The small table with the remains of their simple meal caught her eye. The few scraps of bread didn’t appeal. A half-full stone wine bottle did. Benedict had told her once he favored alcohol to help him sleep, to take the pains from his battle-weary limbs, to make him forget the terrible sights he’d seen. Perhaps it would help her pain in the same way.
Theodosia went over to the table and picked up the bottle. A sniff to the open top had her wrinkle her nose. It smelled like the stuff he’d made her sip, had splashed over her in the kitchen at Knaresborough. Wine might be made from grapes, but it had a peculiar sharp scent. Further, it was a sinful potion that robbed men and women of their senses, made them fight. Lust. She went to replace it, then halted.
So if it did cause sin? Why should she care anymore? Her days of virtue and purity had been for naught. She could achieve no rest, she was marked with evil. Now, if she chose to indulge as the rest of the world did, it would not matter. With hands that shook, she picked up a goblet and poured a full measure.
She put the bottle down and brought the goblet to her lips. Again, the heavy scent of the wine prickled the inside of her nose. She took a sip. Bitterness flooded into her mouth, a soil-like taste and scent mingled together. Her tongue curled.
As she wondered how anyone could tolerate such a thing, the liquid hit her stomach. Strange warmth began to grow there, as if she had a low fire within. She took another mouthful. The bitterness was less this time, and the subtlest taste of fruit broke through. The heat brought by the first mouthful increased and spread along her arms, her legs. This was what Benedict must have meant. She drank again, and it tasted almost palatable. A final mouthful emptied the goblet, and she replaced it on the table. A slight wooziness in her head should have prevented her from having any more. Should have. She filled another goblet and drank it down in one untasted draught. She wiped her mouth with her fingers. Now perhaps she’d sleep — her head spun as if she might faint.
Theodosia considered her narrow, hard bed with its tousled covers and scratchy straw mattress. She’d lain in it for hours already without closing an eye. Hours where she had thought of her mother, the King, Thomas. She clenched her fists in frustration. Here they came again, the same thoughts, the same pictures in her head. The wretched wine hadn’t worked, whatever Benedict might claim. She needed to get out of this room, try somehow to break this horrible repeated wheel in her mind.
She made her way out the door and onto the deserted corridor. A large window stood at one end, secured with iron bars rather than the rare, expensive glass of the church. It faced the open sky to light one end of the corridor. Through it, she could see the small moon hang in the starlit sky. She went toward it to get a better view. Funny how the chill night air seeping from it seemed to bother her little, even though she was dressed only in her thin shift and underskirts.
As she stepped up to the barred window, she caught her breath. On the quayside, the sea had lapped dirty against the dock, hidden by the jam of boats and humanity. But from this high window, the water glistered with starlight and the mirrored moon, opening out before her, promising her a world of wonder, of possibility. She had a sudden desire to leave the hostel, to go out and get on the first boat to leave, put this life and its heartbreaking history behind her. She put a hand to the bars as if they might part before her touch. Of course they didn’t. They stayed resolute, cold, hard, like all the barriers in her short existence. Barriers put up by her mother. By Edward. By the church. Even by her beloved Thomas.
“Theodosia?” Benedict’s voice made her start.
She turned from the window.
The knight stood at the door of his room in woolen breeches and half-open shirt, his dark hair rumpled from bed. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I could not sleep.”
“Waiting for Satan again?” His sleep-filled tone was kind, but she shook her head in a terse reply.
He came up to her and put a wide palm on her arm. “You’re shivering. You need to go back to bed and get warm.”
“I’m not cold. I’m upset. Sickened. Angry.”
“About what?”
“Not what. Who.” She shook him off and paced again, eyes fixed on the stretch of open water beyond the window. “Everyone. Mama. My fa — the King. Edward, the whole church. Even Becket.”
Benedict took a sharp breath. “Theodosia. Think of what you say. Becket laid down his life, paid the highest price. For you.”
She halted and looked at him. “What about my life? I was disposed of as neatly as a set of soiled rags. Buried alive on the pretense of serving God.”