“Aye. I cannot be in two places at once and I must stop the raiders before they cripple our barony.”
She stepped closer, her hand lightly touching his leg. “I will discover this plot. Come back to me, Micah de Montfort.”
His fingers captured her chin and he gazed at her steadily. “I will, lady,” he said and leaned over. Kate stood on her tiptoes and Micah brushed his lips across hers. “I do know one truth, Kate,” he whispered. “I know I love you.”
Shock coiled through her as Micah straightened and shouted to his men. He glanced at her, lifting his hand in salute, and spurred his horse out the gates. Tears blurred her eyes as she watched the men leave. She couldn’t believe it, Micah had actually said the words.
Kate clenched her fists, feeling helpless and frightened. Had he spoken because he thought he might not return? He could die trying to save the barony’s stores. Firmly, she grabbed a hold of her courage. Micah had asked her to discover the plot and that’s exactly what she planned to do.
“John?”
“Aye?” he asked stepping next to her.
“Find Hubert, I want to look at Tobin’s belongings.”
“I’m right here, lady,” Hubert said from behind her.
Kate jumped and spun. “Sweet Mary, Hubert, please don’t do that. You nearly scared a thousand days from my life.”
The huntsman inclined his head, his green eyes sparking. “Pardon, my lady.”
Her pounding heart gradually slowed. “Show me Tobin’s bunk please.”
“Aye,” Hubert said and offered her his arm.
Chapter Seventeen
They gathered in the small room and John pointed Kate to the correct bunk, showing her all they had found. She looked at the drawings and shook her head.
“It still doesn’t make any sense,” Hubert grumbled.
“What?” Kate asked.
He pointed to the drawings. “How would a stable boy learn his letters? I learned mine because I was raised in the church.”
Kate blinked up at him, startled. “In the church?”
“Aye,” he said, his jaw tight. “I was a foundling.”
Her heart ached and she caught his hand. “Hubert, I am sorry.”
He smiled brightly. “‘Tis no worry, my lady. I had a good upbringing, although the priests were not happy when I found my calling in the vocation of a huntsman. But I am better able to serve and it is a good profession for me.”
“That it is, Hubert,” Kate said, her lips lifting. She turned her attention back to the drawings. “Yet you offer a good question. Who taught Tobin his letters?”
“Perhaps William or Roger?” John asked. “Both boys are learning to read and write for when they become knights. Although I’m sure William would not have continued after their fight over Sarah.”
Kate scowled. “Wait a minute. Micah told me William, Tobin, and Roger seemed to be friends. They were fascinated by his drawings. It is a very good possibility they did teach him his letters.”
Hubert snorted. “But I do not believe William and Roger would help in this treachery any more than I believe you would.”
“Nay,” Kate replied. “I don’t think them guilty either. If Sarah knew Tobin learned to write, she would have taken advantage of the talent.”
“The wench took advantage of everything.”
“I know I did not write the note but someone did.” Kate looked again at the drawings.
“How do we prove it?” John asked.
She dug through the box but found nothing more. Kate looked around the room. “There’s got to be an answer somewhere.”
Hubert and John scoured the small room, looking for loose boards, hidden niches, anything where Tobin might have put evidence or gold. Hubert even slit open Tobin’s small pillow and dug through the straw that filled it.
“Nothing,” he muttered and sighed.
“I didn’t think he would be so foolish as to put evidence where we could easily find it,” John said. “That’s what made the letter so suspicious in the first place.” He paused and smiled at Kate. “Since I know you didn’t write it.”
She sighed then scowled. “Wait a moment, has anyone looked at Sarah’s things?”
John and Hubert stared at each other in surprise. “Nay,” they said in unison.
Hubert again offered Kate his arm. She carried the small stack of parchments and they returned to the keep.
Sarah’s sleeping area was in a small room, an offshoot of the kitchen, shared with other servants. Mary showed them the small cot with a bundle underneath it.
“She kept all she owned wrapped in that threadbare cloak,” Mary said.
