The steward’s wife pushed past her, muttering commentary on the sin of sloth as she stormed up the stairs, disappearing from sight. Clarisse listened to the echo of Maeve’s efficient footsteps. She had meant to make a friend of the steward’s wife. Instead, she’d likely made a foe. With no hope of reaching the kitchens by this avenue, she turned back the way she had come, seeking her chamber, for Simon showed signs of hungering.
The light repast was brought to her door with impressive speed. The page who brought it also had conveyed a message from the master-at-arms, enjoining her to share the midday meal with him.
Fearful of encountering the Slayer, Clarisse declined Sir Roger’s offer. We will speak again, the Slayer had warned her. And I will have honest answers from you next time.
Not if she succeeded in avoiding him, he wouldn’t. She refused to be caught between the two of them at the noon repast. Instead, she fed Simon with the milk and nibbled at the loaf, hoping to make it last.
The sound of a horseman leaving the stables spurred her to the window. Looking down, she glimpsed the giant form of her new overlord as he guided his mount through the gate. The sight of him in full armor made her stand at attention. She held her breath, waiting for him to reappear on the road outside the castle walls. As he thundered into view, she stared in silent awe. He was armed to the teeth and striking out with purpose.
Where was he going at midday? And why should she be disappointed to see him leave? The more distance between them, the safer she was. Dressed in armor, he looked every inch the ruthless warrior he was reputed to be. The chainmail girding his broad chest was hewn from dark iron links that nullified the sun’s rays. The leather scabbard across his back was also black, as was the hilt of his massive long sword and the knee-high boots. She had heard that his shield, which she couldn’t presently see, boasted a white cross on a black field.
She’d always thought his device a sacrilege. Now that she knew his name, she understood the cross, in part. Yet the man had no priest in his castle. He was anything but devout—though Sir Roger had insisted to the contrary.
Still, she knew in her heart that she couldn’t poison him. Murderer or not, Christian de la Croix was Simon’s father. Helmsley would be lost without his iron rule, just as Ferguson desired. Moreover, she would not be party to such violent destruction.
Catching up the pendant hanging from her neck, she studied it a moment. The gold globe seemed to symbolize Ferguson’s power over the lives of the du Boise women. Clarisse curled her lip in scorn. She would not be subject to Ferguson’s whim any longer.
Deliberately, she pulled the chain over her head. With a flick of her thumb, she unhooked the clasp that kept it closed and swung the orb open. Lethal powder sat in the silk-lined interior, looking as harmless as a pinch of salt. Clarisse extended her arm and held it out the window. With a twist of her wrist, the powder slipped free and sailed lightly into the wind.
With it, a great weight seemed to lift from her shoulders. She snapped the locket shut and looped the chain over her head once more. Then she turned to inspect her lonely chamber. It solved nothing to sequester herself with Simon. She would eat with the master-at-arms, after all. Perhaps Sir Roger knew a priest who could bear a message to Alec.
Chapter Five
After hurriedly feeding the baby, Clarisse placed Simon in his cradle. Then she struggled to carry both the baby and the oak bed down the tower stairs. After all, she had promised the Slayer her vigilance.
Sir Roger looked up from the high table as she moved along the gallery and hastened to her rescue, disappearing momentarily from her sight as he dashed up the stairs before he reappeared at the end of the gallery.
“Dame Clare, you should have summoned a servant,” he scolded as he took the cradle from her hands.
They descended the broad stairs together, drawing the gazes of servants who scurried under Dame Maeve’s stern eye.
“Where would you have me set this?” the knight inquired.
“As close to my seat as possible. Let us pray that Simon remains asleep.”
“I trust you are rested,” he huffed as they neared the high table.
Clarisse murmured something to the affirmative while noting the readiness of the table, the neat appearance of the pages, and the freshness of the rushes under her feet. Maeve performed her duties with daunting skill.
“Sir Christian looked for you again this morning,” the knight confided, putting down the cradle. “But I advised him to let you sleep.” He straightened and regarded her more closely. “You still look tired.”
