The Warrior's Maiden (The Warriors Series Book 2)

by Denise Domning

  Again, surprise shot through Adelm. He’d always believed his uncle a willing and greedy partner, not unlike Reiner. “Are you saying now that your sibling might betray us?”

  “Are you mad?” She spat out a harsh laugh. “Betraying us would mean betraying what has passed through his coffers. No one will believe he didn’t know the full scope of all my uncle did whilst under his roof. With what vast sums he gives to the Church, it’ll look as though he tried to buy his way out of sin.” She sneered.

  Amabella leaned back in her saddle to free a scornful breath. “There’s no place for religion in business. Does he truly think he can bargain with the Almighty? A few prayers and a smattering of good works won’t erase the wrong we do. Nay, we’re all doomed for it, all of us headed straight for hell.” She laughed at this, not an iota of fear in the sound.

  Adelm sighed. She was right. They were damned. That was, if an afterlife existed, something Adelm yet doubted. Nay, in the weeks since the murder of those two innocents, Adelm was fairly certain he already dwelt in hell. He cleared the thought from his throat.

  “How can you be certain he won’t give all of what’s ours to God and His church, and be rid of us at last?”

  Amabella straightened with a strong enough jerk that the donkey huffed in protest and sidled. Surprise flushed all trace of anger from her face. “What, and cheat his own kin?! Never! You may as well say he won’t change his will to include you the moment he receives what I’ve sent to him.”

  Her protest was so honest that Adelm almost laughed. So, his uncle was but half a thief, refusing to steal from his own blood even as he profited from the wrongdoing of others.

  As Amabella relaxed in her saddle, astonishment filled her face. “What a fool I am. But here’s how you’ll get your wealth!”

  Her eyes narrowed and her mouth tightened to a grim line. “As I said, in London go you to meet with my brother. He’s Gerard, Robert’s son, a mercer, his home standing in the shadow of St. Paul’s. Do more than make his acquaintance as you meet him. Work to cultivate his trust. This way, if he hasn’t already received what I sent he’ll make a point of informing you when our wealth arrives. Once he has it in his hands and in his will, you must slay him in secret.”

  Her words tore through Adelm like a sword strike. Once again, one of his parents planned that he’d do murder. Roaring from the depths of his memories came the way Clarice had trembled in his arms as her life’s blood flowed.

  Adelm’s stomach wrenched. His hands burned where her innocent blood had stained his skin. He rubbed his palms against the body of his tunic. Frigid emptiness opened up within him, growing until it stole his will and ate up all his energy. From some abstract corner of his mind came the thought that this must be what death felt like.

  Desperate to escape both his mother and the awful sensation, Adelm released the donkey’s bridle. He stepped back from the beast. With his movement, his mother cast a wary glance behind her. Hamo had just appeared at the bottom of Priory Lane. When Amabella looked back at Adelm, her face was clear, her eyes fair guileless.

  “Godspeed to you on your journey,” she cheerily bid him.

  Adelm nearly laughed. That his mother could spill those words as she sent him off to do murder was beyond irony. He turned without a response and strode away from the woman who had given him life.

  Less than an hour after winning her sire’s promise to end her life, Elianne paced before his closed bedchamber door. The hall behind her was dark and empty, wood being too dear to waste in lighting an empty chamber.

  This morn everyone was out and about. Haydon’s master-at-arms worked his men in the yard, or so said the muted clang of swords against shields that rang in through the hall’s open doorway. As was his duty, Richard supervised the hamlet’s harvest to see that his master wasn’t cheated. With the breakfast tables cleaned and disassembled, Aggie and her girls were in the kitchen, hard at their many autumn chores.

  Sister Ada had joined them while Lady Haydon rested. When Elianne put her head into the kitchen a few moments ago, Ada and Aggie were having a friendly argument over exactly what herbs should flavor a brewet. As for Sister Cecilia, she’d returned to the priory this morn. The noble widow was no longer ill enough to warrant both of the priory’s most skilled healers.

  All in all, that made this the perfect moment to enter the bedchamber and convince Lady Haydon that she didn’t hate the sheriff’s daughter as much as she believed. Elianne grimaced. This was idiocy, and Josce was wrong. No matter what she offered the lady, Beatrice wasn’t going to shield her. Aye, and the noblewoman certainly wasn’t going to recommend her enemy’s daughter to the priory.

