Sir Guy of Gisborne comes back from the Holy Land, on his conscience the knowledge of having killed Marian. Appointed Sheriff of Nottingham in the place of Vaisey, he struggles to find a way to make up for his past wrongdoings, but it's a very hard...
Violet checked the linden and chamomile infusion she was preparing for her father, Sir William of Chetwood. As it was ready, she filtered it and the sweetened it with a little honey, before taking it to the dining room, where the elderly knight was waiting for her, sitting in front of the blazing fireplace. It was mid-March and it was still quite chilly, even if the snow had almost totally vanished from the fields.
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"Here you are, father", Violet said, offering him the ceramic cup with the infusion; the grey-haired man accepted it, smiling at her lovingly; he sported an almost completely white beard.
"Thank you, daughter", he said, "You're as good as you mother, with medicinal herbs."
Violet had learned the healing arts with herbal remedies from her mother Adèle, who had learned them in turn from her mother Marie, a native of Brocéliande whom many had though to be a witch.
"I wish I had more time to learn directly from her", Violet declared with a sigh, sitting next to her father, "The herbal medicine manuals she had copied for me when I married are a great help, but nothing is like direct experience."
"Fourteen years have passed since", William observed, sipping at the infusion, "You got a lot of experience."
"That's true", she confirmed, "even if sometimes I messed up things... like when, accidentally, I gave a purgative to that unpleasant Lady Rosalind, instead of a tonic", she added, grinning. William laughed: actually, the remedy had been administered on purpose to the petulant noblewoman, who dared to publicly reprimand Violet because she thought her behaviour was not proper for the royal court. Indeed, the young woman was quite temperamental, as her mother had been, and as Queen Eleanor herself was, and she hadn't let the presumptuous woman off that easy: Lady Rosalind had stayed in bed for two days with a dysentery.
After drinking some more, William observed with a sad smile:
"I miss your mother so much..."
"I, too, miss her a lot", Violet stated. Adèle had died five years before because of a fever, which not even her herbalist capability had found a remedy, not even with the help of the old healer, Matilda, who lived in Sherwood forest and who had assisted her until the end.
Rare thing among nobles, William and Adèle had married for love. The young Chetwood had been a very handsome boy and all the maidens were crazy about him, but William had always been pretty down to earth; when he had met Adèle, at Henry II Plantagenet's court, both were 15 years old and they had immediately fallen in love with each other; she was one of Queen Eleanor's ladies-in-waiting and, like her, she came from Aquitaine. The queen had looked favourably to their love and therefore, one year later, they got married. Their union had been blessed next year with the birth of their firstborn Jeffrey, who was fair like his father; now he was fighting in the Crusade with King Richard. Three years later, Violet was born, looking very much like her mother both in features and in fiery character, even if this was partially tempered by the typical reflexivity of her father.
