The Protector

by Becca St. John

  “You, sire,” they intoned as one.

  “To whom do you pledge your loyalty?”

  “You, sire!”

  “So why in Hell,” he bellowed, “are you making an arrest without my consent?”

  “Her Ladyship . . .” Olaf charged, only to be cut off.

  “Does not rule this castle!” Roland barked, “And if any one of these women is harmed in any way, if they should get so much as a sliver from the table, one of you will be whipped raw! Do you hear me?”

  The men stood, eyes sparking with fury.

  “If my wife hears so much as a sigh of disrespect, it will be the lot of you who will reside in the dungeon! Is that understood?”

  “Witches!” Olaf spat.

  “Lies!” Roland roared, grabbing the man by his arm, forcing him out of the room, to the stairs. “Jeffery!” He bellowed.

  “Aye, m’lord.”

  “See that these men do not harm the women. That no harm comes to them.”

  “They should burn in oil!” Olaf roared. Roland slammed him into the wall, crushing his nose so blood poured down his face.

  “Go below stairs, then.” He told the men. “Go below stairs and wait.”

  “She has bewitched you.”

  “You’ve been used.” He countered. “By a mad woman.”

  “Stay with the women, Jeffery.” Roland pulled out his knife, putting it to the man’s nape. “All of you, go before me, lead to the entrance hall and know I will kill Olaf in a second if you do anything but that.”

  “Damn it to hell!” He pushed his captive. “Be quick about it.”

  As they rounded the stairway to the lower entry, a knot of soldiers, with Veri and Lady Margaret locked within, barged through the doors.

  “Halt!” Roland roared. All movement ceased.

  “Roland,” Veri’s tone saturated by desperation, “We need to see to Albert!”

  “Aye,” he took the stairs two at a time, straight for Veri. As he reached her, the wall of men that had opened to admit him, closed in on itself once more. They were surrounded by the garrison guard, Olaf pulled from his hold.

  His men own charged through the door, swords raised to a futile fight.

  He allowed himself to be taken hostage with Veri and Margaret.

  “Roland?” Hannah stood upon the top of the stairs, smiled at the melee below her. “I have directed the men to put Albert in Derek’s old chamber. I will tend him myself.”

  “Will you?” Roland wondered if the loyalty of the men surrounding him would follow a seasoned knight, who had been absent for ten years, or the familiar voice of his late father’s wife?

  “You cannot trust your wife.” Hannah explained.

  “Why?”

  Hannah threw up her hands in frustration. “Do you see now, all of you? Has she not put a spell upon him? Did he not see her misdeeds with his own eyes and still he does not believe?”

  “What has he seen, Lady Hannah?” Veri surprised them all by asking.

  Roland squeezed her hand for reassurance, as Hannah’s returned laughter sent a chill through the drafty hall. It was not a sound of amusement.

  Roland addressed her. “Billy did not die within my chamber, Hannah. He was placed there.”

  The eerie laughter stopped, though Hannah stood strong and fierce. “What do you know of such things, Roland? She has fooled you before, her women will fool you again. She is a heathen with ways to manipulate that you will never understand.”

  “What is it you have seen, Roland?” Veri asked again.

  He told her of Billy’s body within his room, of the empty goblet, yet no spilled wine. Of the poison, and yet no sign of thrashing.

  “My room.”

  Hannah, swaying in agitation, stilled. Not so the guards forming the knot.

  “What do you mean, your room?”

  “Have you checked my room? For the poison? Have you checked my water pitcher? That would not leave a red stain.”

  “Then they meant to have . . .” Roland didn’t finish.

  “Stop!” Hannah screeched, “Stop listening to her, Roland! She tells lies, she is a witch . . .”

  “Nay!” Dori stood behind Hannah, as rigid as her step-mother. “If she were a witch, why would she allow the guards to hold her? Why wouldn’t she shape shift and fly away? Why would she return, when she knew that this place would not welcome her?”

  Hannah spun around, “Dori?” Hannah put a soothing hand to Dori’s brow, “Did you take your potion today? You do not look well.”

