Catherine Coulter (11 page)

She touched her fingers to her hair. “My father liked the little braids as well.”

“Where did you sleep before the Black Demon came?”

“In the small room assigned to my father.”

He slashed his hand through the air. “By Saint Andrew’s rotted teeth, you are too smart. When will you tell me the truth? When will you tell me who you are? When you came here? How you came here and why you were not killed? What does it matter now?”

S
he wondered if he could hear her heart, it pounded so loudly. She had to say something. Her chin went up. She lightly laid her hand on his arm. “I swear to you, my lord, that I will bring you no trouble.”
Please, God, please, God, make that the truth, make my promise hold
. “I am of no importance at all, well, mayhap there are people who want me, mayhap they want me badly, but I do not want them. I never want to see them again.” But what if her mother found her? Or Sir Halric? Or Jason of Brennan? No, not here at Wareham, it would be all right. No one knew she was here, there was no reason for anyone to ever find out. But there was Sir Halric. Would he figure out where she was and tell his master, Jason of Brennan? Would he tell her mother? Could her mother then simply come here and demand to have her back?

No, it couldn’t happen, wouldn’t happen. She was safe as long as she was useful to him. She planned to be very useful to him.

“If you are of no importance, then why keep your identity from me?”

She was silent as a rock.

“But you admit there are those who want you. Tell me who they are. Do you not believe I will protect you?”

She looked up at him. She had no more words.

Garron said, “It is your father who searches for you, isn’t it? You ran away, didn’t you? Why?”

“No, no, not my father.”

“Ah, so it is someone else who wants you. Your mother, perhaps? A woman has no power, there is no reason to fear your mother.”

If you only knew
.

“Don’t you believe I can protect you?”

“Maybe.”

Well, that was something. “Yet you want me to trust you? Trust you when you will not trust me with the truth? And for no logical reason I can think of?” He paused a moment, stroking his chin. “Mayhap you do know of the silver. You are a thief, here to steal it. Mayhap you are the one who poisoned my brother.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I wasn’t even here at Wareham! Listen, Garron, my lies are of no importance either. I am simply trying to protect myself. In truth I am a simple girl, young, and as you say, well made.”

He did not smile. He leaned back against the rampart wall and crossed his arms over his chest, an intimidating pose, one she suspected he used quite often.

“The fact is, I am here and I am able to help you return Wareham to its former glory. You are fortunate the keep wasn’t razed to the ground. We can rebuild all that needs to be rebuilt. Surely you can trust me in that, can you not? Were the roasted meats not delicious? Were not the stones in the great hall cleaned and swept? I can do more, I will do more. Your people will help me. They approve of me.”

He stared down at her a moment. The black clouds had moved in, bringing instant darkness. He couldn’t see her expression clearly. “You could be an enemy,” he said slowly, “you could be here to murder me as my brother was murdered.”

She didn’t move; he saw her hands clench into fists, but she didn’t rise to the bait. “I am not your enemy. Indeed, I am very happy to be here. Please, let me earn my keep. Let me help you and your people.”

“Who taught you what to do?”

“Mayhap you could think of me as a witch. A witch can do anything.” A door suddenly opened in her mind. She was perhaps six years old, the first time she could remember seeing her mother. She had come to Valcourt to see Merry’s father, why, she didn’t know. She remembered soldiers followed her, even into the great hall. Merry crept after her to her chamber that night, the child wanting to be close to her mother. Instead, she’d watched her mother fall gracefully to her knees before a small pile of what looked to Merry like dried weeds. She listened to her mother’s beautiful voice chant strange words even as she crushed more weeds in her hands and threw them on the pile. Then she made a strange circular sign with her fingers. Merry watched her sprinkle what appeared to be sand over the weeds. They burst into flames. She’d never been so afraid in her life.

She’d said nothing to anyone. She was too afraid. And she’d begun to hear the whispers then, everyone at Valcourt spoke behind their hands of her mother, and witchcraft. Was her mother really a witch? If so, why had she sought out a religious life? Why had she left her and her father and entered Meizerling Abbey?

