She turned her attention back to the barn door and frowned, perhaps it was this place that made the earl so sullen all the time. The manor and the earl, both, were sure having an impact on her mood. As she stared, gaging her options, memories floated into her mind of words spoken since her arrival. No statement more meaningful than the next when taken apart, but taken together wove a story. Everything he cares for has died. His dog died, his horse died, but the cat lived. Christopher’s secret. Ellalee suddenly wondered if Lord Valen believed in inverse corollaries as much as Christopher did. Did he believe that if he didn’t love something, it had a better chance of living? Could it be that this twisted earl felt that his hatefulness saved things? Her lips parted.
“Iriwn, Irwin! Look at me. I will save your horse, but I need you to take Christopher back to the manor. Irwin, are you listening?”
Irwin gave a slow nod as his eyes seemed to come back into focus.
Ellalee continued speaking in a calm, soothing manner, “I will go now and make sure the horse is safe. But I need you to push Christopher to the kitchen very carefully and very slowly. Be careful not to bounce his leg, lest you damage him. You wouldn’t want to hurt the boy any more than you would hurt an animal, right?” Ellalee saw that Irwin’s hands still shook, and she put her hand over her heart. “Irwin, I promise, I will see to that horse, but only if you can see to Christopher.”
“No,” Christopher said as Irwin stilled.
“Please, Irwin, take him back. Christopher, remember your leg,” Ellalee’s eyes grew wider, willing Christopher to catch her meaning. When he drew in a sharp breath, she knew that he had understood the double entendre. Praise God for his wits.
“Let’s get you safe, young sir,” Irwin said, his voice stretched and thin, but his hands no longer shook. “Don’t let him hurt you, miss. Once when I confronted him, he raged at me. I thought for sure he’d whip me soundly.”
And yet he must not have, Ellalee thought, remembering the earl’s actions in her own quarters. Ellalee bent over Christopher and whispered, “Stay in the kitchen. Keep Irwin with you. Keep talking to him.” How Christopher would manage this request, she couldn’t imagine, but maybe they could keep each other busy long enough.
Irwin pushed Christopher’s chair towards the servants’ entrance at a slower pace with great care, and noting this, Ellalee darted back to the barn. She yanked open the door and for Irwin’s benefit shouted, “You will not hurt that horse!”
She shut the door behind her. It took a moment for her eye to adjust to the gloom without the light from the open door. The earl’s eyes widened as he stood, whip raised above a bag of oats. Ellalee’s eyes drifted to Raptim nibbling straw contentedly in his stall. The earl threw his whip to the floor in utter exasperation drawing her attention back to the master of the manor.
“Arrggh!” the earl shouted, dragging a hand through his hair, staring at her murderously. He spun around, banging a fist against a barn beam, muttering, “Why, why, why did I ever bring you here!” along with a litany of barely audible curses. He finally turned back towards her and drug a hand over his face. “There is no end to your impudence. I honestly think I will have to beat you or put you in the stocks, or….”
Ellalee interrupted, not at all enjoying where this chain of thought was heading and whispered, “I know why you are doing this, but there must be a better way.”
“If you know why, then you are even more a fool than even I expected,” he hissed low and menacing. “There is no better way. Things die. Things that I care for quickest of all. It is the curse.”
Valen reached over and picked up his crop, pointing it at her, his voice returning to its former penetrating resonance, “My initial idea of a ball and chain seems most befitting. I think that will be the blacksmith’s new job. I’ll just have to figure out the length of the chain. Winslow can then move the ball room to room as necessary,” Valen remarked casually with a mean glint in his eye as he tucked the crop under his arm.
Ellalee whispered back, “I will not be captive to some fool curse. There is someone behind this.”
The earl leaned in, his look full of derision as he whispered, “And that is where you are mistaken. It isn’t a someone. I know this for a fact.”
Ellalee shook her head. “What do you mean? How do you know this?”
There was the creak of a door by the tack room in the back entrance to the barn.
“Irwin,” The earl said quietly. “He made quick work of taking your brother to the kitchen.”
