Gertha's face whitened. Without a word she started for the door. Aye, but not even the madness of a beloved patron could stir her pace to anything faster than a long stride. Yet panting, Sister Mathilde trotted after her out of the office. Uncertainty marked Amabella's face as she glanced between her son and former lover.
Reiner suffered no such lack of confidence. His expression flattened in new cunning. "If the lady's mad, then we'd best go find a way to control her. Come, both of you," he commanded, lumbering toward the doorway.
Horror nailed Adelm's feet to the floor. Not even to save his own life would he enter the ice house where those two little ladies now waited upon their final rest. As had happened all too often since their deaths, the sensation of their warm and childish blood spilling onto his hands returned. Adelm gagged and rubbed his fingers against the body of his gown. If he weren't convinced that God was a fantasy created by Man to shield monks who enjoyed futtering children, Adelm would have been certain he faced hell for murdering those sweet lasses. Even he thought he deserved nothing less for what he'd done.
"My presence at the ice house would be inappropriate," Adelm called after his father. "I'll wait here for the lady's return." The words burned as they exited his mouth, each one revealing a vulnerability his father might well exploit to his own advantage.
Reiner whirled on his son, his face alive with surprise and a little fear. "What? But," he began in protest.
"Adelm is right, my lord sheriff," Amabella interrupted, her voice as deep and rich as expensive silk. "He has neither the rank nor status to take part in such an event." She came around the table's corner to stand beside her son, her head reaching only as high as Adelm's chin. "You, however, must go. Be ready as the king's representative to take custody of the widow if she truly is mad."
Adelm eyed his mother in surprise as she dismissed Reiner. In the seven years of their acquaintance, only five of their meetings had been either private or unchaperoned. None had lasted more than a few moments. The closest thing they'd had to a truly personal conversation was Amabella's repeated, whispered promises that Adelm would achieve what he
so desired, to be lifted into the ranks of the gentry who scorned them both for their births.
Reiner grunted. If he didn't like his former lover's commanding tone, neither did he dare resent Amabella. Without her and her London family, his scheme to enrich himself and his son would have failed. It was Amabella who smuggled their stolen items first into the convent's cellars, then to her uncle in London. There, and for a hefty fee, the old merchant disposed of them, sending the profits back as letters of credit to be redeemed by Reiner and Adelm at some later time.
These notes resided in Amabella's cellar, in a chest closed by two locks. Reiner possessed one key and Adelm, the other, this arrangement forged after long and violent negotiation between them.
In the end, Reiner's desire to protect himself from Lady Haydon overwhelmed his pride. "Stay then," he snarled and stepped outside the door. The dull thud of his footfalls marked his departure down the exterior stairway.
Only when silence again owned this chamber did Amabella look up into her son's face. "Do something about his panic," she whispered harshly. "Left unchecked, he'll destroy all of us."
Adelm didn't need his mother to tell him Reiner was capable of betrayal. "By his own doing are we well-shielded from him. He dares not speak, and you won't die, if that's what you fear."
His mother loosed a bitter little laugh. "Fear death? Nay, not me. Mother Church doesn't kill those she claims as her own, but she can be very creative when it comes to punishments." Amabella shot another furious glance in the direction Reiner had gone. "Aye, and such punishment would be no less than I deserved if I let him betray me a second time. Why did I believe I could ever control that thick-headed jackass?"
Surprise stirred again in Adelm. A second betrayal? "Reiner claims you aid us for love's sake." He didn't add that Reiner intimated it was for love of him, not Adelm, that Amabella did so. Adelm couldn't add that he prayed the opposite was true, that his mother worked for his advancement because she had some fondness for her long-lost son.
"Love sake?" Amabella spat out in angry astonishment. "Give me a knife and a moment alone with that bitch's son and he'll bleed to death. It's because of him and my sire that I'm trapped in this prison." The lift of her hand indicated the prioress office as hatred's fire took light in her dark eyes. "Your sire seduced me, promising marriage, when all he ever wanted was my rich dowry. After you took root in my womb and my sire disowned me, throwing me from my home, Reiner abandoned me. I'd have died if not for my mother and her brother."