  Behind the bedchamber’s door, wood splintered in an explosion of sound. Elianne cried out and leapt back from the door. Fabric rent. Pottery shattered. The lady shrieked, the sound fraught with pain. Terrified for the widow, Elianne wrenched open the door.

  The splintered remains of a stool rested against one wall. One of her father’s precious bedcurtains was torn in twain. A diamond-shaped gout of plaster was missing from another wall, white crumbs littering the rush matting, along with shards of what had been Coneytrop’s only crockery pitcher. Light streaming through the window caught on the green bits as they glinted, dark and wet, amidst the shattered plaster.

  Her head bowed and shoulders heaving, her fine red hair streaming down her back, Lady Haydon stood at the room’s center. The widow wore naught but her chemise, and that garment gaped on her, torn as it was from neckline to breast.

  Arms crossed tightly before her, she lifted her head to look upon this interloper. There was no recognition in the lady’s dark eyes. Worry tore through Elianne. Had Lady Haydon once more taken leave of her senses? She took a backward step, meaning to race for the kitchen and Ada.

  Beatrice rocked unsteadily upon her naked feet. “They were just children,” she cried, “hardly more than babes.”

  There was such pain in her voice that Elianne’s feet froze to the floor. Tears jumped to her eyes. She nodded, as much to show that she recognized what tortured Beatrice as to acknowledge the remark.

  “Someone put a knife to their sweet flesh and cut them.” This was a hoarse statement, as flat and as dead as the lady’s children.

  What those poor babes must have suffered before God claimed their souls. Elianne’s tears spilled from her eyes to trace warm tracks down her cheeks. Again, she nodded to Josce’s stepmother, this time to show she shared her ache.

  Lady Beatrice’s brow creased. The pain spread from her gaze to her face until her features twisted against it. “How could anyone kill innocent children?” she pleaded.

  There was no answer to this question, at least none that Elianne knew. She could only shake her head against the unthinkable. Beatrice lifted her face toward the ceiling.

  “Lord, You let someone murder my babies,” the noblewoman howled to heaven, her shout so loud that Elianne started. “How could You take my darlings from me like that?” she demanded. “You didn’t even give me a chance to bid them a final farewell,” she added at a harsh breath.

  Silence reclaimed the room, broken only by Beatrice’s gasping breath. Then, with a sound like unto a dog’s bark, the lady’s face crumpled. She dropped to her knees. A sob exploded from her. As if the sound drove her to it, Beatrice fell forward to lie prostrate upon the matting.

  Another sob wracked her, then another and another. Each seemed to tear up from the depths of her being before it exploded from her. At last, Beatrice’s whole body spasmed in pain, as her fist pounded a terrible tattoo upon the braided rushes.

  Elianne’s heart shattered. Here before her, cloaked in naught but raw emotion, was her father’s legacy. How many other widows and mothers sobbed because their husbands or sons died at the hands of this shire’s thieves? All because her sire had devised a new way to line his own purse.

  Against Beatrice’s need and her father’s wrong, Elianne’s fear for herself died. She hurried across the room to kneel beside Jos
ce’s noble stepmother. “Oh, my lady, I’m so sorry,” she said softly, again and again, all the while stroking a gentle hand down the woman’s back as the lady cried.

  It was a long while before Beatrice’s sobs became but quiet, pain-filled hiccups. As the lady lay limp and spent upon matting, Elianne’s nervousness returned. She couldn’t do it, coward that she was, not when Beatrice’s heart broke so over her lost children. She couldn’t beg for herself, not after what her father had done.

  “It isn’t fitting that you should lie upon the floor, my lady,” she said at last.

  Drawing a shattered breath, Beatrice shifted an arm to pillow her head. “I suppose not.” With her face aimed toward the floor, her voice was barely audible.

  “You must rise and return to bed,” Elianne told her.

  “I cannot.” This time, Beatrice’s words owned an aching edge as if she feared she might never again be able to move.