“He loves the animals. He is only worried for them,” Ellalee responded defensively.
Poor Christopher would have tried to keep Irwin away, but no doubt Irwin’s concern for the horse drove him back to the barn no sooner that Christopher was safely deposited over the threshold of the kitchen door. He must have come at a jog at that. Ellalee could hear Irwin moving stealthily in the back of the barn. Ellalee guessed he was probably trying to get a look at Raptim to make sure she had kept her word. The last thing she wanted to do was cause the poor groomsman further distress so she didn’t bother continuing to argue with Lord Valen. What could she do if he decided to tether her to an iron ball anyway…expect make sure that Winslow had to move that ball more times than he cared to. That seemed more punishment to Winslow, but at least she would share her misery. She nearly smiled. She strode towards the barn door, pushed it open, and peeked back over her shoulder in hopes of giving Irwin an encouraging look before she left. She gasped.
A lantern flew through the air and smashed into the far side of Raptim’s stall. The hay blazed up as the flames leaped and grew. Ellalee screamed as she ran towards the stall. Even as quickly as she moved, Valen beat her there, jumping between the horse and the flames as the fire exploded up the wooden wall. The horse bucked and shied away from Valen and the flames.
“Move, you fool beast!” the earl said as he shoved the panicking horse with his shoulder. The horse reared, clipping Valen’s forehead with its sharp hoof. “Gah! Move!”
Blood rushed down Valen’s forehead as he slapped the horse’s backside. The horse flew out of the stall and towards the barn door. Ellalee darted down the aisle opening each stall and shooed the horses out of the barn. Then she grabbed a bucket of sand and an old potato sack and rushed to Valen’s side. He had taken off his jacket and was beating the flames with it. Ellalee stomped on the flames closest to her shoes and threw sand on the fire to douse the worst areas.
Suddenly, she screamed as her skirt caught fire, spilling the bucket of sand as she flailed. Valen tackled her hard to the ground, folding her skirts over the flames to smother them and beating her skirts with his bare hands.
No sooner than the flames on Ellalee’s skirt were quenched, Valen was back to attacking the fire with his jacket. Ellalee joined him, beating the flames with the potato sack.
“Get more sand!” Valen yelled snatching the potato sack from her to beat the flames with both the sack and the jacket.
Ellalee rushed for another bucket of sand and rejoined Valen. In what was probably only minutes but seemed like an hour, the flames were reduced to nothing more than smoking stink.
“Ring the bell. We need water to soak the wood to make sure there are no hot spots that will rekindle this barn.”
Ellalee nodded and ran into the courtyard and rang the bell, yelling, “Fire! Fire in the Barn! Fire! Fire in the barn!” Staff came running from the manor pell-mell, including Irwin. Seeing that help was on the way, Ellalee dashed back to the barn. As she returned, she nearly ran into Valen who was dragging out all the burned hay from the stone floor of the barn outside with a pitchfork. The blood running down his face had slowed and in some places begun to crust over. Soot covered the rest of him, and his hands bore angry burn welts.
“Are you okay?” she asked breathlessly. He didn’t look okay.
“God knows that I hate fire more than anything else,” Valen growled. “Irwin…”
“I just saw him coming from the manor. Whoever threw
that lantern wasn’t him. It couldn’t have been. He loves that horse. He would not have hurt it.”
“Go back to the manor, Ellalee. Find Gladlia, she takes perverse joy in stitching me back up,” Valen said touching his head as he winced. “Stay with Christopher. He’s probably been left, and that may not be wise.”
Ellalee darted past the earl as the first footmen arrived with buckets of water. Even Daniella, Elise, and Mistress Murray helped in the water line. Daniella gave her a look of relief as Ellalee passed her. No doubt Daniella was concerned about Christopher being alone as well.
When Ellalee entered the kitchen, she reassured Christopher that all was well with a promise to fill him in after she made a search for Gladlia. A cursory search of the servants sections of the manor did not turn up the healer, and Ellalee had no idea where else to look. Returning to the kitchen, Ellalee sent up a prayer that Gladlia had heard the bell and would come to investigate.
