Sanctuary of Roses (33 page)

“Nay, my lord,” Clem interrupted. “I will go
with her. You’d be easily recognized, and I’ll keep this wench from
getting into trouble.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “If the
woman must go, then I shall be the one to accompany her.” He dashed
a glare at Jube, who’d remained silent, and then returned a steady
look at Gavin.

“Very well, then, Clem and Patricka. We’ll
discuss it no longer, as time is of great import. You will enter
the keep and find a way to let us in before the sun rises on the
morrow. When you have ascertained your plan, you must send us a
message that all is well and give us our instruction. How do you
propose to do this?”

“We shall meet with you at that oak tree,”
Clem pointed at a strong tree hidden from the keep by a small hill
and scattered brush. “As the sun sets.”

Gavin gave a short nod, his face tightening.
Grasping the forearm of his man, he squeezed tightly and said, “Go
with God. Fantin may be mad, but he is no fool—and he believes he
is in the right. He and his servant Tavis will be watching
carefully.” He turned to the maid, taking in the seriousness on her
round, freckled face. “You are a brave girl to do this for your
mistress. I’m certain that God will bless you.” He grasped her by
the shoulders, squeezed, and released. “Be off.”

He turned, walking from the camp…needing to
be alone while he waited…helpless.

* * *

Tricky and Clem arrived at Tricourten on
foot. It would arouse too much suspicion if they rode in on a
sure-footed destrier. He used a stick to walk, and affected a bit
of a limp. They took care that their clothing was dirt-streaked,
and Clem turned his tunic wrong-side out to hide the fine
embroidery.

For all their pains, it was no hardship to
enter Tricourten Keep. As Gavin had expected, the guards paid
little attention to a man and woman—their attention would be
attracted to a party of two or more men. Clem explained in a rough
voice and poor grammar that they traveled to an abbey where his
sister—Tricky—was to serve a great abbess, and that they merely
needed one night’s lodging. The guards nodded them in with barely a
glance.

Tricky walked quickly alongside Clem,
brushing against him as he limped along rather briskly for a man
with an injured leg…but she forbore to point that out. She was as
eager as he to complete their mission and allow Gavin and the
others in…but at the same time, the excitement tripped her
heartbeat up, and her nerves sang. And she was with Clem—who’d
refused to let her go alone—who’d even ordered his master to stay
behind so that he could accompany her. Mayhap the man was not so
stone-headed as she’d thought!

They made their way across the bailey,
toward what appeared to be the main entrance to the hall, when
Tricky suddenly noticed a familiar figure leaving the hall.
“Rohan!” she gasped, whipping her hand back into Clem’s gut.
Rohan—the traitor—would most certainly recognize Clem…and quite
possibly recognize her.

Without a second thought, she grabbed Clem
by the tunic and, using his own momentum, propelled him toward the
wall of a building. He pulled her with him and she slammed into his
arms, and suddenly their mouths were thrashing together. Clem
moved, rolling along the wall, until she was pressed between his
comforting bulk and the raw wooden planks of what smelled like the
stable.

At last, he pulled free and turned his head
slightly to look in the direction Rohan had gone. “I’d forgotten
about him,” he said between breaths. “Bastard. I’ve half a mind to
take care of him right now….”

“Nay, Clem,” Tricky plucked at his sleeve,
“we must find Madelyne. We’ll need to be mindful of Rohan, but I
wish to waste no further time. We must find her and find a way to
get Gavin into the keep.”

“Aye,” he replied, returning his attention
to her. His eyes bored into hers. “Tricky, do you not think you
have escaped my wrath for this harebrained scheme…I will have words
with you after this is all over.”

She could not help but smile up at him, and
ticked at his nose with her fingernail. “Clem, sweetling, I should
be quite disappointed if you did not follow through on such a
threat…a tongue-lashing from you should be only one of many such
repercussions of our relationship.” Her coy smile and lilt to her
voice sent a very different message than the one he must have
expected. She swore his face tinged pink.

But now was not the time to carry this
further. Tricky and Clem agreed to separate, explore the hall and
the outside of the keep, and meet back at the stables within an
hour.

