The lady looked away. “I do not have that fortitude you tell me the meek should own.”
“I think you do,” Eleanor said, reaching out to lightly touch the wife’s wrist. “You have shown just such courage during the long years of your lord’s absence.”
Suddenly the door to the chamber crashed open.
Both women jumped to their feet.
A servant rushed in and gestured wildly, his mouth opening and closing without sound.
“Speak!” Margaret ordered.
“My lady, I have sorrowful news. Your son, Umfrey, has been found dead in the chapel!”
The baron’s wife screamed.
Chapter Twenty
Raoul shook with terror.
From the hall, he had heard the servants chattering in high pitched horror over Umfrey’s death. They might fear wraithlike imps and stinking demons, but he could feel a very tangible noose cutting into his neck.
Foul sweat dripped from his body. Baron Herbert’s heir he might now be, but any rational sheriff would place him even higher in rank amongst those most likely to have committed murder. Did he not have good reason to kill his elder brother?
As the offspring of Baron Herbert, he would receive more courtesy than many others in similar circumstances, yet he doubted King Edward would allow him leniency. Cleaning up the lax judicial system inherited from his dead father meant too much to the new monarch. He had been ruthless in his handling of corrupt sheriffs. Raoul could imagine what he would do with a son who committed fratricide.
“I must flee now,” he whispered to unsympathetic stone walls and tightened his arms around his chest to quiet his trembling. Any way to escape seemed impossible.
All reason fled. Tears stung his eyes. A pitiful whimper escaped his lips.
“How dare you whine like a castrated sheep! Either you still pretend you are a man or you had best borrow one of your mother’s robes and learn to mince about like the woman you’ve become.”
Raoul looked around, half expecting to see his father standing in front of him and mocking his fear. But the words had burst from his own mouth, even if he had borrowed the tone from his sire.
He cleared his throat. “Weapon. Disguise? Food and drink. A horse? Place to hide. Where to flee?” Recitation of the simple list calmed him and he began to plan how to avoid capture.
A weapon was required. He always carried a knife, but a sword might be well-advised. Even if he had little practice using it, others might treat him with caution if they saw it by his side. They would not know how much skill he actually possessed.
There was yet another advantage to the martial display. Should he wish to join a traveling party on the road, he would be welcomed as an additional defender against lawless men. Many soldiers also left England to sell their fighting skills as mercenaries. If he hinted that was his purpose, he would not have to elaborate further on the purpose of his journey.
He fell to his knees and reached under his bed. There he had hidden the sword he stole from his eldest brother’s room after the man died of fever. “Thought to sell it someday,” he muttered, pulling the weapon out. “Now it may be worth more in the salvation of my neck.”
He checked the rough sacking in which he had rolled the sword. With luck, no one would suspect what lay inside if he carried it like a tool or a bundle of sticks. Once outside the castle, the weapon would be an advantage, but no common man owned such a thing. If anyone saw the sword within the fortress walls, they would either stop him for questions or remember seeing him leave when an organized search began for Umfrey’s killer.
Standing, he reached over and lifted the lid of his storage chest and picked up a robe. He shook it out.
Well-worn and of rough material, it also had a hood large enough to cast his face in shadow. It had served him well enough as a disguise when he wished to seduce some servant girl without revealing his kinship with the baron. If the women mistook him for a common laborer in the dark, others might conclude the same when he mingled with the crowd in the pale winter light of the bailey. A purposeful stride should suggest he was engaged in honorable labor, one man of low rank indistinguishable from so many others.
He snorted as he dropped the robe over his head. Remaining anonymous should be an easy task. When in his life had anyone ever noticed him except when they looked for an object to mock or scold?
He went to the door and quietly opened it, then looked about with caution.
The hall was empty.
He slipped out and hurried down the corridor to the stairs. With luck he could filch bread from the kitchen and enough wine to fill his deer-leather wineskin. The servants were used to the baron’s sons stealing bites and would pay no attention to him in the hustle of meal preparation. If these later remembered seeing him passing through, he did not care. He only wanted to escape the castle itself without leaving any hints as to where he might have gone.
And, he decided, he would have to walk. Riding might gain him distance from here more quickly but taking a horse from the stable was dangerous. One of the grooms could decide it would be to his advantage to stop him if rumors of his involvement in Umfrey’s death were circulating. Taking the time to saddle the beast himself would slow him down, and he would be more noticeable on horseback as he left the castle.
He would have to find a local hiding place until the hue and cry was done. Once the assumption was made that he was probably far away, he could safely join a party of travelers down the mainland road and take on the guise of a battle-worn soldier with little patience for chatter. Until he reached the nearest city or, better yet, a harbor, his best hope of escape was to remain inconspicuous.
As Raoul flew down the steep steps, he thought of Umfrey and realized that he truly regretted his death. He had grown almost fond of his quivering cokenay of a brother since Gervase had taken flight from the window. As he thought more on it, he acknowledged that Umfrey had never been cruel to him like their father or even the other brothers. A little name-calling and that was about the extent of it.
In truth, Umfrey was more like a woman, having lost all claim to manhood. Raoul had seen this elder brother often enough, groaning with pleasure, as that soldier swyved him like a bull would a cow.
“A pity I never had sisters,” he murmured. “I might have gotten along better with them.”
But it was too late to think more on the past. Umfrey was dead, and Raoul wanted very much to live.
He pulled the hood of his cloak over his head and set his mind to quickly stealing the sustenance he needed to survive. Then he would slip into the bailey and become one more in a crowd of faceless people, coming and going, all of whom had some business in the fortress or with its lord.
As for a hiding place, he knew the perfect location.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sister Anne dipped her hands into the basin, turning the pale chill water into a glistening red. “We must send this joyful news to Lady Margaret and Baron Herbert.”
Prioress Eleanor bowed her head. “We may not.”
Anne spun around, stifling a cry of protest.
“I did not make that decision to be cruel but rather to save the parents even sharper grief.” She put a hand against her breast. “I do understand that their anguish may push them beyond mortal endurance if they think Umfrey has been killed. May their torment be brief.”
“Then why force them to suffer so?” Anne reached out in supplication. “Enduring far less than this, men have been known to deny the very existence of God.”