Ellalee put water on for tea and began preparing bread for the servants so that they could have a repast after the barn was secured. As her hands worked, she filling in Christopher on how Raptim came to no harm and how the fire began. Ellalee carefully edited out the earl’s threats making no further mention of the ball and chain and certainly no mention of the curse. Hopefully the fire in the barn had turned the earl’s attention away from that ball and chain threat, at least momentarily. With any luck, she would do nothing in the near term to remind him either.
“You know Irwin didn’t throw that lantern, right? He was in here with me until the bell rang,” Christopher said when she had finished.
“Of course, and I said as much to the earl when I saw Irwin coming from the manor with the rest.” Ellalee ruffled Christopher’s hair.
“Did you know that Irwin used to be a prize fighter?” Christopher said, patting his hair back down.
“Really? He sure is large enough. How did he end up here?”
“He was the fifth son of a blacksmith, but some minor lord took him on because of his size. He made Irwin fight after training him up with the knights. Irwin was good when he was young, and the lord made money on the fights. But he got hit hard in the head in one fight and afterwards just couldn’t make his hands move fast anymore. He start losing. Then the lord decided to have him beaten every time he lost.”
Ellalee was disgusted. “Motivation of the worst kind.”
“He was beat nearly dead by the lord’s own man after a loss. That’s when the Earl de Avium picked him up. The earl told Irwin that as a groomsman, he would have to pay off his medical bills and keep. Irwin said Gladlia saw him through his injuries, and he was right glad for the honest work. Irwin remembers when the earl came home with Raptim too.
“He said that fool horse tried to jump a fence to flirt with a filly in the pasture next to his and tore his side, nearly stripping his hide off. He was a young horse, young and stupid, Irwin said, though I’m kind of offended by that statement. Irwin said that the horse’s last owner was going to put him down, but the earl brought him home, his wound all bound up. That horse sure is a beauty. It would have been a shame not to have at least tried.”
Ellalee finished kneading the dough and put it near the hearth to rise as she and Christopher both silently contemplated Irwin’s stories. Her brother interrupted her thoughts. “The earl saved us too. He ransomed us.”
“Now Christopher, that’s not precisely true,” Ellalee said distractedly as she was thinking at that moment about Raptim’s scar
“He paid a lot of money to save us, isn’t that what ransomed means?” Christopher’s face screwed up.
“Well,” Ellalee mentally changed gears. The earl had paid far more money than their debt. He had paid enough for the villagers to let them go. She had commented on it at the time, and he had been rude in return. But if she ignored all his ugly, unkind words, and just looked at what happened, wasn’t Christopher right? She tilted her head to one side and stared at the flames in the hearth and contemplated this idea.
The earl saved things and brought them home. Yet, Lord Valen made sure that everything he saved hated him so that what he saved could live and in that, never once be grateful for the hand that saved them. And something was hunting, not just the earl but his sanity and his staff as well. “Perhaps you are right, but I’m not sure I would say it out loud.”
Christopher popped his hand over his mouth.
Chapter Sixteen: A Collection of Sinners
Winslow was the first to arrive back from the barn as Ellalee was pulling her bread from the oven on a large wooden peel. The bread was a beautiful golden brown and fresh from the oven and smelled like friendship and home.
Ellalee looked up at Winslow and then tilted her head to the side. “Despite the dirt and dust, you are looking well, Winslow. Your cheeks have color.”
“I out for a walk today before I heard that ruddy bell, no doubt all the excitement,” he replied dryly. Ellalee wondered when exactly the butler had gone for a walk and more, if he owned a grey wool cloak.
Shortly thereafter, the rest of the staff came through the kitchen in varying degrees of filth and wet, all happy for a hot cuppa and bread on their way to change clothes. Mistress Murray huffed and puffed at all the exertion. In her version of events, it seemed she single-handedly saved the barn and was in need of an extended respite for her extraordinary efforts. Even Daniella rolled her eyes as the old redhead left the kitchen, clutching her back. With any luck, the housekeeper wouldn’t return until the evening meal. Hope does spring eternal, Ellalee thought cynically.