She caught herself, the fire in her gaze dying back to seething embers. "My father, may he rot in hell, meant for me to die. He wanted to wipe me and my bloodline off the earth. Would that I could hear his howl, as I now defy him and raise you into the gentry, making of you a landed knight before my favored brother's brats ever come of marriageable age."
With that, she whirled and started for the door. She didn't bother to send so much as a final glance at her son, much less a loving look, before she was gone, leaving Adelm standing just as alone and disappointed as he'd ever been.
Keeping pace with Sir Josce, Elianne followed Lady Haydon to the broad gate leading to the nuns' garden. Beyond the portal's low arch, the gentle patchwork of the vegetable plots and trees which sustained the sisters spread out before them. Long accustomed to the too-short gateway's too-short arch, Elianne ducked. Sir Josce, his shoulder nearly touching hers, did the same. They moved at the exact instant, straightening as one on the gate's opposite side. This synchrony of movement felt so odd that a wee laugh welled in Elianne. She clapped her hand over her mouth, too late to stop the sound. If ever there was an event that didn't warrant laughter, this was it.
Praying he hadn't heard her, she shot a look at the knight. He had. Sir Josce, yet matching her step for step, eyed her, a slight frown upon his brow.
Elianne's heart fell. If he'd been most other men, the sort like her father who thought only of themselves, she wouldn't have cared that she'd insulted him. But even in the few moments of their acquaintance, Elianne knew this man wasn't like most. Not only hadn’t he raised either hand or sword against a woman, even when commanded to it by his lady, but he'd asked for aid rather than demanding it. This was a man more like Sir Adelm, a fine and loyal knight. The possibility that Sir Josce might now adjudge her disrespectful of his grief was unbearable.
"Pardon, I didn't mean to laugh," Elianne apologized. "It's only that you, that we, move as if we were each other's shadow." With a lift of her hand she indicated the way the very swing of their arms matched.
The frown smoothed from his brow, and despite his grief, the corners of his mouth lifted. "It is odd," he agreed. "Startling as well."
Something stirred beneath the pain filling his fine blue eyes, then he turned his attention back onto his lady ahead of him on the path. "Not unappealing." This last was but a murmur, an aside surely meant only for himself.
Elianne heard. He found her appealing? Under her surprise, something subtle stirred deep in her, the sensation not unfamiliar. In that instant, she was achingly aware of him, of the powerful set of his shoulders, the gleam of his golden hair, and the way he carried himself with ease, despite that he wore armor weighing four stone. Exposure to the past summer's sun had given his skin a fine brown hue and streaked lighter gold into his already fair hair. Elianne's gaze marked the line of his nose, then dropped to gentle curve of his lips. A sigh escaped her. Lord, but he was a fine-looking man, the sort that could have any woman, and he found her appealing when no other man ever had.
In the wake of that thought came resentment, a companion of long standing. Even her sisters had husbands, albeit peasants. Not she. Never she. At her father's command, she would serve him until he died. And her reward for her long years of loyalty? To be abandoned with but a prayer that these nuns might allow her to live here, a servant still, within their const
rained and walled world.
Unable to bear thinking on what she couldn't have and the poverty of her fate, Elianne forced her attention off the knight and onto the garden around her. The sister-farmers, broad hats on their heads and hoes in hand, and the manservants who aided them, all paused in working new richness into their garden to gawk at this strange, silent parade: a mad noblewoman, the sheriff's worthless daughter, a handsome knight, and a flock of panting nuns. Until a distant lark released its glorious song, the only sound was the rush of so many skirts through the drying grasses.
Into the leafy shade of the priory's orderly forest of fruit they went. It wasn't just apples, but pears, tangled rows of blackberries and roses, bushes of sloes, even crab apple, that filled this area, a full eighth of the city's expanse. All too quickly Lady Haydon led them to their awful destination.
To Elianne, the ice house had always looked like a giant badger's den, a great grassy hump of earth with stone steps leading down into its sunken chamber, within which much of the convent's foodstuffs were stored.
