by Marliss Moon
Who was the woman in his castle?
No one at Glenmyre had heard of Clare de Bouvais, only Isabeux de Bouvais, Alec’s cousin who had departed years ago after being compromised by the stable master. Monteign had no mistress by the name of Clare. There was nothing that tied Simon’s wet nurse to Glenmyre, save the quick looks exchanged by peasants when he questioned them.
They knew something, Christian was certain of it. He was also certain he would be the last to discover what it was. He flung an arm over his eyes and groaned. Was she a spy for the people of Glenmyre, an advocate, or someone else entirely?
A vision of her beauty swam behind his eyelids. As in the flesh, she glowed with purpose and strength. He’d assumed her purpose was to rise above her past. I am no longer any man’s mistress, she’d told him with haughty disdain. She’d kissed him with passion, then sent him away.
Could it be she was somebody’s wife? He cursed long and fluently at the mystery. Then he turned and buried his face in the pillow.
Her lips were like rose petals, enticing him with their silken texture. Her passion was a hot spring bubbling just beneath the surface. He would go mad if he couldn’t have her. But what chance did he stand, scarred as he was—a man guilty of murder?
For the Slayer of Helmesly, passion took place under the cover of darkness. It was done quickly, spuriously, and always with feelings of guilt.
He’d never kissed a woman with the slow, searching sweetness that he’d kissed Lady Clare. Moreover, touching her hadn’t left him feeling guilty at all. How could he when she’d pressed herself so eagerly against him?
Why had she ultimately denied him then? Will you kiss me when I return? he’d asked. What did her silence mean?
Without his awareness, Christian drifted back to sleep. When he next cracked his eyes, the chamber was saturated with harsh, yellow light. He sat up quickly. Someone was shouting. Leaping from the bed, he rushed to the window. The shouts became clearer.
“Fire! Fire!”
Thrusting his head through the second-story window, he realized that the roofs of the huts below him were smoldering. Chased from their houses, Glenmyre’s peasants coughed against the smoke and huddled together. A few brave men struggled to put the fires out. But the water seemed to have no effect on the conflagration. It died with deceptive ease, then sprang up in a great roar. It made no sense, for the roofs had been newly thatched. The only explanation was that they’d been doused with a flammable substance and then set on fire with flaming arrows, volleyed over the wall.
Beware the powders that he uses to spread fire. Clare’s warning echoed in Christian’s mind. “Ferguson,” he ground out, realizing the Scot’s long-awaited attack had come at last.
He raked his gaze along the tree line, seeking sight of his enemy in the thickly shadowed pines. One man alone could have thrown packets of flammable powder over the wooden wall, for it was not particularly high. Fortunately the wall itself had been stained with a substance that was resistant to fire. The buildings inside, however, were not protected. Whatever Ferguson had used, it was highly combustible.
“Ferguson!” he roared. His shout was louder than the crackling fire below, so loud that it echoed back at him in mockery. But he was certain the Scots remained nearby, hiding in the distant trees perhaps, hoping that the wall would catch flame.
Suddenly he spied movement in the trees. His soldiers, posted on the wall walks, saw it also and whipped the bolts from their quivers. A solitary figure hurtled toward them. It tumbled into a low-lying area, then rose up again, racing over the earthworks toward Glenmyre’s closed gate.
Second by second, the figure took shape. It was not a lone Scot, as he’d first guessed, but a woman, dressed in nothing more than a white shift that molded her slender body as she ran. The sound of her cries rose over the snapping of flames. She was screaming for the gates to be opened.
“Hold your arrows!” Christian called. The men at the battlements heard him. Tension eased on the bowstrings.
Christian snatched up his boots and raced outside to join the soldiers on the wall. “Is she from Glenmyre?” he asked, breathing harshly from his race to the battlements. Smoke billowed thickly from the fire, obscuring his view of the field. For the moment he’d lost sight of the woman, but he could hear her. She was crying out, hysterically.
“I know not,” answered one soldier. The other one shrugged.
