With Her Kiss (Swords of Passion) (2 page)

Only death could set her free.

Now for the second time in this hole that crackled with the scurrying of vermin and reeked of faeces, Katherine, Countess Harleigh, bastard cousin to scurrilous King John, considered the end of her torments. Without a weapon to aide her, could she simply will herself to die? Could she give herself up to a god who had shown her no mercy?

She could try.

She would.

For who would save her from herself?

No one was left in this world who dared.

Chapter One

Castle Winton

Southern England

April 1211

Geoffrey raised his wine to his mouth, his appetite for his supper and his King’s emissary draining with the last drop from his cup. “How many times have I fought this same battle with our King? Twice, three times? Do you know, Cluny?”

The hulking Norman, King John’s lackey, stared back at Geoff without an answer.

“Ten. Twenty!” Geoff’s gaze locked on those of his Sovereign’s messenger, daring him to appeal to him for more money for John’s endless wars and effete appetites.

Ranulf Cluny rolled his eyes at Geoff, then stabbed his meat and tore off a bite with his sharp little teeth. “I can tell my liege that you may refuse to pay him his latest tax, but you know he will come for you. Again. As he has before. Will you risk another taste of the White Tower’s excellent accommodations?”

Geoff leant back in his cushions, crooked his finger at his steward to pour more
vin rouge
for both of them. Having had his fill of wine and Cluny, he placed his chalice down upon his fine Egyptian linens. This idiot might be John’s newest bootlicker, but he had not the slyness to survive long amid John’s cunning. “Over the past eleven years, I have risked life and limb and sanity to tell our King his rightful duties, Cluny. My advice has fallen on deaf ears. John gave me this domain for the service I rendered and when he did, it was a swamp. I have reclaimed it at much expense of time and labour to myself and my people. I paid John his land tax in December. If he wishes to have more, he must come and take it from me.”

Cluny twitched his nose, his hell-black eyes damning Geoffrey. “Your friend Dumond and his comely wife refuse the tax. So too does your other brother-in-arms, De la Poer, and his wealthy countess. Does our king smell a conspiracy among you three to deprive his coffers of his due?”

Geoff stared at the man as if he were crazed. When Cluny blushed and blinked, Geoff gave him the best answer to their King’s troubles. “John’s nose has too oft been out of joint over minor matters. He needs to put his nose where it belongs. In his own household.”

Cluny stilled in his chair, some fight left in him. “Do I detect an accusation?”

“Of malfeasance?” Geoff chuckled at the shock on this idiot’s face.

“You are too bold, St Claire.”

“I match my arrogance to my opponent’s. But he must beware. He needs my support more than he needs to collect moneys from a new and usurious tax. If he continues to harass those of us who have tried to advise him in the right, he may try us too far. And then, Cluny, who will support him in his adventures against France and Ireland, hmmm?”

“He demands what is his.” Cluny sat back, his greasy fingers poised over his trencher, his gaze on Geoff’s. “He is in need of money, St Claire. What new solutions to that lack do you suggest? He cannot run England on good wishes.”

“There’s righteousness in fairness. Happiness for his subjects.”

“Bah! There’s poverty in that.”

“Better the King make a stricter budget, Cluny, than fight rebellion.”

“Now you talk treason?”

“Cluny, Cluny.” Geoff shook his head. “You jump to conclusions. Persist in that and you yourself will soon be without your sanity.”

The man’s eyebrows twitched.

Have I got that through your thick brain?

Geoffrey sighed, then rinsed his fingers in a bowl of rose water. As he wiped his hands dry on a cloth offered by his steward, he spoke of his reasoning. “John must cease this constant greed, these terrible wars, the need to take women to his bed who are not his to claim. It brands him an outlaw.”

Cluny opened his mouth to reply.

Geoff got to his feet and pushed back his chair. “Finish your supper, man. I expect you and your escort gone by sunrise.”

