Simon mewled in her arms, rousing her from such painful reflections. She hurried toward the eastern tower, hoping it would speed her to the kitchens. There, she would feign an interest in livestock and discover where the nanny goat was housed.

Clarise had almost reached the ground level when the jingling of keys alerted her to Dame Maeve’s approach. The grim-faced servant drew up short at the sight of the nurse in the dim stairwell.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, clutching her chatelaine as a sign of her power.

Clarise quelled the impulse to check the woman’s tone. The steward’s wife was a superior servant. She would be wise to establish a friendship with the woman.

“Does this tower lead to the kitchens?” she meekly inquired.

“Nay,” said Dame Maeve flatly. “Why? Have ye need of aught?”

“Actually, I missed the morning meal,” Clarise lied. She would determine if Dame Maeve were responsible for the tray in her room or someone else.

“Then you should get up earlier,” the woman snapped.

“The lord has instructed me to eat well—”

“He is seneschal, not the lord,” Dame Maeve corrected her.

Clarise wondered if the woman’s gray hair dared escape the knot on her head. “I see,” she said. “The Slayer has instructed me to eat well.” She used the taboo sobriquet to fluster the old woman. “I was hoping for a bit of bread and some milk to stave off my hunger.”

The woman turned as still as stone. Her eyes hardened to match her frame. “You are a fool to use that name lightly,” she muttered. “Do you know how this babe came into the world?” With a long bony finger she made to prod Simon in the belly, but Clarise turned her body to protect him. “He was cut from his mother’s belly while my lady yet lived.”

A chill swept through Clarise. She’d been told that Simon’s mother died in childbirth. No one had mentioned such butchery.

“I don’t believe you,” she said, rubbing the baby’s back to comfort herself as much as Simon.

“Ask anyone,” insisted the steward’s wife. “We all saw the blood on his tunic. Her body was still warm when I went to clean the chamber.”

“None of this is my concern,” Clarise insisted, thrusting aside the horrific image. “But the baby is. I must have nourishment to feed him. And I must have it now.”

Dame Maeve drew herself up. “Your request will be relayed,” she said, glaring at her.

“And bread and milk brought to my chamber?” She was pressing her luck now.

The steward’s wife pushed past her, muttering commentary on the sin of sloth as she stormed up the stairs. Clarise listened to the click of her efficient footsteps. She had meant to make a friend of the steward’s wife. Instead, she’d likely made a foe. With no hope of reaching the kitchens by this avenue, she turned back the way she had come, seeking her chamber, for Simon showed signs of getting hungry.

The light repast was brought to her door with impressive speed. The page who’d brought it also conveyed a message from the master-at-arms, enjoining her to share the midday meal with him.

Clarise declined Sir Roger’s offer. We will speak again, the Slayer had warned her. And I will have honest answers from you next time. Not if she succeeded in avoiding him, he wouldn’t. She refused to be caught between the two of them at the noon repast. Instead, she fed Simon with the milk and nibbled at the loaf, hoping to make it last.

The sound of a horseman leaving the stables spurred her to the window. Looking down, she caught a glimpse of the warlord’s black hair as he guided his mount through the gate. The sight of the Slayer in full armor made her stand at attention. She held her breath, waiting for him to reappear on the road outside the castle walls.

As he thundered into view, she watched with silent awe. He was armed to the teeth and striking out with purpose.

Where was he going at midday? And why did she feel disappointment to see him leaving? The more distance between them, the safer she was. And yet she wished, perversely, that he would stay where she could keep an eye on him.

Dressed in armor, he looked every inch the warlord. The chain mail that girded his broad chest was hewn from dark iron links that nullified the sun’s rays. The leather scabbard across his back was black, as was the hilt of his sword and the knee-high boots. Even the shield that she couldn’t see was black—or so she’d heard—with a small white cross on the upper left corner.

She’d always thought his device a sacrilege. Now that she knew his name, she understood the cross, in part. Yet the man had no priest in his castle. He was anything but devout—though Sir Roger had insisted to the contrary.

Still, she knew in her heart that she couldn’t poison him. Warlord or not, he was still Simon’s father. Helmesly would be lost without his iron rule, just as Ferguson desired. And she would not be party to such violent destruction.

She caught up the pendant that hung from her neck and studied it. The gold globe seemed to symbolize Ferguson’s power over the lives of the DeBoise women. Clarise curled her lip in scorn. She would not be subject to Ferguson’s whim any longer.

Very deliberately she pulled the chain off over her head. With a flick of her thumb, she unhooked the clasp that kept it closed and swung the chamber open. Lethal powder sat in the silk-lined interior, looking as harmless as a pinch of salt. Clarise extended her arm and held it out the window. With a twist of her wrist, the powder slipped free and sailed lightly into the wind.

Clarise felt a great weight ease from her shoulders. She snapped the locket shut and looped the chain over her head once more. Then she turned to inspect her lonely chamber. It solved nothing to sequester herself with Simon. She would eat with the master-at-arms, after all. Perhaps Sir Roger knew a priest who could bear a message to Alec.









Chapter Five


















After hurriedly feeding the baby, Clarise placed Simon in his cradle and hefted them both. Though the burden was heavy, she struggled to carry both the baby and the box down the tower stairs. After all, she had promised the Slayer her vigilance.

Sir Roger hastened to her rescue the moment he saw her on the gallery. “Dame Crucis, you should summon a servant,” he scolded as he took the cradle from her hands.

