A Time of End

by Le Veque, Kathryn

  Alexander took a few steps towards Christin, looking at the blood on her hands and the splatter on her bodice. Those dark eyes were piercing. “You’re going to have to change your clothing,” he said. “You cannot return to the hall like that.”

  Christin glanced down at herself. “I know,” she said, looking up to Alexander, who was quite a bit taller than she was. “Before she attacked me, she said something strange. She told me that I did not know that the danger, for England, was already here. She said it was right under my nose.”

  Alexander’s dark-eyed gaze lingered on her. “She could have just said that to throw you off,” he said. “But it’s equally possible she meant it.”

  “You may want to ask her companion about it.”

  Alexander nodded. “I will, indeed,” he said, looking at the body on the floor. “It is a pity she had to attack you. She might have told us what she meant had she not been so foolish as to advance against a woman unafraid to use a dagger.”

  He was voicing a regret and nothing more, but Susanna stepped up to defend her.

  “Christin fought bravely,” she said. “She kept her head in a difficult situation. She did what she had to do.”

  Alexander looked at Susanna, whom he knew well. He’d been on many an adventure with the lady warrior. “I know,” he said. “She confronted the spy we were all looking for and is to be commended for her actions. I did not mean to intimate otherwise. But she must return to the hall as if nothing has happened and she cannot go covered in blood. I doubt her father would appreciate that.”

  “Sherry.” Peter was suddenly in the doorway, looking at the carnage with some shock. “The Marshal is looking for you. Is that the other spy?”

  He was pointing to the body and Alexander nodded. “Aye,” he said, glancing at Christin. “She made the deadly mistake of attacking a de Lohr.”

  There was a twinkle in his eyes as he said it and even Susanna flashed a grin, looking to her young friend. Christin may have looked like an angel, but she was a de Lohr to the bone. But Peter took one look at his sister, covered with gore, and nearly came apart.

  “Cissy,” he gasped, coming into the chamber. “What in the hell happened? Are you injured?”

  Christin could see that Peter needed reassurance and she went to him, taking him by the arm. “Not to worry, dear brother,” she said soothingly. “’Tis just a little bit of blood. It will wash right off.”

  But Peter wasn’t convinced. “Are you hurt?”

  “I am not hurt. It is her blood, not mine.”

  Peter sighed heavily. “Christ, you gave me a scare,” he said. “We must get you cleaned up before Papa sees you. He is already wondering what has become of you.”

  Christin let go of him and quickly gathered her skirts. “Then I had better clean up in a hurry,” she said. “It would not do for Papa to see me covered in blood. I might have some explaining to do, which I do not wish to do at this time.”

  She bolted from the chamber with Peter right behind her. Once she was gone, Alexander shook his head as he returned his focus to the body. “I suppose I should not have expected less from a de Lohr,” he said. “I had heard tale Lady Christin was fearless. I suppose the proof is at my feet.”

  He was referring to the body. Susanna nodded. “Christin may be young, but she is mature beyond her years,” she said. “She has the makings of a great agent.”

  “But only if her father doesn’t find out.”

  “Precisely.”

  “I feel as if we are all keeping a very big secret from de Lohr. He will not be happy if, and when, he finds out.”

  “I am sure he will not be. Would you?”

  “Hell, no.”

  The subject of Christin de Lohr dropped as Alexander, Bric, and Cullen removed the body and its head, leaving Susanna to find something to clean up the blood with. When she finished, it would look like nothing was ever amiss in Savernake’s great solar.

  All evidence wiped clean.

  William Marshal’s agents would make sure of it.

  No trace.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Farringdon House

  Two days later

  “And that was what she said to you?” William Marshal asked. “There was no mistake?”

