"Of course" came the reply. "This is, after all, your home." The last was said a bit tartly, and Elf heard the change in tone in her companion’s voice.

Isleen knows if Dickon dies that Ashlin is mine. She is bitter about it, Elf thought. "Thank you," she told Isleen.

Isleen shrugged. "I will leave you to your work, then, Eleanore," she said, and hurried back up the garden path.

"My baby! Is it really you?" An old woman hobbled into view.

"Ida!" Elf’s face broke into a smile, and she enfolded the elderly nursemaid in her embrace. "Oh, Ida! How good it is to see you once again. Dickon tells me you have not spoken to him since I went to St. Frideswide's. That was really very bad of you, and now my poor brother lies ill unto death, I fear. I need your help, Ida."

"Now that you are here, my baby, I will enter that house again, and make my peace with the lord Richard. I swore I would not do it until you returned, and I have kept my promise." The old lady’s jaw was set firmly with her resolve, and her hazel eyes were sharp.

"But what if I had not come home, Ida?" Elf gently said. "Surely you could not have allowed Dickon to go to his grave without your forgiveness?"

"How could I forgive him when he chose her over his own blood?" Ida said fiercely. "It was her duty as lady of the manor to raise her husband’s younger sister as your mother was dead, God as-soil the lady Adeliza’s good and pure soul! Great heiresses have gone into their husband’s homes and raised their younger brothers and sisters, and even their children from earlier marriages. But not that one!"

"You do not like her," Elf said quietly. "Why? Surely not just because Dickon sent me away, Ida?"

"It began with that," Ida told her former charge.