Hugh was unconcerned. "I trust she will be far too busy managing affairs on the manor to give overmuch time to thinking about why I suddenly decided to travel to London."

"Aye," Benedict said thoughtfully. "She will relish the opportunity to take command once more. Mayhap it will even take her thoughts off her failure to hold my inheritance."

"Your sister thrives on challenge, Benedict. I believe that the task of helping me turn Scarcliffe into a prosperous manor will entice her into marriage far more effectively than a casket full of jewels."

Three mornings later Alice stood alongside Joan and watched as a thatcher clambered up onto another roof to begin repairs.

"Only three more cottages to go and then they will all be finished," Alice observed with satisfaction. "If we are fortunate, they will be done by the time Lord Hugh returns from London. He will be pleased."

Joan chuckled. "To say nothing of the people who live in those cottages. Winter will soon be upon us. If Lord Hugh had not provided for the repairs, I fear some of these good folk would have faced the snow with holes in their roofs."

"My lord would not have allowed that to happen. He takes care of his own." Alice started off down the street to inspect the progress on the new refuse ditch. The reek of the old one decreased daily as the men worked to bury the contents beneath a thick layer of dirt.

Joan looked at her as she fell into step beside her. "You have great faith in Lord Hugh's intentions for this manor, do you not?"

"Aye. 'Tis most important to him. He is a man who does not turn aside from a goal or a responsibility." Alice gazed about at the tiny village. Already it appeared less dreary. The air of hope that clung to it gave it a healthy sheen.

The past three days had passed in a whirlwind of activity for Alice. She had leaped into the task of supervising Scarcliffe affairs the minute Hugh and his party had vanished in a cloud of dust. It had been invigorating to assume such responsibilities once more. She was good at this sort of thing.

It occurred to her that she had not experienced such a degree of cheerful enthusiasm for any project since Ralf had forced her from her home.

Hugh had given her this gift, she thought. She wondered if he had any notion of how much she valued it.

A loud knock on her bedchamber door roused Alice from her sleep two nights later.

"Lady Alice," a muffled voice called. "Lady Alice."

Alice sat up slowly. She tried to collect her wits. They had been scattered by a strange and disturbing dream involving dark corridors and an unseen menace.

"Lady Alice."

"One moment," Alice called.

She pushed aside the heavy curtains that hung around the bed and reached for her night robe. She slid off the high bed and went, barefoot, across the carpet to answer the door.

She opened it a crack and saw a young maid with a candle waiting in the hall. "What is it, Lara?"

"I pray your pardon for waking you at this hour, m'lady, but there are two nuns from the village convent in the hall. They said that Prioress Joan sent them."

Alarm swept through Alice. Something must be terribly wrong. "I'll dress and go downstairs at once."

"Aye, m'lady." Lara frowned. "Best bring a cloak. I believe they mean for you to return to the village with them."

Alice opened the door wider. "Use your candle to light my own."

"Aye, m'lady." Lara moved quickly into the bedchamber.

Alice dressed swiftly. When she was ready she grabbed her heavy woolen cloak and hurried downstairs.

The two nuns waited near the cold hearth. Dunstan and his men, roused from their pallets by their arrival, stood quietly in the shadows.

The women looked toward Alice with anxious expressions.

"Prioress Joan sent us to ask if you will come to the miller's house, my lady," one of the women said. "Their youngest son is dreadfully ill. The healer has exhausted her remedies and does not know what else to try. The prioress hoped you might have some advice."

Alice recalled the laughing, dark-haired little boy she had seen playing outside the miller's door. "Of course I will come with you but I do not know what I can do. If Sister Katherine has no answers, then I doubt that I will have any."

"Prioress Joan thought that you might have learned of some special medicine from your mother's work."

Alice stilled. "My mother was a very learned woman but some of her recipes are dangerous." Some can kill.

"Prioress Joan and the healer believe that Young John is dying, my lady," the second woman said quietly. "They say there is nothing left to lose."

"I understand." Alice picked up her skirts and turned to climb the tower stairs. "I will fetch my mother's handbook of recipes and bring it with me."

When she returned a few minutes later, Dunstan moved out of the shadows.

"I will escort you to the miller's cottage," he said brusquely.

"There is no need," Alice said.

"There is every need," Dunstan muttered. "Sir Hugh would likely hang me from the keep's battlements if I allowed you to go out alone at night."

A short time later Alice rushed into the miller's small cottage just as Katherine placed a cool cloth on Young John's fevered brow.

Alice was horrified by the changes the illness had wrought in the lively boy she had seen scampering about only that morning. His eyes were closed. He lay wan and limp on top of the bedding, his small body hot to the touch. His breathing was labored and desperate. He whimpered fretfully once or twice but he seemed unaware of those who hovered anxiously around him.

"There is nothing more I can do." Katherine rose to her feet. "He's in God's hands now."

Her face was more somber than usual but there was no other sign of emotion in her features. She seemed distant, Alice thought, almost detached, a healer who knew and accepted the limits of her medicines. How different her own mother had been. Helen had never surrendered until death had claimed its victim.

Joan crossed herself.

The miller's wife cried out with a mother's anguish and burst into fresh tears. Her husband, a barrel-chested, kind-faced man, gathered her close and awkwardly patted her shoulder.

"There, there," he whispered over and over again. He looked helplessly at Alice over his wife's shoulder. His own eyes were damp. "Thank you for coming, my lady."

"Of course," Alice said absently. Her attention was on the small patient. She went to stand beside his pallet. Her mother's words came back to her as she gazed down at Young John. Determine all the symptoms before you apply the remedy.

Joan spoke softly from the other side of the pallet. "I realize there is likely little to be done but I could not abandon all hope entirely until we had consulted with you."

"I know the usual remedies for fevers of the lungs," Alice said quietly. "As does Sister Katherine. I assume you've applied the appropriate ones?"

"Aye," Katherine said stiffly. "All that I know. But this fever does not respond to medicines."

Young John's mother sobbed louder. The miller closed his eyes in pain.

Joan's eyes met Alice's. "You told me that your mother was a learned healer and that she had developed many unique potions and tonics. Do you know of anything that we can try?"

Alice tightened her grip on the leather-bound handbook she carried. "There are one or two infusions that my mother created for strange fevers that are accompanied by lung infections. But she advised great caution in their use. They may be very dangerous."

"Can anything be more lethal than what this child faces?" Joan asked simply.