They were no more familiar with the people of Glenmyre than he was. Christian shimmied down a ladder and grabbed a peasant man by the scruff. “Come to the top with us. Tell me if you know the woman out there.”
The man scrambled obediently up the ladder. Meanwhile, the woman had arrived at the gate. She was pounding at the oaken barrier with great distress. “Do you know her?” he shouted, dangling the poor peasant over the edge of the wall.
“I . . . ne do not know,” the man wavered. “My vision be poor. But I . . . I think I do.”
“You think so!” Christian raged. This was not the time for uncertainty. He released the peasant and thrust his fingers through his hair. He did not have time to drag another peasant up the ladder. He longed to yell out for the gates to be opened, but wary of a ruse, he decided to be cautious. The woman could well be a decoy sent by Ferguson to get the gates open.
He searched the field for any sign that the Scots were hidden in the grass, rather than the trees, preparing to swarm forward and take them by surprise. He could see no one. Still, with Clare’s warning ringing in his ears, he was reluctant to open the gate right away.
He leaned over the parapet and peered through the haze at the woman below him. For a heart-stopping moment he thought it was Clare herself who bloodied her fists as she sobbed for entrance. But then he could see that this woman was older. Her slender bone structure was the same, as was her hair, only darker. As she threw her body against the oaken gate, she screamed until her voice was hoarse. All his instincts to shelter the weak demanded that he let her in.
“My lord?” queried the soldier he had posted at the gatehouse. Clearly the man suffered the same impulse.
“Wait a moment,” Christian answered grimly. He could not get over his impression that the woman was somehow related to Clare. A sliver of suspicion began to work its way beneath his skin. “Crack the gate,” he decided. “Let her in and shut it quickly behind her.”
“Aye, sir.” The soldier bounded into the gatehouse and jogged down the narrow stairs.
Christian heard the shouts below him. It took several men to lift the heavy crossbar from its slot. He hoped they could slam it into place again at once. He heard the crossbar roll to one side. Not too far, he cautioned silently.
There came an unmistakable roar of voices. Before his eyes, the very ground seemed to rise as men, disguised by mats of straw across their backs, leaped up and raced to the gate with their swords raised. At the same time the sound of thunder ripped Christian’s gaze to the tree line where shadows took the form of distinct silhouettes. Men on horseback exploded across the field in a second wave.
“Close the gate!” he roared down to his men.
They struggled now to shut the gate against the foot soldiers who threw themselves against it to push their way in. Though the woman had been a ruse to get the gates open, she now howled like a cat gone mad, seeming truly distraught that she’d been denied entrance. The crossbar rumbled back into its slot, effectively locking her and the army out. The force of it reverberated under Christian’s feet.
He turned his attention to the second wave. The Scots’ horses devoured the remaining distance to the wall. Ferguson was easiest to find, betrayed by the burnished beard that jutted from beneath his helm. He wielded his trademark battle-ax in lieu of a sword.
Out of the Scot’s leering mouth came the command to halt. His men pulled hard at the reins, out of range of Christian’s arrows. Horses reared up in whinnying protest. With a furious gesture, Ferguson roared for his men to retreat and the woman in the shift to return to him.
The woman refused to come. In reply to Ferguson’s orders, several of his soldiers grabbed her and began to drag her away. All the while, they looked over their shoulders, fearful of being struck by the Slayer’s arrows.
“Weapons down,” Christian repeated.
He watched as Ferguson reached out and yanked the woman up onto the saddle in front of him. Her stricken face was the mold from which Clare’s own features had been cast.
With a flash of insight Christian guessed the truth. He recalled the rumors of how Ferguson had seized Heathersgill, killing Edward the Learned and then marrying his widow. Was that she, then? If so, then Clare the wet nurse was Ferguson’s stepdaughter. The thought spattered his brains like a blow from a mace. He hadn’t realized how much he had wanted to believe in her innocence.
But at the present moment he could not afford to dwell on his discovery. The savage troops withdrew just far enough to where they could gloat as the fires they’d spawned undid all the work that Christian had expended in rebuilding.
