Page 70 of Bane Bloom

On returning to my room, I half hoped to find another grimoire page from Prudence, whom I had, unaccountably, begun to think of almost as a friend. But the room was unchanged from the last time I’d left it.

For a while I sat by the window, pretending to myself that I wanted to sketch while actually I watched and hoped for a glimpse of Thomas. But I saw no sign of him around his hut or anywhere else, and eventually I did begin to sketch one of the plants I’d collected a sample from today.

Cronewort

Sleep, digestion, irregular menses, wounds

Visions, dreams, protection

Instead of a straightforward botanical illustration, I found myself sketching an old woman wearing a dress with a skirt made from the long, raggedy leaves. She wound twine around a bunch of silvery stalks bearing tiny blossoms that I’d later paint red-pink, perhaps using the same color for the dress’s bodice.

I lost myself so completely that I only stopped when I realized the room had grown too dark to see. I lit a candle and stirred the ash in the fireplace, hoping for some hot coals. Once I had the fire going, I put on my nightdress and climbed into bed.

I took up Plant Lore of Britain from the bedside table and found an entry for cronewort, Artemisia vulgaris, also known as mugwort. Mr. Bane had written a lengthy description, mentioning the herb had a strong traditional association with wortcunners and witches, but one passage particularly captured my attention.

According to the writings of Pliny the Elder, the genus was named for Artemisia II of Caria—one of a select few plant genera to be named after a lady botanist. Artemisia II was a remarkable woman of antiquity (c. 395–c. 351 BCE), renowned for being queen of an empire as well as a naval commander, scholar, and medical researcher.

It sounded as though Artemisia II and Hildegard of Bingen, had it been possible to bridge centuries, might have had some very interesting conversations. The fact that both women had been mentioned in such a slim volume made me wonder how many other women had been buried by the keepers of history. It came to me then that one of Prudence’s given names was Artemisia—I’d seen it in her diary and on her headstone. Mr. Bane had apparently not been such a keeper.

I set the book aside and stared at the ceiling, wondering whether Thomas had become exasperated enough to spend the night in his hut rather than in the house. I had half a mind to find him and apologize; I didn’t know if I could sleep with this new tension between us. But I didn’t like chasing after him. Not after last night, which had ended with him attempting to insert some distance between us.

I was considering going down to the glasshouse for cronewort—Plant Lore had stated the herb could be safely ingested for sleep, if one wasn’t with child—when it became unnecessary.

I woke with a gasp. The dreadful dream from the previous night had come again, continuing from exactly where it had ended before, with someone or something dragging me by the ankles down into the green depths. In the final moment before waking, I glimpsed the white horse again, great hooves churning water as he swam toward me, his milky coat turned sallow in the strange light.

“Just another dream, lass.”

With another gasp, my eyes popped open. I was looking at my own hand, pale against a swath of bronzed chest traced with mahogany hair.

“Thomas?” I breathed.

“I heard you from the other room,” he said. “I worried someone was with you.”

“No, I . . .” I struggled to dispel the cobwebs still clouding my mind. But I didn’t dare move, lest he draw away from me. “It was the same dream from last night.”

He nodded, and I shivered as his chin brushed the top of my head. Slowly I took in the fact that he had come to my bed, and he had wrapped himself around me. Like last night, he was naked from the waist up, the rest of him clothed in loose linen drawers.

“Catherine,” he said after a while, “I want to apologize to you. It’s not my place to judge you, nor do I even wish to.”

My heart pulsed. “Well, I could have found a gentler way to push back. And there was some truth in what you said.” I hesitated before adding, “I’m sorry I angered you.”

His arm snugged up against my back, and my breath caught. “Nay. I was angry at myself. At the situation we’re in. Not at you. Never at you, lass.”

Flames burst to life at my core. I felt the hot movement of blood through my body.

I took slow breaths until I thought I could speak evenly again.

“I have felt judged by you at times. Yet I can’t really fault your observations.”

“I’ve not meant for there to be judgment or callousness in the things I’ve said to you. It’s only that . . . I suppose I’ve made a study of you in the same way you’ve been studying the glasshouse. And sometimes I speak when I ought to listen.”

Actually, he seemed to me quite a good listener. But this wasn’t the most interesting thing he’d said. “Why would you wish to study me, Thomas? I’m no more than a temporary nuisance inflicted on you by the Society.”

He let out a husk of a laugh. “I don’t know, lass. I only know that it’s so.”

A candle still burned on the bedside table, and I pulled back from him enough to look him in the eye. I trembled as I said, “Then tell me, at least, why you’ve come to me like this. Was it only that you wished to apologize?”

His eyes moved over my face, resting a moment on my lips, and heat flooded my belly again.