The Slayer targeted his weapon on the dummy’s nonexistent heart and, in the next instant, ran it through.
The straw figure was ripped from its place atop a pole. It dangled limply on his lance until the warlord shook it off. Clarise’s knees knocked together. There had been fury and frustration in the Slayer’s attack. She imagined those two emotions turned upon herself, and her mouth went dry.
Are you a spy, sent to take account of my men and weapons? She let the windowsill take her weight. If only she could earn his trust.
With fluid motions the warlord replaced the lance, patted the neck of his stallion, and headed toward the inner gate. Clarise’s vantage was such that she could also see into the courtyard, to the very spot where she had spoken to Rowan earlier. Several torches had been left blazing in expectation of the seneschal’s late arrival.
She glanced back at the bed. Simon was staring at the patterns of light flickering on the bed canopy. For the moment he could be left unattended.
She turned to the window again to mark the Slayer’s approach. A youth, probably a squire, ran forward to catch his master’s reins. The Slayer freed the latches of his helmet and tossed it at the boy. But the squire fumbled the catch, and the helm went clanging to the cobbles.
The boy froze in terror. Three stories in the air Clarise bit off a fingernail down to the quick.
“What ho, my lord?” Sir Roger’s cheerful hail shattered the tense moment. The master-at-arms popped through an archway of the garrison and into view. He drew up short at the sight of the Slayer’s scowl. “No success in getting past the abbot, then,” he said, sizing up the situation.
Clarise strained her ears for the seneschal’s reply. The still silence of the early evening and the empty yard caused the men’s voices to carry clearly to her window. She gleaned that the abbot was ill and refusing visitors. The warlord swung down from the back of his giant horse.
“ ’Twas nothing less than you expected,” Sir Roger cajoled. He hesitated a moment. “Or did aught else go awry?”
The Slayer’s chain mail gleamed with the oil with which it had been scrubbed. “I take it you sent the minstrel away,” he growled, in a voice thick with disgust.
“He left this afternoon,” affirmed the knight.
“Did he inform you of his destination?”
Sir Roger hesitated. “No, my liege.”
“Did anyone think to search his possessions before he left?”
Silence answered for the knight.
The Slayer turned toward his horse and pulled a length of parchment from beneath his saddle. “He was carrying this inside his lute,” he added, unrolling it for his vassal’s inspection. Clarise caught a glimpse of a drawing in the flickering light. She pressed a hand to her thudding heart. Rowan had said he’d made his stay worthwhile. Clearly he thought he’d gotten away with stealing sketchings of Helmesly’s interior defenses.
The Slayer rolled up the parchment with furious but fluid motions. “He was heading straight for Heathersgill,” he added through his teeth.
Clarise strained her ears as the warlord’s volume dimmed to scarcely more than a murmur. “Henceforth no one enters or leaves this stronghold without being thoroughly searched. I want to know how the minstrel got his hands on these designs!” He shoved them out for his vassal to take.
“We will soon find out, my lord,” Sir Roger promised him. “What did you do with the boy? We will question him.”
The seneschal tugged off a gauntlet, one finger at a time. “I killed him,” he said at last, in a voice as emotionless as death. “ ’Twas an accident.”
Clarise’s vision blurred as the words seeped into her brain. The Slayer muttered something in defense of his butchery. She shook her head in denial as she struggled to assess the impact of this news. Rowan was dead, cut down by the Slayer for being a spy. It was true that Kendal’s son was sly and utterly without honor, but he’d gone without armor and could not even defend himself! To kill him was a cold-blooded act indeed.
She thought of something still more horrible. What if Rowan blurted the truth of her identity before he died? She might be hanged for a spy within the hour.
Paralyzed by the window, Clarise watched the warlord stalk toward the keep and disappear. Was he coming after her?
As if sensing her alarm, Sir Roger looked up and caught her gaze. She steeled herself to keep from ducking out of sight. Forcing a smile, she raised a hand in casual salute.
The knight did not wave back. Nor did he return her smile, but stared at her solemnly and with suspicion.
Clarise turned and stumbled toward the bed. Crawling onto the mattress, she hugged Simon to her breast and sought comfort in the warmth of his tiny body. The image of the straw dummy flashed through her mind. The Slayer had killed Rowan without a trial. What made her think he would hear her tale with any compassion whatsoever?
Moonlight shimmered through the cracks of the shutters, exacerbating Clarise’s inability to sleep. Simon, who had squirmed fitfully for hours, was peaceful at last. Scarcely a drop of milk remained in the earthenware mug beside the bed.
Clarise stared at the shadows forming on her bed curtain and listened for the fall of approaching footsteps. She was certain the Slayer would visit her tonight.
Minutes stretched into hours, and still no midnight visitation. Just when she succumbed to the weight of her eyelids, the groaning of the hinges brought her senses back to wakefulness.
She snapped her eyes shut again and forced herself to breathe evenly. The sound of her pounding heart blended with the stirring of rushes. The air in the boxed bed moved as the curtain was pulled aside. She saw the faint illumination of moonlight through her eyelids. Someone was looking down at her. And she knew who it was.
The blood in her veins crystallized. She waited for him to waken her, her lungs starved for oxygen. Would he give her a chance to pour out her tale, or would he simply strike her down as he had Rowan?
Simon was in the bed beside her, she reminded herself. Surely he wouldn’t want to spatter blood all over his baby.
“Clare Crucis,” he called her in a voice that sounded faintly slurred from drink.
She didn’t answer him. She was scared if she spoke that she’d admit who she was and beg for mercy. And worse, the truth would spread like a quick blazing fire and it would only be a matter of days before Ferguson caught wind of her betrayal. She just needed time enough to reach Alec.
To her relief, the mercenary didn’t call her again. He stood silently beside her bed. She could scarcely hear him breathing. Fear of the unknown kept her motionless.
Christian blinked to clear his vision. He wished he hadn’t drunk a full bottle of wine to drown the memory of this day’s work. He wanted to see the nurse more clearly.
Besides, it would take more than a bottle of wine to forget that he’d snuffed out yet another life. Doing so unintentionally made it no less difficult to bear. He should have realized that the boy wore no armor, no helmet to protect his head. One slap with the broadside of his sword had sent him sprawling to the earth. It was simple misfortune that his head had hit a rock and cracked his skull wide open.
Christian sucked in a breath at the memory and let it out again. He couldn’t help but consider that he had been a young man once, and in the name of service to his father, he had done things more awful than steal the sketches of a castle.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” he muttered hoarsely. The sound of his voice in the quiet chamber startled him. He’d had more to drink than was wise.
This was not the time to question the woman, though that had been his intent when he entered the room. Several witnesses had seen her speaking with the minstrel at the gate. Others claimed he’d sung her a ballad filled with hidden meaning. He had more than enough reason to doubt that Clare Crucis had come to Helmesly just to serve him. More likely, her purpose was a sinister one.