Clarisse turned away from his probing gaze. “The little baron woke me more than once,” she explained. For all his chivalry, she sensed a search for answers in the knight’s brown eyes. Perhaps she’d been too hasty in accepting his invitation.
“Come and sit by me,” he invited, gesturing to two chairs at one end of the nearly empty high table. “My lord is gone from the castle for the day, and there is no one but the minstrel to entertain me.”
As if by cue, the discordant twang of a lute came from one of the lower benches. Clarisse glanced toward the source of the discord; the minstrel she had seen once before sat at the far end of the hall. He burst suddenly into song, plucking an accompaniment that might have belonged to a different tune altogether.
Apprehension stirred the hairs at the nape of her neck. God’s mercy, did she know the man? There was something familiar about him.
“Fear you not,” Sir Roger said, mistaking her horrified stare for disdain. “These are his last hours at Helmsley,” he murmured out the side of his mouth. “I will send him away after supper, with coin enough to speed him to his next destination.” He tipped her a smile and helped her up the dais steps.
She was glad to hear it. The last thing she needed right then was to encounter someone who could identify her. Turning her attention to the two men already seated, she greeted Edgar, guardian of the dungeons, and Harold the steward, who was Dame Maeve’s husband, as Sir Roger introduced them.
“Don’t bother speaking to them,” he added. “Edgar is deaf, and Harold lives in his own world. Your gracefulness denotes breeding, however,” he added lightly.
She sent him a thin smile. Surely, the knight mocked her disguise as a freed serf. However would she keep the truth from him?
After pushing in her chair, he dropped into his own seat, leaving the lord’s and lady’s places empty. He nodded to the wine bearer, and the meal began. The scent of trout broiled in almond sauce preceded the pages as they bore the main course to the high table, starting there and then placing food at the boards below.
Men-at-arms trudged to the trestles from the practice yards. Sweaty and exhausted, they straggled in, groaning audibly at the sight of the minstrel yet casting curious glances toward the high table.
Clarisse kept her gaze downcast as they whispered among themselves, all no doubt trying to discover who she was. News that she was the infant’s wet nurse would spread like fire round the great hall.
“Did you live in Glenmyre all your life?” Sir Roger asked. At the same time, he divided their trencher in half, giving her the choicest portion of the fish.
She braced herself for another round of questions. “Aye, all my life,” she lied.
Sir Roger dabbed his mouth with the edge of the table linen. “You have heard, no doubt, that my lord will kill anyone who crosses him.”
He said it so matter-of-factly, almost pleasantly, that she might have missed the implied threat as well as the warning to be forthright. She forced herself to chew, though the trout tasted suddenly too salty to swallow.
“He respects honesty in any man or woman,” Sir Roger continued, before digging into his own meal with gusto.
“I saw him leave a while earlier,” she volunteered, shifting the focus of the conversation elsewhere. “Whence did he go?
“To Rievaulx.” The knight’s voice sounded on an odd note.
Clarisse glanced at him sharply. “But the abbey is
quarantined. I went there for shelter and was turned away.”
Sir Roger ripped off a portion of his trencher and dipped it in sauce. “I know,” he said, on a testy note. “’Tis said to be riddled by a great pestilence.”
“Oh, it is,” she assured him. “I saw the effects of it myself.” Her stomach turned at the recollection of Horatio’s ravaged face.
The knight sopped up his broth. “My lord means to call at the gate, not to enter. He is looking for a monk there.” His sharp gaze rose to search her face. “Alec Monteign. Of course, you know him, hailing as you do from Glenmyre,” he added casually.
Clarisse looked over at the cradle to disguise her sudden consternation. What would the Slayer want with Alec? Simon, who was sleeping, gave her no excuse to flee. “Aye, I know him as my lady’s eldest and only son. He heeded a call to the brotherhood after the—” She nearly slipped and said the Slayer. “After Sir Christian took possession of Glenmyre.”
“Just so. What is he like?”
She tore off a bit of her own bread. “He’s a devout man,” she said evasively. “Why do you ask?”
