Catherine Coulter (20 page)

And she’d cleverly spread the story that Lord Timothy was a monster, that she’d had to leave her young daughter to escape him, taking with her the vast wealth she’d brought to the marriage, and come to Meizerling Abbey, and who could blame her for that, even though she was but a woman, a wife, obedience supposedly the first commandment for a woman? But none would quibble with the religious life she’d chosen. And she’d taken over Meizerling within the year, changed it utterly, and now it was known as a center of learning, of science, and, as very few knew, a center of other sorts of knowledge as well.

Meizerling was her kingdom. Only hers. And she would dispose of Valcourt and Marianna as she wished. Of course there was another option as well, one that just might be delicious. She would think carefully about that.

She smiled at Jason of Brennan. “So you still hope to wed my daughter?”

“Of course. I must simply determine what is best done now.”

“Will you slip your knife into Sir Halric’s heart?”

Jason wasn’t about to tell her that Halric made his own rules, went his own way, that he was something more than simply Jason’s man, and that knowledge always stayed his hand, but he realized his acquiescence was what she wanted. He saw the arrow wound in Halric’s neck, saw his own knife digging in, widening it. Slowly, he nodded.

Her eyes were narrowed on his face. Could she tell he was lying? Could she see into his brain and simply know? He felt a slap of stark fear, and said again, “Aye, I will stick my knife in deep.”

“Then I will tell you what you must do and pray for your sake that you do not again fail me.” When she finished, Jason gave her a long look, nodded, turned on his booted heel, and left the chamber. He heard her laugh. “No more failure or I will turn your hair white and your nose will fall off!” He looked back only once over his shoulder, and would swear the roiling dark shadows now surrounded her worktable, drawing ever closer to her to embrace her like a lover, and the stench of sulfur was stronger, now coming toward him to curl into his nostrils.

He closed the chamber door and ran. He didn’t remember until he’d ridden away from the shadow of the great abbey: Sir Halric had carried his standard, one of his soldiers had told him that, and wasn’t that a mistake? Jason was glad he hadn’t told the witch. He believed she would have smote him dead on the spot. Was it possible that Marianna recognized his standard? Given his spate of recent bad luck, he wouldn’t doubt it.

But there was still something the witch didn’t know, something he would not tell her.

 

 

 

G
arron found her in the small solar beside the lord’s chamber. There was a single window, the deer hide pulled back to let in the sun. There’d been no glass window in this room for the Black Demon to shatter.

He watched her carefully remove a pot from atop a fire and carry it to a small table. He watched her carefully stir as she read her herbal. She didn’t look up at him. “Good morning, Garron. I cannot stop stirring or the herbs will do something bad, exactly what I don’t know. I feel so very ignorant. What if I make a mistake and kill someone?”

He waved that away as he came closer. “What is it?”

“It is an infusion for Miggins’s cough.”

“It stings my eyes.”

She nodded, still stirring, studying the brew. “It is aniseed and sundew. It is the aniseed that stings your eyes. The thyme smells tart. I have never made this recipe before. I am being very careful with all my measurements, but it is difficult, Garron. I hope it will help her and not burn her throat out.”

As she stirred, Merry’s heart beat slow hard strokes. At his continued silence, she said finally, still not looking at him, “It has been a day and a half since you returned, a day and a half since you have spoken to me of anything other than improvements on Wareham. Have you decided what to do?”

“You said your mother sold you to Jason of Brennan. I gather your father, Lord Timothy, is dead?”

She nodded. “About the same time your own brother died.”

“Why did your mother have to sell you if Valcourt is so very wealthy?”

“There is no cache of ready silver, since Valcourt’s wealth lies in its lands and farms and towns. When I was a babe, she left me and my father and took her family’s silver with her. She requires a great deal of silver for Meizerling Abbey. She must have determined that selling me to Jason of Brennan was the best way to get it. She acted quickly, found a man she could buy before the king could even be told of my father’s death and bestow Valcourt on one of his favorites. Or perhaps she had been planning this a long time and Jason of Brennan stepped through her door.”

“You said Meizerling Abbey. I have heard of it.”

