Kim Iverson Headlee Read online

  His host had spared no expense, Alain observed upon entering the hall. Fine linen sporting the gray wolf rearing on a crimson background adorned the high table. The lower tables were covered in coarser material bearing the same colors and lupine design. Ropes of ivy festooned every table and looped between the ornate brass wall sconces. Peering closer at one of the garlands, Alain noticed tiny purple flowers nestled among the leaves. Silver platters and gorgeous red blown-glass goblets adorned the high table, complemented by matching pewter and less finely wrought glassware throughout the rest of the hall.

  Such preparations required several days to get everything scrubbed and ready. Alain searched his memory to determine whether this could be a holy feast day and failed. His suspicions ratcheted up another notch.

  It made him seethe at how neatly Ulfric had maneuvered him into agreeing to depart before he could learn more.

  A servant approached to conduct him to his assigned seat at the high table, a chair not much less ornate than the one belonging to the hall’s master.

  Out of deference to his absent host, Alain remained standing behind his chair, as did those assigned to the lower tables, whom he judged to be members of Ulfric’s fyrd and their wives. Surrounded by the plethora of crimson banners, tunics, dresses, tabards, and table coverings, Alain felt less like a target than a member of the thane’s household.

  He preferred to be a target.

  A pair of heralds stepped inside the hall’s main doors. During the ensuing trumpet flourish, Alain gaped at the sheer ostentation as Thane Ulfric appeared, standing framed in the doorway, with Kendra hooked on to his left arm.

  God, what a vision!

  Her crimson gown—the exact hue of Ulfric’s surcoat, though devoid of the wolf design—enhanced the high color of her cheeks. Tinged with a hint of pink, like the blushing dawn, her pale veil did its best to cover her golden locks, which had been brushed till they fairly glowed in the torchlight. Her eyes remained lowered as she and a beaming Ulfric strode toward the dais, but when she chanced to glance up, her gaze locked to Alain’s.

  She smiled briefly, sending a thrill through his soul.

  Feeling Ulfric’s glare boring through him, he restrained his response to the barest twitch of his lips.

  “Before we begin the meal,” Ulfric addressed the entire company, “I have a presentation to make.”

  At the thane’s signal, the same page who’d visited Alain’s chamber stepped forward bearing an object hidden in the valley of a plump pillow. The page marched to where Kendra was standing, in front of the table, and dropped to one knee, lifting the pillow.

  Alain tightened his jaw. If Ulfric thought for one moment that he could propose marriage—

  “Lady Kendra, I believe this is yours,” Ulfric said.

  He reached toward the pillow and withdrew a length of black cord. A slim silver box swung from the bottom of the loop. Ulfric held it aloft for all to see.

  Kendra gasped, eyes wide.

  “Wh-where did you find this?” She cupped her hand under the trinket, and Ulfric dropped it onto her palm.

  “My men recovered it from one of the outlaws.” Ulfric laid his hand upon her arm. “He shall not trouble you or anyone else ever again.”

  That had to be Wart, Alain thought regretfully, the only one of his captors who’d seemed to be an otherwise decent soul fallen in with the wrong company. Alain had searched the bodies of the other two for Kendra’s locket after Wart had escaped.

  She seemed not to have heard Ulfric, for she’d busied herself with opening the case.

  An anguished wail pierced the ambient chatter.

  “What have you done?” she cried to Ulfric. “Where is it?”

  Ulfric gave her a helpless look. “What do you mean?”

  But the only coherent words she could utter were, “’Tis gone! Lost! Forever lost!”

  The open locket clattered to the flagstones. Tears spilling down her cheeks, she fled from the hall.

  When Alain surged to follow her, a hand clamped around his arm and yanked him back. Alain spun free, glaring.

  Ulfric raised both hands, palms outward. “I was trying to protect my cousin from suffering further distress.”

  Alain itched to point out that Ulfric was the one causing her distress but elected to exercise diplomacy. “She wishes to know what became of the contents of her locket, and she deserves to hear the truth from a witness.”

  Without waiting for Ulfric’s response, he scooped up the locket and quit the hall as fast as propriety permitted.