The knight regarded her directly. “’Tis a matter of great importance, affecting the lives of many,” he replied. “One day you may be able to return to Glenmyre”—he paused and sipped his wine—“to do whatever it is that you did before.”
She ignored his deliberate comment. “Are you suggesting that Alec might rightly rule in his father’s stead?” Hope urged her heart into a trot.
The knight smiled enigmatically. “Alec, you call him?” He paused while she blushed, realizing the slip of her tongue in speaking of him as an equal. Then he shrugged.
“Mayhap,” Sir Roger added, raising her hopes, “but then, mayhap not. Who can explain the devotion of one man to God and another to power?”
To Clarisse, it sounded like a leading question. Was Sir Roger probing her allegiance to Alec and, if so, why? To determine if she was there to seek vengeance, no doubt. Likely, everything he had to say was designed to trap her into revealing her loyalties.
She counseled herself not to speak of the past again and steered the conversation toward safer topics—the lax attitude of King Stephen and the recent antics of his dubious heir.
As the sweetmeats approached the table, Clarisse summoned the courage to ask her most pressing question. “Sir Roger, why is there no priest here? ’Tis my custom to confess once a week,” she tacked on to avoid rousing his suspicions.
Something suggestive flickered in his eyes. “Are you such a sinner, then, that you must confess each week?”
The strange question gave her pause. “’Tis the proper practice for all of the faithful,” she said. She was certainly no more of a sinner than his overlord who had slaughtered innocents. “Why is there no priest?” she asked again.
His perpetual smile became a grimace. He looked away, shaking his hoary head. “An interdict was imposed on Helmsley not too long ago,” he said flatly. “The only sacraments that may be administered here are baptism and extreme unction. ’Twould serve no purpose to have a priest.”
“I see,” she said, reeling with astonishment. “And who imposed the interdict? The Abbot of Rievaulx?”
“An accurate guess.”
“But why?” she persisted.
He popped a sweetmeat in his mouth. “Who knows?” he muttered. “It gives him pleasure to spread discontent.”
Hearing the irritation in his voice, Clarisse glanced toward Simon’s cradle and saw that the baby was fussing. “Sir Roger, I thank you for your gracious company. The little baron awakes, and I have sworn our liege lord to give his son my undivided attention.” In truth, she longed to retire to her chamber and ponder her next move.
“Join me,” he said, trapping her hand under his, “at the evening meal. The minstrel will be gone, and our ears will be left at peace.”
She murmured a noncommittal reply. Speaking at any length with Sir Roger was bound to get her stuck in the web of her own lies.
He pulled back her heavy chair, and then called over a youth to assist her with the cradle. As she trailed the servant, Peter, toward the stairs, they approached the minstrel who had moved across the hall, perhaps to intercept her path. The young man’s gaze rose to capture hers, and shock slammed through Clarisse, bringing her to a sudden halt. By God, she knew him after all!
His name was Rowan, son of Kendal, Ferguson’s second-in-command. No minstrel was he, and it was suddenly clear why his playing and singing were so terrible. Her heart thudded with sudden dread. Why else had he come to Helmsley but to report back to Ferguson and ensure that Clarisse fulfilled her sinister purpose?
Mischief sparkled in Rowan’s hazel eyes. Without warning, he launched into a ballad extolling the beauty of “The Fiery- Haired Lady.”
Glancing uncomfortably about the hall, Clarisse realized she was now the center of attention. Knowing she would draw more speculation by shunning the minstrel, she attended his song with outward courtesy.
As the song went on, she realized it was laden with hidden meanings. The story of a king’s courtesan, hanged for betraying him and revealing secrets to his enemy, was meant to be a warning to her.
Her throat tightened and her mouth grew dry. The nightmare she’d dreamt the night prior replayed itself in her mind. It seemed inevitable that Ferguson would dispense of her mother and sisters as he’d threatened.
At last, the song came to a close. Rowan offered her a mocking smile, one that held an unmistakable threat. Pretending to be flattered, she clapped for him. A smattering of applause punctuated the hall. She turned stiffly away, encouraging Peter under her breath to move out smartly.