They descended the broad stairs together, drawing the gazes of servants who scurried under Maeve’s stern eye.

“Where would you have me put this?” the knight inquired.

“As close to the dais as possible. Let us pray that Simon remains asleep.”

“I trust you are rested,” he huffed as they neared the high table.

Clarise murmured something to the affirmative. She took approving note of the ready table, the neat appearance of the pages, the freshness of the rushes under her feet. Maeve performed her husband’s duties with daunting skill.

“Lord Christian looked for you again this morning,” the knight confided, putting down the box. “But I advised him to let you sleep.” He straightened and looked directly at her face. “You still look tired.”

Clarise turned away from his probing gaze. “The little baron woke me more than once,” she told him. For all his chivalry, she sensed a search for answers in the knight’s silvery orbs. She hoped she could put his suspicions to rest.

“Come and sit by me,” he invited, gesturing toward the high table. “My lord is gone from the castle for the day, and there is no one but the minstrel to entertain me.”

As if by cue, the discordant twang of a lute rose toward the rafters. Clarise glanced toward the source of the discord and saw the minstrel she had seen once before seated at a bench on the far end of the hall. He burst suddenly into song, plucking an accompaniment that might have belonged to a different tune altogether.

Apprehension stirred the hairs on her forearms. There was something familiar about the man, she thought, staring at him harder.

“Fear you not,” Sir Roger said, mistaking her expression for disdain. “These are his last hours at Helmesly,” he divulged. “I will send him on his way after supper, with coin enough to speed him to his next destination.” He tipped her a smile and helped her up the dais steps.

She was glad to hear it. The last thing she needed right now was to run into someone who knew her. She turned her attention to the two men already seated at the table. Sir Roger introduced them as Hagar, guardian of the dungeons, and Harold the steward, husband to Dame Maeve.

When neither man acknowledged her polite greeting, she looked to Sir Roger for an explanation. “Hagar is deaf,” he informed belatedly, “and Harold lives in his own world. Your gracefulness denotes breeding, however,” he added lightly.

She gave him a thin smile. The knight was mocking her disguise as a freed serf. She hoped she could keep the truth from him, as she had kept it from the Slayer.

Sir Roger helped her into a chair, then occupied the seat beside her, leaving the lord’s and lady’s places empty. He nodded to the water bearer, and the meal began. The scent of trout broiled in almond sauce preceded the pages as they bore the main course to the high table.

Men-at-arms still trudged to the trestles from the practice yards. Sweaty and exhausted, they straggled in, groaning audibly at the sight of the minstrel and casting curious glances toward the high table. Clarise kept her eyes downcast as they whispered among themselves to discover who she was.

“Did you live in Glenmyre all your life?” Sir Roger asked. At the same time he divided their trencher in half, giving her the choicest portion of the fish.

She braced herself for another round of questions. “Aye, all my life, except for the years I spent studying at St. Judes.”

“You mean St. Giles,” he offered helpfully.

Clarise colored furiously. He’d caught her right away in the web of her own words. “Aye, St. Giles,” she muttered, stabbing at her fish with her two-tined fork.

Sir Roger dabbed his mouth with the edge of the table linen. “Dame Crucis,” he said softly, “you have heard, no doubt, that my lord will kill anyone who crosses him.”

She forced herself to chew, though the trout began to taste like dirt in her mouth. The knight was clearly warning her to be forthright. To save herself, she retreated behind a wall of silence.

Saintonge drove his point home. “He respects honesty in any man,” he added, “or woman.”

She resisted the urge to shake her head. She could never tell the Slayer who she was, for in jeopardizing her own life, she jeopardized the lives of those she loved. “Where has the seneschal gone?” she asked, changing the topic abruptly.

The gleam in Sir Roger’s eyes warned her that he saw straight through the ploy. “To Rievaulx,” he said shortly.

The unexpected answer brought her senses to alert. “But the abbey is quarantined. I went there for shelter and was turned away.”

Sir Roger ripped off a portion of his trencher and dipped it in sauce. “I know,” he said, with anger coloring his tone. “ ’Tis supposedly riddled by a great scourge.”

“Oh, it is,” she assured him. “I saw the effects of it myself.” Her stomach turned at the recollection of Horatio’s ravaged face.

The knight leaned back until his chair creaked. “My lord means to call at the gate, not to enter. He is looking for a monk there.” His silvery gaze swiveled toward her face. “Alec Monteign. You must know him, coming from Glenmyre,” he added casually.

Clarise glanced to the cradle to disguise her sudden panic. Simon was dozing, giving her no excuse to flee. “Aye, of course. He heeded a call to the brotherhood after the. . . the seneschal took possession of Glenmyre.” She had nearly said the Slayer.

“Just so. What do you know of the man?”

She tore off a bit of her own bread. “He’s a good man,” she said evasively. “Why do you ask?”

The knight looked at her directly. “ ’Tis a matter of great importance, affecting the lives of many,” he replied. “One day you may be able to return to Glenmyre”—he paused and sipped his wine—“to do whatever it is that you did before.”

She ignored his deliberate sarcasm. “What do you mean?” she demanded. “Are you suggesting that Alec might rightly rule in his father’s stead?” Hope fluttered anew.

The knight smiled enigmatically. “Mayhap,” he said, raising her hopes, “but then, mayhap not. Who can explain the devotion of an eremite?”

To Clarise, it sounded like a leading question. Sir Roger was eager to explore her allegiance to Alec. Likely, everything he had to say was designed to trap her into revealing her loyalties.