The monk rushed down the hallway, slipping quietly between others as they walked the halls. So common a sight had he become that even the nobles greeted him in some instances, though he did little more than raise a hand and sweep past.
“Monk! Oh, Monk! Wait!” The voiced stopped the scurrying, shrouded figure. “I wanted to thank you for helping the Duke.” Blaine's greeting was mild, and his manner almost diffident towards Monk. “I've learned much from our conversations.” He chuckled then, “Such as they are.”
Monk turned towards the stables and began walking again, motioning for the good physician to follow. They walked for a few minutes in relative silence, until Blaine continued. “I have a bit of an issue about which I must speak to you, however.”
Monk's head tilted in interest. It was as close as the small man ever came to asking, “What's that?” and made Blaine grin. He really liked the small man, even more for his knowledge and his many gifts. Though he suspected strongly that the reason the monk was always shrouded was that the monk wasn't at all a man. One couldn't spend hours grinding herbs and not notice the delicacy of one's teacher's hands. But it mattered little to not at all to him. If anything, he had often thought that the women sometimes seen as witches were really just women with training in the old ways of herbs.
But of course, that wasn't what this was about, so he began to explain to her what he thought might be the next steps in caring for the Duke. They walked as he talked, and when they reached the barn, he immediately saw why Monk had been hurrying.
“Go ahead,” he said, gesturing in the direction of the laboring horse. “I think we've covered it all, and that you probably know if I missed anything.” He chuckled and turned to a stablehand to ask for his horse to be readied for the ride to town.
Watching the monk scurry off towards the other end of the barn, he sighed and shook his head wryly. When the stablehand brought his horse, he told the other man, “I sometimes think I'll never really catch up to the modern age.”
Obviously confused, the stablehand said simply, “Aye sir, as you please.” Then he, too, was gone, and Blaine turned towards home.
As he rode away, he thought how much the world was changing, and how strange things had become around the Duke's castle. Little did he know that the past and the future had merged there, in a strange convergence of factors.
Monk, in the meantime, was busy helping a mare about to foal. Soon she was joined by the stablemaster, and all thoughts of Blinn and Elizabeth, and even Andrew were forgotten as they struggled together to deliver the breached foal.
Some time later, she bitterly regretted that she couldn't speak, for she needed someone with more strength than the elderly stablemaster, or herself. While she was strong for her size, she didn't have the strength to hold the struggling mare at the same time that she tried to turn the struggling foal.
She rushed out of the stable, and into the hallway of the stable, slamming so hard into the hard wall of a man's chest that she staggered backwards and nearly fell. Powerful hands grasped her and held her up. Glancing up to find it was Andrew, a shiver ran down her back. He didn't know, of course, the effect he had on her even with such a polite and disinterested touch. And now was not the time to tell him.
Gesticulating madly, she half led and half dragged him into the stall. There, she showed him what she needed, and began to move the foal inside the womb of the mare, her arms bare up to the middle of her upper arm. Concerned only for the health and welfare of the horse, she did what had to be done.
Working hard, she leaned in to reach deeper, and felt a thrill of triumph sear through her. She grasped the foal's nose, apologizing to him mentally for what she was about to do, and pulled it roughly into the proper position. Grunting, she pulled her arms back, covered with blood and birth fluids.
Turning to the bucket, she gestured for Andrew to release the mare, who lifted her head and began to strain into the birth. A small nose appeared, and then with her next heave, a head and neck. Thrilled, monk lifted her arms and made a small, inarticulate squealing sound.
Unable to hold back her joy, she grinned up at Andrew, lost in the moment of the newly arriving life. His head swung towards her, a grin on his face. In the last instant, she looked down and away, remembering nearly too late that she was now in disguise. She'd spent most of the day speaking more freely with him, and had nearly forgotten to hide.
She looked up askance at him, and saw him staring at her, a strange look on his face. She shivered as the fear flickered through her that perhaps he had seen her after all. But then, he shrugged and turned back, grinning again.
She breathed a sigh of relief, but also of consternation. It would have been the perfect moment to tell him... but she hadn't, and the moment was past.
Even moreso when a cheerful voice from behind said, “I've brought ye dinner, Monk!”
Monk bowed to Andrew, then turned towards Betsy.
