“How can you know that?” Ramsay countered.
“Because I’m still alive. A moment ago, the steward could have hanged me for the death of the reeve. Logan prevented it, something a guilty man would never have done.”
“Who then?” Ramsay demanded.
“Only one other person had everything to lose if the truth came out. The one who arranged the original substitution. A foundling child couldn’t come from this village, too many would know. Who can travel his lord’s lands at will to deal with peasants who might sell a babe? And later, when word of the fire came, who could send a reeve to do murder?”
Ramsay swiveled slowly in his seat, to face Kenedi.
“It’s a lie,” Kenedi breathed.
“Is it? If Lord Alisdair learned the truth he might forgive his wife, and even the foundling boy who came here through no fault of his own. But he would never forgive the man who betrayed him for money by arranging the deception. His steward.”
“But killing his lord wouldn’t save his position,” Logan said coolly. “Surely the lady would guess what happened and confess the truth.”
“Only if she knew there’d been a murder. Lord Alisdair said he woke beneath a pillow. If he’d smothered, everyone would believe he died in his sleep. But when the priest surprised him, Kenedi lashed out in desperation.”
“All lies,” Kenedi said, “a tale told at bedtime. There’s not one shred of proof.”
“Actually, there is,” I said. “When Noelle and I were first brought into this room, she asked if you’d been killed, Kenedi. Tell him why, girl.”
“When the soldier pushed me against the body, I smelled linseed and charcoal. Ink,” Noelle said, stepping forward. “The scent was unmistakable.”
“And the priest was unlettered,” I finished. “As are most of us here. Only you have the gift of literacy, Kenedi. And the smell of ink on your hands. Only you.”
“It’s not true.”
“Do you dare say my daughter lies?” Lord Alisdair asked weakly. “If I were hale I’d kill for that alone. But as things are… Logan, see to him.”
“Wait,” Ramsay interjected. “If Logan is not your blood, he has no standing in this court, no right to be here at all.”
“Sir,” Alisdair said, rising unsteadily, “the offense was against me and mine in my own hall, so the justice will be mine as well. Gentlemen, I invited you here to celebrate All Saints Day in a spirit of fellowship. The banquet and the… entertainment are finished now. And I am very tired.”
Ramsay started to object, but a glance at Logan changed his mind. We were still in DuBoyne’s hall, surrounded by DuBoyne’s men.
“As you wish, milord,” Ramsay said, rising. “My friends and I thank you for the fest and pray for your speedy recovery. For all our sakes.”
Ramsay stalked from the hall with Harden and Duart close behind, joined by their clansmen at the rear. At Logan’s nod, a guardsman led the steward away.
Their departure sapped the fire from DuBoyne. Wincing, he sagged back in the chair. Logan eyed him but didn’t approach.
“Where is the girl?” DuBoyne asked quietly. “The one who claims to be my daughter?”
Warily, Noelle stepped forward. DuBoyne raised his head to observe her, then nodded slowly.
“So it is true. You look very like my lady wife did once. A great, great relief.”
“Relief?” Logan echoed.
“Aye, that I wasn’t completely bereft of my senses last night when I mistook them. And a relief that so late in my life, my daughter has been returned to me.”
“And relief that I am no son of yours?”
“That too, in a way. In truth, a part of me has always known you weren’t mine, Logan. My young wife lost two sickly babes before the miraculous birth of a strapping lad the size of a yearling colt, a boy who looked not at all like me. I feared she’d taken a lover to get the son I couldn’t give her. I’m relieved to be wrong.
“But if you’re not my blood, you’re still my creation, the son I wanted. And needed. My daughter’s birthright will be worthless if our land is lost. Fiefs are bestowed in Edinburgh or London, but they can only be held by arms. Your arms, Logan. You remain lord here in all but name, and for now that is enough. I’m tired, boy. Help me to my bed. Perhaps my daughter can join us later. We have much to talk of, lost years to make up for.”
As Logan led the old man out, I touched Noelle’s hand.
“I must be going as well, Owyn will be breaking camp. But you needn’t stay here unless you choose to. We’ll find a way to—”
“No,” she said, stopping my lips with her fingertips. “I have always known I belonged somewhere and for good or ill, I’ve found that place. In the country of the blind, places are much alike, only people are different. Besides, if I go with you, I may end up as Owyn’s third wife.”
“There are worse fates. It won’t take long for that young border wolf to realize he can reclaim his inheritance by marrying the lord’s newfound daughter.”
“And is he truly such a monster?”
“No, but… why are you smiling? My God, Noelle. You’ve thought through this already, haven’t you?”
“At the convent, the young girls talked of little but love, love, love. I can never have love at first sight, but I know Logan wanted me before he knew who I was.”
“He wanted to buy you! And you said he smelled of horses.”
“I suspect he will always smell of horses. I like horses.”
“The poor devil,” I said, shaking my head in wonder. “He has no chance.”
“Perhaps I’m his fate. He may only own his armor now, but he has a song. And you’ve said I’m a fair singer.”
