The Final Toll

by Denise Domning

  Just then, a woman's cry rent the air. "Have pity! It grows late and it's cold out here." There was a pause, then she shouted again, this time more angrily, "Idonea, open the door now! You've no right to bar me from my father's home!"

  Sir Adam jerked upright in his saddle. "She's barred the door?!" he bellowed and kicked his horse into a gallop.

  As the knight disappeared through the gateway, Will shot Faucon a grin and urged his horse to the same speed. Faucon saw no reason to hurry. With Edmund's donkey trotting close to Legate's heels, they entered the bailey of Offord Manor.

  Like Blacklea, this place was no rich man's home. Those who ruled Offord Village lived only a little better than their own folk. And, just as at Blacklea, the land caught inside the palisade had been divided as best served its master's uses. There was a small pasture in which three horses grazed. A large paddock was fitted out with winter shelters for sheep as well as a makeshift stable, all of them made from woven withe panels.

  Domed-shaped structures ran along the edge of a good-sized garden area, they were waist-high beehives, the much larger dove-cote and a line of small ovens. The three-walled smithy and what was surely the kitchen shed both had thatch for roof and plastered wooden walls. Faucon drew in a deep breath, savoring the rich aroma of roasting nuts.

  Offord's manor house was almost twice the size of his new home, three times as large if he included the small square keep tower at one end of the house. But it wasn't as tall, nor was it built of stone, although both the wooden hall and keep stood atop a knee-high stone foundation. From what Faucon could see, there was only one entrance to hall and keep, a wise arrangement. That small door was at the west end of the hall, as far from the keep as possible. Raised three steps off the ground, a roofed porch protected the entryway from the elements.

  Standing on that porch, her back to Faucon, was a small woman swathed in a dark green cloak. She wore a deep blue woolen scarf wrapped around her head. A pair of dark braids fell down her back, reaching almost to her waist. Two lasses, one taller than the other, clung to her, both of them wearing similar green mantles and scarves. However, their plaits were the same rusty color of Sir Adam's hair, naming them his daughters and the woman his wife.

  Sir Adam threw himself from the saddle almost before he drew his horse to a halt at the porch. "Joia, what's happened?" he bellowed to his wife as he bounded up the steps.

  As Will drew his horse to a halt beside Sir Adam's mount, Lady Bagot jerked around in surprise. Faucon blinked in surprise. She was beautiful, with a heart-shaped face and even features. The lady glanced across the faces of the strangers in her yard, then looked up at her husband. "Thank the Lord that you've returned! We've all been trapped out here since you left."

  "But I told you not to leave the hall," her husband chided harshly.

  "We needed the privy," his wife cried. "I didn't think she'd shut out the children."

  Sir Adam pushed past his wife to pound his fist against the arched wooden panel that separated him from a life and a hall he had never expected to lose. "No common whore is going to keep me from my wife's home," he roared. "Idonea, open this door!"

  Faucon halted Legate next to his brother. Yet mounted, Will grinned. "This is better entertainment than even hunting," he said, making no attempt to keep his words private.

  On the porch, Lady Bagot again turned to look upon her unexpected guests. Beneath her dark brows, her green eyes were reddened by tears. The dark rings beneath them spoke of exhaustion. Faucon guessed she was no older than he. Again, he was struck by her beauty, even marred as it was by the signs of grief upon her face.

  Her daughters also turned to look upon their visitors. If the older lass, a girl about half her mother's age, was her father's image from her rusty hair to her blue eyes, the younger girl had her father's hair but her mother's pretty features and green eyes. The little lass smiled at Faucon, the bend of her lips suggesting she was well on her way to becoming a practiced flirt. As Lady Bagot realized that her daughters were looking upon strange men and the men were watching them in return, she put her back to her visitors and pulled her girls around with her. That didn't stop the younger lass from watching the newcomers from over her shoulder.

  Edmund brought his donkey in line with the bigger horses just as Sir Adam again battered at the door. Startled by the banging, the monk's little beast brayed in distress and turned a quick circle, once again almost dislodging its rider. Sir Adam's youngest child giggled at this dance.

