“The like to you, my mistress,” was the response. “Well, how fare you all? Be any of you sick? or can you do without me for a se’nnight?”
“Whither go you, Doctor?” gently asked Custance.
The Doctor’s brow grew graver. “On a sorrowful errand, friend,” he replied. “Our noble friends at Crowe are in sore trouble, for their little maid is grievous sick.”
“What, little Honor?” cried Arbel, pityingly.
“Ay, methinks the Master is come, and hath called for her. We might thank God, if we could see things as He seeth. The sorrows of her House shall never trouble her.”
“Poor child!” said Custance in her quiet voice. “Why, good Doctor, we be none of us truly sick, I thank God; but in sooth I did desire you should step in hither, touching Robin.”
“Touching whom?” asked Dr Thorpe with a faint sound of satire in his tone.
But the tone had no effect on Custance.
“Touching Robin,” she repeated. “I would fain have you to send him some physic, an’ it like you.”
“What shall I send him?” said the Doctor with a grim smile. “A bottle of cider? He lacketh naught else.”