“Oh, Sir Bruce, I didn't expect you. I'm terrible sorry, I didn't bring 'nuff for us all.” The poor woman had turned beet red, and was bobbing up and down in obvious distress.
“Not to worry, ma'am,” Andrew said. “I'll just go get something from the Duke's kitchen. I've got an in with one of the scullery maids. She'll get me something to eat, I'm sure.” And with an affable grin at the maid, he strolled off down the hallway, stopping to wash his hands at the spigot.
Monk followed suit a moment later, her stomach in knots. What had he meant by an 'in' with--
“So,” Betsy interrupted her musings, “I've got the most amazing news. My friend Maggie, see, she's dating Jack, one o' the footmen. An' he says that 'e had to follow along b'hind the Duke with Dan-- 'e's another footman, see-- and they was ta make sure that 'Is Lordship weren't never alone with that con-cun-connivin' Lady, Isabel. 'Twas he what ran off and got dem other men and brought dem back so's they could save the Duke.
“'E was real scared, he was, but he was told ta stay back no matter what 'appened. He didn't even 'ave a bow or nothin'. Did ya know that the Duke was attacked? Right 'ere, on 'is own property! Can ya imagine?”
The maid rattled on, sometimes between bites, and sometimes spewing food in her eagerness to get the story out. Monk listened with great interest, realizing the import of what was being said. York had expected it. Not only had he expected it, but he'd prepared for it.
On the one hand, it meant that Elizabeth need not worry that he'd allowed himself willingly to fall into the trap, and the Diana part of Monk couldn't wait to tell the other woman. Yet on the other side, she also wondered what it meant on a larger scale.
Where had the attack come from, and why? And why and how had York expected the manipulations of Isabel Harker?
Eventually, Monk managed to shuffle Betsy out the door, and settled into a warm pile of straw to rest. The night was likely to be very cold, and by now, evening had fallen.
Inside the castle, in the quiet, nearly deserted kitchen, Andrew sat at a table generally used for the servants' meals, and talked quietly with Nigel.
“I don't know what came over me. I could have sworn that Monk was a woman tonight. But he's always seemed perfectly male to me before.”
“Exhaustion?” Nigel asked.
Andrew grunted. “I highly doubt it. I'm reasonably fit. I'd like to think I could handle more than a minor hunt and a minor battle.”
“Well, spending the whole day flirting is enough to addle most men's brains. I'd be surprised if you were any more immune to it than the rest of us,” Nigel said, a smug grin on his face.
Andrew laughed. “When I find you in the throes of flirting, my man, I will remember this day, and return the favor.” Then he sobered up significantly. “I worry, though, that Blinn may perhaps be even more exhausted than I, and in even greater trouble.”
“What do you mean?” Nigel asked.
“Well. It seems that Baliol has a strong desire to watch over him, and Isabel Harker a strong desire to snare him,” Andrew said.
Nigel looked at him sharply. “He knew about Isabel, and prepared for it,” he said dismissively. “But what about Baliol?”
Andrew shook his head. “I can't tell you, my friend, I'm sorry. I don't know you well enough to know what tales you may bear. Perhaps in time we'll become good enough friends that I can entrust such things to you.”
They then exchanged pleasantries, and headed for bed. On his way to his chambers, it occurred to Nigel that with the wording of Andrew's parting statements, the other man may well be testing him to find out if he'd expose his breach of confidence to York or to Baliol. He stopped in the hallway, struck still in spot. Was Andrew trying to get him to warn York? Or was he testing him to see where his loyalties lay?
Then he wondered if he were perhaps being paranoid about the whole thing. Perhaps the other man had meant things exactly as he had said, and there was nothing to read into it.
Either way, he decided, he would mention it to York. While the man had changed significantly since Nigel had last seen him, Nigel still counted him a friend. And he wondered if perhaps the attack today had something to do with Baliol, rather than the Scots as it seemed.
He was, of course, unaware of the attack on Baliol the year prior.
He determined to tell York the next day, and went on towards his bed. It would wait, he was certain, and it wouldn't do to wake the man for no good reason. Soon, sleep claimed him, and the castle fell into peaceful darkness and the quiet of sleeping people.
Circumstances do not make a man, they reveal him.
- James Allen
Success is a matter of a few simple disciplines, practiced every day. Failure is a few errors in judgement, repeated every day.
- Jim Rohn