“You have the loveliest voice I’ve ever heard, Noelle, on my honor. I shall miss you greatly.”
“We’ll sing together again, whenever the wind or the road bring you to me. Perhaps one day we can sing to my children.”
“We will. I promise.”
We said our good-byes in the great hall, and I took to the road, leaving my foundling child with strangers. And yet I did not fear for her. She grew up in a harsher land than any can imagine and flourished there. She would have no trouble coping with her new situation, of that I was certain.
And she would have Black Logan. But not because of her family or position. Love at first sight is more than a legend or a girlish fancy. It happens rarely, but it does happen.
I’d seen Logan’s face at the Samhain as he listened to Noelle’s wondrous voice. He had the look of a starving wolf at a feast, a turmoil of hunger, love, and lust.
I remember that terrible yearning all too well. I felt it for a woman once myself, long years ago.
But that is another tale…
Cold As Fire
Lillian Stewart Carl
Geoffrey knew only too well what happened to a bearer of bad news. Nevertheless, he had bad news to bear. The sergeant-at-arms spat sympathetically onto the mucky cobblestones before the castle gate. “So you’re off to tell the archbishop the sheriff’s arrested one of his men, eh?”
“Yes,” Geoffrey replied.
“The archbishop thinks his men are above the law of the land, I’m thinking.”
“Whatever I’m thinking, I know enough to keep to myself.” Geoffrey wrapped his cloak around his body as though it were armor and trudged down from the castle into the town.
The towers of the cathedral looked like blunted swords against the frost-gray November sky, dominating the rooftops of Canterbury as its archbishop dominated the political squabbles of England. Geoffrey didn’t know and refused to guess whether Thomas of London was defending the honor of God or his own pride. Posts as archiepiscopal clerks weren’t that easy to come by, but Geoffrey’s merchant father had found him one, just as Gilbert Becket had done for his Thomas some twenty-odd years before. With discretion, Geoffrey could rise high—not that he had ambitions toward an archbishopric.
But then, Thomas had had no ambitions toward an archbishopric
either. It was his friendship with King Henry that caused his swift if controversial rise in power, and his sudden transition—his sudden conversion—from secular to sacred.
Geoffrey made his way along Castle Street, skirting the foulest of the puddles. Merchants flocked toward the well-dressed young man. Beggars called piteously. A woman brushed against him, her loosely draped cloak affording him a glimpse of her wares. Normally, he’d have gaped at her, but not today. Waving them away like flies, he walked on past the gate of the bishop’s palace, through the yard, beneath the portico, and into the great hall.
The air was warm and close, filled with the scents of meats, peas, beans, and bread. Smoke eddied between the carved beams that braced the ceiling. There was Thomas, just rising from his dinner. He was surrounded by clerks and scholars as usual and yet, as usual, he stood aloof, set apart as much by height and bearing as by rank. His profile was as sharp as a hunting bird’s, and his golden-brown eyes as keen.
Geoffrey shoved his way through the gathered men. “My lord, I bring news from the castle.”
“Yes?”
Geoffrey felt like a field mouse beneath that gaze. “Johanna Frelonde of Estursete, a tenant on your manor, has been found dead.”
“Johanna,” Thomas repeated. “A widow. She paid five marks a year for the privilege of remaining single. Edward, find out whether she had children who will inherit and then arrange a mass for her soul.”
One of the other clerks nodded. Servants began to clear the tables. Geoffrey quickly seized half a loaf of bread.
“Give the extra food to the poor,” the archbishop directed.
Geoffrey, remembering the outstretched hands and empty eyes he’d ignored on Castle Street, put the bread back down. “There’s more, my lord. Johanna was murdered.”
“Murdered? By whom?”
“Some say by Father Baldwin de Lucy.”
“What?”
The word was so short and sharp Geoffrey fell back a step. Everyone else fell back two. “He and Johanna were heard arguing.
Within the hour Wulfstan, the village smith, found Baldwin kneeling over her body.“
“Where is Baldwin now?”
“The sheriff had him taken to the castle, to be held there until the king’s justiciar arrives in two days’ time.”
A gasp ran around the circle of men. Thomas’s face went hard and tight, but his eyes blazed. “Baldwin de Lucy is a priest. It is for us, his peers, to judge him and, if necessary, punish him. He must not—he will not—be tried in a secular court.”
It was for just such words and more that Henry had stripped Thomas of his secular honors last month, and the two former friends were now enemies. Was it fortune or choice, Geoffrey asked himself, that drew such a fine line between love and hate? “I just came from Baldwin, my lord. He—he’s not sensible. He’s babbling of Dies Irae, the day of wrath. Judgment day.”
“He said nothing of Johanna?”
“He muttered of witchcraft, of maleficium, and said Johanna will be consumed by fire for her sins.”
“So shall we all,” Prior Wibert muttered from the edge of the group, “unless we beg for forgiveness.”
“Baldwin’s gone mad,” Edward offered. “He’s been possessed by a demon. He can’t be held accountable.”
