Catherine Coulter (19 page)

What would he do now? At least Garron now knew the name of his enemy.

If only that were all.
Marianna de Luce de Mornay, the Valcourt Heiress
. What in the name of all that was holy would happen now? Soon enough, he realized, he could very well be a dead man.

 

 

 

Y
ou are an idiot.” Jason of Brennan wanted to leap over the huge table covered with foul-smelling vials and jars that held things he didn’t want to know about, and throttle the magnificent goldenhaired creature who stared at him with open contempt.

The sharp eye-watering smell of sulfur wafted to him, as if a trap door to Hell had opened. He was not afraid of her, he wasn’t, nor was he an idiot. He would show her what he was made of, he would sound as calm and reasoned as one of the king’s counselors, or his damned father. He knew he looked imposing in his black tunic, with the studded silver belt that fastened his gem-encrusted sword to his side, and drew himself up. “I am not an idiot. Sir Halric is not an idiot. I told you, madam, Halric did not realize Lord Garron had gone to Wareham. Who was there to tell him? Who was there to tell me so I could inform him of the fact? He expected all those remaining within the walls to be starving, desperate for help. There was no reason to believe his ruse would not work.”

The beautiful witch sneered at him, contempt now bursting from her voice. “Ah, but you tell me he saw this very fit soldier standing atop the ramparts, yet it did not occur to Sir Halric to wonder if mayhap something had changed? He still kept to his fiction of offering aid? Given this, would you not call him an idiot? And given you are his master, does it not follow that you are an idiot as well?”

Her words slammed against him like hard grit, abrading his flesh, irritating him to his soul. He looked down at his boots for a moment. What could he say to her accusation? What she had said was logical. The truth was the truth. He said finally, hating those words coming out of his mouth, “Aye, I suppose that is what happened. Still—”

“I am distressed that my excellent plan was so poorly executed.” And she gave him a smile that promised more suffering than he could imagine. He hated her in that moment, as much as he hated this immense chamber filled with strange smells and thick brooding shadows since the window shutters were always closed against the sunlight. Jason imagined he could feel the bright sunlight beating against the shutters, trying to come in, but to no avail. The billowing shadows crowded in on the branch of candles on Abbess Helen’s large worktable. He knew there was something malignant lying in the midst of those shadows, something waiting to rip out his throat, that or drive him to madness, and it lurked, and waited. He knew he would have no fear of her if he could grab her by her golden hair and drag her out of this malevolent room, out of this hideous gray stone abbey, away from her private army, and her blank-faced nuns who all treated her like a queen, and fling her to the ground. Would her body be as beautiful as her face when he ripped that ridiculous black habit off her?

She sat back in her finely carved chair and regarded him over her steepled white fingers. “Halric should have known everything there was to know about Wareham before he went there, but he did not. He should have known that Arthur’s brother had arrived to succeed to Wareham Castle. He should have stopped at neighboring villages and inquired, but he did not. He should have sent a soldier to study the castle before ever he went to Wareham, but he did not. I should have slit his throat, were I you.

“And you, as his master, you should have ensured he knew what to do, instructed him if needed, but you did not. I cannot believe you have failed me yet again. I fear you are not a very good tool. Mayhap my loyal Abel will have to search elsewhere for a better one.”

Abel was the man who led her private army, a hard man and vicious, not a dollop of mercy in him. On the other hand, Jason rarely showed mercy himself. He said, “The failures you speak about—they are about two different matters, so there is only one failure for each endeavor.”

Contempt blossomed again on her white face, a face too white, too unlined, and her brilliant eyes narrowed on his face, and he wished he’d kept his mouth shut. How could she be so beautiful and yet have a daughter full-grown? But he knew, oh aye, he knew. Abbess Helen de Mornay was a witch. If she hadn’t left her lord years before, he probably would have killed her, before she killed him. He eyed a line of vials on shelves behind her filled with potions to make a man’s guts twist and shrivel as he said, hating the whine in his voice, “I am no man’s tool.”