Kate nodded and pulled it out. Obviously, when Sarah had tried to escape, she did not have time to fetch her things. Kate set the bundle on the cot and opened it. She recoiled, stifling a scream. Bits of bones, clumps of hair, grotesquely shaped carvings, and other vile items filled the bundle.
Hubert put his arm around her shoulders. “‘Tis all right, my lady. These are nothing but foolish trinkets.”
Kate looked at him in shock.
Hubert only grinned. “In my vocation I meet many people and see many things.” He stepped forward and sorted through the items.
John scowled. “Sarah was in league with the MacLeary huntsman who has terrified the villagers by using their fear and superstitions against them.”
Hubert nodded vigorously. “It makes sense Sarah would do all she could to complete the ruse. She might have even believed in these supposed dark powers.” Hubert stopped sorting through the items and sighed. “Nothing here. If there is any evidence that wasn’t destroyed, Sarah and Tobin could have hidden it anywhere.”
Kate rubbed her eyes, trying to think. They didn’t have time to search every nook and cranny in Appleby. There had to be an answer somewhere. “Let’s talk to William and Roger,” she said, trying not to sound discouraged. If the lads knew any information, they surely would have said something but Kate didn’t have any other solution.
Hubert gave her hand an encouraging squeeze. “All right, lady.”
She turned to leave but stopped. “John, please have someone burn these vile items. I don’t care if they are trinkets. I don’t want them in my home.”
“Of course, Kate.”
John called Evan to take care of Sarah’s belongings. Then John, Kate, and Hubert went into the great hall. Kate sat in her chair and a servant brought her a cup of wine, while Hubert fetched William and Roger.
She rubbed her eyes again, a headache threatening. They had to find the answers.
“My lady, are you all right?” William asked worriedly as he dropped to his knees before her. Roger followed suit, his eyes wide and his face pale.
Kate forced a smile. “I am, William, thank you. I need to talk to you about Tobin. I don’t blame you for this but we must find the answers.”
“I will help however I can, lady.”
She thought for a long moment. “Did you teach Tobin to read and write?”
William blinked in surprise. “Aye. He showed us a bit about illumination and we taught him his letters in return. We did not see any harm in it.”
“It wasn’t you, William,” Kate reassured him. But she frowned. Micah said something else when he told her about the boys being friends. I stumbled across the three boys hiding. William and Roger watched Tobin draw and feared I would punish them for ignoring their chores. Kate bolted upright. “Hiding,” she whispered, her voice shaking.
“My lady?” William asked.
“Micah told me he discovered you three hiding while Tobin drew. Where did you hide?”
William ducked his head. “I feared Sir Montfort would be angry—”
“I don’t care about that, William. Where did you hide?”
“Most often we stayed in the hay loft of the barn, until Sir Montfort found us.”
Kate looked from John to Hubert. She lunged from her chair and toward the door with the two men only a step behind.
; Hubert reached the barn first and scrambled up the ladder, leaning over to help Kate. John followed and they stood in the dimly lit loft filled with hay.
Hubert scanned the place. “My guess would be to check the corners. Look for loose boards.” Each of them took a corner. Kate shoved hay out of her way and felt along the seams of the boards. She sneezed repeatedly as the dust grew worse from their searching.
“My lady?” William squeaked in confusion.
She saw his head poking over the top of the ladder.
“We sat in the corner where Sir John is at,” William said and pointed. “There are some loose boards in the wall where Tobin hid his supplies. He didn’t want the other stable boys to steal his quills and inks.”
“Inks,” Kate said in shock. “How did the boy know how to make inks?”
“It’s not that difficult,” Hubert said.
“His father was a scribe, Lady,” William said. “He taught Tobin to make many things when he was little. But his father died and Tobin had no other family. No one would take him as an apprentice, so he came to Appleby as a stable boy.”
Kate sighed sadly as she moved to where John searched. “The boy did have talent. It’s a shame no one sponsored him.”
