Mischief sparkled in Rowan’s eyes. Without warning, he launched into a ballad extolling the beauty of “The Fiery-Haired Lady.”
Clarise’s heart began to pound in earnest. She glanced about the hall and realized she was now the center of attention. Knowing she would draw more speculation by ignoring the boy, she listened to his song with outward courtesy.
Inwardly she felt herself quaking. Rowan’s ballad was laden with hidden meanings. It was the story of a king’s mistress, hung for betraying him and revealing secrets to his enemy. This was Ferguson’s way of warning her, she thought, feeling her anger burn. He was likening himself to the king and her to the fiery-haired mistress.
Clarise’s throat felt suddenly parched. She swallowed hard against the dryness. The nightmare she’d dreamed last night replayed itself in her mind.
Mercifully, the song came to an end. Rowan offered her a mocking smile, one that held an unmistakable warning. Pretending to be flattered, Clarise clapped for him. A smattering of applause punctuated the hall. She turned stiffly away, encouraging Peter under her breath to move out smartly.
Halfway up the broad staircase, Clarise dared a glance over her shoulder. Two pairs of eyes in particular watched her retreat. One was dark and mocking, the other light and speculative.
Frustration pricked the backs of her eyeballs. Everywhere she turned, men sought to control her destiny. All she wanted was to give her family back their freedom. And there wasn’t even a priest at Helmesly to help her!
Clarise sheltered Simon’s eyes from the sunlight drenching the inner bailey. The afternoon was uncomfortably hot, and she missed the breeze wafting from the meadow to cool her third-story chamber. But she would not reenter the keep until she’d accomplished her tasks. She had two birds to kill and only one stone to see it done.
Under the guise of introducing the baby to the castle folk, she managed to locate the livestock shelters near the kitchen. Two nanny goats bleated in alarm as she peered through the shelter door. The nearest entrance to the castle was a short dash away. Getting milk straight from the source would not present a problem, she determined, so long as she could do it without attracting notice.
Her spirits sank briefly at the need for so much secrecy. Still, she thought, rallying, her masquerade would be over the moment Alec learned of her plight. Perhaps with the Abbot of Revesby visiting on Friday, she would have more luck in getting word to him.
With one bird slain, she resumed her walk around the castle courtyard, keeping a vigilant eye on the only gate. Rowan would be leaving this very afternoon, dismissed for his poor playing. She could not resist the urge to gloat over his failure to infiltrate the castle as she had. She would need to convince him that she would soon be poisoning the Slayer. That way Rowan would have nothing but good news to deliver to Ferguson.
She crossed sedately to the stables where a rough-hewn laborer pounded shoes on a plow horse. “Have you met the little baron yet?” she inquired, guessing the man to be the stable master.
The laborer straightened and wiped his brow. Frowning suspiciously, he stepped from the horse to peer at the bundle in Clarise’s arms. Simon resembled a sleeping cherub with lashes feathering his rounded cheeks. The stable master’s visage softened. “He has the look of his mother,” he growled, turning away.
Clarise hid a satisfied smile. Though the people of Helmesly found it easy to resent their seneschal, they couldn’t bring themselves to hate a baby. Simon might be still an infant, but it was good to foster the loyalty of the people he would one day rule.
Enjoying a moment of misplaced pride, she almost overlooked the minstrel’s surreptitious departure. Rowan hastened toward the gate, clutching his lute to his chest. As he cast a wary glance over one shoulder, he caught sight of Clarise heading him off. He drew up short, his lips drawn back in a crafty smile.
“Lady Clarise,” he said, ignoring her hissed warning not to speak her name.
“You make a sorry minstrel, Rowan,” she informed him, casting a scathing look at his festive attire.
“You wound me, lady,” he said, clearly not meaning it. “Did you have something of any import to tell me?”
Clarise was conscious of several curious gazes being cast their way. She would need to keep their meeting brief to avert suspicion. “I want you to take a message to Ferguson for me,” she told him in a hushed voice. “Tell him all is going according to plan. At the earliest convenience the deed will be done.”
Rowan narrowed his eyes. “What took you so long in getting here?” he demanded. “I was at Helmesly two full days before you showed up.”
“I got lost,” she lied. “Then a farmer gave me a ride in his cart, and he took me in the wrong direction.”
“Humph,” grunted Rowan. “Ye had best not try something foolish.”
“Like what?” she wanted to know. “You know that I have no choice in this matter.”
He gave her a careless shrug, making it clear that the lives of her family meant nothing to him.
She knew a vicious urge to wound him. “You should have practiced on that lute of yours before you came here,” she needled. “Ferguson won’t be pleased to see you back so soon.”
Rowan smirked with self-confidence. “I got what I needed to make my stay worthwhile,” he confided.
His words pricked her curiosity. “What do you mean?”
The minstrel leaned closer to share a confidence. “There are others here who would gladly see the Slayer replaced.” He patted his covered lute the way she patted Simon. “Now,” he said straightening, “see to it that you follow Ferguson’s orders soon. Don’t make a liar of me,” he cautioned, turning away.
Clarise watched with relief as he walked through the shadow of the barbican. Rowan would tell Ferguson what he wanted to hear. He would not be tempted to cut short the deadline that he’d given her.
As casually as possible, she turned and strolled toward the keep.
The sound of a furious gallop roused Clarise from the bed where she lay humming to Simon. Leaving him, she ran to the window and peered through the purple twilight to locate the horseman thundering over the meadow. Even in the semidarkness the silhouette of the Slayer could not be mistaken for any other. He guided his mount toward the open draw, where she briefly lost sight of him.
He appeared again in the outer ward and veered toward the lists. At the edge of the field, he halted his horse in a patch of dusky shadow.
What was he doing? Clarise’s knees trembled to know that he was back. She recalled, without wanting to, the feel of his tongue gliding over her breast. She wondered at his purpose in visiting the abbey. Was it possible he would actually return Glenmyre to Alec? What sort of warlord made such generous concessions?
She leaned out of the window in order to see the Slayer better. The sky, like the mercenary, was of mixed character tonight. The horizon, where the sun had set, was pink, then violet merging into indigo. Black night threatened to swallow the whole of it. Was he good or evil, or some volatile blend of both?
The warlord urged his horse toward the lances hung on rungs at one end of the list. In a graceful movement he caught up a spear and tested the weight of its tip. Then he turned his horse toward the entrance of the run.
This was a fête des armes, Clarise guessed, against an unseen enemy. There were no gay banners snapping in the breeze. The air was still. The shadow of the Slayer and his steed lay across the grass, like the fantastical centaur in the books her father used to read. She imagined the clarion of a trumpet as he closed the visor on his helm. An unseen handkerchief fluttered in the air and fell. The Slayer was off.
So thickly were the shadows settling on the ground that his horse simply disappeared. The warlord galloped as though flying through air. He focused fully on the stuffed target at the end of the run. In the tattoo of the horse’s hooves she could hear his force and speed. In the set of his broad shoulders, she could see determination, power in the arm now raising the tip of the lance.