The Winter Promise Read Online Free

that Helen had died at the hands of the thiefmen in Glastonbury forest.
    Elizabeth closed her eyes against the twist of pain. Whatever she might have expected, it was not this. She had suffered losses — so many losses — but she had never imagined she would lose Helen this way. She had had a letter from her sister in the early fall, but the letter had not mentioned a journey to Glastonbury, and Helen had merely added a postscript hoping to see Elizabeth in the spring at Winchester. Helen would have been delighted at the thought of surprising Elizabeth with a visit. She would have planned it carefully and shared her delight with a friend —
    Elizabeth opened her eyes and looked at the woman sitting across from her. How like Helen to take a Welsh woman, of all things, under her wing.
    Elizabeth’s voice sounded hoarse when she spoke. “Was it — did she suffer?”
    Imma did not answer immediately but fixed Elizabeth with her disconcerting violet eyes. Welsh eyes. Elizabeth hated the Welsh. She refused even to have Welsh bondservants. The soldiers swore by the ministrations of a certain Welsh wise woman here at Athelney but Elizabeth would not even allow her into the keep. She slept in a loft above the weaving workshop in the inner bailey, and even that was much too close for Elizabeth’s taste.
    The young woman had not answered the question. “My lady?” Elizabeth prompted.
    “It was not an easy death,” Imma finally said. “Nor quick.” Elizabeth flinched. How like the Welsh to tell the truth. A lie would have served just as well, and Elizabeth would have liked it better. “But Harold died defending her,” Imma added. “That would have meant something to Helen.”
    “Of course,” Elizabeth said brusquely, against the crushing pain in her heart. Harold had been a good man, like a brother. She had known him from the time he married Helen all those springs past. He had been seventeen or eighteen then, and Helen a few years younger, and they had had a happy marriage, one of the few loving marriage-bonds Elizabeth had seen. How many years ago had they married? Almost more than Elizabeth could remember. In her mind’s eye, she could still see the trembling smile on Helen’s face when Harold, well-satisfied and content, had taken his vows.
    “Helen was an idiot,” Elizabeth said. “Once Harold died, she would not have been able to carry on.” Unlike me, she did not need to say. She had never faltered after the deaths of either of her husbands, and when a third had not come forward after the second one had died, that lack had not distressed Elizabeth in any way.
    “Helen was very kind to me,” Imma said, as if Elizabeth cared about that. “When I arrived in Canterbury with no companions, she took a special interest in me, and helped me understand the English ways.”
    The arrow of pain drove deeper in Elizabeth’s heart. That was so like Helen, to take a bewildered foreigner and —
    “She was always fuzzy-headed and warm-hearted,” Elizabeth said. “From the time she was a girl. Most unsuitable in a grown woman.”
    “She was the only person in all of England who loved me,” Imma said.
    “Of course she was,” Elizabeth said. She meant it as a poor reflection on Helen’s character, but she could no longer hold back the tears. They came hot and fast, sliding down her cheeks more quickly than she could wipe them away.
    “I loved her, too,” said the horrible Welsh woman, kneeling next to Elizabeth’s chair, and holding out her arms. “We will miss her most grievously, my lady, both of us.”
    Then Elizabeth wrapped her arms around Imma’s shoulders, buried her face in Imma’s neck and cried as she had not done for more than fifty years, since she had left her home in Ruthwell at the age of fifteen to marry her first husband at Winchester.
    • • •
    “Here you be, mistress,” the chamber-thane said, throwing open the heavy wooden door to the bedchamber. “Elizabeth says, ‘She’ll not