The Herald's Heart (5 page)

When he finally released his grip and sat back, he saw that Alice held her apron over her lower face, and Cleve appeared nearly as sick as Talon felt. Larkin’s face had turned bright red behind the sleeve she held over her nose. She did all she could to avoid catching his glance.

“You’re responsible for this, aren’t you?”

The red on her face deepened, and she lowered her sleeve.

“Responsible for what?” she had the gall to reply.

“For this cursed stench.”

She teased her lip with her teeth. Talon wanted to tease it for her; at the same time, he wanted to slap her. He slapped the low table beside him instead. “Don’t bother to deny it. Just tell me how one woman makes an entire keep stink.”

She lifted her chin. “I doubt one or two buckets of pig offal could scent the entire keep.”

“Only one or two buckets?” Talon raised an eyebrow. “And you’ve been haunting Hawksedge Keep for how long?”

Her chin trembled. “A few weeks. And it might have been five buckets … um, perhaps refilled at each visit.”

There she went, drawing that full lower lip between her teeth again. This had to stop. “Saint Swithun’s bones, woman.” He roared out of the chair, needing action to distract him. “I care not were it a rotting carcass in every room. You will scrub this keep from top to bottom until the place smells sweet as a May meadow. Is that clear?”

“Aye.” Her eyes had gone wide, but her posture remained rigid.

“For now, go with Alice to help her bring refreshments.”

The women left, and he stared into the fire. He must be clear with the troublesome Larkin that her position was that of servant. Defiant or not, she would follow his orders.

A discrete cough interrupted his thoughts.

“Did ye have need of me, Sir Talon?” Cleve remained near the hearth, where he had been since entering the keep.

Dragging his thoughts to more important matters, Talon returned to the chair. “Aye.” He sat wearily and gestured to a stool nearby. “Sit down, Cleve. We’ve much to discuss.”

“Thankee, Sir Talon.”

“Tell me, where is the earl? Where are his knights? What happened to the livestock? And why did you abandon the keep in the earl’s absence?”

Cleve flushed. “We removed the beasts for safekeeping. I do not know where the earl is. He disappeared about one month past, leaving no word. Beggin’ yer pardon for sayin’ so, but the earl’s too stingy to pay well. So ’e don’t have many knights ’ere. The only knight he brought with him, Baron Le Hourde, holds Rosewood Castle in fee simple and was recalled there before the earl left. The rest of the keep’s knights guard the border with Scotland. Comin’ back here takes too long, so they have a barracks there at a small holding called Middenton.”

“Does the earl often absent himself without word? Could he have left for another of his holdings and not told anyone?”

“Well, we did send word to his lands in the south, asking if he’d returned there, but all sent back that they had not seen the earl and believed him to still be at Hawksedge. Since he was not, they would search the area between there and here and send us word if he was found. But I don’t think it likely he went far, sir. The earl prefers his southern estates to Hawksedge. When he does come, he rarely leaves the keep. We’ve a great deal of itchweed about, and he fears the plant something awful, he does. Caught an itchweed rash that nearly killed him once.”

“When did you realize the earl was gone?”

“’Bout two days after he arrived. When Baron Le Hourde left, the earl visited the abbey, like he always does. Then he came back to the keep to pray in his private chapel as he always does. He attended supper that night before he returned to his prayers. No one’s seen him since.”

“Where is this chapel?”

“At the far corner of the keep’s third floor.”

“Did you search for him?”

“Aye. We started searching at dusk, that very day. One of the men saw the ghost, Larkin that is, and ran away screaming that the earl had been murdered and haunted the keep because we had failed in our duty to protect him. Several others saw the ghost then, and fear spread like wildfire. I could get none to stay.”

Larkin again. The image of her berry mouth and blue eyes intruded on Talon’s thoughts. He could not afford distractions, so he pushed the image from his mind and waited, certain that Cleve had more to say.

The guard swallowed. “I admit, I was afeared too. Though I might have stayed if I’d had someone at my back. I feel stupid to have been fooled by Liar Larkin.”

Talon, too, had felt a few moments of fear before logic reminded him that ghosts did not exist. “Aye, she has that effect on a man,” he agreed, reluctant to admit her ability to influence him at the same time he tried to reassure Cleve.