  Christin was sitting in William Marshal’s lavish solar, the one that covered nearly half of the second floor of The Marshal’s opulent London townhome. The walls were painted wooden panels, with scenes from Greek mythology, perhaps more lavish than a man like The Marshal would like, but his wife had insisted. It was the fashion of the season last year when Savoy artisans had been brought in from France. Therefore, he sat beneath the watchful gaze of Zeus and Hera and Ares, all of them lending judgment to the man’s activities as he controlled the power of England.

  Christin had been in the chamber before, several times. She had come with her father once or twice when she had been younger, and then with Peter when the man brought her to The Marshal because Christin had expressed interest in serving England’s greatest knight.

  Because she was a de Lohr, The Marshal had permitted her to help Peter when he went about his duties for The Marshal, but Christin took to covert activities very quickly. Faster than Peter had, in fact. Within a year of her first meeting with The Marshal, she was undertaking her own missions on his behalf.

  Therefore, sitting in William’s solar was nothing new. But in this case, she was explaining what happened that night in the Duke of Savernake’s solar. Surrounded by most of the men who had been there that night, she tried not to feel intimidated by the situation, as if she’d done something wrong by defending herself.

  “There was no mistaking what she said, my lord,” she said steadily. “The woman told me that the danger was already in England, right under our noses.”

  William’s gaze lingered on her, pondering that statement. “But she did not say what?”

  “Nay, my lord.”

  “Go over the conversation with me once more.”

  Christin thought back to that night. “She seemed to know what she was doing, my lord,” she said. “She was reading the map quite ably when I entered Savernake’s solar. When she realized I had found her out, she told me she could not let me leave the chamber alive. I knew she meant to kill me, which is why I was forced to kill her when she attacked me.”

  “Go on.”

  Christin shrugged. “She burned the decoy map intentionally,” she said. “She told me that there would be no invasion now. When I told her that she’d burned the wrong map, she became enraged. She said, exactly, that I have no idea what is going on and that even as we make plans, Philip is already ten steps ahead. She said that we have already lost, but do not know it yet, and that the danger for England is already here and under our noses.”

  “And that is everything?”

  “It is, my lord.”

  William sighed heavily, sitting back in his chair and mulling over what his young agent had told him. She was quite composed and very much like her father in that respect. She had only seen eighteen years, but she had a maturity that went well beyond that. His gaze moved to the men standing back in the shadows of the chamber, listening.

  “Sherry,” he said. “You heard none of this?”

  Alexander stepped out of the darkness. “Nay, my lord. I came into the chamber after Susanna had cut the woman’s head off.”

  Susanna wasn’t there to confirm his story because she and Achilles had already headed home, back to their very small children whom they did not like to leave without both mother and father for too long. Cullen had also departed for his garrison at Rockingham Castle and Dashiell had remained at Ramsbury. But Peter, Kevin, and Bric had come to London, along with Maxton and Kress. It was Maxton who spoke next.

  “Prescombe has proved useless,” he said. “It is my assessment, and Sherry’s, that he was led around by the woman Christin killed because he truly seems to be a dullard. The woman appears to have been the driving force behind his actions.”

 
; Maxton was the unofficial leader of the Executioner Knights, a man of little humor, of serious demeanor, and of deadly intentions. He wasn’t a man to cross, but he was fair and honest in all things. William’s focus shifted to him.

  “Where is Prescombe now?” he asked.

  “In your vault,” Maxton said. “I am surprised you cannot hear him screaming from here.”

  William smiled, humorlessly. “I cannot, but I am grateful my wife is not in residence. She can hear a rat squeal a mile away, yet she cannot hear me when I tell her something important.”

  Maxton lifted a dark eyebrow. “Prescombe is going to be trouble,” he said. “The man has money and a reasonably-sized army, and if we release him, he will run right to Philip and tell him what has happened.”

  The Marshal’s expression was unapologetic. “That will not happen because he will never leave here alive,” he said. “But nothing will happen to him until we are finished with him. There may be more he is not telling us.”