“My mother’s name is Lady Helen, or most properly, I suppose, Abbess Helen of Meizerling.”

“I have also heard talk of your mother, how she has made Meizerling a learning center where men may come and study.” He’d also heard a story about a monk who had visited Meizerling and fled in the night, telling how he came upon the abbess kneeling in front of a strange statue that sat tall and skinny in the middle of a black circle, and she was chanting strange words to it. The monk claimed the Devil had appeared, framed by billowing black smoke. That story alone could scare the lice off a cow. It sounded ridiculous to Garron, a nightmare image to frighten children. “So when your father died, she moved quickly. Too quickly, I think. How did your father die, Merry? Was his death unexpected?”

She stared at him, her brain frozen. “You believe she made a bargain with Jason of Brennan, and killed my father?”

He shrugged. “Is she smart? Can she plan well? Is she that ruthless?”

“Aye, she is all of those things. But to murder my father—that is difficult to accept. My father died one day before my mother arrived at Valcourt with her own private army and Jason of Brennan at her side. I hope you’re wrong. I hope she did not murder my father. That would bespeak evil beyond reason. Since I am of her blood, it scares me what could be inside me, waiting to reveal itself.”

“Don’t be a dolt. You are so far from being anything bad or frightening, and that makes you vulnerable. Now, listen, whether she did or did not kill him, I see now that I have no choice. I must take you to King Edward. He is the one to make all decisions about who will assume authority over Valcourt. He is the only one to protect you.”

She’d known, oh aye, she’d known what he would decide, for after all, he was the king’s man. She said calmly, her stirring a bit slower now that the mixture was cooling, “So I will no longer be my mother’s pawn, I will be the king’s pawn. It is he who will sell me, not my mother.”

“By Saint Florin’s boils, don’t sound so put upon, you know it is the way things are done. Marriage is about alliances and property. Had your father not died, had your mother not interfered, the king would have decided your future and Valcourt’s. It is his responsibility, surely you understand that. The king would hardly wish to have a man not of his choosing take over Valcourt, it is too important a holding. I doubt not the king will want you to stay at court, under his watchful eye.”

“You mean he will dangle me in front of his toadies? I do not wish to visit the court again.”

That stopped him cold. “What do you mean, ‘again’?”

She touched a fingertip to the thickening liquid and tasted it. She nearly gagged it tasted so bad. She swallowed once, again. “This mixture is so vile, it is bound to cure anything.”

“Merry—”

She reached for two open jars, carefully poured in the mixture, covered both jars with heavy cloth, and tied string around them. “When I reached my fifteenth year, my father sent me to be one of Queen Eleanor’s ladies. I stayed for ten full months at court. I hated it. Not Queen Eleanor, for she was very kind to me, but the courtiers, both the men and the ladies, they would smile at you and tell filthy stories about you behind your back. It is an awful place. When I finally begged my father to bring me home, he did.”

Garron had watched the courtiers play their interminable games until he’d simply paid no more attention. A fifteen-year-old girl would not have stood a chance. “Did any of the men try to seduce you?”

She snorted. “Certainly, it was one of their favorite pastimes. Wager they could not seduce a goat, and they would try.”

“I trust the queen protected you?”

“No, I protected myself. My father had warned me, you see. He dinned into my head what the men at court would do, and he was right. He also gave me a small knife if a man tried to force himself on me.”

“Your father should not have sent you to court.”

“He knew it was time I was wed and he wished me to see if any of the men at the king’s court pleased me since all the king’s knights and barons, mayhap even an occasional earl, visit the court periodically.”

“None of them pleased you?”

She shook her head. “The cruelty, Garron, the honeyed vicious words, the careless promises that meant nothing at all, I couldn’t bear it.”

“Did you have to use your knife?”

“Once. His name was Baron Landreau. He had just buried his second wife and he was searching for another one, preferably a rich one. One night, he was very drunk and caught me, probably if he raped me then the king would give me to him. I slipped the knife into his shoulder. While he was screaming at me, I ran.”