  Dismounting, Faucon grabbed the donkey's bridle, holding him until his clerk found the safety of the earth. Once the monk straightened his habit and resettled his basket onto his back, Edmund looked at his employer. "Only on pain of arrest can the widow refuse to allow the shire's Coronarius to enter her home," he said flatly.

  That made Faucon grin. "Now who's creating new law out of thin air?" he asked quietly.

  For the briefest of instants, Edmund's lips lifted, his expression a poor facsimile of amusement. "It's cold out. As you have suggested, who knows better than we what a Coronarius can or cannot do?"

  The knight again battered at the door with his fist. "God take you, woman. Let us in!"

  Edmund glanced from the knight to his employer. "More to the point, it's certain that if we do nothing, we really will be sleeping out-of-doors this night."

  Still savoring Edmund's unexpected jest, Faucon released the donkey to join Sir Adam on the porch. "Allow me, sir," he said as he halted next to the taller knight.

  Sir Adam shot him a surprised glance but stepped aside without comment. Faucon tapped gently on the arched oaken panel. "Lady Offord, I am Sir Faucon de Ramis, the king's servant in this shire. By royal command I must examine your husband's body. Will you open your door so I might do my duty to our monarch?"

  Through the thick oaken panel he caught the sound of a man's deep voice. A woman's higher-pitched response followed. A moment later he heard the bar hit the floor with a thud, then the iron hinge pegs groaned in their loops. The heavy door shifted inward.

  The man who stood in the opening was lanky and long of face. Well into his middle years, he wore a thick golden beard although his fair hair had thinned into a ragged half-circle at the back of his skull. His blue eyes were red-rimmed from mourning. Beneath a brown cloak, he wore a padded hauberk made of undyed linen over a thick yellow tunic. Faded orange chausses covered his legs, while fraying strips of cloth held wooly sheepskin to his calves above ankle-high boots.

  Behind him, blocking Faucon's view of the hall, was the wooden screen that guarded the manor's public room from the full force of necessary door-drawn drafts. By the greasy yellow light of a pair of torches mounted high on the screen he could see that the panel had been painted a gentle blue. The floor in the vestibule was tiled, the small ceramic squares set in an attractive pattern of blue, red, and green.

  "Eustace!" Sir Adam shouted from over Faucon's shoulder, filling the man's name with both relief and irritation. "If you were in there, why did you not open the door when my lady knocked?"

  "Lady Offord forbade it," this Eustace replied humbly, bowing his head. His command of the Norman tongue wasn't as rustic as his appearance.

  Sir Adam gave a wave of his hand. "Well, the door is open now. Move aside so we might enter."

  "You promised only the king's man would enter, Eustace." The woman's cry came from behind the wooden screen, her voice piercing in fright and her words, English. Between her choice of language and her comment, this could only be the tradesman's daughter who had wed Sir Robert of Offord.

  "Move Eustace. I and no other am the new master here," Sir Adam snapped at the same time.

  Offord's bailiff instantly eased back from the doorway. As well he should. In this battle he was but a bone between two dogs.

  "May I join you in the hall, Lady Offord?" Faucon called in his native French as he held his place in the doorway.

  "Do not dare beg her permission, Sir Faucon," Sir Adam snarled, his lips almost at Faucon's ear.
"I am the one you ask, and I say you may enter my home as you will.

  "Do you hear me, Idonea?" the older knight added at a shout, making Faucon flinch. "You have no right to say who can or cannot pass into Offord Hall, no matter what might be scribbled on that agreement of yours."

  The woman behind the screen gave vent to a mousy squeak. The uneven tap of leather soles on tile followed. Sir Adam took a half-step forward, almost pressing against his new Keeper of the Pleas. For no reason Faucon could name, he was certain that the man wanted to prevent his Crowner from interviewing the widow. Lifting his heels, Faucon pushed past the bailiff and jogged around the screen.