  “I am well, Hannah, for not taking your draught these past few days.”

  “Tsk, Dori,” Hannah murmured, “you are confused without your potion. Think. You were the one who saw her go to Roland’s room.”

  “Roland said she was with him.”

  “In two places?” Hannah’s eyebrows raised. “Possibly three, for another said she was with the bear.”

  “Dori,” Veri looked to her sister-in-law, “I was with Cin. I left Roland and went to the chapel and that’s where Roland found me.”

  “I saw her there,” Harold stepped forward. “I saw her in the chapel and was there until Lord Roland arrived.”

  “Who went to your room, then?” Dori asked.

  “I don’t know, Dori, other than Maida, who went to get my sewing basket.”

  “Veri,” Dori crossed to the railing, leaned over, intent on her sister-in-law, “Derek was so silent about you? What hold did you have over him.”

  “He was her guard, Dori. She was in danger.” Roland cut in.

  “No, Roland!” Dori cried, “I want her to say it. He was different before everything happened. Everyone talked, and she was so young and so. . .”

  “He was her lover!” Hannah sniped.

  “He was never my lover, Hannah! I wanted to be a Healer not a wife. Men only distract.”

  “A mistress, then.” Hannah argued.

  “Never!” Veri snapped back, repeating, “Men are a distraction.”

  “But Derek was with you all the time,” Dori questioned.

  Margaret put her hand on Veri’s arm, quieting her. “Dori, It makes sense. Derek was her guard. With father’s death, he could trust no others to protect Roland’s wife.”

  “But she has a bear for a pet.” One of the soldiers broke in. “That is not a natural animal for a woman to keep.”

  “Halt!” Hannah snapped, “You ask her to give you lies? Do you not see that? She is a student of deceit!”

  Roland moved forward, as though he could reach out and stop Hannah, but the guard closed in and stopped him. “Hannah, let her tell.”

  “No!” She stood defiantly, but had failed to realize that Jeffery was behind her, that the rest of Roland’s guard had separated, half to stay with the knot of people surrounding Roland, Margaret and Veri, the other half moving up the stairs, toward Hannah and Dori.

  “Veri,” Roland watched Hannah, watched the guard surround her. “If you will try my wife, then allow her defense. Begin, Veri, with how you came by a pet like Cinnamon.”

  “Sin you mean.” One man sneered.

  “Cinnamon.” Veri announced clearly, “but I call him Cin, just as my name is Vervain but I am called Veri.”

  “Cinnamon.” A few grumbled.

  “I was in a village and everyone was shouting and excited, so I pushed through. Cinnamon was chained, being attacked by vicious, hungry dogs. Half a dozen, all attacking at once, while a crowd watched and cheered and . . .”

  “Baited the bear?”

  “I’ve seen that, don’t come out too good, those animals.”

  “Lively fight those. . .”

  As the men caught the idea, Veri said. “That is not sport to me. I charged in, with a lit torch.”

  “You charged between dogs and bear?” Young Silas shouted.

  “Aye, I did. Burned snouts and a few men as well! No one stopped me once Cin was free.”

  “Just because you don’t like sport is no reason to spoil everyone’s fun?”
Silas complained.

  “Aye, well then,” Veri retorted, “Let’s chain you next time.”

  He backed away a step, even as Roland took Veri by the arms to pull her back.

  “She lies!” Hannah hissed, but too many had seen the uneven matches to doubt her tale.

  A torch would give her an advantage.

  “Don’t listen, do you hear me, don’t listen to her!”

  “Come,” As one, Roland’s guard began to break a wedge in the circle of confused and distracted house guards as Roland, his arms around both Veri and Margaret’s shoulders, led them through the barrier.

  “Hear me, now,” Roland stood upon the stairs, his hands upon Veri’s shoulders. “Choose master or mistress, but wear your true colors for all to see. It is not Hannah’s voice that rules. If you choose to side with another against me, then leave this castle, this domain and find yourself another host.” He reached the upper doorway, “Take no time for these thoughts, for I will expect a show of fealty this night and no later.

