The Black Knight of Ashfern

Chapter 11

Nan sat at the edge of her bed, brushing her hair with the silver-handled brush that had been provided to her. It was a distant familiarity that fueled her movements and caused her to pause as she tried to recall the last time she had been so clean, the last time she'd had a brush run through her hair and not a hasty combing of her own fingers. The last time, she had been in such a fine house for longer than a few minutes.

Such things seemed so far away, like an illusion waving in the distance, tricking her into seeing something that wasn't there. Even the here and now seemed unreal, like some bizarre dream she had stumbled into. Still, the sensation that it would all slip from her fingers dangled at the edge of her mind, creating an unpleasant knot in her stomach. She did not like the ease with which her surrounding reality had come to her despite the comfort it afforded her and Jamie. She still did not know Sir William well enough to trust him to adhere to the conditions they had struck for Jamie's care. Though he seemed content enough to leave him to her for now.

Shaking her head, she lowered the brush to her lap as she thought on her situation, her eyes turning to the exquisite material of her bedding: a deep twilight blue fabric laced with bloody reds and bright gold and white designs, her fingers idly tracing the patterns of the coverlet, pulling her thoughts away from the matter of Sir William and his demand that she stay with him.

It was a soft knock at her door that brought her attention from the bedding to the door as it slowly creaked open, and Jamie's head popped in. A deal cleaner than it had been when she'd last seen him helping clean the kitchen he had so energetically dirtied.

"Oh good, yer still up." He grinned, running into her room, jumping onto the bed, and placing himself right next to Nan in a flurry of bouncing giggles as the bed puffed greatly from his landing.

"Aye, I'm still up." She smiled at the boy grinning so brightly at her. "But, you shouldn't be." she admonished, glaring halfheartedly as she rose from the bed and went to shut the door he had left wide open. Allowing anyone who passed to see her in the nightgown that had been provided to her. A number of small items had been brought to Nan's chamber during the time she had been away from it. All the sheets had been removed from the furniture, the fireplace stocked, the bed made, and its curtains strung up. The only thing that had gone from her room, aside from the sheets, was the large painting that had hung over the mantle. Nan had only dwelled on that a moment before deeming the thought a waste of time and going about her business.

"How can anyone sleep in this big place?" Jamie whined. "It sounds funny." He added, wrinkling his nose at her.

"It only sounds funny because yer used to the wind howlin' through the walls," Nan remarked, walking back to the bed and sitting on its edge once more as she faced Jamie. "I see they put ye through a bath after all." she grinned at the boy while he glared at her in turn.

"Aye!" he snapped. "I'd just finished cleanin' when they up and grabbed me, hauled me outside, and dumped a barrel on me." he barked, crossing his arms over his small chest as he huffed at the memory while Nan did everything she could not laugh. Recalling the numerous times she'd have done the same if the little brat would have just held still long enough. "It ain't funny. The water for near freezin' it was." He announced.

"No, love. I imagine it was." Nan smirked at him, pulling him to her for a tight hug to soothe away his anger and frustration. The boy hated bathing with a fiery passion she had never understood. Though, she was quite certain it had to do with what had happened to him before she had found him, rather than just a childish phase he had yet to grow out of.

"We ain't leavin' here, are we?" Jamie asked, his tone calm and even, as it always was when he had figured out the truth for himself. It broke Nan's heart to hear such a voice from him; it pained her to a near-blinding degree as it gave new strength to old wounds that had never healed properly within her.