“He will send me back here with a larger retinue,” Cluny called after him. “Perhaps with a trebuchet, as well.”

“Can he spare one from his fight with the French?” Geoff strode towards his solar and flicked a hand at his steward to remain to serve their guest. “I doubt that, Cluny.”

“I have taken an assessment of your strength here,” the man warned.

Geoff swung around. Hands on his hips, he glared at the impertinent oaf who still sat, fingers into the good roast deer Geoff had been so kind to serve him. “Look all you wish, Cluny. None of this can be taken from me easily. I have earned it. Bought it with my own blood shed in the service of our good king Richard and in years toiling for his young brother, John. Come with what force John will grant you. He has few to spare from his many conflicts. This you and I both know well. But understand, too, that this castle, this fiefdom, these proud people do me the honour to give me their loyalty. You may try to change their minds. I wager you will not be able. So by all means, come. Do as you are ordered. But none of this will fall to you by wishing it so.”

He nodded, leaving the messenger to scowl at him as he spun towards the outer stairs.

* * * *

Once in his private rooms, Geoff slammed the heavy door so violently it shook in its frame.

“Martin!” he yelled to his body servant.

“Aye, milord.” The older man scurried from Geoff’s solar. “Here, sir!”

“Bring me more to drink, Martin. My dinner wine was good but not enough to wash away the taste of
merde
.” He halted. For decades he had tried to hold his tongue, not saying anything in anyone’s presence that they might find themselves a victim of John’s malevolence for simple association with Geoffrey. Lately, he had failed more often than he had succeeded.

His man scowled at him and tipped his head towards the solar. “Milord, you have a visitor. I showed him in there and seated him.”

Geoff’s gaze shot to the doorway to his sitting room where an old friend appeared, tall and smiling. He gasped. “Good Christ.”

“No,” offered the blond giant who filled the portal. “But I aspire to that daily.”

“Will? What in hell are you doing here?” Geoff strode forward, clasping the man in his arms. “I understood your lady is to be delivered of a baby soon. Why leave home to see me? Surely, you are not escaping the birthing pains?”

William Dunwick, the Earl of Greystone, burly creature that he was, had never shrunk from any pain, physical or other. He’d gone to Richard’s service along with Geoff and their dear friend, Simon de la Poer, more than twenty years ago. Will must have been at least forty-five years old now, but he looked younger. Married to a woman whom he had saved from John’s machinations and whom he had loved within a week of meeting, Will boasted a quiet life that Geoff and their friend Simon de la Poer had helped him secure.

“I promised Blanche my journey here would be brief. I come to you to talk tonight but I return to her on the morrow.”

“A hellish trip for you, my friend. Martin, bring us food and—”

“Nay, Geoff, thank you. Your man did see to me. I am well fed. But I could do with more wine while I tell you of my reason to come here.”

Geoff frowned at his friend’s words, then nodded to Martin to leave them. After his man had shut the door, Geoff led the way into the solar and motioned for Will to reclaim a chair before the hearth. “I will have Martin prepare you a pallet here for the night. My garrison is filled with Ranulf Cluny’s men. If they resemble their blustering lord, they will snore and fart to wake the dead. You need much better than their fetid company.”

“I thank you for the courtesy, Geoff.” Will smiled half-heartedly. “Martin told me of your visitors from the King.”

“Cluny,” Geoff growled out the name. “What an ass.”

Will murmured his distaste. “I met him last year at court. John never tires of hiring these godless mercenaries from Gascony to do his will.”

Geoff ran an index finger over his lower lip, fretting over the number of French
routiers
accompanying Cluny who now bedded down alongside his own men. “He brought a retinue of five with him.”

”John could spare that many?” Will asked with a sarcastic twist of his lips.

“Enough to make a point—or a threat.”

“Which is exactly what?”

“John taxes me for a new barony he granted me in November. ‘Tis more title than land. More bribe than prize. Plus he wants two of my young retainers.”