“Aye,” Hubert said and shook his head. “If they had, he probably wouldn’t have been caught in this mess.”
“I found it,” John said and lifted a box out from under some loose boards. He opened it slowly and Kate peered over his shoulder.
She saw a few quills, with a small knife for sharpening them, a goat’s tooth for polishing parchment, a tightly covered cow’s horn for ink, fragile sheets of vellum, plus many other tools for scribing.
“This must have been his father’s,” John said as he sorted through the box. He pulled out the parchments and flipped through them. Most had been used and reused with letters and drawings crammed in every spare space. Another paper, smaller than the others slid away into the straw. Kate picked it up and froze in surprise.
It was the herb list she had written for Marjorie.
“John, Hubert,” she said, her voice shaking. “I found the list of herbs I lost.”
John looked up and frowned. “Perhaps Tobin thought it discarded and decided to use the other side of the parchment.”
Kate flipped it over and stared, seeing her signature repeated many times. Yet it was wrong. Kate never signed her name as Baroness Kate de Montfort, only as Kate as on the herb list to Marjorie, or as Lady Montfort as on the tally sheets for the running of the keep.
“Wait a moment,” Hubert said and picked up one of Tobin’s drawings with letters on it. He held it next to the herb list. “Glory, each letter in your name and the different herbs, matches the ones on his drawings. Tobin did not practice illumination, he practiced forgery.”
Kate’s hands started to tremble. John dug through the box again, finding tally sheets with her Lady Montfort signature. More vellum appeared with excerpts from the damning letter practiced repeatedly. Each paper he found looked more and more like her handwriting.
Kate stared at the papers. “But why did Tobin sign my name incorrectly? He has perfect examples right here.” She pointed at the tally sheets.
Hubert scowled a moment then grinned broadly. “By Jove, that’s it.”
“What’s it?” Kate asked.
“These papers Tobin used as an example are rather unofficial. But if you wrote an important document, one that may be viewed by the king, would you not sign it with your full title to make certain there was no doubt over its authorship?”
She blinked in confusion. “Nay, since my marriage, I have always signed my name as Lady Montfort.”
Hubert crowed in delight. “Tobin did not know that. He changed your signature to make sure Micah and King Henry would not doubt who wrote it.”
John nodded in agreement. “Just as he made sure we would find the letter in the first place.” He continued to dig through the box, scowling when he pulled out another tally sheet. “This one only has Micah’s handwriting, not yours.” He flipped it over and his eyes widened. “Again he was practicing. Look.” He gave the parchment to Kate.
She again saw various words repeated this time in Micah’ handwriting. Slowly, she began to make sense of the message. “Mother Mary protect us. This is a letter to King Henry proclaiming my guilt and requesting his judgment in the matter. It asks that the marriage be annulled and I face hanging for trying to murder Micah.”
“What?” John asked. “Is MacLeary insane? If you are dead he will never gain Appleby.”
Kate thought for a long moment, there was something more to this she wasn’t seeing.
John emptied the box. “That’s all of it.”
Hubert gestured to the loose boards. “Is there anything else?”
John stuck his hand in the wall and rooted around. He scowled.
“What is it?” Kate asked, her heart pounding.
“A bundle of some sort.” He pushed his arm in farther then pulled out a small mound of cloth tied by its own corners. John quickly opened it and found two large wax squares. Both had an impression of a very large key.
Kate blinked. “So that’s how he freed Sarah.”
“My lady?” John asked.
“Remember when Micah was poisoned, we locked Sarah in the dungeon and then could not find my keys. Tobin must have taken them and made a copy.”
Kate took the keys from her belt and handed them to John. He found the dungeon key and placed it in the wax impression. “A perfect fit. But why didn’t Tobin just free Sarah when he stole your keys?”
“He probably wanted to,” Hubert said. “But we questioned her constantly. He had to wait, so made a copy of the key.”