Christian bellowed orders to the serfs to herd their livestock into the main keep. The stone wall of the keep would protect them as long as the fire didn’t sink its teeth into the timber floor joists. Their primary job was to ensure that the outer wall, which was made of timber, continued to resist the flames.
Rallying the heartier people of Glenmyre, he called them to fight the fire. While it had taken only a handful of men to spawn such mischief, it would take many more to keep the fire from spreading. The Scot was planning to burn them out, then slaughter them all.
Eight hours later they stared in weary stupefaction at what remained of the lesser buildings. Charred timbers rose from postholes like ragged pikes. The walls, the roofs, the contents of the buildings lay in steaming piles of cinder just an arm’s length from the main keep. But the outer wall held, keeping the Scots at bay. They’d survived Ferguson’s attack with no loss of life, and at last the Scots melted away, sullen with their defeat.
Christian wiped a hand over his blackened face. His limbs ached. He longed to collapse where he stood, but that was an indulgence he would not allow himself. Despite the knowledge that his reparations at Glenmyre had been undone, he felt a sense of accomplishment at having saved the wall and the keep.
The livestock were led from their sanctuary, snorting, stamping, bleating in confusion. He smiled wearily. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.
He had worked side by side with the people of Glenmyre to save their home. The grain had been kept from harm. The water was still clean. In the act of fighting for Glenmyre’s future, they had forged a bond of mutual respect. He could see it in their blackened faces, in the steady gazes that turned his way.
“Let us celebrate the saving of the Glenmyre!” he shouted, startling more than a few of his own men.
A rousing cheer rose over the hiss of steaming wood.
“And for every man that joins with me to defeat the Scot, I will build you a wall of stone, so that Ferguson can never burn you out again.”
This announcement was followed by another cheer. Three barrels were rolled from the keep’s cellar and set upon trestles for the people to help themselves. Ale flowed freely, drowning despair and replacing it with a vision for the future.
Christian waited for the right people to become sotted with drink before he cornered them. What was the name of the woman Alec was going to wed? he asked. What did she look like?
In short time his suspicions had been confirmed. He’d been taken for a fool.
As the sun set that evening, he rooted out a solitary spot on the wallwalk. The sun glowed an angry orange, lighting the tips of the pines like so many tapers. A flock of geese honked noisily overhead as they flapped their way toward Spain and thence to the land of the infidels.
Christian eased his aching back onto a ledge, thankful for the balm of cooler air streaming from the mountains, and raked his fingers through his hair. Some of the longer strands were singed. He would have to cut them.
Oh, but it felt good to take his ease! He dropped his head into his palms. The sound of a woman screaming echoed in his ears. He was able to name her now: Jeanette DuBoise, the mother of the woman in his castle. To see such a fair woman wearing only a shift and crying with such desperation had been shock enough. But the fact that she looked so much like her daughter, Clarise, made it all the more disturbing.
He wished very much that they had managed to let the woman in. What was clearly a ruse to open the gates might also have been her only hope. Ferguson had put her directly in the path of danger, as though he cared not a whit if she were killed.
The thought sickened him.
He dragged his fingers over his face. What was he going to do now? The only thing left to him was war. Ferguson had asked for it by willfully attacking Glenmyre. And yet everything inside him rebelled at the spilling of more blood. He did not care to fight anymore, to add yet more hellish visions to those that paraded through his dreams.
And what of Clare? Clarise, he corrected himself. Seeing her mother’s situation firsthand, he was certain she could not be loyal to the Scot.
Why had she come to Helmesly, then? Why?
The sun sank lower, and the crickets began to chirp in the high grass between the wall and the tree line. Christian lay down on the wallwalk and closed his eyes.
All he knew for certain was that she hadn’t come to Helmesly to save his son. The hope that God had sent an angel to redeem him was nothing more than fantasy. Clarise had another purpose at his castle altogether. And it wasn’t likely a purpose that would benefit his soul.