Garron gave a sharp laugh. “You, a witch? You are too guileless to be a witch. Besides, there is no such thing.” He looked away from her, back out over the sea, searched to see the horizon. “Just a moment ago, the water was flat, running smooth and black. Now you can practically feel the water pulse deep beneath the surface. Listen to the waves boiling up, soon they’ll strike the rocks. The storm is coming.

“Tupper tells me he has a fine nose, something I don’t remember. Mayhap he has grown this fine nose in the past eight years. He tells me we will have howling winds and rain throughout the night, but the morrow will bring warmth and a sun high in the sky. If this comes to pass as he says it will, then we will go to Winthorpe.” He turned to stare down at her with a good deal of dislike. “Very well, I will let you keep your secrets if you continue to be useful to me.”

He was going to leave it, thank St. Cladawr’s bulging eyeballs. She bowed her head, feeling light-headed with relief. “Thank you, my lord. I swear you will not regret it.”

He had the distinct feeling, however, that he would come to regret it greatly.

She said, “The queen was very generous, but there are still many items we must purchase. We need wool. Elaine, the woman with the two small boys, she is a seamstress, as is Talia. Borran is Wareham’s weaver. I too know how to spin and weave thread into cloth. I can help him since there is so much to be done. I can teach other women since there is so much need. I know Borran has already begun repairing the looms smashed by the Black Demon. We must make palliasses and stuff them with straw so our old people can sleep better.”

He let her run on. Finally, he raised his fingertips and laid them against her mouth. “I’m certain you can do all these things. If you cannot, then we will see.” His fingers touched her bottom lip.
Madness
, he thought, it was madness to feel lust for this unknown girl. She had drawn his people in, so easily, it seemed, beginning with old Miggins. He dropped his hand to his side. “I have coin, but I will have to spend most of it on skilled laborers. Wareham’s carpenter wasn’t killed, but Inar is an old man. I am hopeful to find a new carpenter in Winthorpe he can teach. The steward was killed. At least Eller the armorer survived. The Black Demon did not destroy my farms, but the farmers need more seeds, something my brother had not provided them before he died.” He gave a short laugh. “I had believed myself rich, but I do not have enough to rebuild Wareham.”

“Mayhap you could ask the king to find you an heiress.” She hadn’t meant to say the words, but they’d popped right out of her mouth. And just why was that?

He laughed. “It is not a bad idea, except that heiresses do not fall like snow upon the ground. There are very few of them. Heiresses are also, I’ve heard, a very bad business.”

“Surely that cannot be true.”

“Of course it can. Indeed, it is common knowledge.”

“A bad business? What do you mean, bad business?”

“An heiress knows her own worth and thus she is too proud. She complains endlessly, she whines, she casts out orders, and all dislike her heartily and hate to look at her because she very likely has rabbit teeth and foul breath. To be a husband to an heiress curdles my guts.”

“That is nonsense. Only a blockhead would believe that.”

“You, a simple girl of no importance at all, dare to call me a blockhead? Do you know, if you were a man I would likely throw you off this wall for calling me that? As for you, if I wished, I could throw you off this wall with one hand.”

She appeared to think about that. “Very well, in that case, I will mind my tongue even though it is sometimes difficult.”

He could but stare at her. She’d sounded wicked, and she’d done it on purpose. He found he was charmed to his boot heels. He said suddenly, “I remember my father believed a woman should be chastised whenever she misspoke to her lord.”

“I should chastise a man if he misspoke to me. What is your point?”

“I mean he struck her when it pleased him to do so.”

“I should kill my husband whilst he slept if he struck me.”

“You sound much too fierce to be a girl of no importance at all. No, now don’t make up a new lie. Actually, I do not remember his ever striking her. But enough of that. Last night I could hear Miggins snoring from thirty feet away, over all the snoring of my men. And you slept beside her.” He eyed her. “Ah, why do you not sleep in the small chamber where your father slept?” He immediately raised his hand. “I know, I know, it pains you too much to sleep there.”

“Very well, I will not tell you that.”

“Then tell me how you slept with Miggins snoring in your ear?”

