Danger’s Promise

by Marliss Moon

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  DANGER’S PROMISE

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2002 by Marliss Arruda

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is http://www.penguinputnam.com

  ISBN: 0-7865-2752-8

  A Jove BOOK®

  Jove Books first published by The Jove Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  Jove and the “J” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Electronic edition: July, 2002

  With special thanks to my best friend and proofreader, Sydney Baily-Gould. You stood by me through many long years and many poor manuscripts. You deserve all the credit for this one!

  For Alan, my soul mate. Thank you for believing.

  For all my children and stepchildren: Conrad and Chauncey; Corey, Bryan and Tricia. May your lives be filled with magic and grace.

  Chapter One

  North York Moors, A.D. 1150

  In battle, he fought like a man possessed. To the enemy, he gave no quarter. His nom de guerre sent shivers of horror down the spines of common folk. Yet, reflected in the gray depths of his newborn’s eyes, the Slayer looked like an ordinary man. A profoundly humbled man.

  His baby had inherited his swarthy coloring and his stubborn nature, given that he was still alive. He was little more than a bundle of slippery limbs, but his chest swelled on a healthy breath, and his fists resembled iron mallets. With a wail that bounded off the ceiling and magnified, Simon heralded his own birth. Beyond the shutters, thunder boomed and lightning crackled.

  The Slayer nearly smiled. Simon de la Croix would be the next Baron of Helmesly, not a bastard warrior like his father. Not a man forced to fight for all he had.

  The portal burst open, startling the baby into silence. A draft beat up the torchlight and illumined the flapping sleeves of the midwife as she rushed into the chamber.

  “Give me the babe!” screeched the wizened woman. She reached for him with her shriveled hands. “I must baptize it at once!”

  Christian lifted his son above the woman’s reach. A pox on the midwife! Did she think Simon marked for the devil? “I told you to leave,” he said in his quietest voice.

  The old woman stilled, her eyes moving beyond him to the lifeless form of the Slayer’s wife. “Mother of God, what have ye done?” she whispered.

  Christian felt his horror bubble up, and he quickly squashed it down. “What have I done?” he snarled. “I’ve done naught but save my son from perishing with his mother. ’Twas you who let her die. Get you out before I think to imprison you for murder!”

  The midwife blanched and scurried backward. Hastily she gathered her belongings: bottles of draughts and tisanes, knives and needles. They clanged together in the earthenware bowl as she scuttled from the room. With a furtive look, she darted away.

  The door closed behind her. In the silence that followed, Christian heard the thudding of his own heart. His disbelieving gaze drifted about the room, touching on the mutilated body of his wife, the rosary beads lying useless in her palm, the half-embroidered altar cloth upon the chair. At last he looked down at the baby in his arms. Simon returned his gaze intently.

  “Your mother is dead,” Christian whispered. And I feel ’tis my fault.

  Until the midwife came, her labor had been unremarkable. Genrose had suffered the pangs of childbirth with the same saintly silence that she’d suffered her husband. Then, oh, so subtly, she had faded with the dying light of day.

  There is naught more I can do, the midwife had declared. These things are in God’s hands.

  The words perturbed him even now. Christian had cast the woman from the room and dared to alter fate’s design. He had cut Simon free of his fleshy prison, and even cut the cord that tied the baby to his ill-fated mother. And the baby had lived!

  Lowering his son into the box of waiting linens, he wrapped him carefully against the cold. Simon held still, uncritical of his father’s ministrations. His somber gaze demanded something of him—a mother most likely.

  With a deep breath Christian called upon the ruthlessness that had given him his nom de guerre, the Slayer of Helmesly. Then he turned to the task of rolling his lady’s corpse in cloth. It took all the sheets on the bed, plus those folded on the chest, to staunch the blood still spilling from her body. His movements were deft with practice. Yet in all his experience of war, he had never felt so sickened by his actions, so keenly plagued by guilt.

  Had he loved the lady who had died to give him a son?

  In the act of covering Genrose’s face, he hesitated. Her quiet features were hardly even known to him. She had been as pure as a novice when he’d wed her a year ago. Then, as now, he’d been unworthy of her sacrifice. His only comfort was the certainty that she was happier with God than she had been with him.

  The baby gave a whimper in his cradle. Christian hurried to the box, worried that his son might yet be snatched away from him.

  Who would nurture Simon? Who would feed him? The questions hit him like the broadside of a sword. Wiping the blood from his hands, he scooped the baby up and paced the length of the chamber.

  Simon ceased to fret, his bright eyes watchful. The rain began to pelt the shutters. A knock sounded at the door.

  “Enter.”

  Sir Roger edged into the torchlight. The droplets on his cloak gleamed like diamonds as he ran an eye over the nightmarish scene. “My lord, you are covered in blood!” the middle-aged knight exclaimed, shutting the portal behind him.

  Sir Roger’s tilted smile was not in evidence tonight. The scars that forked like veins upon his face paled as he approached. He stopped before his lord, and his gaze fell to the swaddled infant. “A boy, my lord?” he queried gently.

  “His name is Simon. He will inherit his grandfather’s title,” Christian answered, though Roger already knew his motives for marrying the baron’s daughter.