  “And remember, should you choose me as master, then you choose Lady Veri as mistress. There shall be no other!”

  “Roland!” Hannah argued, but Roland paid her no heed, as he brushed past her in his hurry to get Veri to Albert and away from the danger of a sudden change of mind.

  CHAPTER 20 ~ DISTRACTIONS

  Jasmine watched, a keen eye on every measure of leaf and root, every press of pestle. Veri was well aware of the fact. She felt the censure of Jasmine’s gaze, the sound of each ‘tsk’ raking across her nerves. If she did not approve of what Veri was doing, she kept it to herself by not explaining and that at Albert’s expense.

  It wasn’t fair, nor was it right.

  Veri asked Jasmine to tend Albert’s ills, but Jasmine refused. Refused! She’d bowed aside, deferring to Veri’s skills.

  What skills?

  Veri sulked, torn between mutiny and dread. She’d not have Albert’s death on her head, but it seemed there was no other choice. Could they not see, did they not know, any of them? Couldn’t Roland see how he distracted her?

  Certainly, Jasmine should be aware of such things, having stated so firmly that Cynthia would never be a true healer merely because she sought a father for her son, a husband for herself. Jasmine should understand. Of all people, she should be the first to reprimand Veri’s attempts to heal and take the task. Healing, after all, the top priority.

  “Interesting,” Jasmine muttered.

  “Blue dandelions!” Veri hissed, refusing to turn away, when busy stitching a wound she had only just reopened, cleaned and treated. If she had done something wrong, then Jasmine should say so, instead of muttering comments that could mean anything.

  “I’ve never seen it done like that,” Angelica announced, without rancor.

  “There is more than one way of doing a thing,” Veri snapped defensively.

  “She was not criticizing,” Jasmine offered.

  “If not in doubt to my abilities, why are you both watching over my shoulder?”

  Jasmine laughed at that. Veri glared. The elder raised an eyebrow. “Losing your sense of humor?”

  “It is not an amusing time!”

  “Nay, but if you take yourself too seriously, you will cause more damage . . .”

  “Damage!” Veri squeaked, forgetting her stitching entirely. “You think I cause damage, and yet you do not step in?”

  Both Jasmine and Angelica stared in mute surprise. A standoff until Jasmine sharply lowered her eyes to the motionless needle in Veri’s hand.

  “Oh!” Veri gasped, starting to sew once more, stopping herself, repeating the movement two times before taking a deep breath. Despite the tears that pooled in her eyes, she continued the task.

  “Do you not see it now? How easily I am stolen from my work? How easily other thoughts command my senses? It is not the way of a healer! I have no right to be tending this man. This worthy, worthy man.”

  “Shhhh.” A slender hand closed around Veri’s before she could toss the needle down. “We all have our talents and our faults.” Jasmine soothed.

  “But mine are dangerous.”

  “All faults are dangerous, if we are not aware of them.”

  “But mine are . . .”

  “Yours are no greater than mine,” Jasmine admitted, as she gestured toward Veri’s work. “Angelica, do you see those stitches? How fine they are? And the horse’s mane is far more supple than one would expect.”

  “It softens with the boiling, as you know.” Veri explained, somewhat mollified.

  “Hmmn,” Jasmine intoned.

  “Hmmn?” Veri mocked, “And just what does that mean?”

  “It means, little sister,” Angelica laughed, “that what you lack in attendance you gain in fresh ideas. We have not seen such usage of plants. The combinations you mixed, the use of a horse’s mane, boiled at that, for stitching. We’d not thought to boil our threads.”

  Veri’s head snapped up before she remembered her task. Once again, she bent over her patient, slipping in the last stitch then knotting it. As she held the mane hair taught, for Angelica to snip, she quizzed, “But we always wash everything; our hands, our scissors, our needles. I thought it must be that we wash the threads. Just as we wash blankets to sleep in and the clothes we wear.”

  “We have never washed the threads,” Jasmine told her.

  “But I thought we must have.”

  “No, but that does not mean it should not be done. We have more success by following the example of the Jewish doctors, who always wash, than the Christian doctors who never do. But we never thought to wash the stitching material.”

