Kim Iverson Headlee Read online

  “My choices, Kendra,” he grated between clenched teeth, “are made for the good of all. Including yourself, though you’re too stubborn to acknowledge it.” Despite the limp that was the legacy of an old war wound, he strode the remaining distance so briskly that she felt obliged to break into a trot.

  Waldron yanked open the door, ushered her inside, and pulled it to with a timber-rattling thud. She tilted her head to meet his glare.

  “The good of all, Father? What possible good is it to surrender me—and, by extension, Edgarburh lands—to this barbaric Norman?” When Waldron didn’t answer, she pressed on, “What good can come of forcing me to break my vows to Del?” After setting down the basket to fold her arms, she lowered her gaze to the floor rushes, lowering her voice to match. “If I had accepted Ulfric’s suit, this matter never would have come to pass.”

  The irony forced a laugh from her lips. Ulfric, a relative of her mother, had petitioned for Kendra’s hand five summers after Edwina’s death. Fifteen years Kendra’s senior, he had given the then eighteen-year-old Kendra the impression that he possessed a dual nature. Nothing she could explain beyond vague suspicions, but Waldron had honored her decision to reject the suit.

  She looked up, emboldened by the memory. “You promised me that I need never marry save for love. Have you forgotten in just three years?”

  He dropped into the chair beside his worktable, propping his elbow on the dark, smoothly planed oak surface and bracing his forehead against his fist, his thatch of white hair falling over the scarred, gnarled fingers. Never could she recall him looking so old and weary. “I remember.” His care-lined face adopted a plaintive look. “And nothing would delight me more than to honor that promise. But this is a royal command you would have me break.”

  “Made by the royal bastard—”

  He glared at her. “Spare me your opinion of our new king. I cannot control your thoughts, but his lineage has no relevance to this or any other conversation you might have. In a thrice William will execute any Saxon lord he perceives as a threat, and treasonous speech is as valid an excuse as any other.” His eyebrows knotted into a thick white line. “And do not dare to presume these Normans will not understand you. Many of them know our tongue as well as we do. Do I make myself clear?”

  She nodded, chastened, realizing there was no wisdom in inciting this Sir Robert to wrath by insulting his king—their king, she amended. “I understand, Father,” she whispered, gazing at the floor.

  She felt his leathery fingers slip beneath her chin, and she lifted her head. “Be of good cheer. By all reports, Sir Robert is pious, courtly”—he winked—“and handsome.”

  Shrugging free, she rolled her eyes. “By Norman reports, you mean. That hardly qualifies as an honest assessment.”

  “So you would call King William a liar too?” Her father’s tone rumbled as ominously as a summer storm.

  “Nay! I—I had presumed—” She clamped her mouth shut. After a few moments, she said, “Please forgive me, Father.”

  Waldron nodded and crossed to the wall where the chests containing his clothing and other personal effects stood. The longest and newest chest—and one of the few secured with an iron lock, the key to which lay in Waldron’s possession alone—contained the shield of Del’s murderer. To her surprise, he stopped before the first in the line, bent over, and swiped its age-darkened, leather-hinged lid with his tunic sleeve to clear the dust. He pushed it open and started sorting through its contents. She shifted from foot to foot to peer inside the chest, to no avail.

  He extracted a length of finely spun linen, gave it a gentle shake, and turned to hold it up before him. She gasped. It was a lady’s veil, edged in an elaborate pattern of silver thread and dyed a delicate shade of slate blue, the precise color of her eyes, and her mother’s.

  Waldron’s smile was tinted with a mixture of affection, pride, and sadness. “Your dear mother made this and wore it the day we wed. I couldn’t bring myself to bury her in it. I had hoped—” He drew a swift breath and thrust the veil toward her. “I know you have been hard at work making your wedding garments, and I commend you for that. But it would please me if you would wear this veil to greet Sir Robert.”

  Though she’d always known that her father loved her, never had he shown it so tenderly. She drew near to caress the fabric. It smelled faintly of must, but that could be remedied with fresh lavender and a good airing. The silver threads glittered in the candlelight. Waldron laid it across her outstretched palms. It weighed next to nothing, far lighter than her mourning veil, which at times felt as if it had slid off her head to bind her heart.

