big tomcat. It shook off a snowfall of ash, sneezed, and said in a wheezing voice like a leaky bagpipe, “Come down for a bit of a warm, have you, young missis?”

      “It’s Lady Agnes to you!”

      “That’s right,” the thing went on, ignoring this, “you wiggle them pretty little toes.” It stretched a horny hand towards her feet, as if to rub them.

      Nest pulled her skirt over her toes. “Oh no, you don’t!”

      “Ho ho!” It clicked its tongue annoyingly and sniggered. “Standoffish, eh? You’ll have to be nicer than that to Lord Godfrey, when he comes. What’s the matter? I’ve known you since you was a babby. Don’t you like me any more?”

      “I don’t approve of you,” Nest told it crisply.

      “What for? Just acos I’m a bwbach — a poor old hearth-hob?”

      “Not because you’re a hob,” Nest said. “Because you’re so lazy. We had a hearth-hob at Our Lady’s In-the-Wood, and it was always busy. The nuns used to say they didn’t know what they would do without it. It swept and cleaned and polished, and it would leave sweet little bunches of flowers for Mother Aethelflaed to put in front of the shrine of Our Lady, just as if it was a Christian.”

      The hearth-hob made a rude noise with its lips, but it saw that Nest wasn’t listening. Glassy tears swam in her eyes and looked in danger of spilling over. She hugged her knees tight and bent her head.

      “I wish I was still there,” she said, muffled into her skirt.

      “Oh, I dunno,” the hob said awkwardly. “Can’t have been much fun, stuck in a convent — eh?”

      “Oh, it was!” Nest sniffed. “It was so civilised. Every evening we would sit, and Mother Aethelflaed or one of the sisters would read aloud, and then we would converse—”

      “What d’you call this?” said the hob. “We’m conversating now, ain’t we?”

      “Oh, but about interesting things,” said Nest passionately. “About stars and planets — about saints and miracles — about beasts and birds and far-off lands—”

      The hob coughed. “There’s a rat’s nest in the pantry, I knows that,” it offered.

      “Don’t be stupid!” Nest lifted a wet face and glared at it. “That’s exactly what I mean. Nobody here can talk about anything but wolves and dogs and horses.”

      “Rats ain’t exactly—” the hob began, but Nest swept on.

      “And there were lots of books there, and music — we would sing together. Play harps. I wanted to do something great, hob.”

      “Er?”

      “I don’t know what.” Nest stared into the smoky heights above the fire. “Write about a saint’s life so that everyone could read it, perhaps. Or become the abbess of a holy house and inspire people and save souls. Or go on a pilgrimage to Rome or Jerusalem.”

      She dropped her face back on to her knees. “But I’ve got to get married.”

      “That’ll be all right,” the hob encouraged her. “You’ll have lots of lovely bouncing babbies, right?” It gave her a sly glance. “I loves babbies. Cunning little things — dribbling and