With a gasp and a leaping heart, she spun around. The candle sputtered. She hastened to the side of Doris’s bed and yanked open the drapes. “Doris!” she cried. Her tone was so sharp that the woman lurched into wakefulness. “Is Simon in the bed with you?”
A disoriented pause came from the large woman. She patted down the bed around her. “Nay,” she answered in bewildered tones. “Is he ne in the box? I left him there but a nonce ago.”
Clarise had a feeling they were wasting precious time. “Hurry downstairs, Doris,” she commanded, already halfway to the door. “Awaken Christian and tell him Simon has been taken!”
Doris leaped from the bed. As the woman thundered down the turret steps, Clarise edged into the hall, not knowing where to start her search. The flame of her lamp dimmed as if deprived of air.
She thought hard, calling on every one of her senses to aid her. When she’d stepped onto the gallery, not a soul had stirred on the steps or in the hall. Every instinct shouted that the kidnapper either lingered on the third level or had taken an alternate route down. For Simon to be so quiet, he would either have to be sleeping or . . . nay, she couldn’t bring herself to think of an alternative.
She crept down the length of the hallway in the direction of the eastern turret. Hadn’t she encountered Dame Maeve on the stairs of that turret once before? A sound reached her ears and she drew up short, listening. There it was again, a metallic jingle that came from the garderobe, immediately to her right.
Clarise approached the shut door. She tugged at the latch and shoved it open with her foot. The room was poorly ventilated. Though not in heavy use, it reeked nevertheless on such a still evening. She caught her breath and bravely stepped inside.
It was then that she saw her. Maeve cowered in the far corner of the chamber, next to one of the holes that passed waste into the moat. Like a wild animal, her eyes seemed to glow in the lamp’s light, and like an animal she looked terrified at being cornered. Her breath came in ragged pants. In her arms was a swaddled bundle. Simon! Clarise’s heart threw itself against her ribs. My Simon.
“Give him to me,” she commanded in a voice that sent chills down her own spine. She stalked the woman.
“Get back!” Maeve cried, her eyes darting in desperation. “Get back,” she repeated, “else I’ll drop him through the hole!” With that, she ripped away his swaddling cloth and threw it down into the void. Simon cried out, protesting his rude awakening.
Clarise stifled a scream. A vision of Simon’s little body plummeting toward the moat stopped her short. “I’ll kill you,” she answered back, meaning it. “You’ve been caught now, Maeve. Even if you killed Simon and your husband were the only heir remaining, you would never live to see it! The Slayer will cut you into little pieces with his sword!”
Even in the murky shadows the woman’s visage seemed to pale. She took a furtive step toward the door, and Clarise moved to block her path.
With the knowledge that help was shortly coming, Clarise desperately sought to buy time. “Did you think you could manipulate so much and get away with it?” she scoffed. “I know that you poisoned your niece, Genrose. Mayhap you even killed her parents,” she added with sudden inspiration. “ ’Tis said they died of dysentery. Did you poison them as well?”
“Aye!” screeched the woman, losing her composure. Wisps of her hair had escaped her usually tidy bun. “I killed them all, and I’ll kill you, too. As soon as I’ve rid the world of this parasite.” Simon emitted another cry.
“You’ve tried already to poison him,” Clarise quickly interjected. “Was it you who left the buckets of milk in the nanny pen?”
“Aye, and you would have been blamed,” retorted the woman, even as she quaked with fear. “All the servants knew ye were a fraud.”
Not far away, Clarise heard her husband call, his tone filled with urgency. Dame Maeve heard it, also. With a muffled cry she stooped to toss Simon through the hole. Clarise dropped the lamp and leaped forward. As darkness swallowed them, her fingers groped for the baby. She encountered Maeve’s bony elbow and wrenched it upward. Simon tumbled from the woman’s arms, and Clarise barely caught him, her fingers closing around his thigh. She hung on tight. Shoving Dame Maeve against the wall, she rushed from the room, gathering Simon closer.
She came within an inch of skewering them both on her husband’s sword. “Clarise! My God, is he hurt?” he panted, reaching out to touch them.
Simon howled, forcing her to raise her voice. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maeve was going to drop him through the waste hole. Oh, my saints!” she exclaimed in the aftermath of horror. “She’s still in there!” She pointed, despite the fact that the hall was nearly black and he couldn’t see.
“Maeve? But why?”
“I’ll tell you later,” she promised. “Just get her. Kill her if you must, I don’t care.”
And she didn’t. A mother’s instinct had risen up in her, making her fiercely protective and completely unforgiving. “But how can you see?” She caught him back when he made to move past her.
“I’ve been blind for a week,” he reminded her.
The assurance was comforting. So was the sound of others pounding up the stairs, bearing torches and raised voices. Her husband disappeared into the garderobe. Clarise strained her ears for sounds of a struggle.
“Come out, old woman,” she heard him threaten, “else I’ll run you through with this sword. You know its name, do you not? I call it Vengeance. Wherever there is evil, Vengeance draws blood.”
Maeve whimpered loudly enough to be heard over Simon’s cries.
Clarise ran her fingers over the baby’s naked body, seeking signs of injury. There was nothing to cause her further alarm, save for his trembling distress. Men-at-arms came up behind her, hushing each other as they realized that their liege lord was already handling the villain in the stinking chamber.
“Should we go in?” one of them asked Clarise.
“Stand fast,” she said. “He will have her shortly.”
Indeed, he appeared at that very moment, escorting the woman out of the darkness, the edge of his broadsword pressed to her throat. She didn’t dare to struggle. Her eyes darted wildly as she took note of the many witnesses.
Clarise reached out and grabbed the ring of keys, snapping the cord that held them to the woman’s waist. She was stripped of her authority.
“Hagar,” Christian called, waving the dungeon guard forward. He lowered the sword only to thrust the woman into Hagar’s beefy hands. The mute man toted her off, deaf to the invectives that came spewing from her mouth the moment the Slayer set her free.
Simon’s screams quieted as the woman was dragged from sight and sound. The remaining men-at-arms awaited orders from their liege lord.
Christian tucked his sword under his arm. “May I hold him?” he asked hoarsely.
Clarise put the baby gently in his father’s hands. He laid Simon against his shoulder and turned from the glare of the torchlight to soothe his son. Or was it the babe who soothed his father?
A streak of moisture shone upon the warlord’s cheek. She didn’t know if her husband was weeping, or if the strain on his eyes had caused them to tear. Deciding it was the former, she put her arms around father and son. My men, she thought, feeling the fullness of her love.
“Return to your beds,” Christian rumbled, directing this suggestion to the men. “I thank you for your timeliness.”
“First, my love, I think we should send a party to arrest the midwife,” Clarise spoke up suddenly. “She and Maeve are responsible for the death of Doris’s baby, as well as”—she hesitated, loath to shock him—“as well as Lady Genrose.”