  “Father…” A quiver threatened to block her throat, and she swallowed. “I will be honored.” Edwina’s veil clutched in one hand, she stood on tiptoe to throw her other arm about her father’s neck. Tears burned her cheeks. Waldron completed the embrace with fiercely protective strength.

  She would never surrender the lock of Del’s hair she had taken such pains to preserve, but she had to admit it would feel good to shed her black veil for a while. And she would savor giving her would-be bridegroom a glimpse of what he would never possess.

  Chapter 3

  ALAIN LAY ON his back beside the raucously snoring Ruaud, right hand beneath his head, staring at the ceiling’s dark oak timbers. The guide they’d hired in Sarum, a man named Ecgfrith, hadn’t returned from his evening’s entertainment—likely in a woman’s arms. Ecgfrith had recommended keeping to the Winchester road until it intersected the road to Ilchester in front of this decaying excuse for an inn.

  He scratched absently at his chest. While he distrusted Ecgfrith’s furtive manner, the man’s advice had proven sound, for their choices had been limited to braving the creatures inhabiting this lumpy mattress or the ones creeping into their bedrolls atop some windswept hillock. As an unwelcome Norman traveling across unfamiliar English territory, he preferred the sensible solidity of walls any day.

  Or night.

  Hoofbeats thrummed outside. It seemed a strange hour for someone to be arriving unless it was a courier, but the irregular drumming sounded like several horses. Alain honed his senses but couldn’t discern anything else above the snores. He rose, padded to the shuttered window, and stooped to peer through a knothole.

  Light from the half-moon illuminated the scene well enough to wrench a soft curse from his throat.

  In the courtyard below, five men had dismounted and were throwing their reins over the rail. The horses’ bridles and harnesses had been wrapped with rags. The men eased out their swords, speaking in tones too low to catch. Outlaws, he guessed. A sixth man joined them from the inn. Though the gloom prevented him from being certain, the chill prickling his spine told him the sixth was Ecgfrith.

  One by one, they crept inside.

  Alain withdrew from the window. Reaching for his sword, he breathed a prayer of thanks that he’d remained in his squire’s garb of plain jerkin and trousers. Ruaud had scoffed at Alain’s caution. If they survived, he doubted that Ruaud would ever scoff again. He drew his sword and battled the shiver wrought by the if.

  “To arms, Ruaud!” he rasped, giving his friend’s shoulder a shove.

  Years of battle propelled Ruaud awake, and his brow furrowed. Finger to lips, Alain pointed with his sword toward the door, where footfalls shuffled in the corridor beyond. While Ruaud dressed, Alain scooped a shovelful of embers from the brazier, blew to redden them, and stationed himself near the door.

  No match for the combined weight of a half dozen men, the door yielded with a crash. Alain launched his surprise, shovel included, catching some men in the face and others on the arms and hands. Howls of rage and pain split the night, followed by curses and stomps and the clatter of steel on steel as Alain drove the intruders back into the corridor.

  Two men nursing burn wounds fled. As Alain fought with the apparent leader, he felt Ruaud pressing at his back, surging like a leashed hound scenting the quarry. Alain dodged aside, and Ruaud joined the fray, spou
ting a cheerful stream of French insults.

  Alain found nothing entertaining about this fight. His adversary, though dressed in poorly tanned and patched leather such as an outlaw might wear and wielding his sword with both hands when one should have sufficed, landed his blows with the might and precision of one well trained in the military arts. Alain couldn’t see his face, but a memory nagged that he’d fought this man before. He squelched it, redoubling his efforts. His shoulder began aching, and he prayed the old wound wouldn’t betray him.

  Saxon screams and thuds behind Alain told him Ruaud had finished the last of his attackers. Faced with two Norman swords, the man fighting Alain disengaged and ran off. No one else of the erstwhile band was in any shape to accompany him.

  Of Ecgfrith there was no sign.

  As Alain’s opponent fled down the corridor, his silhouette seemed to blur. Thinking it a trick of the quivering torchlight, Alain blinked but couldn’t shake the sensation. After a few moments, the sound of boots pounding timber ceased, replaced by a mad scrabbling, as if an animal had been loosed.