  Gray eyes flicked once to the bed, then back to the baby. “I know not what to say,” confessed the knight.

  “Say nothing.” Christian felt as if he wore a mask upon his face. Spots burst and swam before his eyes. “Tell me how the defense goes at Glenmyre.”

  “The news isn’t good, my lord,” Sir Roger warned.

  “Say it.” The struggle over Glenmyre was escalating into war. Between domestic matters and military preoccupations, Christian had little time for rest. “What has Ferguson done now?”

  “He rode upon Glenmyre at dusk, when the peasants were returning from the fields. He slew them all.”

  Christian swore viciously at the Scot’s perfidy. “How many dead?” he demanded.

  “Nineteen men.”

  A familiar queasiness turned Christian’s stomach. The Scotsman’s atrocities reminded him of his own past. Feeling his knees go weak, he thrust the baby at his vassal. “Find a nurse for my son,” he commanded. “I will ride to Glenmyre to bolster our defense.”

  He took several steps toward the door, th
en turned to regard the dismal chamber. “See that my lady is buried alongside her parents,” he instructed.

  Sir Roger looked older with an infant clutched to his hauberk. “As you will, sire,” he assured his lord.

  Christian grasped the latch. “Ethelred must bury her. Do not let news of her death reach Abbot Gilbert.”

  Again, Sir Roger nodded, and the Slayer took his leave. The lord’s chamber opened to a gallery, which overlooked the hall. Below, the servants gathered, awaiting news of the birth. As Christian clutched the balustrade for balance, the light of the fire pit deepened the bloodstains on his tunic.

  The servants looked up at him in one accord. Shock flared in their eyes. At their collective gasp, he fell back into the shadows. Too late, he realized they were thinking of the abbot’s prophesy, cried out within the chapel just nine months ago.

  Mark me well, people of Helmesly. This virgin bride will be slain by her husband!

  Nay, not he! Christian longed to defend his innocence, but his protests would fall on deaf ears. The servants wouldn’t take his word over that of a cleric. He would never win their loyalty now.

  He turned to the courtyard, seeking rain to wash the blood from his clothes. But before he reached the solitude of the tower stairs, a servant’s whisper rose with the smoke from the fire pit.

  “Mother of God, he has killed Her Ladyship! Did ye see the blood?”

  With blisters burning her feet, Clarise DuBoise tackled the hill to the Abbey of Rievaulx. The abbey commanded a view at the height of a crag, rising from the stalks of purple heather to lord over the valley below. Its walls seemed to waver in the hot July haze. She would not admit it was her vision blurring.

  For two long days the sun had sat upon her shoulders and sucked the moisture from her moth. Beneath the cloth hiding her hair, Clarise’s scalp was drenched with sweat. The gown that disguised her as a peasant chafed her limbs where her shift failed to cover her. Her slippers were worn to tatters. She was lucky to be alive.

  Ferguson, her stepfather, hadn’t cared about the dangers of the road when he’d cast her out upon her mission. He knew the threat to kill her mother and sisters was enough to ensure that she would fight to survive any hardship.

  Ferguson had instructed her to go straight to the Slayer’s castle. Ye mon gain admission to Helmesly as a freed serf in need o’ work, he’d commanded. Drop the powder into his drink at the first chance ye get. If the Slayer isn’t dead in two months’ time, I’ll hang yer mother an’ sisters in the courtyard.

  There were others he could have sent in her stead, men and women more adept at subterfuge. But Ferguson had a reason for sending Clarise to do his dirty work. She had attempted to avenge her father’s murder numerous times. Her sharp, strategic mind made her an ever-present danger to Ferguson. He could not control her except from afar.

  The toxic powder was concealed in a pendant that hung on a chain about her neck. Clarise felt the weight of the pendant swing between her breasts as she pushed her way up the abbey’s hill. Ferguson’s plan was sneaky and cold-blooded. It was riddled with flaws. The likelihood that she would be exposed and hanged for spying was high, but that did not cause Ferguson any great concern. Clarise was as dispensable as her mother and sisters.

  Only one alternative existed to the plan: that Alec could help her. Six months ago Alec had been Clarise’s betrothed; now he was a monk. The wedding would have taken place last Christmas, had the Slayer of Helmesly not attacked without warning on the eve of the nuptials. In a bloody assault he had killed Alec’s father, prompting Alec to flee to Rievaulx Abbey in fear of his life. Clarise’s dream of escaping her stepfather’s clutches through marriage had been crushed.

  She told herself Alec would stay at Rievaulx only a short while. He was a knight, after all, not a man of the cloth. But the days turned to weeks and then to months. In letters too many to count, she pleaded for Alec to take up his sword and rescue her family from the Scot’s abuses. Until now, her efforts had been in vain.

  Today she would petition him in person. How could Alec refuse to help when she told him of Ferguson’s threat to kill her family? Honor dictated that he summon an army and challenge her stepfather once and for all.

  The scent of cooked meat wafted from a nearby village, distracting Clarise from her introspection. Her stomach gave an empty growl, but she ignored it. The monks would feed her at Rievaulx.

