There was no bustling trade at Helmesly as there had been in Abbingdon. No venders, no craftsmen, no laughing children. It was a warrior’s paradise.
Passing through a second gate, they came to the inner ward. The keep stood squarely before them, rising nearly to the height of the towers at either corner. It loomed into the evening sky, abutted by supporting arches. Smaller buildings huddled at its base in no apparent order, yet each was immaculately kept. No filth grimed the cobbles; no stench fouled the air.
Neither was there sign of human life. A red fire glowed in the smithy’s hovel. From the mews came the screech of a hunting bird. The scent of hops wafted from the brewery house. Yet not a soul traversed the courtyard.
“Where is everyone?” Clarise wondered aloud.
“Within,” Sir Roger said, helping her from the saddle.
He left her for a moment to duck into the stables. His answer told her nothing. She took note of where to find his horse should it suddenly become necessary to leave. Then she hunted for signs of a nanny goat.
She told herself she wouldn’t linger long. But until she slipped the powder in the Slayer’s drink, she would need to be convincing. If she were caught feeding the baby goat’s milk, her identity would be called into question. She didn’t doubt the Slayer had ways to make a prisoner talk.
In a distant pen a mud-caked sow nursed her offspring. Chickens pecked in another enclosure. There wasn’t a nanny goat in sight.
Sir Roger emerged from the stables. “Lord Christian is back from Glenmyre,” he announced with cheer. “His horse is here. He will be pleased that I have found a nurse at last.”
How nice, thought Clarise, her stomach cramping. “Do you house goats here?” she rushed to inquire. Sir Roger was leading the way to the forebuilding of the main keep. “I have a fondness for goat’s milk,” she said, running to keep up with him.
He slanted her a tolerant look. “I find it sour.”
“ ’Tis good for one’s health,” she argued, mounting the stairs by his side. “You do have goats, here, do you not?” she asked again. What would she do if the man said no?
“Several,” came the heartening reply. “You shall have milk to quench your thirst,” he promised. A moment later he swung wide the doors to the great hall and motioned for her to enter.
The grandeur of the hall chased all thoughts of goat’s milk from her head. Clarise stepped into an enormous chamber. Its high arched ceiling soared above the first and second levels. A gallery coursed the length of the inner wall. The last hint of daylight glowed in the four tall windows opposite.
Clarise drew up short. Not a single tapestry, urn, or silver tray relieved the starkness. The hall was clean beyond compare but lacked the personal touches that made it welcoming.
A murmuring of voices drew her gaze to a clutch of servants lining the benches. A minstrel, sitting with his back to the door, plucked dejectedly upon his lute, while his audience looked on. At Clarise’s entrance they turned their heads to regard her, their faces reflecting only vague curiosity.
“Did someone die?” she whispered, working at the knot beneath her chin.
Sir Roger spared her a distracted glance. “Did I not tell you? My lady died in childbirth. ’Tis the reason I was sent for a nurse.”
Clarise’s stomach tightened. The baby’s mother was dead? And she was supposed to kill its father as well? “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said automatically. “They must have loved her greatly to cease their labors.”
“Aye, they did,” Sir Roger said with a sigh. “But this particular gathering is an indication of my lord’s temperament. They herd together like sheep to avoid an encounter with him.”
She nearly rent the cloth in her hands. “What . . . what does that mean, exactly?” But he was already mounting the stairs to the second level. With leaden feet she chased after him.
The tales of horror inspired by the Slayer bubbled in the cauldron of her mind. In laying waste to Wendesby six years past, he’d burned the village to ash and killed the innocents that ran before the flames. His own people huddled in the hall in fear of him, and she had just joined their oppressed ranks. Was she mad?
With every step Clarise’s feet grew heavier. What if he recognized her from some previous visit to Heathersgill? She quickly redonned the kerchief to conceal her hair. Gazing at the second level, she faltered to a halt. She couldn’t do it. She feared she would be caught and executed in a matter of hours.
“I have a terrible thirst,” she called, stopping Sir Roger midway up the stairs. “Might I have the milk you promised me?”
Roger leaned over the balustrade and called to the servants. “Dame Maeve!” An elderly woman withdrew from the gathering, her harsh face softened by the mellow light. “Have a servant bring up a mug of goat’s milk for our nurse, Dame Crucis.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Boil it first, if you please,” Clarise added, knowing that part to be crucial.
Dame Maeve thinned her lips, but taking up her keys, she turned to fulfill the request.
“You give orders with accustomed ease,” Sir Roger remarked. He indicated that they should follow the length of the gallery where a servant worked to light a torch. Shadows had already leaked into the upper levels. Clarise felt like a lamb being drawn to slaughter.
“My husband was a lenient man,” she said, offering him a breathless explanation. She followed him along the gallery and down a long and narrow hall. They came to the twisting stairs of one of the four towers. Here the shadows thickened into blackness.
“Lord Christian must be in a rage if his servants won’t approach him,” she gasped, dreading the encounter to come.
“My lord is a reasonable man,” Sir Roger threw out to comfort her.
But the sounds coming from the level above belied his tale. The cacophony of a wailing infant and a bellowing man blended in an awful duet. The Slayer’s angry roar shot through Clarise like a poisoned arrow. She felt as though he were railing at her and not some hapless servant. Curiosity alone carried her up the remaining steps.
“Blood of the Saints, wench!” he shouted. “Cease this infernal sniveling and think of something else. My son is starving. Will you listen to his cries!”
“M’lord, I’ve done naught else for the last ten hours,” whimpered the servant in Anglicized Norman. “He ne wille take the milk. I’ve tried it for days, now. Please ask nay more of me.”
“You will scrub the garderobes for the rest of your life if you fail to make him drink!”
Clarise pitied the poor woman, but at the same time the distress in the Slayer’s tone was palpable. No father, good or evil, would want his son to die.
Sir Roger chose that moment to propel her through the open door. “Lord Christian,” he called over the din. “Your troubles are over, sire. This is the nurse you bade me find. Clare Crucis.”
Clarise skidded to a halt before the most enormous creature she had ever seen. Her first instinct was to draw back, and she trod Sir Roger’s toe as he barred the exit. The nursery seemed exceedingly small, or maybe its proportions had shrunk in the presence of the giant.
So this was the man she was to kill!
The Slayer stood before the open window. Half his body was illumined by the lingering glow of sunlight; the other half concealed in shadow. He was long of limb, broad in the shoulders, packed with muscle. His hair defined the color black as it hung in waves to his shoulders. Midnight eyebrows scowled over a long, straight nose.
He was younger than she’d imagined. The clean lines of his face—the half she could see—were shockingly handsome. The soft light revealed unblemished skin, tanned to the color of a nutmeg. The lines of his cheek and jaw were forceful. His eyelashes were absurdly long.
On the other side of his face, a glittering eye pierced the gloom. Green. His eyes were a light gray-green. They seemed to burn the air from her lungs as he stared at her. She read intelligence in their depths, followed by a sensual consideration that made her skin grow tight.