  “We have interrogated him for nearly two days,” Kress said, coming out of the shadows to stand next to Maxton. “He is either the most resistant spy alive or the dumbest. With everything we’ve done to him, he has not spilled anything of note.”

  With everything we’ve done to him. That bespoke of nasty interrogation methods the Executioner Knights had learned in The Levant. William wasn’t squeamish by any means but he didn’t ask for details, especially with Christin in the chamber. He trusted Kress at his word.

  “Then give him a few more days and every opportunity to tells us what he knows before you end his life,” he said. “But I am interested to know if, indeed, he is holding back. His companion spoke of danger already being in England. I want to know what that means. See if you can find out.”

  Maxton and Kress nodded, glancing at Alexander before quitting the chamber, but Alexander stopped them.

  “Wait,” he said. “It occurs to me that keeping Prescombe alive might work better to our advantage.”

  “Why?” William asked.

  “Because we can feed the man false information and he can report that back to Philip,” he said. “Certainly, he will report the death of his companion, but he doesn’t know the circumstances. In fact, he doesn’t know anything at all. Only what we tell him.”

  William was listening with great interest. “Excellent point,” he said. “We can tell Prescombe anything. Mayhap we can even lead Philip’s armies into something to greatly diminish them.”

  “An ambush?”

  “Or worse.”

  That suggestion had the approval of Maxton and Kress. “Then we must figure out what to tell him,” Maxton said. “We can make it so the man can escape back to Philip and tell him everything we want Philip to know.”

  As Kress and Alexander nodded in agreement, William held up a hand. “Indeed, we can and we will. But at this moment, I am more concerned over the cryptic words of danger that the woman spy spoke of,” he said. “Forget about John’s plans of invasion in Normandy for a moment. I have said this before and I shall say it again – John may be a thorn in the side of every Englishman, but he is still our monarch. It behooves us to keep him alive because our alternative is a six-year-old heir. The only real danger in England is a direct threat to the monarchy. That is the only real way England herself would weaken. Would you agree?”

  Everyone nodded to certain degrees and William continued.

  “The woman said that danger was right under our noses,” he muttered thoughtfully. Then, he looked to Alexander. “What does that mean to you?”

  Alexander shrugged. “Something obvious that we do not realize.”

  William looked to Maxton expectantly. “The same,” Maxton said.

  William moved to Kress. “And you?”

  Kress cocked his head thoughtfully. “Mayhap something that we cannot see more than it is something obvious we do not suspect,” he said. “That would make more sense to me. Subversion under our noses that we simply cannot see.”

  “Someone we would never suspect,” Christin said softly.

  Her voice was soft, unexpected, and the men all looked at her. “Speak up, my lady,” William said. “You have the de Lohr mind. I will listen. You said someone we would never suspect?”

  After a moment of hesitation, Christin nodded firmly. “If danger is under our noses, then it would make sense it would be someone we would never suspect,” she said. “Wouldn’t the greatest danger be from someone we trusted who was not who we thought he was?”

  It was an astute observation from a young woman who had not spent years in the espionage game. William nodded faintly; he agreed with her for the most part. But he wasn’t a man to pin everything on one theory.

  There was more to this situation than met the eye.

  “That would make sense,” he said. “But it could be any number of things, so we must not focus on one thing only. I will stand by my opinion that, somehow, John is under threat and that threat is in this country. Something greater than all of the other threats we face. We will reach out to our network to see if anyone has seen or heard anything, but until we receive answers, it is important that John is watched. I believe he is attending a feast in his honor at Norwich Castle in a fortnight. Lady Christin, you would know this to be true.”

  Christin nodded quickly. “Aye, my lord,” she said. “Lord de Winter is having a feast in celebration of the king’s birthday, which is next month. He has invited all of his allies to attend.”

  “A threat under our noses,” Alexander murmured thoughtfully. When everyone looked at him, his gaze moved to Christin, sitting straight in the chair opposite The Marshal. “It could be one of the allies.”

