Elianne shot him a narrow look. "And so I was, standing at the gate to greet Haydon's noble widow when she arrived. If you wanted me to be any swifter in responding to your commands, you'd best buy me a horse to use."
So it was between them. Her father might own her, body and soul, but that didn't prevent Elianne from offering sly and surly jibes about her status along the way. His irritation was the price he paid for her servitude. An acceptable trade, as far as Elianne was concerned.
"And what of you," she continued. "What are you doing here? Sister Mathilde was to have told you to remain in the office. The lady's escort asked that only women be present at this meeting."
A touch of outrage came to life in her father's face. "You cannot order a sheriff away from what is his rightful business."
Elianne loosed an irritable breath. She’d known it was a waste of breath to send that message with Mathilde. Her father always did just as he pleased, no matter who wanted what, like purchasing a gown for his trip to court when there was barely enough in her beleaguered household purse to see them through the winter.
"Nay!" Lady Haydon's outraged shriek pierced the air.
Elianne whirled to stare at the door to the subterranean chamber. Clucking in agitation, a good part of the crowd behind her surged forward until they were huddled behind the sheriff and his daughter.
"Nay, my lady. This I won't allow," Sir Josce almost shouted, his voice hard.
"Help, help!" the prioress cried, her tone so frantic that Elianne leapt without thinking down the steps, leaving her father behind her. Nuns followed, their urgency driving her into the dark chamber before them.
There was just enough light within to show Elianne that Lady Haydon had left off her vigil at her daughter's side. Now, shoulders heaving, the noblewoman stood at the ice house's center. Gone was her hat. One plait had unraveled open, the stream of her hair down her back colorless in the dark.
Clinging to one of the lady's arms as if to restrain her, Gertha spied Elianne. "Take her arm. Help me stop her," she demanded of the sheriff's daughter.
Elianne did as she was bid, taking Lady Beatrice's other arm but her gaze was on Sir Josce who now stood between his lady and her daughter. His expression was harsh as he watched his noble mistress. "This I will not allow," he told her, his voice hard. "You will not unwind them."
Only then did Elianne see the linen bindings puddled on the floor beneath the nearest cot. Horror woke.
"Nay!" the lady shrieked again, surging toward the cot. The nuns crowded in the chamber jumped and cried out, each in their fashion of shock.
Elianne clung with all her might. Sir Josce was right. The lady couldn't do this. Ice house or not, these corpses were long past their time for burial.
"They must be exposed," the lady ranted, her tone fraught with hysteria. "I want the sheriff to look upon them and see what price his laziness has wrung from me."
Elianne drew a shocked breath at the lady's words. The nuns behind her all went still. She swore she could hear them looking at her. In that instant she understood her father's persistent panic over these last weeks, and it became her own. Deserved or not, her sire would be blamed for these deaths. When her sire arrived at Michaelmas court come September's end, Lady Haydon would make her complaint against him. In doing so the lady would finally give their king just cause to be shed of Reiner, replacing him with his own man as he'd so often done across the land of late. The king would then require her father to pay in full all he owed for the purchase of his position, something Reiner could not do.
They would be ruined.
"You shouldn't blame him. He's done the best he can," Elianne said, driven to speaking by her need to save herself, if not her sire.
Lady Haydon jerked as if struck. She wrenched around to glare at Elianne. "Who would you have me blame, then? Myself?!" she screamed, then gagged.
A moment passed and then another, her mouth opening and closing, but no breath passed into her lungs.
"Holy Mother help us, she can't breathe!" Gertha screamed, releasing her hold on Lady Beatrice in frantic reaction to the lady's distress.
Elianne caught the noblewoman against her, only to stagger under her weight. "Help," she cried to the lady's knight.
Even before Elianne called to him Josce moved. Jesus God, he'd never forgive himself if Beatrice died and made orphans of her two surviving daughters. He tore his father's widow out of Elianne's grasp and gave her a great shake. "Breathe, breathe!" he bellowed.