And dead bodies, although the sisters weren't often called upon to use this chamber as a morgue.
Lady Haydon stopped on the ice house's top step, her halt so abrupt that her skirts swung around her legs. As the trailing nuns gathered into a ragged half-circle a bare few yards from them, Elianne came to a standstill a foot or so behind the noblewoman. Rather than step forward to join his lady, Sir Josce halted with a quiet jangle of knitted metal at Elianne's side. Startled, she looked up into his face, intending no more than a glance. Instead, her gaze caught and held.
His eyes were closed, his head bowed. Grief radiated from him. Pity tangled with approval in Elianne. That he so deeply mourned his master was further proof of his caring nature. Sir Josce's eyes opened. Elianne started and snatched her gaze from him to his lady, hoping he hadn't noticed that she stared.
Lady Haydon yet hesitated at the top of the ice house stairs, her clasped hands shaking. Her face grayed as she eyed the oaken door separating her from her kin. No longer did Elianne resent her father's demand she come to attend him. He was right, she was needed here, but not by him. It was Sir Josce and his lady she would serve this day.
Elianne stepped forward to join the noble widow on the step. The lady turned her head to consider her new companion. "Coward me, I cannot go another step," she said, her voice harsh and soft in the same instant. "I've come all this distance, only to fail my sweet loves."
Elianne slipped her hand into the bend of the lady's arm. "If you will, we'll descend together," she offered in a quiet voice.
Lady Haydon sighed her agreement and, stair by stair, they made their way down to the ice house door. Sir Josce followed, or so said the gentle rattle of mail and scrape of a leather boot sole from behind them.
The great iron ring that served as a handle turned with a groan. Frigid, musty air gusted past them as Elianne opened the door, even as the day shot in over their shoulders to flood the chamber with warm light. Where bags and barrels didn't conceal them, earthen walls radiated a rich brown color. Packed with straw, what remained of the great ice blocks hewn from the river in winter past gleamed a translucent white. Gossamer spider silk covered the ceiling. Three cots stood at the back wall, the forms upon them already shrouded in white linen for burial.
With a sharp breath, Lady Haydon released Elianne's arm and stepped delicately toward the nearest cot and dropped to her knees before the smallest form.
"Adelaide," she cried, her breath clouding before her in the chill air. "Oh, my sweet, sweet child. How can you bear it here when the cold always makes you cough?"
Elianne's heart broke with the noblewoman's words. If Lady Haydon was mad, it was grief that drove her to it. As the bereft mother's shoulders began to shake, Elianne took a backward step, wanting to grant her some privacy. She collided with Sir Josce, her foot treading atop his. Startled, she lurched to the side and whirled into a staggering step. He caught her by the arms, his hands cupping her elbows. In instinctive reaction, she leaned forward, resting her hands upon his chest as she steadied herself against him.
They were nearly eye-to-eye, close enough that she could see the gleam of sprouting hair upon his lean cheeks. The pulse in his neck throbbed, the heat of his body reaching out to envelop her. Her pulse lifted until her heart fair pounded. Mary save her, but how could his mere nearness to her make her feel so alive?
Confused and not a little unnerved, she pushed back from him. He let her go without resistance, his gaze focused not on her but the corner of the ice house. "Why is his armor here?" he asked, his voice harsh and barely louder than a whisper. The pained lines that bracketed his mouth deepened with his words. As he spoke he shifted backward, step by step, until he stood in the doorway.
Elianne followed his look and understood his question as she caught the glint of metal behind the farthest cot, on which laid Lord Haydon's still form.
Cloaked in the gloom, a knight's shield stood against the wall alongside a sheathed sword. The hazy light found a silvery gleam in the careful stack next to the sword tip. Chain mail? What sort of thieves left behind armor worth nearly its weight in gold?
It was at her father's command that she had no reply to offer Sir Josce. In the seven years the bandit troop had plagued this shire, her father steadfastly refused to discuss their activities with her. Degraded men, her sire claimed, were too gruesome a topic for a woman.