Thomas’s mouth crooked upward. “Madness is in the definition, isn’t it? Perhaps it’s Johanna who was mad. And to dismiss Baldwin’s crime—if indeed he committed one—by saying it’s the work of madness is much too easy.”
“I reminded Baldwin that he can take an oath he’s innocent,” Geoffrey said. “But he refused, rambling on about innocence and guilt and how the two are different sides of the same coin.”
“An oath, no matter who supports Baldwin when he makes it, might not be enough to satisfy the justiciar,” Wibert added.
“Nor the king.” Thomas set his jaw and Geoffrey remembered he’d once been a warrior, too. “But we mustn’t sing the Magnificat at Matins. You, Geoffrey, find out whether Baldwin is indeed the murderer. If he is, well then, I shall deal with him. And the king’s justiciar.”
“Me?” asked Geoffrey, and added belatedly, “Yes, my lord.” But the archbishop had already turned away.
Men said that when Thomas of London was making his way up the social ladder, and even when he’d reached the pinnacle of Chancellor of England, he was known for charm and grace. But now he was an archbishop, on Henry’s no doubt much-regretted whim, true, but an archbishop still. Now his charm was abrading to haughtiness. As archbishop of Canterbury, he no longer had to court his betters. He had no betters—save only God Himself.
A CHILL SPRINKLING OF rain wetted Geoffrey’s head as he left the palace and turned toward the northwestern part of the town. Evening came on quickly this time of year, and with the thick, heavy clouds, the night would be dark. But he already had reason to hurry.
In the dim, dank interior of Saint Peter’s church, the candles standing to either side of the bier and its cloth-covered body seemed bright as bonfires. Beyond them the shadows were so thick that Geoffrey didn’t see the old woman crouching by a pillar until she moved and spoke. “You’ve come to see Johanna, have you?”
“Oh—ah, yes, mother, I have. Geoffrey of Norwich, on the archbishop’s business.”
“And I’m Edith, Johanna’s godmother.” The old woman shuffled forward and turned back the cloth. “There she is, then. Poor soul, I remember her as a lass gathering reeds by the Stour in the spring. Odd, isn’t it, how when you look back it always seems to be spring.”
Geoffrey had so few years to look back on he had yet to assign them a season. He bent over Johanna Frelonde’s body.
Even in the uncertain light it was horribly clear how she’d died. Her face was swollen, her tongue protruded from her lips, and all, face, tongue, lips, was the color of a winter storm, an evil purplish black.
“She was a lovely lass,” murmured Edith. “You should have seen her on her wedding day, fresh as the flowers she wore in her hair.”
It is the spirit that quickens, Geoffrey told himself sadly, and the flesh profits nothing. Grimacing, he pulled one of the candlesticks closer so that the light fell on her neck. Yes, Johanna’s skin was bruised and torn, all the way from the angle of her jaw down to the hollow in her throat. She must’ve fought and fought hard, causing her murderer to loose and tighten his grip repeatedly.
“She was a fine wife and a good mother to her son and her daughter, in happy times and sad as well.”
“Of all things God has given for human use, nothing is more beautiful or better than a good woman.” Geoffrey bowed politely to the corpse. “But what of Father Baldwin? Do you think he killed her?”
Edith’s dried-apple face wrinkled even more. “Baldwin says the words of the sacraments well enough, but I doubt if he listens as he speaks them.”
Well, no, Baldwin’s kiss of peace had always tended to be a peck of condemnation. “He was—ah—said something about witchcraft.”
“Witchcraft? Johanna could see beyond this world is all. So could her mother. She used her sight to help others. There was nothing in it that went against Holy Scripture.”
But her sight must’ve discomforted the other villagers even so. Enough for one of them to kill her? Geoffrey lifted the cloth that covered the rest of Johanna’s body, hoping to find some clue.
She’d been well into her years, but not yet old, and even in death looked strong and sturdy. Her hands were callused, the nails cracked and broken off short. She’d labored long and hard, but then as a widow she’d worked the land she inherited from her husband… He looked closer. The nail on the forefinger of her right hand was a bit longer than the others, the end torn and dangling loose. She’d have taken the rest of it off herself, if she’d torn it in life.
And Geoffrey saw as clearly as he saw the body in front of him the pendulous cheeks of Baldwin de Lucy, hanging like empty saddlebags. On the left one was a raw red scratch extending from cheekbone to jawline—made perhaps
by a fingernail whose owner had had no other defense.
“Thank you, mother.” Geoffrey replaced the cloth over Johanna’s bloated and discolored face. He genuflected before the altar cross, hastened outside, and stood in the church porch exhaling the scent of mildew and candle wax, incense and death. His duty demanded that he find and tell the truth, but if Baldwin had done the murder, there would be hell to pay. Not only for Baldwin in the hereafter but for everyone in this life caught between the hammer of the archbishop and the anvil of the king. A day of wrath indeed…
The smith. The smith had discovered Baldwin bending over Johanna’s body, yes, but there had to be another explanation.
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