  “I wonder what else I have gotten wrong.”

  A moaning from Albert interrupted them. Angelica lifted the man’s head, helped him to sip from a bowl filled with herbs that would help him sleep. Jasmine started to clean another wound, using the same method Veri used previously.

  “Veri,” she said, “‘tis not a matter of right or wrong but a matter of what works. I will be interested in seeing if your methods work.”

  “Aye,” Veri sighed, using the sleeve of her gown to mop up the sweat on her brow. “So will I,” she murmured, “Sweet Lord, so will I.”

  Roland watched, as six men loaded Billy’s body on a litter to carry him from the room. Cynthia stood with the boy’s father.

  “He was me youngest,” the old man moaned again. “The only one to stay home and learn the way of the birds. He was going to stand in my stead in years to come. He was right good with them birds. Right good.”

  “His memory will stay in your heart,” Cynthia reminded him.

  Roland wondered if any memory of his brother remained in Cynthia’s heart. She had, after all, given birth to another man’s child shortly after her husband, his brother, Hugh’s death. And what was Howard to her? Roland wasn’t blind to his best man’s interest in Cynthia. Even now, Harold watched the woman with a keen eye.

  What was she to him?

  “. . . do you ever feed the falcons such things?”

  “What was that?” Roland asked, having only heard the tail end of Cynthia’s words.

  Warily, she looked to Roland, “I wondered if he ever fed the birds live bait, such as mice or rabbits.”

  “Aye,” the falconer acknowledged, not a little enamored by Cynthia and her kind administrations. “I do feed them creatures. ‘Tis good for them, a treat to have warm meat, make them hungry for the kill.”

  “Why?” Roland interrupted, “Why do you want to know of these things?”

  At first, Cynthia refused to look at Roland, standing silently as she watched the soldiers carry the litter from the room. Then, on a long drawn out sigh, she admitted her theory.

  “I wondered if, possibly, the wine here was not poisoned at all. We did conclude that Billy didn’t die here and couldn’t possibly have drunk as much wine as was found missing from the decanter. What if it wasn’t this decanter at all? Then none could think it was Lady Veri’s fault.”

>   “Veri seems to think it was her water that was poisoned.”

  “Oh, how clever,” Cynthia mused, “how very clever. If she stayed, then she would be poisoned. If she left . . . well, it would have been easy enough to move him without much notice.”

  Even as she spoke, Roland crossed to the door that divided his room from his wife’s. “He could have been there all night.”

  “He wasn’t at home last night. I’d have known.”

  They all looked at the half empty water pitcher.

  “And if it is poisoned?” Cynthia quizzed.

  Roland scowled, realizing that, had he not slept with Veri last night, had he not kept her in his room . . .

  The falconer bleated, “You told me so yourself, milord, that her ladyship couldn’t have tainted anything, cause you was with her the whole time.”

  “Yes,” Roland acknowledged grudgingly, “this is true. But what have mice and rabbits to do with this?”

  “Give some of the animals wine.” Cynthia offered quietly. “And others the water.”

  “Gawrrrr,” the falconer squawked, “and if the wine is poisoned, then the creature dies. But if it’s the water . . .”

  Roland shot the falconer a glance, then turned to Cynthia. “See to it,” he commanded, “and be sure to have plenty of witnesses.”

  “Yes, of course,” she faltered.

  She had not expected him to trust her enough to leave the matter in her hands. But there was little choice. In this matter, she was proven trustworthy.

  There was still much to learn of her faithlessness in marriage. He wished he’d known more of his brother and his brother’s ways.

  “I’ll be a witness.” The falconer offered. “I want the truth to who murdered my Billy. Everyone will be knowin’ that.”

  “Aye,” Roland nodded, distracted by the past.

  Who was the culprit? Who set the castle against his wife and aimed to end his life? Who had something to gain?

  “You,” he turned to Billy’s father, and placed his hand upon the man’s shoulder, “would be prime choice as witness. You are right. No one would doubt your word.”