  Elianne made a comforting, soothing sound, then once more stroked the lady’s back. “You can with my help, but you must turn over. I can aid you from there.”

  With a broken sigh, Beatrice did as she was bid, rolling onto her back. Her cheeks and brow wore an imprint of the mat’s weave. Her face was red, her eyes puffy, their dark irises dull. “Mary save me,” the noblewoman breathed as she eyed her companion, “but it’s you.”

  “I fear it is,” Elianne replied in hopelessness, waiting for Lady Beatrice to smite her or shout out that she should leave.

  But the lady only freed another aching sigh. That the noblewoman’s grief might be so deep it could eat up even hatred woke Elianne’s shame. This was all her fault. She should have seen what her father plotted. Instead, she blinded herself to his doings, all because what he did wasn’t troubling her. It was rising guilt that spurred words from Elianne’s tongue.

  “Oh my lady, know that if there were any way I could give your daughters back to you, I’d do it. As God is my witness, I didn’t know what he was doing.”

  Confusion flickered through Lady Beatrice’s dull gaze. “What? Who?”

  Elianne bowed her head. “My lady, I believe my sire protects the thieves who stole the lives of your daughters and your husband.”

  That brought new light raging into the lady’s eyes. Beatrice’s mouth twisted into a harsh line. Her jaw tightened. Reaching out, she caught Elianne’s hand in a grip so tight that Elianne nearly cried out.

  “Which is this?” Lady Haydon demanded, her voice hoarse from sobbing. There was no kindness in her tone. “A selfish sham of penitence to ease your own soul’s aching, or an offer to aid me in my vengeance? If it’s the first, then go beat your breast elsewhere and leave me to my honest grief. If it’s the second, say it now and plainly, so we’ll have no mistakes between us. For the sake of my darlings and their stolen lives, will you help me avenge myself against your sire?”

  It was a terrible question, a sin against God, who commanded His people to respect their sires and dams. Could she turn her back on all she knew was right and aid her father’s enemies in destroying him? Elianne swallowed. A daughter who betrayed her sire would be a pariah. No man or woman would ever again trust her.

  Even as fear for herself and her future held her tongue, the voices of all those her sire had betrayed in one way or another echoed in her. She heard her mother, her sisters, Mother Gertha, poor sweet Isabel his second wife, and Isabel’s stillborn son. And what of the dead merchants and their men? What of Clarice and Adelaide, and Lord Haydon? To a one, they also cried out that Reiner du Hommet must pay.

  Elianne had no choice. Even still, she couldn’t speak the words aloud. All she offered Beatrice was a single, slow nod.

  Vicious excitement took fire in the noblewoman’s eyes. “Help me up, then. We have work to do.”

  Hunger gnawed a hole in Adelm’s stomach. He tried to spit out the road dust only to discover there was no moisture in his mouth. He touched his tongue to his lips. They were so dry he wondered if they bled.

  It was yet another day too hot for the season. Although it was only morning, the woolen garments he wore beneath his chain mail were already sodden with sweat. This, when he had hours of travel remaining before he reached Knabwell.

  At least his mount and the one he led were fresh and moving at a sprightly pace. Two horses guaranteed he’d reach the city before late afternoon. A flicker of regret shot through him.

  To get these two he’d had to trade his own horse, a friend of long duration. Adelm shook away the emotion. If he had to ride a horse to its death, better that it not be that sweet-natured, thick-headed creature. No horse had the stamina to make the trip from London to Knabwell in two days, and Adelm had to be in Knabwell today. The morrow marked a fortnight since Haydon’s arrival at Coneytrop, the date on which Sir Josce had demanded that Reiner produce the thieves.

  It was what Adelm found in London that now chased him back to Knabwell only four days after he and his decimated troop reached Westminster. Yesterday he’d gone to meet with his uncle as his mother commanded, only to discover in Gerard another soul like Elianne, good-hearted and direct, a man who valued his family over his own profit. In that, Amabella was right. Her brother lacked the usual temperament of a man of business.

  Gerard had tearfully begged his nephew to sin no more, not because what Adelm did threatened Gerard, but because the man truly feared for his nephew’s soul. Then, rather than send Adelm from his house because of his wrongdoing, Gerard invited his sister’s bastard to dine with him. Much to Adelm’s surprise, at that meal his uncle had introduced him to his household as a kinsman, doing so without hesitation and despite Adelm’s birth or what Gerard knew of his nephew’s sins.