  Her footsteps faltered as she approached the abbey’s only gate. The wall that rose toward the cloudless sky reminded her of her father’s tomb. It was hewn from the same gray stone.

  Alec is here, she reminded herself, shaking off her sudden foreboding. When he saw her in person, he would remember his love for her. He would be her hero once again.

  The only way to signal her presence was to tug on a bell rope. At the bell’s high jingle, the peephole snapped open. “Aye?” came a voice from the folds of a cowl.

  Clarise greeted the faceless monk in Latin. “I must share a word with Alec Monteign.”

  The monk showed no reaction to her words. “We have an illness here. The abbey is quarantined,” he said stoically.

  Alarm rippled over her. “What manner of illness is it?” she demanded. Without Alec’s help, she would have no choice but to execute her mission.

  “Fever,” said the monk shortly. “Boils and lesions.”

  Clarise repressed the urge to cover her mouth with one corner of her headdress. “Nonetheless, I must speak with Alec.” Desperation made her dizzy. She blinked her eyes to clear her vision, and when she opened them, the monk was gone.

  Where did he go? Clarise stood tiptoe and peered into the abbey’s courtyard. The cobbled square looked strangely abandoned. An inscription over a pair of double doors drew her gaze. Hic laborant fratres crucis, said the message. Here labor brothers of the cross.

  No one labored now. Neither did they tend the vineyards outside the abbey’s walls. The rows of trellises stood bereft of vine or grape. She was left with the dampening suspicion that she’d come to the wrong place for help.

  The sound of footsteps echoed off the courtyard. Another man approached the gate. He did not wear a cowl over his dark, tonsured hair but a stole that designated him an abbot. Clarise’s hopes took wing, then plummeted as his black gaze skewered her through the little opening.

  “You should not be here,” he informed her cryptically. “There is a great scourge within these walls.”

  “I wish only to speak with Alec Monteign,” she said deferentially.

  “Brother Alec tends the sick. He cannot be interrupted.”

  “He isn’t ill, then?” she asked, hopeful once again.

  “Not yet.” The abbot spoke with no inflection in his voice. She couldn’t tell if he was angry or dispassionate.

  “I was once his betrothed, Your Grace,” Clarise rushed to explain. “If he knew I had come so far, I am certain he would want to—”

  His gaze had sharpened with her words. “Remove the cloth, so that I might see you,” he interrupted.

  Clarise eased the kerchief from her flame-colored hair. The abbot put jeweled fingers to his mouth and gasped with recognition. “I know you,” he said in a voice so intimate her innards seemed to curdle. “You are the one who has written Alec words of defilement and temptation.”

  “But, Your Grace,” she protested, realizing he made reference to her many letters. “I merely reasoned with his choice—”

  “Silence!” he hissed. He stepped back suddenly, his face lost to shadow. “You are a woman, an ancestor of Eve. You would lure Alec from his holy vows,” he insisted.

  “Not true!” she cried. “I have come for . . . for . . .” She stuttered, for in truth, she had come to lead Alec from the Church. “I have come for sanctuary,” she amended. It was a means to gain entrance; she had nowhere else to turn.

  The abbot pressed himself to the gate. In a wolfish smile he bared his teeth. “Sanctuary?” he repeated. Then his head fell back as laughter, harsh and mirthless, rose f
rom his throat. “Is that what you call it?” Suddenly he was deathly serious. “Horatio!” he snarled over his shoulder.

  The man who’d answered the gate loomed behind him. “Show this woman your face,” the abbot commanded.

  The monk pulled the hood from his head.

  Clarise sucked in a breath of horror. The man’s face was speckled with lesions. Puss oozed from every pore. The wounds seemed to weep, lining his cheeks in flaky traces. She changed her mind at once about wanting to enter.

  “Does this look like refuge to you?” the abbot inquired. There was a mad gleam in his onyx eyes.

  Clarise drew her kerchief closer to her nose. She swallowed hard as the vision of illness threatened to upend her empty stomach. “Let Alec go,” she begged. “He is the only one who can help me, Your Grace. I have great need of him.”

  “I am sure you do,” said the abbot with oily implication. “Nonetheless, he cannot leave. Until the illness runs its course, no one leaves. You run the risk of infection yourself.”

  She stepped back instinctively. “I am going now,” she said.

  “Just a moment,” the abbot ordered. “It comes to mind that Horatio might have infected you already. We cannot contribute to the spread of disease. Can we, Horatio?”

  “Nay, Your Grace.” The monk seemed to smirk.

  Clarise looked from one man to the other. She weighed the benefit of seeing Alec against the risk of being stricken. “I must go,” she repeated, staggering backward several paces as she pulled her head covering into place. “I will call again when the illness is gone.” She could not afford to be locked in the abbey’s walls indefinitely. Ferguson had given her two months’ time to accomplish her assignment. After that, her mother and sisters’ lives were forfeit.

  With a nameless fear she turned and hurried down the grassy slope. As the earth dropped sharply beneath her feet, she began to run, desperate to put distance between herself and the sickness that polluted the abbey. She pinched her slippers with her toes, skirting hollows and leaping over rocks as she raced toward the river and the trading town at its shore.