“Most of the men in Hawking Sedge have acted the dunce over her since she left the abbey.”

“Left the abbey? Was she a nun or novice?”

“Nay, she turned up there about seven years ago. Weren’t much more’n a child, fourteen or fifteen from the look of her. The nuns took her in because she was mute. Last year, she recovered her voice and started claiming she was Lady Rosham. The earl didn’t like that. He threatened to toss the nuns from his lands if the abbess didn’t make the liar leave. Larkin’s been the local carter ever since. Living outside the abbey walls, she’s had to protect herself, and the men hereabouts haven’t made that easy. I don’t know how she’s been able to avoid them, but she has. They may be more determined after she’s made such idiots of them.”

Could she be in danger? Unaccountably the idea of her hurt disturbed him. “Let them know that she’s not to be touched.”

“Oh is it that way then, sir?”

“And what way would that be?” Talon growled and gave the guard an icy look.

“Why, I only meant that you must want ... her for ... yourself.” Cleve quailed before the cold glare.

“I will have no woman in my protection dishonored.”

“Aye, sir.” The guard swallowed nervously.

Alice and Larkin approached with trenchers of bread, cheese, apples, tankards, and a pitcher of ale. They waited while Talon invited Cleve to join him in the meal, then set the food on the table between the men.

“Thank you, Alice. Send someone to recall the rest of the servants. When they come, give them food and tell them to ask Cleve for their orders. Larkin, you may be about your duties as well.”

The cook curtsied and left. Liar Larkin stuck her nose in the air, turned, and stalked off.

Talon chewed on the bread, considering how to handle things. The redhead’s deceptions made any action more difficult. He’d done what he could to minimize the impact of her deceit, but at what cost? The villagers were angry over being made to look like fools. He needed their trust, but for Larkin’s safety, he must keep her where she was safe. He prayed the local folk would not see his treatment of her as an insult to them.

Meanwhile, he needed information before he could decide how to proceed in the earl’s absence. Talon poured ale into the tankards, handing one to Cleve.

“Does the earl have a steward, someone who does his accounts and manages the keep in when the earl is away?”

“Father Timoras sometimes acts in the earl’s stead, but I’d not call him a steward. If we’ve need of lordly authority when the earl is gone, we send to Rosewood Castle for Baron Le Hourde. ’Tis less than two days’ ride. One day if you take the cliff side path, but that is not very stable, and most take the longer, safer road.”

“I only know Le Hourde’s reputation as a merciless warrior. I had not realized he was the earl’s vassal or that Rosewood was so near. I may send for him eventually. First, where is this priest, Timoras?”

“There is sickness among the earl’s more distant vassals. Father Timoras has learning of medicine taught him by the nuns in the abbey. The earl sent him to aid those who are ill.”

“So Father Timoras had been gone longer than the earl?”

“Aye.”

Talon stared once more into the flames in the huge hearth. They were the same glowing hue as Liar Larkin’s tresses. “Do you know which vassals the priest went to help?”

“There were several, sir. And I was not told where he went first. Nor could I guess where he might be now.”

Aware his thoughts were wandering, Talon turned his gaze away from the fire. “How long would it take to send messages to these vassals, find Father Timoras, and have him return here?”

“As little as a day or as much as two weeks, depending on how far he’s gone and how many riders we send.”

“Send as many men as you think you can spare and still maintain the keep’s guard. The priest may know where the earl is. At the least, the man can witness any action I take in the earl’s absence.” Talon wished he could ride in search of the priest. He needed action. But with the earl gone, someone had to remain in charge at Hawksedge.

Cleve looked nervously into his flagon. He drank, swallowed twice, and then looked up at Talon. “I must ask, sir. Talon is not a common name, and that was the name of the earl’s son who I heard was cast out of Hawksedge. Might you ... that is, I wondered ...”

Talon smiled, welcoming the unpleasant topic. No matter what the local folk thought, ’twas time they learned his identity. What his relationship with the earl might mean for them, and him, they would discover together.

“Yes, I am the earl’s son. But, at present, the only claim I have on him or his title and lands is given in King Edward’s writ, which I showed to all at the alehouse yesterday.”

“I heard of that, sir.”