His shout tore at the unnatural quiet that held this place in thrall. To his astonishment, Beatrice did as he commanded, drawing air into her lungs with a hungry gulp. Then her head dropped forward onto his shoulder. She hung in his arms like one stunned.
"Make way," Josce demanded to those who blocked his path. "Let me bear her from this foul chamber."
With a great rustling the stunned onlookers retreated silently up the stairs. Cradling his stepmother in his arms Josce followed them, Elianne and the tiny prioress at his heels. Once out in the world again, a few steps took him into the shade of an old apple tree. He laid his stepmother upon the thick grass beneath it. Beatrice's face was flaccid in unconsciousness. Each breath strained from her lungs. She looked even grayer now, the marks of her grief all the darker.
The convent folk shuffled around them. A single young nun stepped from their ranks and hurried to join the prioress, who had crouched near his stepmother's head. "May I see to her, Mother?" she asked even as she knelt at Beatrice's side and pressed her hand to his stepmother's chest. Her touch suggested a close acquaintance with illness and its cures.
Elianne came to kneel at Josce's side. "You did it. Your lady breathes again," she whispered to him. Relief filled her voice.
Of a sudden, the urge to take Elianne by the hand and run to the farthest end of this orchard, or at least anywhere but here, woke in Josce. Instead, he studied her hand on the grass next his own. It was capable and strong, her nails neatly pared. Her skin wore a brown stain, no doubt from apples; the smell of the fruit yet wafted from her. From the time Josce had come into the awareness of his manhood, he'd made use of courtesans and chambermaids, peasant lasses and whores. Yet, if he lived into his dotage, he knew he'd never forget the feel of this woman's hand on his. Her simple honest touch at this precarious juncture had offered him more care, comfort and connection than he'd had from any lover's caress.
"Well, there's no fever," said the healer-sister, looking up from Lady Beatrice, a touch of a frown marring her smooth brow as she glanced between him and her prioress. "And her heart beats steady and strong. As near as I can tell, she's but fainted. Of course, I'm not as skilled in such things as is Sister Ada," she added in humble caveat.
"Thank you, Sister Cecilia,' the prioress said, nodding as she eased back on her heels to look at him.
"Sir knight, you've done your noble mistress a great service this day. Now do her one more. Take her in your arms and bear her to our infirmary, where you may leave her, confident that we can heal her."
It was a sensible request. The shame was that he couldn't give her a sensible response. "I cannot," Josce said, with a shake of his head. "Before we arrived, Lady Haydon took from me my solemn vow not to leave her side. You may have her only if I remain with her in your infirmary."
The prioress's mouth pursed. "How ridiculous," she scolded. "You know perfectly well there's no accommodation for you within our walls. Leave her to us and retreat to the guest house to wait, as all male visitors must."
There was no sense arguing, so Josce said nothing.
Mother Gertha's eyes narrowed. "Surely, you cannot be so honor-bound that you'd so strictly interpret such an oath?" she chided.
When had it become wrong to be an honor-bound man who kept his word? Haydon's men had witnessed his oath. Josce would not be forsworn. More to the point, to break his word now was to risk his participation in his father's final rest. Done with this conversation, Josce lifted his stepmother into his arms and came to his fe
et. "I will not," he said.
Soft cries and anxious murmurings broke from the mostly female folk surrounding him. The prioress and Sister Cecilia came swiftly up after him, as did Elianne. He took a backward step.
"What are you doing?" the prioress demanded sharply. Behind the tiny woman, Elianne's brow creased in concern. She shook her head at him, the movement suggesting he should do as the prioress said.
"What else, save keeping his oath and taking his lady away from here," said a man from behind Josce, his deep voice a rough and too-loud rumble in this quiet group of church folk.
Startled, Josce pivoted toward the speaker. Jesu, but how could he have not seen the big heavy-set man dressed in scarlet. Not just any man. Scarlet was an expensive color, as was the fabric onto which the dye had been laid. This could be but one man, the man at fault for his father's death.
"Reiner du Hommet, lord sheriff of this shire," the sheriff said by way of introduction, confirming Josce's assumption. He gave a slight bow of his head, then continued with a wide grin. "I have a solution for your problem."