  It was there that Adelm met his nieces. Black of hair as he’d been in his youth and with eyes as dark as his, the lasses were happy children. Adelm judged them to be the same ages as the Ladies Haydon.

  Once again, sickness overtook him. His stomach lurched and twisted. Clutching the reins too tightly, Adelm closed his eyes to fight the sensation.

  It was a mistake. His nieces’ images formed behind his eyelids. Then, as had happened time and again since their introduction, the image changed until Adelm saw himself holding them as he had Clarice and Adelaide. Even as he fought to prevent it, his imagination moved that knife across their throats until their blood flowed.

  The voices followed, not those of his nieces, but of the two sweet little lasses he’d killed. Clarice only wept, her wordless sobs heart wrenching in their terror. Adelaide spoke to him as she’d done that day, her words wispy and trembling: But I thought you were fond of me, Sir Adelm.

  Adelm shook his head until both the images and sounds disappeared, then lifted his gaze to the road in front of him. His purpose lay ahead of him. Aye, and he saw it now as clearly as he saw the dirt and grass of the roadway. He would stop at the priory first, then find his sire.

  Seated on a stool in her father’s bedchamber, Elianne lifted her head. With her needle poised for the next stitch in the shirt she made for Dickon, part of his yearly pay, she concentrated. Aye, there it was again.

  “Mistress! Mistress!”

  Mabil’s distant cry put the girl perhaps halfway up the house’s exterior stair. That Mabil shouted meant her news was of some import. Aye, but was it important enough to free her from this prison?

  Elianne looked at Lady Beatrice, who dozed in Coneytrop’s only chair. They’d moved the seat from the hall into this chamber for the lady’s use because Beatrice refused to enter the hall save for meals. Haydon’s lady declared it inappropriate for her to mingle with the servants and soldiers. Beatrice also used this chair to raise her above anyone else seated in her presence. It wasn’t that Beatrice was pompous by nature, she was only very aware of her rank.

  The lady was also very much improved since her arrival at Coneytrop. Despite that Beatrice yet struggled to rise above the blow dealt her by her daughters’ deaths, dark rings no longer marked her eyes. There was a more natural roundness to her face. Indeed, Ad
a had returned to the convent a few days ago after telling the noblewoman that she couldn’t travel for yet another fortnight.

  Two more weeks. The very thought of that much more time spent in Beatrice’s company exhausted Elianne. She’d never survive it, not when the lady demanded her hostess share her self-imposed exile. Beatrice needed her. Now that Ada was gone, only Elianne was allowed to soothe the lady during her daily bouts with grief.

  Beneath Elianne’s exhaustion, worry rode her a brutal horseman. Her autumn chores now stacked up faster than the wood brought to Coneytrop for winter fuel by those peasants bound to her sire. If she didn’t soon break free, her household would starve for certain in the coming season.

  That was, if she survived as long as that. Her father remained relentless in his effort to regain custody of her. Each and every day found Reiner at Coneytrop’s gate, demanding Beatrice give up his daughter.

  Just as Lady Haydon had promised on the day of their pact, Beatrice steadfastly refused him. That simple refusal had worked well enough until yesterday, when Reiner appeared with four men at his back and tried to ride past Haydon’s soldiers guarding the gate. Only when Master Nicholas, the commoner who led Haydon’s men in Josce’s absence, commanded his men to bare their swords did he retreat.

  Elianne sighed as hopelessness and fear tightened their embrace about her. She knew all too well what drove her father to such recklessness. Josce’s promised day of reckoning was at hand. Reiner was frantic to save himself.

  Mabil came to a panting halt in the bedchamber door, her skirts swinging about her legs. Elianne held a finger to her lips, warning the girl to quiet. Too late.

  “Mistress, you really must come see this,” the lass cried out.

  The shout startled Lady Beatrice from her dreams. Coming upright in the chair, the noblewoman looked toward the doorway. When she saw who there she vented an irritable sigh. “Mary save me, must you always shriek so?”