Alais asked Edwina when they were alone on their last afternoon in the merchant’s house in Southwark, preparing for the evening meal. “That you were not a man?” “Yes. I tried so hard not to give it away.” “Never fear, you did not. When I saw you I was convinced that you were a man, well, a boy. No, it was Hugh. He was so insistent that Edmund fetch you that I knew you were more to him than a physician. I guessed that Alfred was a disguise, but when I saw that you had short hair I took you for a boy.” She shifted uncomfortably in her seat where she was stirring something over the fire. “For a while I was afraid that Hugh had grown to be like Geoffrey.” Alais remembered the boy who had brought about Geoffrey’s death and her eyes opened wide in a new appreciation of what Hugh had carefully not told her. Hilda saw her expression. “No, I know he is not. Hugh is a good man. Such sin would be beyond him.” Wondering how Edwina seemed to know something that was not even whispered at Liss, Alais regained control of herself, “How did you know in the end?”