Kate’s gaze flitted over the parchments. She had found the evidence Micah wanted but could not put the answers together.
“MacLeary needs me to gain Appleby,” she muttered. “Why would he forge a letter condemning me to death?”
Hubert rubbed the back of his neck, scowling. “When Micah explained the reasons for your abduction to me, he said because of Henry’s laws, MacLeary needs more than you alone, lady. He needs the support of the Scottish church. It makes sense that MacLeary’s stance would be better if he had even more backing.”
Kate’s eyes widened. “That’s it, Hubert. MacLeary isn’t planning my death at all. Once this plot is in full swing, MacLeary will turn it back on Micah. MacLeary will make this appear as if Micah had been scheming to take my inheritance and rid himself of an unwanted wife. If he releases enough evidence and pleads with the church to save me from the lecherous baron, then he will actually appear the hero. The church will support him in defiance of Henry.”
John gaped at her. “Kate, that is quite a gamble. He has no guarantee the church will defy Henry on this matter.”
“I know, so that’s why MacLeary sent the raiders. He knew Micah would have to pursue them. Our defenses have been weakened by his departure. If MacLeary seizes Appleby again, his position will be that much stronger, with the evidence, the church will push Henry to give him Appleby in order to avoid a war with Scotland.”
“Unless the baron returns,” Hubert said. “MacLeary can take the castle quite easily.”
Kate felt blood drain from her face. “MacLeary isn’t leaving anything to chance. If Micah dies fighting the raiders, he won’t be able to tell the truth about this letter. The king will have no reason to doubt this evidence that Micah wants me hanged. Hubert, Micah is riding into a trap.”
“Kate,” John said. “We don’t know if this letter was sent to the king.”
“Tobin wouldn’t have attacked Micah unless the plot was ready to be sprung.”
“What about Micah’s seal?” John asked, looking through the box. “They have nothing to approximate it and Micah never removes his signet ring. I don’t think he could pull it over his knuckle even if he wanted too.”
“The lack of a signet may cause Henry to question the letter. But what can he do if Micah is dead?
He won’t be able to prove Micah didn’t write it.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Hubert, take this evidence to Micah. Tell him we have found the truth of the plot but you must catch him before he rides into a trap.”
“Aye, lady,” Hubert said and started to scoop up everything. Abruptly he paused and knelt before Kate. “Your blessing, my lady.”
Kate took his hands in hers. “Godspeed, Hubert.”
He kissed her hand. “I will not fail you, Lady.” He grabbed the evidence and vaulted down the ladder.
Kate and John left the loft in time to see Hubert spurring his mount through the gates. They returned to the great hall. Relief washed over Kate. They had found the truth but fear still worried her.
“John, have the men lock down the castle and prepare for siege.”
“But, lady, what if Micah returns?”
She looked up at him, tears suddenly spilling down her cheeks. “I don’t think he will return in time, John.”
John patted her hand reassuringly. “He will, Kate.”
***
Two days later, John sat with Kate at the table in the great hall.
“Sir John,” a young page called, running into the keep.
“Aye?”
“Sir Evan sent me. Armed men have been spotted in the nearby woods.”
John’s face paled. He glanced at Kate who had also turned white. “How many?”
“I know not. Sir Evan requests your presence on the walls.”
“I’m on my way.” He looked again at Kate.
“It is MacLeary,” she said softly.
“I had hoped the weather would dissuade him.”
Kate shook her head. “Not that stubborn old bull.”
John hurried to the walls where he found Sir Evan. In the distant trees, MacLeary’s army approached like the angel of death. John saw at least three mangonels looming and a hoard of Scotsmen. Most wore MacLeary plaid but some wore others John did not recognize. That meant only one thing. MacLeary had allies.
John rubbed his eyes. They had defeated MacLeary only to have the laird fall back and rebuild his forces. John’s experienced gaze noted they were outnumbered three to one. He barely had enough men to form a decent guard on the walls and the repairs were not quite completed.
Warriors Of Legend Page 34
