“Say it.” The struggle over Glenmyre was escalating into war. Between domestic matters and military preoccupations, Christian had little time for rest. “What has Ferguson done now?”
“He rode upon Glenmyre at dusk, when the peasants were returning from the fields. He slew them all.”
Christian swore viciously at the Scot’s perfidy. “How many dead?” he demanded.
“Nineteen men.”
A familiar queasiness turned Christian’s stomach. The Scotsman’s atrocities reminded him of his own past. Feeling his knees go weak, he thrust the baby at his vassal. “Find a nurse for my son,” he commanded. “I will ride to Glenmyre to bolster our defense.”
He took several steps toward the door, then turned to regard the dismal chamber. “See that my lady is buried alongside her parents,” he instructed.
Sir Roger looked older with an infant clutched to his hauberk. “As you will, sire,” he assured his lord.
Christian grasped the latch. “Ethelred must bury her. Do not let news of her death reach Abbot Gilbert.”
Again, Sir Roger nodded, and the Slayer took his leave. The lord’s chamber opened to a gallery, which overlooked the hall. Below, the servants gathered, awaiting news of the birth. As Christian clutched the balustrade for balance, the light of the fire pit deepened the bloodstains on his tunic.
The servants looked up at him in one accord. Shock flared in their eyes. At their collective gasp, he fell back into the shadows. Too late, he realized they were thinking of the abbot’s prophesy, cried out within the chapel just nine months ago.
Mark me well, people of Helmesly. This virgin bride will be slain by her husband!
Nay, not he! Christian longed to defend his innocence, but his protests would fall on deaf ears. The servants wouldn’t take his word over that of a cleric. He would never win their loyalty now.
He turned to the courtyard, seeking rain to wash the blood from his clothes. But before he reached the solitude of the tower stairs, a servant’s whisper rose with the smoke from the fire pit.
“Mother of God, he has killed Her Ladyship! Did ye see the blood?”
With blisters burning her feet, Clarise DuBoise tackled the hill to the Abbey of Rievaulx. The abbey commanded a view at the height of a crag, rising from the stalks of purple heather to lord over the valley below. Its walls seemed to waver in the hot July haze. She would not admit it was her vision blurring.
For two long days the sun had sat upon her shoulders and sucked the moisture from her moth. Beneath the cloth hiding her hair, Clarise’s scalp was drenched with sweat. The gown that disguised her as a peasant chafed her limbs where her shift failed to cover her. Her slippers were worn to tatters. She was lucky to be alive.
Ferguson, her stepfather, hadn’t cared about the dangers of the road when he’d cast her out upon her mission. He knew the threat to kill her mother and sisters was enough to ensure that she would fight to survive any hardship.
Ferguson had instructed her to go straight to the Slayer’s castle. Ye mon gain admission to Helmesly as a freed serf in need o’ work, he’d commanded. Drop the powder into his drink at the first chance ye get. If the Slayer isn’t dead in two months’ time, I’ll hang yer mother an’ sisters in the courtyard.
There were others he could have sent in her stead, men and women more adept at subterfuge. But Ferguson had a reason for sending Clarise to do his dirty work. She had attempted to avenge her father’s murder numerous times. Her sharp, strategic mind made her an ever-present danger to Ferguson. He could not control her except from afar.
The toxic powder was concealed in a pendant that hung on a chain about her neck. Clarise felt the weight of the pendant swing between her breasts as she pushed her way up the abbey’s hill. Ferguson’s plan was sneaky and cold-blooded. It was riddled with flaws. The likelihood that she would be exposed and hanged for spying was high, but that did not cause Ferguson any great concern. Clarise was as dispensable as her mother and sisters.
Only one alternative existed to the plan: that Alec could help her. Six months ago Alec had been Clarise’s betrothed; now he was a monk. The wedding would have taken place last Christmas, had the Slayer of Helmesly not attacked without warning on the eve of the nuptials. In a bloody assault he had killed Alec’s father, prompting Alec to flee to Rievaulx Abbey in fear of his life. Clarise’s dream of escaping her stepfather’s clutches through marriage had been crushed.
She told herself Alec would stay at Rievaulx only a short while. He was a knight, after all, not a man of the cloth. But the days turned to weeks and then to months. In letters too many to count, she pleaded for Alec to take up his sword and rescue her family from the Scot’s abuses. Until now, her efforts had been in vain.
Today she would petition him in person. How could Alec refuse to help when she told him of Ferguson’s threat to kill her family? Honor dictated that he summon an army and challenge her stepfather once and for all.
The scent of cooked meat wafted from a nearby village, distracting Clarise from her introspection. Her stomach gave an empty growl, but she ignored it. The monks would feed her at Rievaulx.
Her footsteps faltered as she approached the abbey’s only gate. The wall that rose toward the cloudless sky reminded her of her father’s tomb. It was hewn from the same gray stone.
Alec is here, she reminded herself, shaking off her sudden foreboding. When he saw her in person, he would remember his love for her. He would be her hero once again.
The only way to signal her presence was to tug on a bell rope. At the bell’s high jingle, the peephole snapped open. “Aye?” came a voice from the folds of a cowl.
Clarise greeted the faceless monk in Latin. “I must share a word with Alec Monteign.”
The monk showed no reaction to her words. “We have an illness here. The abbey is quarantined,” he said stoically.
Alarm rippled over her. “What manner of illness is it?” she demanded. Without Alec’s help, she would have no choice but to execute her mission.
“Fever,” said the monk shortly. “Boils and lesions.”
Clarise repressed the urge to cover her mouth with one corner of her headdress. “Nonetheless, I must speak with Alec.” Desperation made her dizzy. She blinked her eyes to clear her vision, and when she opened them, the monk was gone.
Where did he go? Clarise stood tiptoe and peered into the abbey’s courtyard. The cobbled square looked strangely abandoned. An inscription over a pair of double doors drew her gaze. Hic laborant fratres crucis, said the message. Here labor brothers of the cross.
No one labored now. Neither did they tend the vineyards outside the abbey’s walls. The rows of trellises stood bereft of vine or grape. She was left with the dampening suspicion that she’d come to the wrong place for help.
The sound of footsteps echoed off the courtyard. Another man approached the gate. He did not wear a cowl over his dark, tonsured hair but a stole that designated him an abbot. Clarise’s hopes took wing, then plummeted as his black gaze skewered her through the little opening.
“You should not be here,” he informed her cryptically. “There is a great scourge within these walls.”
“I wish only to speak with Alec Monteign,” she said deferentially.
“Brother Alec tends the sick. He cannot be interrupted.”
“He isn’t ill, then?” she asked, hopeful once again.
“Not yet.” The abbot spoke with no inflection in his voice. She couldn’t tell if he was angry or dispassionate.
“I was once his betrothed, Your Grace,” Clarise rushed to explain. “If he knew I had come so far, I am certain he would want to—”
His gaze had sharpened with her words. “Remove the cloth, so that I might see you,” he interrupted.