“Have a care for yourself,” he told her, his
dark eyes boring into hers. Then, slumping over his big stick, Clem
hobbled off to examine the stables and other outbuildings.

Tricky entered the hall, and found that
serfs had finished clearing the food and platters of the midday
meal from the rows of table. She tried to blend into the activity
by picking up a tray, and following one of the other serfs, but her
attention was caught by the two men who sat at the high table.

She paused, holding a wooden platter that
oozed with grease, and looked at them. Tricky knew who they must
be…Lord Fantin de Belgrume, the handsome man with the pale blond
hair that rose from a widow’s peak just off the center of his
forehead, and his cohort: a slender, younger man with dark hair and
soulful eyes who looked harmless. As she watched, de Belgrume
laughed at some jest from his companion, and the beauty of his
face, and the warmth of his laugh startled her. How could someone
so beautiful be the monster that Madelyne feared so?

Suddenly, the other man—Tavis, Gavin had
said was his name—looked at her and their eyes locked. Panic rose
into her throat and she turned abruptly to take the platter she
still held, but a peremptory voice made her halt in her tracks.

“You, there! You, with the red hair!”

Tricky froze, her heart pounding so hard it
threatened to choke her. She turned slowly, waiting to hear a call
for the guards to come down upon her…but instead the man called
again, “Bring my master that wine!”

Thank the good Lord the man pointed to a
table nearby that held several bottles of wine, else Tricky would
have surely given herself away. With a quick bob of her head, she
dropped the platter back onto the table where she’d picked it up,
and hurried over to get the wine.

Her hands were slick with sweat and she
nearly tripped over her skirts when she approached the high table,
but de Belgrume didn’t appear to notice. He pored over a curling
piece of parchment while Tavis rested his elbows on the table.

“M-my lord,” Tricky gave a brief curtsey and
sloshed wine into de Belgrume’s goblet. She was about to set the
bottle down on the table when Tavis straightened up in his
chair.

“I don’t recall seeing you before,” he said,
his dark gaze sweeping over her. He was a handsome man, with
slender fingers and a sharp tone in his voice.

She gulped, curtseyed, and stammered, “Me
brother and I—we just become here this day.”

A gleam that made Tricky’s belly twist
leaked into his eyes and he crooked a finger at her. “A shy one,
are you?” He looked at her again, more slowly and with greater
weight than a moment before. Tricky felt his attention pause at her
generous breasts and then sweep over her hips and back up to her
face. “You needn’t be shy here at Tricourten. We treat our guests
quite well…” he glanced at de Belgrume, who appeared to be in some
other world, his lips moving as if in silent prayer, “unless they
are family members.” Tavis smirked at Tricky and his hand snaked
out to snag her sleeve.

She allowed him to tug her toward him—what
other choice did she have?—and this might be an opportunity to
learn more about where Madelyne was. The next she knew, Tricky
found herself settled on his lap. Mayhap she was foolish not to be
afraid…but she did not believe anything Tavis might have in store
for her would be worse than what Madelyne faced. Her resolve
strengthened, Tricky managed a coy smile—subtle, for she did not
want to appear too eager—and managed to squirm her generous bottom
invitingly into his thigh.

“Family members? Aye, my lord, they can be
trying ones can they not?” She purposely reached forward, brushing
her breast near—but not quite touching—his arm as she grabbed the
wine from where she’d placed it on the table. “Me brother is more
bother than ’e’s worth all the time.” She straightened up, “Wine,
my lord?”

He glanced at his master, and Tricky saw
that the other man had begun to slump in his seat. “He’ll rest for
a time—he is weary from praying and fasting these last days. Now,
soon, all will be aright, as he has found the answer to that which
he seeks…aye, wine I’ll have. And that’ll not be all I’ll be
having,” he added, his eyes fastened to her breasts.

Tricky felt a roil of nervousness pump her
stomach. Mayhap this was moving too quickly and she would find
herself in a position in which she could not handle…best pull on a
shy face for a time. “Of course, my lord,” she told him. Rising
from his lap—ostensibly to pour his drink—she shifted away and
managed to remain standing and looking directly into his face.