Lady Beatrice loosed a low moan from her prayerful pose beside her daughter's still form. Of a sudden, it was all too much for Elianne, a knight who could set fire to her insides, a lord killed by thieves but still in possession of his riches, two murdered children and their grief-crazed mother. She turned to leave, only to find Sir Josce blocking the doorway. His head was again bowed, his eyes closed and his mouth tight. Unlike his lady, who gave way to tears, he battled his grief with all his might, or so said his clenched fists.
As little as Elianne wanted to disturb him, she needed to escape this place more. Almost tiptoeing, she made her way as close to him as she dared. Here she paused, wondering how to slip past him without disturbing him.
Sir Josce's eyes opened. Stark loneliness darkened his blue eyes. It was as if he thought himself the last man upon this earth, without hope of ever again knowing human companionship. His expression was no more than a reflection of what tormented Elianne each and every day. The sense of kinship was unbearable.
Against what ached in her, what they shared, she reached out without thought, wanting to be comforted as much as she wanted to comfort him. Her hand closed over one of his fists.
He sighed. Some of the loneliness ebbed from his gaze, then his expression relaxed. His hand beneath hers opened and turned, his fingers sliding between hers. His palm was hard and calloused—ah, but the sensation of his skin against hers was impossibly welcome.
Only then did Elianne realize how wrong she'd been to touch him. This wasn't her father or even Adelm, who accepted the occasional press of her fingers with the respect a brother might give a favored sister. This man was no kin of hers, and by that definition, dangerous.
The litany Elianne's father had drilled into her head over her lifetime played anew. Men, Reiner ever lectured, were fickle creatures. While to a one they claimed to respect virtuous women, in truth all men wanted nothing more than to relieve all women of said virtue. In this battle betwixt what a man said and what he did, a woman's single touch, even one offered in all innocence, might lead him to think she no longer wanted her precious maidenhead. Aye, and if a woman were fool enough to give said man her most precious possession, her lover would shortly betray her, rightly abandoning her to face the consequences of her actions alone.
She shifted back from him, her hand opening as she tried to draw her fingers from his. Sir Josce frowned. It wasn't irritation she saw upon his face, but disappointment. His hand tightened on hers as if he meant to pull her close to him again.
A touch of panic lifted in Elianne. "Nay, you must let me go,"
she told him in a frantic whisper. "It's not right that I'm here alone with you and your lady."
The loneliness returned to haunt his gaze. "Stay," he asked, his voice hoarse. "I—she—may yet need you."
His words reverberated in her. Within Elianne a terrible image rose, that of this powerful handsome man as the husband she could never have, the father of the children her virgin womb would never produce. Her loneliness grew until it tore her heart to shreds. "I can't," she cried, tearing her hand from his grasp. Not daring a backward look, she flew up the stairs to halt on the top step. Here she stopped, yet undone.
"Mistress du Hommet!' Prioress Gertha shot out of the now much-expanded crowd of workmen and sisters gathered here. Bright red circles marked the churchwoman's cheeks, while enough torn grass clung to the hems of her usually impeccable habit to suggest she might actually have lifted her heels a little between her office and here. "Lady Haydon is below?"
At Elianne's nod, Gertha leapt around her to race down the stairs.
"Stand aside, damn you. Make way for me," Reiner du Hommet demanded, his deep bass voice loud enough to rattle the treetops.
Irritation hissed from Elianne. Wasn't it just like her sire to defy a woman's command to remain away, then to bull his way through even more women? She watched as her father shoved through the last line of folk separating him from his daughter, his new scarlet gown a beacon, looking all the brighter next to so many dressed in somber hues. He came to a halt before her, the nervousness that had plagued him these last weeks yet dancing in his hazel eyes. What upset him he wouldn't reveal to her, but Elianne suspected it had to do with the thieves who had caused Lord Haydon's death. After years of plaguing only merchants, the ruffians had finally killed someone of consequence, free to do so only because this shire's sheriff had failed to catch them.
"What is the lady doing here? Why didn't she come to the office first as she should have?' Reiner demanded of his youngest daughter. "And where were you? You were to have arrived at the priory before the lady."
The Warrior's Maiden (The Warriors Series Book 2) Page 3