She laughed, a melodious sound, soft and lovely. She gave him a look of amusement. “Nay, of course you are not. You, Jason of Brennan, are a woman’s tool. You are my tool, defective though you be, you are still mine, until I decide otherwise.” She paused a moment, looking toward the shadows, into them, he believed, and he knew he saw those shadows roil and twist. He forced himself to stand perfectly still, to show no fear, for he knew to his guts that would be fatal. He stared at the powerful abbess who had ruled Meizerling for more than fifteen years now, mayhap the wealthiest abbey in all of England, filled with learned parchments and beautifully illuminated manuscripts. She even had several women scribes, something that he’d never heard of before. Her damning words flowed into him, reduced him to nothing at all. He drew himself up again, taller this time. He was a man, he was strong, he wasn’t anyone’s tool, man or woman. Abbess or no, she was still a woman withal, yet in odd moments of honesty, in this terrifying chamber with its deep shadows that held evil, he knew he was afraid of her, and he hated himself more for that than for his excuses. At odd moments, he wondered if she even needed the six ever-vigilant soldiers who stood alert and at the ready outside her door, ready to pour into the room and kill anyone she pointed to. Could she point a long white finger at him, the one with the massive emerald set in finely worked silver, chant a few words, make that stinking sulfur smell fill his nostrils and choke him?

But he’d had no choice but to ally himself to her, no choice at all. He’d been desperate.

“I am no tool,” he said again.

She laughed once more, and he swelled with rage.
Be calm, be calm, all is not lost. She can find no one else in time.
He dredged deep and found a smile. “There is good news, my lady.”

An arched eyebrow shot upward even as she said with utter indifference, “I hope your good news is sufficient to convince me not to let Abel kill you.”

“It is,” he said shortly, hoping his voice sounded firm, hoping he sounded like a solid man, one who knew what needed to be done, and could do it. “Halric said there was a girl standing beside the warrior on the ramparts at Wareham.”

“A girl? I don’t suppose she was ill-kempt and starving either, was she? No, of course not. And how exactly is this good news to me?”

“Halric recognized her.”

Abbess Helen stilled.

“Aye, it was your daughter, madam. Halric has no idea how she came to be at Wareham.”

Lady Helen looked away from him, into the shadows that were warm and comforting, and wished this vain young cock would leave so the shadows could seep into her and ward off the cold. She forced herself to look at his handsome face. “So after Halric lost Marianna in Clandor Forest to a fierce warrior he did not know—and his vast army of men—she somehow made her way to Wareham, not all that distant from Clandor Forest. I do not suppose it was difficult for my daughter to sneak into Wareham, what with all the people either dead or nearly starved.”

She closed her eyes and looked beyond her abbey walls, beyond the acres of trees, past the small villages, until the savage North Sea finally came into her mind’s eye, and atop a promontory sat Wareham Castle. It was not difficult to see her daughter slipping in amongst those starved mongrels, blending in, helping them.

In that instant, she realized this was not what had happened at all. Everything was clear now.

Abbess Helen contemplated Jason of Brennan as he now paced in front of her worktable, turning to stride to the far shuttered windows, then back again. Did he want her to admire his excellent form? The strength and sturdiness of his back? Indeed, he was a handsome man, a man Marianna should have admired, but she hadn’t. She’d detested him so much, she’d run away. How had she realized so quickly that he was a callow creature, no honor in him that she’d ever seen, only self-interest and greed and a marked need to cause pain whenever he could, failings of most men Helen had observed? Evidently she had.

Still, Helen was amazed that this particular man, whose father, Lord Ranulf, the Earl of Carronwick, a man she’d always avoided because he was far-seeing, was so blind, so stupid, so unlike the man who had sired him. “You honestly don’t know what happened, do you?”

Jason stopped in front of her table. He hated it, but slowly, he shook his head.