She gave him a big grin that made him stare at her mouth and at the deep dimple in her cheek.

“I sang to myself,” she said, “sang every song I knew until I was so bored I fell asleep. When I opened my eyes, it was morning.”

“Sing me one of your songs.”

She cocked her head and sang in a pure, sweet voice,

“I have never heard that song before. Your voice is acceptable, but your song is too sad. It is the saddest song I’ve ever heard.”

“Sad? Aye, I suppose that it is, but surely not the saddest. I wrote it myself and I will tell you, it is not easy to make rhymes.” And then she puffed right up. “I sang it to our jongleur and he praised it.”

“I did not know there was a jongleur at Wareham.”

That chin of hers shot up. “There was a jongleur where I once lived.”

“Mayhap I’ll change my mind and demand the truth from you once I have seen your list.”

“Mayhap, if you do not leave me be, I will not show you my list.”

“You may go back to Miggins now and sing your songs. I will see you and your list on the morrow.” He nodded, turning away from her to stare out over the North Sea. “Do you know, during dinner, I heard laughter and arguments and belches. It was a fine sound.”

She turned, climbed carefully down the ladder, raised her skirts, and ran back across the inner bailey to the great keep. He called out, “An angel? Did your father believe you an angel?”

She paused a moment, shouted back at him, “My father believed the sun rose only to shine upon my head.”

R
obert Burnell chewed the last bit of sweet brown bread, patted his belly, and said to Garron, a bit of a frown on his aesthete’s face, “The king finds you useful. He believes you still innocent of guile and slyness.”

Innocent of guile?
Garron didn’t think he liked the sound of that. Was he as useful to the king as Merry was to Wareham?

“The king also told me once you had remarked that violent intent had a distinctive smell to it, that you had smelled it on every man who had tried to attack him. I told him that sounded too mad not to be true.”

Garron merely nodded.

“I am sending two of the king’s men to Furly and Radstock to see if this Black Demon attacked them. When they return, we will know if your keeps are safe and what are the inclinations of your castellans before we ourselves visit them upon your return from Winthrope. If Sir Wills and Sir Gregory know what is good for them, they will readily accept you as their new lord. Now, do not argue with me, the king wishes me to ensure that you will be safe. I will guard Wareham in your absence. The king also said you have a rich and cunning brain.”

Garron liked that better than smelling violence.

“I wonder what will next year bring?” Since Burnell was vigorously rubbing his buttocks as he spoke, Garron grinned. No matter the number of blankets atop the straw-filled mattress, a cold stone floor wasn’t what Burnell was used to.

“I will use all of my rich and cunning brain as well as prayer that next year brings renewal to Wareham,” Garron said. “Walk with me, sir.”

“A thorough prayer, I have found, requires a good deal of exertion to be done correctly. Sometimes a thorough prayer, one of great length and complex composition, makes one chafe.”

When they stepped into the inner bailey, Garron said, “But look, sir, every able-bodied person is working—yon, a man is drilling holes in a plank of wood with an auger, another is wielding a pitchfork, digging into sheaves of hay to make new mattresses, another carefully makes pegs to be driven by hammers into wood for benches and tables.”

“Aye,” Burnell said, “and I know men are bringing in trees cut from the Forest of Glen, supervised by that that old gizzard Inar, a man of great talent, so his equally old sister told me when she served me ale.”

Garron said, “Tupper told me it was good to see Inar smiling again. He is calling out orders, there is a bit of a strut in his walk.”

But he needed more skilled men. Garron felt himself worrying again until he heard the loud braying of Eleanor’s goat, Eric, who was trying to tug an ancient boot from the little boy Ivo. His brother Errol was stuffing a piece of bread into his mouth, as if he feared there would be no more. He saw the boys’ mother, Elaine, speak to each of her sons, then walk briskly across the inner bailey toward the weaving shed, her arms filled with bolts of woolen cloth. Her shoulders were back, her head held high. He was pleased. Her husband had been one of Arthur’s best archers, Tupper had told him, a fine man, and they’d buried him with great care. Now it was time to have new looms made. Old Borran told him two of the looms could not be repaired.