The man looked dazed by her enthusiasm. “Very well,” he said. “You wish to go now?”
“Aye, right now.” Her hopes rose anew. The hoary knight had fallen for her tale.
“Have you nothing to bring with you?”
“My goods were sold to cover my husband’s debts,” she said, thinking quickly.
“What is your name?”
“Clare,” she improvised. “Clare Crucis.” The last word from the inscription at the abbey sprang to her lips. She congratulated herself for being so clever.
“I am Sir Roger de Saintonge,” said the knight. He inclined a slight bow. “Shall we go?”
She approached the white destrier with mixed eagerness and dread. Sir Roger spanned her waist, tossing her pillion into the saddle. “You are not afraid of horses,” he remarked.
She shook her head and realized belatedly that most peasants were afraid of the giant warhorses. She would have to remember to think like a commoner.
The knight led his mount by the bridle through the thinning crowds. Clarise kept her gaze fixed on the road they were taking. It was a well-trodden path leading away from the town and abbey.
As they wound around a series of low hills, the Abbey of Rievaulx dropped from view. The hope that Alec would save her from her dreaded task died a painful death. Either she advanced Ferguson’s evil plot, or her mother and sisters would be put to death.
Oblivious to her desperate thoughts, the knight strode alongside the horse, keeping hold of the reins. The sun sank lower into the troughs of the hills, bringing Clarise the worry that she might be alone with him come nightfall.
“How far is it to Helmesly?” she inquired.
He slanted her a startled look. She realized with dismay that she’d spoken in the language of the upper class.
“You speak French!” he commented. His eyes gleamed with interest. “And you’re not from Abbingdon, are you?”
Her spirits sank to new depths. She was not as adept at subterfuge as she’d imagined. “I served in a Norman household,” she muttered, as that was the only logical answer. Few peasants, free or bound, knew how to speak Norman French.
“Which household?”
Ferguson had instructed her not to mention Heathersgill. “Glenmyre,” she said, naming Alec’s estate. It was best to keep close to the truth, she told herself.
“Ah,” said the knight, looking suddenly grave. Crickets added a melody to the tempo of the horse’s iron shoes. “Was your husband one of the peasants recently killed?” he inquired gently.
As he persisted in speaking French, she answered in the same, being more at ease with her first tongue. “Nay,” she said slowly, though she knew the peasants to which he referred. Just before she left, Ferguson had boasted that he’d cut the peasant population at Glenmyre in half. She had no wish to be associated with that slaughter. “As I said, my husband was killed in a skirmish.”
They continued the journey in silence. Clarise used the time to sketch a rough history for herself. She imagined what it would be like to care for a warlord’s baby. Rather like playing nursemaid to the devil’s spawn, she thought, recalling what she knew of the Slayer.
The mercenary had once been the master-at-arms for the Baron of Helmesly. The baron had wed him to his only daughter and then departed Helmesly on pilgrimage to Canterbury, leaving the Slayer behind as his seneschal. Rumor had it that the Slayer had plotted to kill the baron and his lady wife, for they did not return alive from their pilgrimage but in coffins. The Slayer was left ruling Helmesly, not as rightful lord but as a usurper.
Much the way Ferguson had acquired Heathersgill, Clarise thought with a sneer.
She cautioned herself to disguise her disdain. In masquerading as a freed serf, she would need to be humble and respectful. “What is the Slayer’s proper name?” she asked, realizing she didn’t even know it.
The knight looked up at her sharply. “Have a care that he doesn’t hear you call him that,” he warned. “He doesn’t like the name Slayer.”
Clarise paled at the warning.
“His name is Christian de la Croix,” answered the knight, “and despite what people say of him, he is a devout man.”
Christian of the Cross? She nearly hooted aloud at the devout name. With difficulty she swallowed the lunatic laughter in her throat. Still, she couldn’t resist questioning the knight. “How comes it, then, that they call him the Slayer? Did he not kill every living soul at Wendesby, or is that a lie?”
The knight’s crooked smile flattened to a seam. “If you value your post as the baby’s nurse, you had best keep silent on the subject.”
She bit her tongue at the reprimand and looked away. The knight was clearly loyal to his liege lord. She would do well to be cautious in his company.
Gazing toward the horizon, she sought sign of a fortress standing over the next hill. For just a second she imagined what it would be like if Sir Roger spoke true. What if the Slayer weren’t the monster rumor painted him to be? What if he hadn’t killed anyone at Wendesby, or the Baron of Helmesly, or even Alec’s father?
She shook her head at her wishful thinking. There were far more villains in this world than good men. She’d be doing everyone a favor to rid the borderlands of the notorious Slayer. If she wished to see her mother and sisters alive, she had best accomplish her task and do it quickly.
Chapter Two
“ ’Tis beautiful,” Clarise admitted with surprise.
“Aye, it is,” Sir Roger concurred.
The object of their admiration stood in a field of wildflowers, just behind a swift-running moat. In the coppery hues of evening, the moat was a golden disk from which the outer wall rose clifflike. It stood at least twenty hands high and twelve feet thick. The entire castle had been built on ancient earthworks, making the second wall visible as well.
The inner wall was flanked by towers. Four of them! Clarise marveled. Her own family’s home of Heathersgill touted just one tall building. The closer Sir Roger urged them, the more overawed she became. With the sun plunging down behind the castle, shadows engulfed the drawbridge. She felt as if she were being swallowed into the maw of a great beast.
They clattered over the moat. “Diverted from the River Rye Derwent!” Sir Roger shouted over the burbling water.
Clarise recalled that Helmesly had been built after the Norman acquisition to protect England from Scottish incursions. The ruling barons had been powerful men, fervently loyal to successive kings. Yet the man who ruled it now was nothing but a bastard seneschal.
They stopped before the gatehouse. Clarise shrank into the saddle, eyeing the window slits with the fear of being recognized. Feeling sharp, suspicious gazes on her person, she tied her kerchief more securely beneath her chin. Yet Sir Roger’s hail was answered at once. The portcullis rumbled upward, and their passing went unchallenged.
In the outer ward she cast eyes to the outer bailey. Bobbing helms betrayed the Slayer’s vigilance. In the grassy enclosure stood a practice yard and archery run, attended by a handful of knights who continued to drill, though bats wheeled overhead. She knew already that a number of his fighting men remained at Glenmyre, yet he did not look ill prepared to defend this stronghold.