“Which two?” Will asked, his alarm showing in his tense shoulders.

Geoff cocked an eyebrow. “Reginald and Matthew.”

“He would demand your dearest, the bastard.”

“Nevertheless, I have refused the land, the title, the tax—and the men.”

“Risky.”

“Aye,” Geoff agreed, “but if I give in, he will name a host of new barons and demand the same and more from them as well.”

Will rubbed one hand over the black leather patch on his left eye, then leaned towards Geoff. “For the refusal of money alone, John still has a warrant for the arrest of William de Braose.”

“Who hides somewhere in France far from John’s reach.”

“You can never be certain of that. Tread carefully, my friend.”

“De Braose told tales of regicide.” Rumours had spread from de Braose and his wife Maud that John had ordered him to cut John’s nephew Arthur’s throat. The young Arthur had had precedence as heir to the throne after King Richard died. Arthur had been the only son of John’s next older brother. But no trace had been found of the prince, whom John had seized soon after Richard’s death and imprisoned in France. De Braose claimed he knew and had been ordered to dispatch the boy. More to John’s detriment, many readily believed he would gladly torture and dispense with anyone who stood in his way to the throne. “John can tax him until the Second Coming, but no gold can free de Braose from the sting of his accusation of regicide.”

“It cannot free his wife or his oldest son.”

“Aye, John starved them in that miserable oubliette in Corfe Castle without mercy. The day will come when God has no mercy on him. My neighbours, de Clare and Hormsley, talk of it whenever they visit. Unless John changes his ways, there will be rebellion. I know it. ”

Will stilled, his expression sinking further into a despairing look.

Geoff noted in his friend’s body his weariness. On his face his pallor. “You have no desire to talk of de Braose, the barons or John. Indeed, you look like the wrath of God.”

“I feel it as well.”

Geoff leaned towards his friend. “What has happened? Why are you here?”

Will skewered him with sorrow in his one blue eye. “Geoff. What I have learnt may well turn you into God’s wrath.”

Will was no alarmist. A quiet man, one to assess his state, Will was ever the contemplative knight. A soldier quick to arms, slow to strike until his goal was in reach. Geoff sat back in his chair, his fingers cupped around the lions’ heads carved into the armrests. “Let me hear it.”

“‘Tis not a short tale.”

“I am settled,” Geoff assured him. “Proceed.”

“A serving woman arrived at my gatehouse two days ago. She came in a carter’s wagon, headed to our town for the court session. She was near starved, had been beaten by highwaymen who had robbed her of her only coin. Or so she says.”

“What has this to do with me?”

“She comes from the Honour of Harleigh.”

The name, the land brought forth a grief that was old but yet bitter as bile in Geoffrey’s throat.

“She claims she is maid to Lady Katherine Harleigh.”

Geoff startled at the maid’s claim. “Impossible. The woman is mad.”

“That is what I thought, too. At first.”

Geoff frowned. A grief rose from his guts. He had thought he had come to terms with the ravages of Katherine’s death months ago. “You changed your mind? Why? Lady Harleigh died in her bed in March of ague.”

“This old maid says not.”

Geoffrey stared through his friend. The claim of this old woman had touched his heart. Fool to wonder, idiot to care, he told himself he was stupid to raise Kat from the dead and relive once more his anguish at her loss. Yet he must hear the rest. “Go on.”

“She claims her lady was imprisoned by Edmund Ferrer in her own dungeon. That he walked into the Harleigh solar with ten armed knights, subdued the lady at once and shoved her down into her own oubliette.”

“Absurd!”

“Nay, I think not.”

“Will, her neighbour in Sheldon, Lord Moreland, told me himself that his sheriff had confirmed with the curate of the village that she was shriven and buried.”

“This servant in my hall says that woman who was laid in the Harleigh crypt was another.”

“Who then?”

“She claims the one who was put to rest was the countess’s chambermaid.”