“I know the baron. He is an excellent fighter.” He frowned. Men drank, many times even forgot their own names. He said, “Burnell believed you looked familiar. He was right. He must have seen you in the queen’s company at court.”

She nodded. “Oh yes, but you see, my head was always covered so he never saw my hair.” She began to tidy her worktable. “I never saw you, so you must have come to court after I returned to Valcourt.”

He nodded. “You are an heiress.”

It was an accusation. She couldn’t help herself, she gave him a crooked smile. “It is not an affliction, Garron, but since it displeases you so much I will carefully read my herbal, mayhap find a decoction of coltsfoot and soapwort to cure it.”

“Your jest does not amuse me.”

She watched him dash his hand through his hair. Without thought, she reached out her hand, but he took a quick step back. Her arm dropped to her side.

“Your father was Lord Timothy de Luce de Mornay, the Earl of Valcourt. I visited Valcourt once a very long time ago, when I was but a boy. My father knew Lord Timothy, but even as a young boy, I saw the stiffness in my father, and knew they were not friends, but I was too young to know the truth of things. I still do not know. Valcourt is larger than Wareham.”

“Yes, it is.”

“The wealth, Merry, Valcourt is an incredibly wealthy holding. Since the time of William, it has flourished.” Indeed, he had heard men at the king’s court speak of it and the daughter who was Lord Timothy’s only child, and that she hadn’t been ugly, a pleasant surprise, that.

“My father told me his father taught him how to manage his properties just as his father had taught him, and so it went back to the first earl.” She recited, “Ensure tenant farmers have the proper tools and seeds and help during harvests, use rents to buy more farms, control as many surrounding towns as you can, maintain them, always protect them from outlaws, buy all goods from them, keep a stout fighting force, make excellent ale—and on it goes.” She grinned suddenly. “My father said the first earl was a violent old man who wore a long beard wrapped around his neck, but he knew how to make his lands thrive and so he set down rules. They are written in a bound leather book, so very worn when I first saw it. My father set me to copying it. It is fresh now and easily read—for the man the king gives me to, if he can read or write, that is.

“It is a pity my father had no son, only me. Soon another man will become Valcourt’s master.” She shrugged. “Valcourt will probably lose its wealth in the next couple of generations.”

“The Valcourt earls are not the only smart men in England. The king is not a fool. He will not select an incompetent wastrel.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Did your own father have such rules for administering Wareham?”

He saw his father in that moment, his face red with fury as he beat the miller because a grain of poorly ground flour cracked a tooth. He gave no help to any of his dependents. He wasn’t much loved, his father. He remembered the farmers starving when the crops were poor. He shook his head. “But I will have them.”

“That is good. Do you know, my father never shirked his responsibilities, but to be honest, his great love was tournaments. He told me he was the only man he knew to become wealthy from winning tourneys, and he was only eighteen. He was an excellent fighter, only fourteen when he won his first destrier and suit of armor off a French knight he’d bested. He was greatly saddened when King Edward outlawed them.”

“Too many men died needlessly in tournaments. Listen, Merry, it must be done. I must take you to the king. You are of marriageable age, indeed past it. He will select a husband for you, a strong warrior to protect Valcourt and swear fealty to him. I will suggest to the king that he find a man who has rules and makes lists.

“I will escort you myself. I will ensure that you are not harmed or forced by any of the men at the court. The king will find a man to follow in your sire’s footsteps and Valcourt will continue to prosper.”

“Will you tell the king that Jason of Brennan is the Black Demon, that his man Sir Halric kidnapped me? Will you tell him Jason made a bargain with my mother? Will you tell him your brother was probably poisoned by the Black Demon?”

“Aye, I will tell him.”

H
e gave her a brooding look. “Now you said you ran away from Valcourt rather than marry Jason of Brennan. Tell me exactly what happened.”

She turned away from him and began to pace. Her gown was so short, he could see her ankles. “I told you my father died unexpectedly. He was well and then he was ill and vomiting and sweat poured down his face and off his body. Then the fever came and he shivered until his teeth chattered. The fever never left him and he died.” The telling of it, so bloodless, those words. She wiped tears away with the back of her hand.