  Christin didn’t want to agree or disagree. These men were the greatest minds in the land, just like her father, and she wasn’t so arrogant as to believe she could match wits or opinions with them. So, she simply smiled, without humor, the flash of a smile that was noncommittal because, truly, she had no business giving Alexander her opinion. But as she stared at the man and he stared back, she realized one thing –

  His eyes were hypnotic.

  She was looking into greatness. She knew that. Alexander de Sherrington was a name she’d heard for the past year, solidly, to the point where even Peter had built Alexander up into something legendary. She didn’t know what to expect when she finally met him, perhaps a marble god from the top of the Parthenon, but she’d never expected the man to be such a handsome beast. It had been difficult for her to take her eyes from him since the moment she met him.

  Something about him was dark, delicious, and enticing.

  But he was far beyond her reach. She knew that. Men like Alexander de Sherrington didn’t attach themselves to women in any way because their vocation was their wife and mistress. They were men of warfare and death, and what was she?

  Absolutely nothing.

  In fact, Christin knew that she’d probably said too much already in this meeting even though The Marshal had been kind about it. Still… throughout this entire gathering, she had the distinct feeling that she’d made a mistake when she killed the French agent. Perhaps a more experienced agent would not have, realizing the French agent would have been a valuable prisoner.

  It was a mistake that was starting to haunt her.

  As she sat there and pondered the greater implications of her actions, The Marshal suddenly barked.

  “Bric,” he said sharply.

  Bric stepped out of the shadows. “My lord?”

  William turned to look at him. “You are heading back to Narborough, are you not?”

  “Aye, my lord.”

  “Then you will ride with Peter and Lady Christin back to Norwich first,” he said. “I want you to inform Old Daveigh de Winter of what we have discovered so he knows what is happening. The king will be under the man’s roof and he should know if we suspect turmoil. Then you will continue on to Narborough and tell his nephew, Young Daveigh, what is happening. When John’s feast occurs, I expect you and your l
iege to be there.”

  Bric nodded shortly. “Aye, my lord.”

  With that directive given, William turned to speak to the last knight in the room. “De Lara?”

  Kevin de Lara stepped forward, almost hidden back in the recesses where he’d been waiting. He wasn’t as tall as some of the men around him, making it easier to overlook him, but that was a mistake. He had the strength of Samson. There wasn’t a man in that room who would voluntarily tangle with him, trained assassins included. Kevin wasn’t an assassin or a dirty dealer like Alexander or Maxton; quite the contrary. He was a knight to the bone, pious and noble.

  Kevin was the group’s white knight.

  “My lord?” he answered.

  William’s gaze lingered on the powerful knight. “You will be going with them, as well,” he said. “Along with Sherry and Peter and Bric, I will need your eyes and ears on what is going on at Norwich. This means you may be forced to interact with your brother. Can you do this?”

  Kevin’s expression didn’t change, but those who knew what William meant were all thinking the same thing – beneath Kevin’s professional facade was the fact that his older brother, Sean de Lara, had defected into the service of King John had built himself a frightening and brutal reputation as a knight known as Lord of the Shadows.

  At least, that was what everyone thought. But those in The Marshal’s inner circle, including Kevin, knew the truth.

  Sean was The Marshal’s greatest weapon.

  It was no secret that Kevin was greatly disappointed in the path his talented brother had taken, choosing to damage the family’s reputation by taking on such a brutal task. It was something Kevin disagreed with wholeheartedly but, professional as he was, he never spoke a word of it. He would die before revealing what he knew about his brother, so the secret was safe.

  But the pain of the estrangement was real.

  Therefore, no one really spoke of Sean de Lara to Kevin, so for William to bring it up openly was something that simply wasn’t done. Alexander, in particular, was close to Sean, though not unsympathetic with Kevin, and he watched the knight’s reaction as William brought up the forbidden subject.