Clarise went curiously light-headed. “He was that innocent, then?” she breathed, all ears as she waited for more. “Go on,” she said when the knight paused thoughtfully.
“The Wolf refused to recognize him publicly. He kept their kinship a secret, I think because he didn’t understand him. He looked at the boy and saw his weakness rather than his strength. He felt the need to turn the whelp into a warrior.”
Oh, nay. She felt a sudden pang for Christian’s lost simplicity. “Did Lord Christian take offense to that? Is that why . . . why he razed his father’s demesne six years ago? Did he hate him so much?”
Sir Roger picked up the baby, whose head had dropped wearily to the blanket. He held Simon against the hard surface of his iron-linked chest. “My lord was ill treated by his sire. He was made to sweat and to toil. To train long hours and then grow hungry. He did not discover that the Wolf was his father until his half brother taunted him on the lists, calling him a bastard.”
Clarise stifled a gasp of sympathy.
“By then I had grown fond of him,” the knight continued. “He was a quick study in the art of warfare. In just a few years, he had grown as tall and strong as the father who denied him. His sword arm became the stuff of legends. Yet what I most admired in him was that he never lost his sense of right and wrong. He had a determined spirit and a streak of chivalry that the Wolf could not snuff out.”
He patted the baby, transferring his loyalty to the Slayer’s child. “That is how he got the scar on his cheek,” he recalled. “His father found an altar he had built in one corner of the stables. He was a Dane, himself, and a godless man. He ordered Christian chained to a post and whipped. My lord refused to cry out. He even turned his head to send the Wolf a defiant look, and the tip of the whip cracked his face. He was only fifteen.”
Clarise touched a finger to her cheek. She could almost feel the sting of the whip herself. Why, he’d been only a boy! How could a father treat his flesh and blood so cruelly? She stared at the knight, aghast.
“Five years later my lord left Wendesby with blood on his hands. I cannot say that I blame him. All those years he’d trained under a man he hated. It was too much to learn that the man was his father.
“When he left, I was afraid he would lose the honor that I cherished in him. So I mounted my horse and followed him. There have been times,” the knight said with a sigh, “when I believed the Wolf succeeded in claiming his soul for evil. But lately, I remark more of the Christian I once knew. He is coming back into himself,” he decided with a contented nod.
Clarise was enraptured by the tale. She found herself rallying fiercely behind the Slayer of Helmesly. So, she was right in guessing that he was not as ruthless as rumor depicted. Ah, the Saints, she should have trusted her instincts and told him what had brought her to Helmesly. Perhaps if she had, she would now have a champion at her side. As it was, she would have to earn his trust all over again.
“We traveled east,” the knight added, recapturing her attention, “and pledged our swords to various lords. The Baron of Helmesly saw Christian fight in a tourney and hired him at once to train his men. A few years later, desiring to go to the Holy Lands and needing to leave his estate in capable hands, the baron betrothed my lord to his only daughter.”
Simon, who was finding the unyielding surface of Sir Roger’s armor too hard, let out a plaintiff cry. The knight quickly passed him to Clarise. As always, when she took him in her arms, she felt a rush of tenderness for the helpless babe. The fear that her days at Helmesly might be numbered tinged the tenderness with grief. “Sir Roger,” she began in a strangled voice, “I . . .”
Someone across the field called out his name at the same time and waved him over.
The knight struggled to his feet, unaware of the confession that hovered on her tongue. “Thank you for the meal,” he said. “I pray that Doris soon recovers.”
“As do we all,” Clarise replied. Perhaps this evening she would get around to admitting to what had brought her to Helmesly. “Er, there’s just one more thing, Sir Knight,” she added, coming to her own feet. “Could you ask Dame Maeve to give me the key to the chapel? She won’t heed my request.” She’d asked the steward’s wife herself, but the woman had refused her.
He nodded his head distractedly. “Very well.”
“Oh and, er, may I have your permission to make some changes in the castle?”
Now she had his full attention. “Like what?” he asked, scowling suspiciously.
“Well, I think the hall would benefit from the addition of flowers, don’t you? And there is an urgent need for more torches to be made, or perhaps you haven’t noticed that everyone scuttles about in the darkness? Also, it would not be amiss to hang a tapestry or two.”
Sir Roger wiped away the sweat that was dripping from his forehead. He looked quite overwhelmed by her quick suggestions. “Fine, fine,” he said, clearly eager to return to such simple things as weapons and their use.
“Thank you,” Clarise replied. “Do you know what happened to the tapestries that were there before? Nell says the baron had a number of them hanging in the hall.”
The knight’s brow wrinkled and then smoothed again. “The Lady Genrose gave them to the poor in honor of her parents’ memories, I believe.”
“And the silver, too?”
He shrugged. “I suppose.”
Clarise could not contain her remark, “Then she managed to live in a convent after all!”
“Indeed,” the knight agreed, not missing a beat. Thanking her for lunch again, he strode across the field, returning to his labors. Clarise worked to return Simon to his sling. Then she bent to shake the crumbs from the blanket. If she thought that replacing a few tapestries would ensure the Slayer’s forgiveness, she was literally hanging by a thread, she reflected ironically.
Christian couldn’t sleep. That circumstance in itself was not a novel one, but this was the third night in a row that he’d awakened in the middle of the night, unable to return to sleep. The tedium of waiting for the darkness to lift taxed his patience.
He lay on a feathered bed in the chamber that once belonged to Alec Monteign, staring at the whitewashed ceiling. The bed curtains had been stripped by the peasants and used for clothing. The shutters had been broken off the window and used for firewood. Nothing prevented the moon from shining through the open window to mock him.
Perhaps he should have slept in the lord’s chamber, where the bed was tucked out of the way of the moon’s illumination. Yet he’d made it a point never to sit in Monteign’s chair nor sleep in his bed. Not only did he worry that the ghost of Alec’s father would torment him, he had no wish to exacerbate his relations with the people of Glenmyre. They disliked him well enough as it was.
He sent a hopeful look toward the open window. No hint of dawn yet. Stars paid court to the half-moon’s brilliance. Insects chirped in the overgrown yard below. The room was hot and humid. His eyeballs burned, but whenever he lowered his lids, unanswered questions beat against the door of his brain, finding no outlet.
Who was the woman in his castle?
No one at Glenmyre had heard of Clare de Bouvais, only Isabeux de Bouvais, Alec’s cousin who had departed years ago after being compromised by the stable master. Monteign had no mistress by the name of Clare. There was nothing that tied Simon’s wet nurse to Glenmyre, save the quick looks exchanged by peasants when he questioned them.
They knew something, Christian was certain of it. He was also certain he would be the last to discover what it was. He flung an arm over his eyes and groaned. Was she a spy for the people of Glenmyre, an advocate, or someone else entirely?