There was good news from Charlie that the fire was successfully extinguished. Irwin and Michael, the groundsman, were staying the night in the barn to keep vigil and to get the newly rounded-up animals fed and watered.
A distracted Daniella took over in the kitchen, as Gladlia came through the staff door.
“I heard the bell when I was returning from the village, but was too far away to be of much help. This stupid old hip,” Gladlia grumbled, “slows me down. I stopped by the barn all the same. I’m glad for the good word from Irwin, but I assume our earl was not without injury?”
Ellalee enlightened Gladlia as Daniella put together a tray for the earl. The footmen returned dressed in fresh shirts and waited on Daniella to finish so they could carry the tray and whatever else Gladlia may need upstairs. Gladlia followed her own mission, grabbing honey, oil, and using some boiled water, herbs, and ointment to create a thick salve in a small vessel that smelled like lemongrass.
“Tea will certainly ease his lordship’s mood,” Gladlia said. “However, perhaps, Ellalee can take the tray, gentlemen. I will need to see to her burns after I see to the earl.”
Ellalee demurred and was decisively overridden not just by Gladlia but by Daniella’s exclamations of concern as she finally stopped long enough to take in the state of Ellalee’s dress. Mark smirked and Charlie coughed. Seeing her own defeat, Ellalee grabbed the tray and smiled through gritted teeth. Even Winslow gave her a droll look. It was one thing to always be on the earl’s bad side. It was another to be the entertainment for the staff.
Winslow preceded the two women to the earl’s study and introduced them before closing the door behind them.
The earl was sitting at his desk carefully trying to wash his wounded face with a basin of water and cloth. “Another scar for the collection, Gladlia. I become more the monster each day.”
“Oh, fiddle-faddle. I’ll have you right as rain in no time,” Gladlia said giving the earl a very maternal look as she took the cloth and gently wiped away the rest of the crusted on blood. “A couple stitches. You’ll hardly even notice.” She dabbed a bit of ointment on the wound and waited.
“This may sting a bit,” Gladlia said as she poured a concoction from a bottle she pulled from her bag into the wound.
“Arr! You have a gift for understatement,” the earl growled through gritted teeth.
“It has to be cleaned, Valen. No, move your hand, and sit still,” she said as
she doused the area again. Valen began to curse. “You and that infernal medicine of yours! I think you are part of my curse as well.”
Gladlia gave a small laugh as she put more numbing ointment on the cut. “A couple stitches now, and then we will treat the burns on your hands.”
Ellalee was beyond frustrated, especially having been given time to reflect while she stayed with Christopher in the kitchen. She clenched her fists and vented, “This is madness. I cannot believe that someone would try to burn the barn. We could have died! The animals could have been killed. Who would want to cause such wanton destruction? You must have some idea who this villain is!”
“Did you wonder why the barn floor is stone and not dirt? It makes the rebuilding that much easier. This would have been the fourth time, with varying degrees of success, in which someone has tried to burn that barn in just the last half decade.”
Ellalee’s eyes brightened. “So, we just need to know who has been here for each attempt! The list of suspects grows smaller. You must have some idea who this somebody is.”
“Do you really believe I couldn’t have caught a “somebody” in all these years? I’ve caught many somebodies. It is this place. It turns people.”
“Or?” Gladlia said raising one eyebrow as she knotted off the stitch and began digging through her bag again.
The earl winced and touched his hand to his head feeling Gladlia’s handiwork. Gladlia slapped his hand away. “Touch it and I will clean it out again…without the numbing cream.”
The earl dropped his hand and looked back at Ellalee exasperated. “Or… it is the people I bring. With so many deaths here at de Avium, I only bring, shall we say, a collection of sinners. People who might have died anyway. I feel less guilt that way should something happen.”
“Thieves?” Ellalee asked innocently. She felt nauseous.
“Thieves, downtrodden women, pickpockets, injured castoffs, debtors, the destitute,” Valen replied. “People who probably don’t have long happy lives to look forward to either way.”
The Grey Dawn Page 15