Halfway up the broad staircase, Clarisse dared a glance over her shoulder. Two pairs of eyes in particular watched her retreat. One was hazel and mocking, the other a thoughtful brown.
Frustration pricked the backs of her eyeballs. Everywhere she turned, men sought to control her destiny. All she wanted was to give her family back its freedom. And—God’s wounds—there wasn’t even a priest at Helmsley to help her!
Clarisse sheltered Simon’s eyes from the sunlight drenching the inner bailey. Heavy, damp heat flooded the enclosure. How she missed the breeze wafting over the wall to cool her third-story chamber and abate some of the humidity! However, until she accomplished her mission, she vowed she would not return to the keep. The way she saw it, she had two birds to kill and only one stone to see it done.
Under the guise of introducing the baby to the castle folk, she managed to locate the livestock pens near the kitchen and immediately adjacent to a large pigeon coop. Two nanny goats bleated in alarm as she peered through the shelter door at them. The nearest entrance to the castle was just a short dash away. Getting milk straight from the source would not present a problem, she determined, so long as she could do so without attracting notice.
Her spirits quailed at the thought of carrying out such subterfuge under the Slayer’s very nose. Still, until Alec learned of her plight, what other choice had she but to continue with her guise—unless her new lord succeeded in discovering from Alec whom she really was.
She let a shiver of fear course through her, then straightened her shoulders and stroked the baby’s cheek. She could not afford to take on any more worry. If the Slayer knew, then her end would come swiftly and surely upon his return.
Meanwhile, she would continue to endeavor to get a message to Alec, and the Abbot of Revesby’s upcoming visit offered her a means.
Having located the nanny goats, Clarisse turned her thoughts to dispensing the second bird. Resuming her circuit around the castle courtyard, she kept a vigilant eye on the only gate. Rowan would be leaving that very afternoon, dismissed for his poor playing. She could not resist the urge to gloat over his failure to infiltrate the castle as she had. More importantly, it was imperative that she convince him she would soon be poisoning the Slayer. When Rowan returned to Heathersgill, she would see to it that he had nothing but good news to deliver to Fergus
on.
Crossing with seeming unconcern to the stables, she stood a moment watching a rough-hewn laborer pound shoes on a plow horse. “Have you met the little baron yet?” she inquired, guessing the man to be the stable master.
The laborer straightened and wiped his brow. Frowning suspiciously, he stepped from the horse to peer inside the sling at Clarisse’s hip. Simon resembled a sleeping cherub with lashes feathering his rounded cheeks. The stable master’s visage immediately softened.
“He has the look of his mother,” he growled, turning away.
Clarisse hid a satisfied smile. Though the people of Helmsley found it easy to resent their overlord, they couldn’t bring themselves to hate a baby. Simon might be still an infant, but it was good to foster the loyalty of the people he would one day rule.
Enjoying a moment of nearly unfathomable pride, she almost overlooked the minstrel’s surreptitious departure. Rowan slouched toward the gate, clutching his lute to his chest. As he cast a wary glance over one shoulder, he caught sight of Clarisse heading him off, and he drew up short, his lips drawn back in a crafty smile.
“Lady Clarisse,” he said, ignoring her hissed warning not to speak her name.
“You make a sorry minstrel, Rowan,” she informed him, running a wry gaze over his festive attire.
“You wound me, lady,” he said, clearly not meaning it. “Did you have something of import to tell me?”
Conscious of the curious gazes being cast their way, she got swiftly to the point. “Kindly convey a message to my stepfather,” she told him in a hushed voice. “Tell him all goes according to plan. At the earliest convenience, the deed will be done.”
Rowan’s dark eyes narrowed. “What took you so long in getting here?” he demanded. “I was at Helmsley two full days before you showed up.”
“I got lost,” she lied. “Then a farmer gave me a ride in his cart, and he took me in the wrong direction.”
“Humph,” grunted Rowan. “Ye had best not try anything foolish.”
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