  Chapter 12

  THE POUNDING OF her feet as she ran down the corridor intensified the pounding in her head. She found the right door, yanked it open, dashed through the antechamber, slammed the inner door, and collapsed facedown on the bed, sobbing.

  “Poppet? What ails you, child?” Ethel’s voice drifted through from the other room. Before Kendra could reply, she heard heavy footsteps enter the antechamber. “My lord, Lady Kendra cannot receive visitors,” Ethel said sternly. “Please leave at once.”

  “Good woman, I apologize for the intrusion. But I believe Lady Kendra will want to hear the tidings I bring.”

  She rolled over and sat up, drying her face with the sleeve of her underdress. Mustering her courage, she crossed the room and opened the door. “Sir Alain may stay, Ethel.”

  “Aye, my lady.” Ethel smiled and stepped out of Alain’s path but did not leave the chamber.

  Alain strode forward until he stood a pace from Kendra, proffering the locket. “Its contents are safe with your father, my lady.” He knotted the cord’s cut ends.

  She bent her neck in an invitation for him to slip it on. His fingertips brushed her skin, leaving a fiery trail that snaked down to the pit in her stomach.

  “Many thanks, good sir knight,” she murmured, biting her lip to quell her rampaging emotions. “The relic this contained means a great deal to me.”

  When she looked up, she noticed the earnestness of his gaze. “I presume you plan to rest at Thornhill a while yet, Lady Kendra. Would you like me to retrieve it for you?”

  His suggestion presented a tempting offer, but if fate was determined to condemn her to a lifetime without him, then the sentence may as well start sooner rather than later. “I thank you for your kind offer, Sir Alain, but I cannot in good conscience keep you from your other duties.”

  And, she thought glumly, it would just postpone the inevitable.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Other duties?”

  “Finding Sir Ruaud and finishing the regent’s mission.”

  “Ah.” His smile, regretful yet affectionate, caused her heart to flutter. When he reached for her hand and raised it to his lips, she thought she might faint from the intensity of her longing. “My lady makes me forget all else while I stand in her glorious presence.”

  “My bri—my cousin had best not make you forget that you are leaving, Sir Alain.”

  Countenance darkening, Alain released her hand to turn toward Ulfric, who had shouldered past Ethel to stand in the center of the antechamber.

  For a long moment, the two men faced off like a pair of bucks readying for the charge.

  “Ulfric is right.” Kendra glided between them. “If you leave now, Sir Alain, you will have ample daylight to begin your search for Sir Ruaud. Mayhap someone in Glastonbury has seen him. He is not an easy man to miss.”

  “And I have already ordered a horse to be saddled and provisioned for you,” Ulfric said. “It would be a pity for you to miss the fine meal that was prepared today. If you are finished here, I shall escort you to the stables.”

  “Thane Ulfric, you have been more than kind.” Alain bowed, but not before Kendra saw distrust flare in his eyes. Straightening, he faced her. “Fare you well, my lady.” Although his face remained impassive, the muscles around his eyes tightened with unmistakable anguish.

  “God’s speed to you, Sir Alain, in all your travels,” she murmured, thankful that her voice didn’t betray her.

>   After Alain left the antechamber, trailed by Ulfric, she jammed a fist to her mouth to stifle the welling sob. The door swung to with a thump, and her sentence began.

  The hand that came to rest upon her forearm startled her.

  “Handsome, courtly…virile too, if I don’t miss my guess,” Ethel said. Kendra couldn’t prevent the rush of heat to her cheeks, sparked by the vivid memory of Alain’s caresses. Ethel’s grin displayed pure mischief. “Child, you are three kinds of fool if you insist on banishing him from your life.”

  By “him,” she presumed Ethel did not mean Ulfric.

  “Aye.” It came out more a sigh than a word as she collapsed upon a nearby chair. “But I am betrothed to another man. Until that fact changes, I know not what else to do.”

  Ethel stooped to grasp Kendra’s hand, the one Alain had kissed. As Ethel’s fingers touched Kendra’s palm, the woman’s eyebrows lowered. After a moment, the look of puzzlement grew into a knowing one.

  “Have faith, poppet.” She skimmed her wrinkled fingertips over Kendra’s knuckles, taking care to avoid the skin that Alain’s lips had touched. “Have faith in the power and magic”—Ethel winked—“of true love.”

