Read Online A Rose for the Crown by Anne Easter Smith - Free Book Online Page B

swinging their joined hands. An old gardener uncurled his aching back and doffed his hat to them with fingers as gnarled as the roots of the old rosebush he was pulling up. They hurried past him to where Elinor was tending a lavender bush. She ignored their sunny smiles and bade them take up a knife each and carefully cut stems of lovage and hyssop for drying. Kate loved the hyssop’sblue, pink and white flowers and had learned the plant was used to cleanse the body in the bath or to help with breathing when the lungs were infected. She brushed against some lemon balm, breaking the leaves and releasing their citron aroma into the air. She breathed the refreshing scent and happily went about her task. Yarrow will stop the flow of blood from a cut, and borage will dispel melancholy, Kate remembered from Elinor’s teaching. She truly enjoyed learning the healing powers of these beautiful plants and how to season foods with them. Elinor would lead the girls around the immaculately laid-out garden and pause for them to identify the different herbs—the bright green of the parsley plant, the gray-green leaves and violet-blue flowers of sage, the bushy, aromatic samphire with its yellow-green flowers, and the lacy, blue-green foliage of the bitter rue.
“Rue will ward off evil spirits,” Elinor had once told the girls, and Kate mischievously thought she might hang some of it inside her gown for protection from Elinor herself.
In the small dispensary, Elinor came into her own. She truly loved turning plants into salves, potions and infusions. She also grudgingly admitted that Kate had a gift for it, too, and it was a relief to Anne to hear her mother’s tone soften as she taught Kate the three methods of using herbs to their greatest advantage. “First infuse the leaves, stems and flowers in boiling water in a lidded pot and strain off the liquid,” she instructed. Later she showed her how to bring the plant parts to a boil in cold water and simmer them longer for a potent brew. Kate enjoyed crushing herbs with mortar and pestle for a poultice best of all. After a particularly trying day with Elinor, imagining she was grinding Elinor’s head in her bowl, Kate put her heart into it, winning a compliment from her teacher. Kate savored her time in the tiny room where row upon row of plants hung drying from a beam. Above a table, shelves, some fitted with drawers, held dried roots, seeds, leaves and flowerheads of all the plants Ightham cultivated, labeled in Elinor’s neat lettering. Kate was beginning to reap the reward of her reading lessons, and she was now able to decipher many of the strange names—boneset, alecost, comfrey, hound’s tongue, elecampane—and remember which part of the plant was used for which malady.
In the garden, the sun hung low over the orchards behind them andthe air had a definite October bite to it. Kate was placing some plants in a basket when a horn sounded and the dogs began to bark. The girls ran to see who had stirred them, and Elinor picked up the basket and followed. Edgar, the Mote’s seneschal, bustled over the bridge and arrived in time to see his master and several attendants rein in their mounts at the stables.
“Father!” Anne took Kate’s hand and raced towards Richard. Her father’s emerald cloak was covered with dust from the road, and he was wearing a two-day growth of beard. An enormous chaperon, its liripipe flung over one shoulder, crowned his head, making him seem larger than life. He saw his daughter and cousin flying across the grass to greet him and gave a shout of laughter, his blue eyes twinkling at the sight of them.
“Cock’s bones, my beauties, what a sight for these road-weary eyes you both are. Come, let me look at you.”
He held them both at arm’s length. Kate curtsied low. He seemed even more impressive than she remembered, and she felt small and insignificant beside him. Without Elinor to chastise her, Anne shed her timidity and flung her arms around her