  Everything about this hall suggested it was ancient. Massive tree trunks, untouched by plane or saw, supported the chamber's plastered walls. The cross beam holding up the roof had also once been a tree of great size. In the corner farthest from the doorway and its persistent draft stood a large curtained bed. Piled around it were at least a half-dozen straw-stuffed pallets. Tables and benches filled the body of the chamber, the tables bearing the remains of the household's midday day meal.

  When Sir Robert's widow shut the door, she'd also shut out the servant whose duty it was to tend the fire. Once the door was closed, cutting off the draft, the fire began to die. Smoke now choked the room and naught but smoldering ashes filled the central hearthstone.

  As for the widow, Idonea of Offord was halfway across the chamber, limping awkwardly toward a door in the far wall. Beneath her knee-length blue mantle the widow wore rich green gowns trimmed in gold. Her hems dragged through the scattered rushes that covered the hall floor. A silken wimple covered her head.

  "She's making for the tower," Sir Adam shouted from behind Faucon. "If she bars that door, she'll hold Robert's corpse and we'll never get her out of there!"

  That drew another wordless cry from the escaping widow. She snatched up her skirts with one hand and limped faster. Faucon lifted his heels until he sprinted. Ahead of him, she pushed open the tower door with enough force that the wooden panel slammed into the wall behind it. Faucon followed her through the opening, blocking the doorway as he grabbed her by the upper arm. She was bone-thin through the bulk of her mantle and gowns. Her wimple was so fine that he could see she wore her dark hair cropped close to her skull.

  "My lady, wait," he said in English, pulling her back from the spiraling stone stairway that circled upward ahead of them.

  "Let me go," she cried, wrenching on her arm with all her puny might as he brought her around to face him.

  The wife of Sir Robert of Offord was a child of no more than four-and-ten, and a gaunt, sickly-looking child at that. Her skin had the grayish cast given to those whom death consumes slowly, her eye color almost that same unhealthy shade of gray. That was, the one eye he could see. Her left eye was blackened and swollen shut and a fist-shaped bruise marked her left cheek. Her lower lip trembled, reopening a crusting cut.

  "Be at ease, my lady," Faucon told her, holding her where she stood. "I am the king's servant and you are now under my protection. So you shall remain until the sheriff arrives to take you into his custody."

  That drove all the fight out of her. She sagged against his hold. "I don't want the sheriff, I want to go home," she sniveled.

  Footsteps rang out from behind Faucon. He shot a glance over his shoulder. Sir Adam was halfway across the hall, coming toward them at an easy and far-too-confident pace.

  Releasing the widow, Faucon closed the tower door. The bar meant to defend it against invaders stood in the corner. He dropped it into its braces just as Sir Adam tried the latch. When the door didn't open the knight slammed both fists into the panel. "What are you doing?" Sir Adam demanded.

  "Examining Sir Robert's corpse while I speak with his widow," Faucon called back. Then he added, "I won't be long."

  A foul curse, one that included impossible acts and parts of their Lord's holy anatomy, spewed from the man on the other side of the oaken panel. Idonea gasped. Faucon sighed and bid fare-thee-well to being welcomed to the shire by this gentle family.

  "Patience, Sir Adam," he called again, even though he knew the words were a waste of breath. This knight was incapable of patience. That won him a second, if less creative, curse.

  Idonea grabbed her Crowner's hand and carefully lowered herself to her knees. "Please, sir. My husband is dead. Why must I go with the sheriff? Why can I not go home?" Moisture filled her undamaged left eye.

  "Do you not carry your husband's heir?" Faucon replied with a startled shake of his head.

  It was exactly because of Sir Adam's threat against Idonea's unborn child that England's sheriffs were law-bound to take custody of all pregnant widows. That same law also protected Lady Joia and her son from being cheated of their inheritance, as Sir Alain was required to witness the birth of Lady Offord's child to prevent her from replacing a weak or stillborn heir with some other woman's babe.

  The widow's brow creased as if in confusion. "I don't know," she whispered.

  Faucon lifted her to her feet, then eased back a step to put an appropriate distance between them. As he did, she lowered her free hand to her belly. Faucon's gaze followed her movement.

