A Whisper of Rosemary by Colleen Gleason Page A

listen to my commands, you’ll be wielding a lance in a week’s time.”
     
    “ Thank you my lady,” he said again, this time seriously.
     
    She urged him off the stool on which he’d perched. “On the next you ride with Papa, I will send some of my green salve with you to put on a cut such as this until you are home for me to treat.”
     
    She gathered up the rest of her medicines, packing some dried leaves and berries into a pouch to carry in her basket. “Off with you before cook puts you to work,” she said, shooing the young boys out of the herbary.
     
    Outside, the air was just as brittle as it had been early that morning. The sun was so bright that Maris found herself blinded at the change from the darker chamber, and walked full faced into a warm body.
     
    “ Do you not watch where you are going?” came a deep, amused voice. “Lady Maris?”
     
    “ Sir Dirick,” she was beginning to make out shapes now. She looked up where his face would be and her eyes immediately watered from the brightness of the sun. Blinking the tears back, she looked back down and saw his scuffed brown boots in the compressed snow of the bailey. “I’m sorry, it was so dark in the herbary and the sun is so magnificently bright, I could not see for a moment. I trust your confession was well received?”
     
    He grinned. “Aye, my lady, and well deserved, also.”
     
    “ And did you manage to obtain absolution for all your great sins?” she teased.
     
    This time he laughed. “Aye, but for that I had to work a bit harder.”
     
    “ Indeed. I hadn’t expected to see you emerge from the chapel so quickly,” she returned, now able to look up at the face that blocked the sun. “Father Abraham is not known for his simple penances—and with a confession such as yours, I should think you’d be saying paternosters until Judgment Day and selling your fine Nick to pay for all your pardons.”
     
    “ Nay, lady, my penance is much heavier than you could think.” His eyes twinkled like the brilliant snow, “Father Abraham bade me accompany a headstrong lady healer on her visits to keep her from getting trampled under the hooves of any more horses.” Before she could react, he relieved her arm of the herb filled basket and asked, “And since I myself have nearly been flattened by a lady healer, ’tis fitting that I take up my penance now. Where are you off to, Lady Maris?”
     
    “ Do you not have aught to do but dog along my footsteps?” she asked, yet unable to keep back a smile. “Does not Papa have work for you?”
     
    “ Aye, lady, ’twas he who sent me to find you—and ensure that you are back to the keep for this evening’s meal. He says you have missed too many suppers as of late. Now, again, where are we off to?”
     
    “ To visit the cooper,” she told him automatically. Her father had sent a strange knight to be her chaperone? A chaperone in Langumont?
     
    “ Ah, the cooper.” Dirick sobered, “Have you heard any news?”
     
    “ Nay. Widow Maggie—the village healer—would have sent to me if there were cause for concern. Yet, I still wish to see how the babes fare, and see that the smith’s daughter is still wet nursing them.”
     
    They trudged along the well packed snow through the gate of the bailey, over the drawbridge and into Langumont Village. Dirick watched in amazement as Maris greeted every person they encountered, by name and in their simple English language. She even ventured into the smoky, dark houses to see to a child with the ague, or show a woman how to make a draught for pain. Well accustomed to accepting the hospitality of the peasants that dwelled on his father’s lands, Dirick was still quite surprised at the ease with which Lady Maris did the same.
     
    He plodded along in her wake as a mere fixture to the lord’s daughter. This was the first he’d seen of Langumont Village in the light of day, and he took note of its condition with a watchful eye.
     
    There