Chapter Eleven
A thin mist hung in the castle graveyard. The sound of wet earth falling on a wooden casket rose over the sniffles of the heavyset cook as she watched her baby being buried. Clarise huddled with the few servants who dared to test Maeve’s patience this morning by shirking their duties. There were no holy words to soothe the spirit of the grieving mother, only the mournful call of a dove as it settled on the wall to observe them.
As the grave was steadily filled, Simon grew impatient for his breakfast. Clarise shifted him to her left shoulder and thought about the meager milk supply in her bedchamber. A bucket of goat’s milk was no longer enough to get the baby through a day. How on earth, she wondered, would she manage to procure two buckets without drawing notice?
Simon broke into angry cries as the gravedigger dropped the last clump of earth on the mound and patted it down. Sniffles rose from the more sympathetic women. One of them helped Doris to her feet. Clarise, who needed to break away for a feeding, hurried over to offer the cook a word of encouragement.
“Might I hold him?” the woman asked, her wet gaze falling to the baby’s swaddled form.
Clarise was more than happy to let Simon shriek in someone else’s ear, at least for the time being. He looked tiny against the woman’s robust breasts as she cradled him in her arms. With his mouth wide open, he turned his head, searching hopefully for sustenance.
“He knows that I have milk!” Doris cried with surprise. Her many chins wobbled at the thought of what might have been.
Clarise’s eyes widened as a notion hit her. Rather than rush Simon off into the castle, she dawdled in the graveyard while others approached Doris and offered their comfort. “Doris,” she called, when the last one moved away. “I have a favor to ask of you.”
“Yes, milady?” Doris replied, still holding the squirming Simon.
Clarise hoped it wasn’t too much to ask of a grieving woman. “I have so much to do,” she began, “making changes in the castle, and I fear that I’m depriving Simon of the proper nourishment. Do you think you might feed him with your own milk on occasion?”
Doris’s eyes narrowed with sudden discernment. “Ye have ne milk o’ yer ow
n, do ye, milady?” she guessed.
Clarise made a choking sound and looked around, relieved to see that none of the lingering servants were close enough to have overheard. “How do you know that?” she breathed, deciding it was pointless to lie.
Doris rocked the disconsolate Simon. “Nell tolde me that ye hide a pail o’ milk in yer chamber.”
Of course, thought Clarise, with a grimace. Nell was not the soul of discretion she required in a lady’s maid. “Do you know who’s been leaving a bucket for me in the goat pen each night?” she asked, still no closer to solving that mystery than she’d been two weeks ago.
“Nay, milady.” Doris shook her head. “But I am happy to helpe ye now.” She gazed with pleasure at the squalling Simon. “Bring him to me whene’er he hungers, and he will grow plump on my breast, I warrant ye!”
A great weight seemed to rise from Clarise’s shoulders. At the same time a voice of caution whispered in her ear. “I would prefer you to come to my chambers to nurse him. I promised the seneschal my vigilance, and I would stay with you when you do.”
“As ye wish, lady.”
“Can you come with us now?” Clarise pleaded. It would save her the trouble of feeding Simon herself.
Doris fell into step beside her.
“Will you promise me something?”
The cook looked at her askance.
“Promise you’ll not speak of our arrangement to anyone yet,” Clarise whispered. “It must appear that I am still Simon’s nurse. Very soon, the truth will be known,” she added. Her spirits sank as she realized the moment was coming ever closer.
The messenger who’d stamped his way into the hall that morning had announced that the Slayer would be home by nightfall.
Doris paled a bit at the necessity for secrecy, but she nodded nonetheless. “I swear,” she said.
Two hours later Clarise surveyed her handiwork from the landing on the stairs. Shortly after her picnic with Sir Roger two weeks ago, she had stumbled on a room full of goods in one of the castle storerooms. Most of the pieces Genrose had supposedly given to the poor still remained, collecting dust. Maeve protested that she’d forgotten about the goods, overwhelmed as she was by the baron and his lady’s death. The amazed knight had given Clarise permission to haul it from the cellar for display.