  She gazed into the woman’s bright black eyes, which sparkled with ageless wisdom. In that moment, she found her heart believing in Ethel’s words, in spite of what her head insisted upon telling her.

  PLODDING ALONG the road to Glastonbury—little more than a cart track winding through the wooded hills, rolling pastures, and fruitful grain fields—Alain felt like more of a target than ever. He drew curious stares from every company of pilgrims he passed. Not only was he still dressed in the bright crimson tunic, but Ulfric had gifted him with a fox-trimmed cloak and one of the best mounts in his stables.

  That issue, however, did not absorb Alain’s attention.

  Kendra had rejected his implicit offer to see her. In so doing, she had rejected him.

  And yet he couldn’t have mistaken the love he’d seen glistening in her eyes during their final moments together.

  She loved a lie, he reminded himself, a lie of his own devising. A lie he must set to rights before he could claim her hand and heart. A lie that scorched his soul.

  Not only had he hurt her, but his ruse probably had resulted in the death of his closest friend. For if Ulfric had spoken the truth when he claimed not to have seen Ruaud, then chances were slim that he’d been seen alive by anyone else.

  Yearning for a modicum of peace and forgiveness, Alain nudged the horse into a canter toward the abbey they had passed earlier that morning, en route to Thornhill.

  If peace and forgiveness eluded him within those sanctified walls, at least he could ask to swap Ulfric’s garb for something less conspicuous.

  Halfway to his destination, along a deserted section of the track, a hurtling streak of midnight fur ambushed him. His horse shied, whinnying, as the hound he and Kendra had freed from its underground kennel sprang from the bushes, barking with obvious pleasure.

  “Down, sir!” Alain admonished the hound, who obeyed with surprising alacrity. After bringing his horse under control, he dismounted, tied the reins to a branch, removed the saddlebags, and walked over to stroke the dog’s head. “I am glad to see you too.” The dog stretched his nose toward the saddle packs. “Ah, hungry, are we, lad?”

  Alain opened one of the bags, first finding a bulging wineskin, which he pulled out and set beside him. He reached in again and withdrew a linen parcel containing a loaf of warm, fragrant bread. The dog sniffed it and backed off a pace, growling. Alain smelled the loaf. Its faintly musty odor reminded him of the lethal meadow saffron. He put the bread aside and repeated the process with a bundle of apples and several juicy slices of roast pork. The hound refused to consider the apples, but when he got to the pork, he sat, threw back his head, and howled plaintively.

  A group of pilgrims, walking up from behind Alain, cast uneasy glances at the dog and hurried past, disappearing around a bend in the road.

  His stomach rumbling, Alain wanted to howl too.

  Sampling whatever Ulfric had put into the wineskin was out of the question.

  “It appears we shall have to forage elsewhere.” He threw the tainted food, as well as the wineskin and saddlebags, into the brush. The dog whined, sidling closer, and Alain scratched him behind the ears. Tongue lolling, the dog nuzzled Alain’s hand. “I’m sorry I have nothing to give you, but I do thank you for saving my life.”

  The dog favored him with a lick that coaxed a smile to his lips as he wiped his cheek on his sleeve.

  The animal’s presence reminded him of Kendra, and he groped inside his pouch for the packet containing the lock of her hair that he’d found en route to rescuing her. His fingers drew out not one packet but two. Thinking he’d retrieved some herbs by mistake, he unwrapped the packets.

  Both contained a lock of hair.

  One was Kendra’s as Alain fondly remembered it: glossy and golden. The other, much shorter lock, also blond, had a thin, brittle quality.

  When the dog began nosing the packets, Alain folded them up and stowed them in his pouch, berating his slow wits.

  The other swath of hair had to be the item missing from Kendra’s locket, which Alain had watched the outlaws desecrate. He recalled that her father had slipped him a small packet before he and Ruaud had “surrendered;” this had to have been it, he reasoned.

  He hoped the lock was from a family member rather than a beloved suitor.

  No, not a suitor, unless he had misread the signals she had been arrowing his way.

  Hair from her murdered brother, perhaps?