The sheriff's flippant attitude stirred the fires of rage in Josce, slaughtering all else. "You dare to speak so to me? Incompetent! Idiot! You allowed murderous thieves to run rampant on lands you're sworn to protect. My lord father's death sits upon your soul."
Josce's accusations won no reaction from du Hommet save surprise. "Father?" he asked.
"Father?" Elianne echoed as she moved around Josce to stand beside the sheriff.
Josce glanced between the two. Dressed as a servant Elianne might be, but the resemblance between her and du Hommet was unmistakable. She was no servant, nor any middling merchant's daughter, but the sheriff's child.
Beside her, du Hommet bent heavily, dropping to one knee before Josce. "You are right to curse me," he said, his head bowed. "Your lord sire's death rests upon my shoulders alone. Mea culpa, my fault for not being able to find those accursed thieves."
"Here is what I think of your apology." Josce turned his head and spat, then threw the challenge he'd cherished for the length of his ride to Knabwell. "Incompetent you are, and so says all the world who knows or deals with you. There's not a man at court who doesn't laugh behind his hand over your complaints of wily thieves eluding you. They say you're too lazy to rise from your fat arse and round up the ruffians.
"Well, you'll bestir yourself now, and swiftly so. A fortnight." Josce's need to purge his grief by swinging his sword had made him draft an impossibly short time period for his threat. "That's how long you have to find those thieves and bring them to me so I might dispense to them the justice they deserve. If you cannot produce them, I will have your life instead."
The nuns around him, the prioress included, all gasped at his threat. Not du Hommet. He looked up, his face holding no expression. "Then I will not fail you," he replied flatly.
The reaction drove rage out of Josce. Although he'd never met du Hommet at court, several of his friends had. To a one they'd suggested the man was impulsive and quick to anger when challenged. Josce had expected him to immediately agree to a duel.
The sheriff's brows rose and his face twisted into what Josce guessed was supposed to be pained regret. The expression was so overdone it set his teeth on edge. "Sir knight, I cannot give back to you what you have lost, but perhaps I can ease the burden you now carry," the sheriff said, indicating Lady Haydon. "Take your lady to my manor. Coneytrop lies but a half mile from Knabwell, close enough that the nuns can send their healer to tend Lady Haydon, while you honor your vow to stay at her side."
Du Hommet's words left Josce gasping. Why would any man invite his newly-avowed enemy into his home? He shot a glance at the man's daughter. She was wringing her hands and staring at her sire as if he stood on his head. Her honest fear, the reaction Josce had expected of the sheriff, only set alarm bells to clamoring.
"Call me craven and I'll bear it," du Hommet was saying, as if seeking to persuade. "Call my offer a sop and I'll still extend it. This I do because I know I've failed you and must make right. I will remove myself to the king's castle for the duration of your stay. You have demanded the thieves, and I will find them for you. All the better for me to lead the hunt if I stay close to those
same hunters." As he finished, he bowed his head like some palsied friar.
"But it's harvest time and I cannot leave the manor," his daughter protested, taking a step closer to her sire as she sent a frightened glance in Josce's direction.
Du Hommet jerked his head out of his humble pose. His thick brows were drawn down in irritation. The curt wave of his hand demanded silence of his daughter.
Now, here was the man Josce had heard described at court. Those alarm bells grew louder still. Why did du Hommet want Lord Haydon's kin out of Knabwell? Whatever the reason, it demanded a cooler head than Josce's was now to puzzle it out.
Du Hommet again turned his gaze to Josce. "My daughter is right to suggest she cannot leave while in the midst of putting away our harvest. Might she stay while you dwell in our hall, to see to our bins and cellars?"
His daughter gaped at this. "You cannot leave me with him when he intends to murder you," she cried out, her honest reaction only making her father's contrived responses seem all the more false.
The sheriff wanted Lord Haydon's kin at his manor for his own purposes, and Josce now dearly wanted to know what those might be. "Lead the way, my lord
sheriff, and make haste at it. My lady stepmother needs both bed and care," he commanded.
