Why was it that one only realized the full extent of one’s good fortune when it was lost?
“Where were you last night?”
Mary was combing her long dark hair, but her curious gaze was fixed upon Briar.
“I was asked to sing privately.”
“Oh.” Mary frowned for a moment as if she would ask more questions, and then smiled wistfully instead. “You sing so beautifully, Briar. I once overheard it said that your voice could heal the sick.”
Briar laughed bitterly. “I am become a holy relic! Mayhap the desperate will take pilgrimages to my door.”
“You should be thankful for such a gift.” Mary sounded disapproving, and not at all like her usual meek self.
Briar looked at Mary. Now that she thought of it, Mary’s behavior had been odd recently. Mayhap there was something wrong? Mary was always so biddable and quiet that Briar hardly noticed her. Had she been too intent upon her own problems to notice Mary’s?
“I am thankful for it,” she said matter-of-factly. “It has helped to keep us alive.”
“Sometimes...” Mary hesitated, setting down her comb. “Sometimes, Briar, I think I do not do enough.”
Briar was surprised. “You play your harp, Mary.”
“But there must be more I can do! You and Jocelyn coddle me as if I were still a baby.”
“You are a baby to us,” Jocelyn retorted, mopping the milk from Odo’s gray-flecked beard while he continued to stare vacantly before him.
“If our father had not died, I would be wed now.”
Briar smiled grimly. “If our father had not died, we would all have been wed now, Mary.”
“Do you think you would have been happy with Filby?” Jocelyn asked her curiously. “Mayhap you would have had the good fortune never to have learned what he really was.”
“How could I not have? I would have grown to hate him, I think.”
“Well, at least you discovered the truth about him, before it was too late.”
“Not quite too late.”
Jocelyn looked stricken, but before she could answer, another of the maidservants came hurrying into the kitchen. It was young Grisel, her small round face almost wild. Her voice burst out in a high-pitched whine.
“Thereisaman.”
The sisters looked to each other, startled. Mary giggled, and covered her mouth with her hand. Jocelyn frowned. “Speak more slowly, Grisel.”
The maid took a deep breath. “There is a man.”
“And?”
“He demands to speak with Briar, with the songstress.”
“He wants to speak to me?” Briar ran nervous hands over her hair, still uncombed and hanging tangled down her back. “Did you tell him I was not here?”
The girl shifted from foot to foot. “I tried to tell him you were not within, but he said you were. He was so big and so stern... I was frightened to say him nay! And he had such eyes... I think he could read inside my head, lady.”
Briar felt the floor tip beneath her own feet.
“So you told him she was here.” Jocelyn answered for her, with evident disgust.
“Aye.” The girl mumbled it apologetically.