Lady Helen said very softly, “Garron of Kersey naturally traveled to Wareham to assume his brother’s title and lands. The man in your pay at Wareham, the steward, was it not? You instructed him to tip the potion into Arthur’s ale, and so he did. You should have known Arthur’s brother would arrive quickly. Is it not obvious to you that Lord Garron was the ferocious warrior who rescued Marianna from Halric and his men? Is it not obvious to you that he must have taken her to Wareham with him?” She examined her fingernails, noticed that one was blackening, doubtless from her recent experiment with noreweed and warboil. “Is it clear to you now?”

“That is impossible, madam. I told you that Halric dressed her as a boy. No one would recognize her. Why would he take a scruffy boy with him to Wareham?”

She was tempted to hurl the lovely black onyx statue of Minerva that stood on her worktable at his head. “So she revealed herself to Lord Garron. Did she confess to him who she was? Probably not, she is too afraid of me, probably too afraid of you as well. Is she now his leman? I must doubt it because she has shown no interest in men, according to Ella, my own faithful servant who stayed behind at Valcourt to take care of her.”

“She took no interest in me either,” Jason said, and he sounded astonished that such a thing could happen.

Helen continued to examine the black fingernail, a frown on her smooth white brow. She said, more to that fingernail than to him, “Marianna draws people to her, it is a special gift she has. She calls forth their loyalty, their trust. She has managed to do the same thing at Wareham. Did you not tell me that you and your men destroyed Wareham, that you ensured all those who were left alive could not leave the castle?”

“That is correct.”

“Marianna would kill herself to fix things. She is very good at it. She arranges, she cajoles, she makes her infernal lists. She has taken over Wareham, and Lord Garron, doubt it not. I do wonder if Lord Garron now knows who she is.”

Helen looked toward a vial that held pulverized toad mixed with ox blood and a pinch of ground swamp panwort, said to bring clarity to the mind. She let herself sink into that clarity and saw a little rat of a girl with flaming red hair, yet her mother didn’t have red hair, nor did her father, Lord Timothy. That hair of hers was a curse from the Devil. Not more than six years old she was. She drew away from the vision when Jason of Brennan said, “Halric, once he realized who she was, believes she recognized him as well. She knows, madam, and that must mean that Lord Garron now knows as well. Surely she would not keep him in ignorance.”

“She knows only of Sir Halric. How could Marianna know he is your minion?”

He hadn’t considered that. He felt relief wash through him. “Aye, that’s right. She never saw us together. He told me he never said my name to her.”

“Nor does she know you do my bidding, now does she? And that means Lord Garron is ignorant of that fact as well.”

He felt the quiver of insult and drew himself up. “I am my own man. I only do your bidding because I have decided it is in my own best interest to do so.” He gave her a sneer, knowing it would enrage her, but not enough to smite him, he hoped. “I promise you, madam, I will kill Lord Garron, I will find where Arthur hid the silver coins he stole from my father and present them to you, and then I will wed your daughter.”
And then I will have Valcourt and the king will have no choice but to accept me. And why would he not? He thinks highly of my father, trusts him, so why would he not accept the son, particularly after he is already the master of Valcourt?

Jason smiled now. “Mayhap, madam, you will be a grandmother within the year.”

Abbess Helen wanted to laugh at his paltry attempt to insult her. She marveled at his overflowing male vanity and was amused by what he was thinking, so clear his thoughts were on his face, his pleasure at the vision he created of himself as the Earl of Valcourt. Of course, he also saw himself besting her, keeping the silver for himself, but this would never happen, particularly since she held powers close to her breast, powers he couldn’t begin to comprehend, powers beyond this world. And mayhap the next as well.

Her husband, Lord Timothy de Luce de Mornay, Earl of Valcourt, had male vanity in full measure until he finally closed those damned knowledge-filled eyes of his for the final time, and she’d known she’d won because he hadn’t had the time to marry off Marianna to spite her. She’d never known what he was thinking, not like she did most men, not until he wanted her to know. Nearly twenty years flowed through her mind and it was weighed down with her hatred of his knowledge of her, her failure to control him. She remembered clearly the look on his face when he’d realized what she was, and she’d known it was too soon, too soon, she had not secured him yet. But she had gained what she’d wanted, what she knew she must have. And that was a victory over him.