  Puzzled, Alain took a step or two after his foe, but fatigue and the aching of his shoulder halted him.

  Silence reigned save for ragged gasping as both knights struggled to regain their breath.

  Ruaud clenched his sword, glaring. He didn’t appear to have suffered more than a few scratches, for which Alain was thankful. “Aren’t we going after the bastard?”

  “To what end?” Massaging his shoulder, Alain didn’t bother to leach the disgust from his tone. “So he can lead us into another trap like Ecgfrith did?”

  “Is that what you think happened?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “But why?”

  Good question.

  Most likely they’d fallen afoul of Sarum outlaws. If these attacks occurred with regularity, Alain wondered why Bishop Odo hadn’t acted to combat them. Even if all the other victims had been murdered, surely such reports would have reached the regent’s ears by now.

  The men could be part of the Glastonbury band; a remote possibility, given the distances involved, but worth considering. Such a connection would imply that these outlaws were far better organized and informed—and dangerous—than Alain had presumed.

  Rather than answer Ruaud’s question aloud, he shouldered past his friend into the chamber that almost had become their tomb and tossed his sword onto the bed. After cross-gartering his trousers, he grabbed his boots and braced against the bed to tug them on. The outlaws had attacked too quickly for him to don footgear, and he thanked God it hadn’t hindered him. He retrieved his sword belt, girt it about his waist, and sheathed his sword.

  He snatched his cloak from the back of a chair and settled it across his shoulders. In the corridor, he joined Ruaud, who was attempting to converse in his halting English with the innkeeper.

  Alain wondered whether the man’s concern was an act. “How many other travelers have suffered a similar fate?”

  The innkeeper blanched. “None, good squire! I-I beg you not to be angry with your humble servant.” He bowed double as though baring his neck to a headsman’s ax.

  The odds of a Glastonbury connection jumped several notches.

  The innkeeper looked so pathetic, Alain decided to take pity on him. “Be at ease. Sir Ruaud and I have taken no permanent injury.” Ruaud was regarding Alain with puzzlement, and he switched to French to ask, “Have you searched the bodies?”

  Ruaud shook his head, and Alain squatted to take a closer look. None of the three men was wearing or carrying anything to suggest he was anything other than what he seemed.

  He stood and told Ruaud, “I am going to check on our horses.”

  “You think they have been stolen?” Alain shrugged, and Ruaud toed the closest corpse. “If so, then these poor sods will not need theirs. But wait.” He laid a hand on Alain’s arm, his grip radiating concern and urgency. “I will go with you.”

  As Ruaud returned to the room for his outer gear, the innkeeper sidled up to Alain. “You won’t be—” Wringing his hands, he stared at the dead men and the open doorway to his Norman guests’ room before returning his gaze to Alain. He swallowed and grimaced. “You and your master won’t noise this abroad, will you?” he whispered.

  “No worry there, friend.” Alain laughed mirthlessly. “But don’t take offense if you never see us again.”

  That coaxed a wavering smile to the man’s lips. After bobbing another bow, he trudged off, presumably in search of someone to help him remove the corpses and mop up the blood before other guests stumbled upon the scene. Alain was a bit surprised that no one else had come out to investigate the fight; cowering in their beds, perhaps, or else too drunk to notice.

  Ruaud joined him, and they headed for the stables. The outlaws’ horses were gone, even the animals the dead men had ridden, leaving a morass of the imprints of boots and hooves in the dew-dampened dirt. Alain studied the swath of tracks leading toward the crossroads and released a sigh.

  “Any idea where they might have gone?” Ruaud asked.

  “I cannot be certain. On the road’s hard-packed surface, they can ride anywhere without fear of being followed. But I do have a reasonable guess.” Ruaud cocked his head as if inviting Alain to continue. “West. Back to Glastonbury.”

  Staring westward, Ruaud let out a low whistle. “For once, I hope you are wrong. I would not like the implications if you are proven right.”

  The implications that someone in Sarum knew who they were and the nature of their mission, perhaps having been warned by a traitor in the regent’s employ…Alain couldn’t agree more.