  Whatever its origin, if Waldron had intended for Alain to use the token as a means of winning Kendra’s favor, it was too late to avail himself of the opportunity. Kendra never wanted to see him again. She had made that all too clear.

  He pounded the ground with his fist, making the dog jump to his feet. As Alain rose, so did his determination to carry out Waldron’s implicit command to return Kendra’s treasure to her.

  But not while traipsing across the countryside, half starved and looking like an archery butt.

  Before untying the horse, he checked each hoof for stones and loose shoe nails. Upon finding no problems there, he loosened the girth and removed the saddle and blanket, searching for burs, bits of straw, or anything else that might cause the horse distress. The mare stood patiently, mouthing grass and swatting flies with her tail. At one point, she swung her head around as far as the reins allowed, gazing at Alain as if to insist he was worrying for no good reason.

  Only after he had finished examining the tack would he concede that perhaps the mare might be right.

  Saddled, mounted, and moving onward once again, he was glad his canine ally had chosen to accompany him, though not always at his side. At intervals, the dog would veer off the path after a rabbit or bird, baying with joyous abandon, returning before Alain had traveled too far.

  “What shall I name you?” he asked the hound between one of those forays, when he had dismounted to rest the horse. The dog’s towering, majestic appearance inspired an idea. “What think you of Seigneur Noir?” Seated beside Alain, the hound cocked his head as if in confusion. Chuckling and fondling the dog’s ears, he explained, “It means ‘Black Lord.’ You do deserve the title, though I admit it’s a mouthful. Noir should suffice.” He repeated the name several times, and the hound answered with an agreeable bark.

  After getting under way, he caught sight of the abbey church’s soaring walls within the hour, as the nones bells began to toll.

  The lightness of spirit sparked by Noir’s friendship yielded to the somber recollection of his purpose for choosing the church as his first destination.

  Outside the town of Glastonbury, he passed the biggest encampment of pilgrims he’d ever seen. Had this been Normandy, he might have fallen in with these folk.

  But the solace he sought did not exist in a crowd.

  He arrived at the abbey’s gates and explain
ed his pilgrimage to the porter, who welcomed him and Noir and held the bridle while Alain dismounted. Conversationally, Alain remarked upon the pilgrims’ camp, for he noticed far fewer visitors at the abbey.

  “A pilgrims’ encampment, sir knight?” The porter’s squint gave him a befuddled look. “Ah, yes. They must be assembling for the feasts of Saint Peter, Saint Paul, and the First Roman Martyrs, though it seems a mite early for folks to be arriving already.” Alain quirked an eyebrow upward. “The feast of the apostles Peter and Paul isn’t for another six days, and First Martyrs’ is the day after,” the porter explained. He slapped his forehead and rolled his eyes. “Ah, what am I thinking? Tomorrow is John the Baptist’s day, so the early ones probably have arrived for that. You will stay for High Mass tomorrow too, won’t you, good sir?”

  Although Alain suspected that the monk had tagged him as a wealthy benefactor, thanks to Ulfric’s gift, he said, “Lord willing.”

  Upon Alain’s request, the porter imparted directions to the stables. The path led past a tree the porter claimed had grown from a cutting of the original that had sprung from Joseph of Arimathea’s staff. Leading the horse and hound, Alain passed the gnarled, haw-laden, and otherwise unremarkable tree without pausing to consider the legendary spiritual connection. He found the stables and entrusted both animals into the groom’s care. Noir seemed content to curl in the straw for a nap.

  Some part of Alain wished he could join the dog.

  As a man in a daze, he followed the strains of soulful chanting toward the main church and slipped in through one of the small side doors.

  By this time, the office of nones was almost over, but that didn’t prevent him from kneeling and bowing his head. Guilt assaulted him from many angles: old matters, such as his failure to protect his brother, as well as the newer issues of deceiving Kendra and getting Ruaud killed.

  He remained long after the chanting had been replaced by the rustling of the monks rising to leave.

  “As I live and breathe—Alain!”

  He jerked his head up.

  A grinning Ruaud was standing before him, clad in a plain tunic and trews. Alain, grateful beyond measure, grasped Ruaud’s forearm to haul himself to his feet.