"She stays with us," the prioress cried out, coming to her feet. Command filled every inch of her as she looked up at Josce. "You will not take her from us, who know and love her."
"We go," Reiner du Hommet said, giving Josce no opportunity to respond. Instead, he waved aside the churchwoman as if she were a troublesome gnat, not a woman of consequence. "The decision had been made. If you want to see to her, send your healer to her at Coneytrop."
The prioress's eyes flew wide. Her jaw tightened until Josce was certain her teeth would shatter under the pressure. She jammed her hands into her wide sleeves and turned her gaze to her hemline.
"I am sworn, my lady," Josce said, not wishing to destroy what affection the churchwoman held for Beatrice. "Since you cannot have me here, I must leave. I have no doubt that once my lady stepmother regains her senses, she'll wish to return."
As he spoke, Josce found himself praying with all his heart that he could convince Beatrice to stay in the sheriff's home, because at that moment there was no place on earth he more wanted to be.
Elianne and the prioress stood just inside the convent gate, while beyond the guest house nuns and Haydon's men prepared transport for the still senseless Lady Haydon. At Mother Gertha's command both of the priory's healers, Sister Ada and Sister Cecilia, would accompany Lady Haydon on this last and unexpected leg of her journey. Never comfortable in the churchwoman's presence, Elianne dared a swift and curious glance at her now. The prioress stood with an unnatural stillness, her head bowed over her clasped fingers.
At just that moment, Sir Adelm strode around the house's corner. With the day's somber event, Adelm eschewed his usual military trappings for a muted brown gown that made his hair seem more silver than grayed. The thick fabric lent softness to a face that was naught but harsh crags and forceful angles.
Behind him walked her father. Elianne's stomach soured as she recognized the satisfaction in her father's expression. Betrayer! Liar! After so many years of warning her against strange men, her sire abandoned her to one without so much as a fare-thee-well.
As they stopped beside Elianne, the prioress lifted her head. Elianne caught a startled breath. Cold rage filled Mother Gertha's face. Adelm's brows quirked upward, just a little, as he
looked upon the prioress. Although not many would recognize this movement as a reaction, Elianne knew him better than any other. This was more worry than she'd ever before seen upon his face. There was none of that concern in her father's face.
/> The prioress's breath hissed from her. "May God forgive me for it, but I pray the devil takes your soul, Reiner du Hommet," she snarled quietly. "How dare you undermine my authority by offering your home after I commanded that Haydon's bastard leave his lady at the priory?"
Reiner's eyes widened in surprise at her attack; then, as always happened when he confronted something he didn't wish to face, he found refuge behind the shield of outrage. He thrust out his chest and threw back his head. "What is this?" he demanded. "You snarl and snap now, when the time for disagreeing with my suggestion was at the ice house?"
"Oh, but you would have relished that," Gertha shot back. "Me, bickering with you where my own folk might witness. Nay, I'll give you no further opportunity to publicly subvert my authority, or anything else. I won't have you or any of yours in my domain. From this day on, our doors are closed to you and your kin."
"You wouldn't dare! I am the king's agent," Reiner bellowed.
Elianne shot her father a surprised look. He sounded fair frantic at this threat. "Much to our shire's degradation. Know that my complaint against you will be at court before you," the prioress retorted, then pivoted and stormed back into what was her own fiefdom.
Elianne's hope of sanctuary here shattered with the churchwoman's words. She whirled on her sire, fear for herself and her future destroying all caution. "What have you done?" she cried, her voice shrill. "You've destroyed me. Without refuge here, I'll have to whore to feed myself after your passing."
"How dare you speak so to me," her father retorted, then gave her a goodly shove toward the guest house corner, propelling her a few feet from him. "Still your tongue and get around yon corner to join Haydon's troop for the journey home."
Elianne wheeled on him, closing the distance between them with a single long step. "I won't! I won't go home, not when both Lady Haydon and her stepson have pronounced themselves your enemies."
The Warrior's Maiden (The Warriors Series Book 2) Page 4