  Sir Adam was right. Even Faucon, an unmarried man, could see Lady Offord was too swollen to be only a month and a half gone with child. Then he frowned. Did she mean she didn't know whose child she carried, or that she didn't know if she was with child?

  "My lady, do you have the sheet from your wedding night in store?" Faucon asked, even though it wasn't rape he investigated here.

  "Nay, my father holds it at home for safekeeping," Idonea answered without hesitation.

  "Was there blood?" Faucon pressed where he again had no right to request proof that she had come a maiden to her marriage bed.

  She blinked in surprise as she understood. That instinctive reaction made her gasp. She raised her hand to touch her swollen left eye as color washed over her cheeks, the stain dark enough to be seen beneath her bruises. Then, bowing her head, she folded her hands before her.

  "Aye," she whispered. "My mother was very pleased the morning after my wedding. She praised me for being an obedient daughter." Her voice caught on her last words.

  Once again Faucon eyed her shorn head through her fine wimple. "Does your illness often leave you fevered?"

  She glanced up at him. "Not so much this year, but aye, it has in years past. Because of that, Mama always kept my hair short. This year I have ached more often than I burned."

  As she spoke, she extended a hand to show him. Her knuckles were reddened and engorged. She tried to close her fists, but her fingertips never reached her palms. "It's worse here than it was at home."

  "Do only your hands swell? What of your belly?" Faucon asked, again trespassing where he had no right to tread.

  For a second time she cupped a hand to her distended abdomen. "Aye, and my stomach growls terribly. Do you think that might be a sign that I am with child?" she asked him.

  Disgust bolted through Faucon. What sort of parent abandoned a frail and ailing daughter to marriage without giving her the knowledge she needed to be a proper wife? She should know how to discern this for herself.

  He hid his reaction behind a smile. "I think you would be wise to seek out the local midwife to assure yourself of this, Lady Offord," he told her.

  Panic dashed through the widow's uninjured eye. "But if I step outside now, they'll bar me from the hall. That's why I closed the door on Lady Joia. This morn, while we were gathering what we needed to wrap her father for burial, she told me she would throw me from the hall once her sire was buried. She said I would leave Offord with nothing, not even my own chest."

  A tear managed to escape Lady Offord's bruised eye. Her lips trembled. "Why would she threaten to do this to me when she knows I'll die if I'm banished outside the door? I don't know where to go," she moaned, sounding like the lost and lonely child she was.

  There was no answer Faucon could give to that. "Perhaps it's better if we call
the midwife to see you here," he suggested as someone knocked at the door.

  Idonea started, only to cry out as her shift of expression aggravated her injuries.

  "Do you need me, Sir Faucon?" Brother Edmund asked.

  "I'm not certain as of yet," Faucon replied, his voice raised so he could be heard through the panel. "I'll come fetch you if I do. Until then, why not find a comfortable place where you can to do your scribbling?"

  "As you will," Edmund more grumbled than replied.

  Faucon turned to the spiraling stone stairway that led to the upper chamber of Offord's keep tower. The lift of his hand indicated that Idonea should climb ahead of him. "My lady, am I right to think your husband's remains are above?"

  The upper chamber of the square keep tower— what had once been the manor's last refuge against attack— was safehold no longer. Not only had the door to the room been removed, a large window had been cut into its south wall. Only a pair of slatted wooden shutters could prevent besiegers or their arrows from entering. At the moment, those shutters were flung wide to allow in the day's cold air along with what daylight remained.

  Idonea entered ahead of him, moving to the curtained bed that commanded nearly a third of the chamber. A long wooden chest, no doubt the one in which Sir Robert's weapons and armor were stored, stood against one wall. A massive lock held the chest closed. Placed beneath the window was a brazier, a wide, shallow brass pan that rested atop a waist-high metal tripod. The coals in the brazier were as dead as the former master of Offord, each gust of wind teasing up swirls of cold ash.

  Placed beside the brazier was a half-barrel chair, its tall, rounded back meant to catch and hold heat. A red tunic had been draped over one arm. The hem of the garment was decorated with a thick band of yellow and green embroidery.