When Tavis would have reached for her, she
stepped lightly back. “My lord, I must find my brother….”

“Nay, not so quickly. He is likely chasing
some other wench,” Tavis told her with a sly smile, “and will not
even notice that you do not attend him. You may attend me for some
time…it has been long since I’ve seen such a comely wench here at
Tricourten.”

“Of course, my lord.” She curtseyed again
and watched as he drained his goblet. Mayhap if she plied him with
enough wine….She refilled his goblet as Tavis tugged her back onto
his lap. Nervously, she glanced at de Belgrume. He had collapsed
forward onto the table, his face planted in the center of the
parchment that curled up around his ears.

Tavis slipped his hand, quick as a wink,
down the front of her chemise and Tricky nearly leaped off his lap.
His fingers sought her flesh and gave a firm squeeze before he
extracted his hand and tweaked her chin with the same pinch. “Very
nice. ’Tis glad I am that you travel with your brother and not a
husband…else it would be rather uncomfortable for him.” He smiled,
and she was reminded of a wolf when she saw the way his eye-teeth
gleamed.

“’Tis said that he,” she tilted her head
toward de Belgrume, “studies the great physicks…do you assist him
in his experiments?”

Tavis drank more wine, slopping it over the
side of the goblet when he set it down. With a quick glance at his
sleeping master, he used a rag to wipe up the mess as he replied,
“Aye, that I do. He is the master, chosen by God, to find the
secrets of the ancients.” He chuckled a soft, eager laugh and
slogged his hand across his mouth. “He has worked for many years to
find the answers, and now he has put the last peg into place. We
shall soon be more powerful than even the king…even the pope. And I
shall be at my master’s side.”

She filled his goblet, noticing that the
bottle was nearly empty…and knowing that she would need more. “You
are?” she prompted, fluttering her eyelashes even as he spewed
wine-laden breath in her face. “You must be so very smart to do
such things!”

“Aye, that I am…but my master…he is the
gifted one. He is the one to whom God speaks.” He stood so quickly
that he nearly knocked her backward. “Come…I will show you our
laboratory. He sleeps and will not mind.” Tavis staggered over a
dog lying beneath their feet, and cast another glance at de
Belgrume. Gently, he raised the snoring man’s head and settled him
back in his chair, slipping a rolled-up cloak beneath his neck. “He
must have his rest if we are to work this night,” he explained,
rolling up the parchment and slipping it under his arm. “I shall
awaken him later, after you and I have had our…tour of the
laboratory.”

Tricky’s chest tightened as fear and
apprehension rose within her as Tavis closed his strong, thin
fingers around her wrist and pulled her after him.

Twenty-Eight

Clem finished his exploration of the bailey
and outbuildings in short order, and decided to enter the hall to
reconnoiter with Tricky if she’d completed her own search. He’d
found something that might work for an unobtrusive entrance—a gate
that was guarded, but with only one guard…and one guard could
easily be disposed of from the inside once they determined the
routine and schedule.

The great hall was nearly empty when Clem
entered. At the high dais, a man slumped back in his chair, snoring
comfortably…and ’twas the shock of white-blond hair that identified
him to Clem. Fantin. He’d half a mind to put an end to this right
then, and send the man to a burning grave with the help of the
dagger that weighted his thigh…but that would be Gavin’s honor and
Clem knew that the time was not yet right.

He looked around and saw nothing of Tricky.
Unease prickled his spine…where else could the woman be, unless
she’d slipped from the hall before he came in? He’d make his way
back to the stable where they were to meet.

With a frown and gusty sigh, Clem turned and
came face to face with Rohan.

* * *

Tricky, whose hand was imprisoned within
Tavis’s grasp, hurried down a narrow, winding stair in his wake.
She thought she saw a small shadow scuttle from a corner and dart
beneath her feet, and she stifled a shriek.

Where was Tavis taking her…and what would he
do with her once they arrived?

She prayed that at least her risk would come
to fruition, and that she would see Madelyne wherever it was they
were bound.

At last, they reached a small oaken door,
heavily barred. Tavis released her hand, and, giving her an eager,
sweet smile, said, “One moment, my dear, and you shall see what it
is we have worked for.”