“Would you like to read the writ?” Talon withdrew the folded parchment from within his jerkin.

“Thank you, no. I cannot read.”

“Then examine the seal, and I will have the priest read it to you when he returns.”

Cleve picked up the parchment and studied the impression in the sealing wax. “The seal is indeed as I’ve been told: the king himself seated on his throne and holding his royal things.”

“Then will you accept my authority until the earl can be found or Father Timoras can confirm the writ?”

“Aye, Sir Talon, I will.”

“I will write to King Edward and inform him that the earl is missing. After the priest is found, I will send for Baron Le Hourde. Give the orders to send the messages we spoke of. Then help Alice to get the servants back to work along with returning the livestock. This keep is filthy.” His mind formed a picture of Larkin on her knees beside the bed in the solar, and she was not busy cleaning. Curse her for filling his thoughts so.

“’Tis well to inform the king,” Cleve muttered into his empty flagon. “But I have to tell ye, the women won’t come here without a chatelaine, so there’s none to clean the keep regular like.”

“Why won’t they come?” Even clever Larkin could not clean the huge keep on her own. The guardsman hesitated. “The stories, sir.”

Talon clenched a hand around his tankard. Could the man not just get on with what he had to say? “What stories?”

“About the earl’s wives and how they died.”

Could those stories cast light on his mother’s death? Or provide information that might prove the earl had no right to repudiate his only son? He refilled the guardsman’s cup and watched Cleve take a long drink.

“Do these tales explain why the earl has not remarried since his last wife’s death?”

Cleve coughed in midsip. Ale trickled down his chin and onto his tunic. “The earl was powerful worried about having an heir, so he tried, sir. He’s been betrothed three more times since Lady Rosham died. None of those women ever arrived at the keep.”

Talon could understand. Without a legitimate heir, Hawksedge Keep might yet come to the earl’s repudiated only son. Since the earl held the title and lands in fee simple, he could leave the lands to whomever he pleased. The title would revert to the king, but the crown could not take the lands, unless the earl died heirless. Then the king’s claim to Hawksedge would be strongest. Or would Talon be better off trying to earn Hawksedge and the earldom from Longshanks?

“You mean these women just vanished. And the earl never looked for them?”

“Not to my knowledge. As I said, the earl didn’t like to spend money. He let the women’s families search.” Cleve took a deep draught of his ale. “Wouldna surprise me if those women ran away. Were I a woman, I’d not want to wed a man who’s had four wives die.”

“So what happened to his wives?”

“Well, ye know Lady Rosham’s tale. She was the fourth. Gossips say the earl beat the second and third to death for failing to conceive.”

“Did he?”

“Mayhap. ’Twas afore my time and I could not say.”

“What of his first wife? I was very young when I was sent from the keep.” So young he’d been unable to find the place when he returned. But Talon could not resist the question, even though he knew better than most what had happened to his mother.

The guardsman took another long drink of ale. “Story goes that she had a son—that’d be you, sir—then died trying to birth a second. She was not cold in the grave, so I’m told, afore the earl announced that she confessed to adultery on her deathbed and you was no son of his but a bastard. ’Twas pitiful, say folks who’d seen you sent from your home in the same day you buried your mother. First, you was cryin’ and pleadin’ like any child, then stiff and swearing how you’d come back b’cause the earl would need a son and you was all the son he would ever have.”

Talon ground his teeth. The story matched his memories, though he’d not understood at the time what adultery meant. His mother had been the kindest and truest of women, and he could not, would not believe it of her. “An interesting tale, Cleve, but not one that matters now.”

The guardsman quailed beneath Talon’s look. “Aye.”

“You’d best be about your tasks. We’ve much to do if we wish to put Hawksedge Keep to rights.”

“Aye, Sir Talon.” He stood and put his tankard on the table. “Will there be aught else, sir?”

“We must deal with the security and cleanliness of this keep. We must have knights and more guards to ensure Hawksedge remains safe. We could bring men in from the village to clean as well, since you say the women will not do so.”

“A few knights could be called back from the border, but ye’d have to send word far and wide if ye want more ’n three or four mounted men. As for cleaning the keep, if men could be found t’ do the work, I doubt the earl would let them.”