  As he turned, an odd print caught his attention. He stooped to trace it.

  “Did you find something?” Ruaud asked.

  “The innkeeper must have a dog.” An extremely large dog, he surmised, though he couldn’t recall having seen such an animal on the premises. A howl pierced the gloom from afar. Alain stood and gazed in the direction of the eerie sound. “Or perhaps a wolf passed through.”

  “And the mere sight of us convinced it to keep going, eh?” Ruaud’s grin looked wan in the moonlight.

  Hellish beasts…Alain shrugged.

  They warily resumed their course toward the stables and discovered one of the outlaws inside, lying facedown in a puddle of blood. Alain kicked him in the side. The man didn’t move. With his foot he righted the body.

  Ecgfrith. Eyes bulging, his throat bore wide, jagged slashes as if he’d been cut with a dull blade.

  Or a predator’s teeth.

  Alain lifted an eyebrow at Ruaud. “Did you give him those wounds?” Extracting information from the guide would have been useful—and satisfying.

  Ruaud shook his head. “Never saw him during the fight.”

  Very odd.

  Could the rumors contain a spark of truth?

  Shoving aside the mystery of the man’s demise with a shake of his head, he noticed a small pouch that had spilled some of its contents into the straw. He drew his dagger, squatted to cut it from Ecgfrith’s belt, and straightened. Inside he found the coins Ruaud had given the guide and a few muslin-wrapped packets of dried herbs. Most of them Alain recognized as medicines any scout would carry: valerian, willow bark, chamomile, feverwort, elder. One, however, eluded him. He nudged the tiny, whitish petals with a fingertip.

  Wild rose? Alain’s mother often had given him a tisane brewed from rose hips to ward off distempers of the nose and lungs, but he had never heard of any use for the petals other than garnishing delicacies at the king’s table.

  Shrugging, he handed the coins to Ruaud, who accepted them with a short laugh. Alain added the medicines to his supply.

  A familiar whinny disrupted the silence. He hastened past the other stalls, relieved to find Chou and Azure unhurt, if wild-eyed and jittery. Not that he could blame the animals; the air reeked of death. Alain stroked Chou’s velvety black muzzle, and the mare nosed his palm, questing for treats. He regretted not having anything to offer and sc
ratched her jaw.

  “You do not carry your saddle packs,” said Ruaud behind him, “but I wager that will not stop you from returning to London.”

  “I shall forget you said that,” Alain growled, staring at the whorls of hair on Chou’s cheek. “But only because you are my closest friend.”

  Ruaud chuckled, stepping closer to drop a hand onto his shoulder. “Between last night’s near-brawl and tonight’s mishap, the omens do not bode well.”

  “Omens are for fools.” He shrugged Ruaud’s hand away. Omens had portended an easy victory for William at Hastings. On the eve of battle, Étienne cheerfully had equated “easy” with “bloodless.” And, foolishly, Alain had believed him.

  Now worms were feasting upon Étienne’s bones even as worms of guilt feasted upon Alain’s soul.

  Ruaud’s nod exuded sympathy. “Come, lad. You sleep while I stand watch.” He poked Alain in the ribs, chortling loud enough to make the horses stamp and toss their heads. “At this rate, I shall have to play the squire to even our score.”

  Though Alain shared the laugh, he sensed that sleep would be a futile prospect. His mind’s eye was already reviewing the incident, stroke by harrowing stroke. But he appreciated Ruaud’s offer more profoundly than his friend could ever know.

  KENDRA WOKE to the scraping of her bedcurtains’ wooden rings upon the dowel. Light assaulted her closed eyelids, and she winced. Squinting, she pushed herself into a sitting position to see Rowena bustling about the chamber, twittering like a love-smitten sparrow.

  Today was the day.

  She retreated to the pillows with an inward groan. But returning to her dreams wasn’t an option if it meant more arguing with Del about keeping her vows. He had looked so alive and was so insistent that she must seek happiness above all else. With her Norman bridegroom nearing her doorstep, she didn’t believe she could ever attain true happiness. She squeezed her eyes shut against the threat of tears.