The Slayer's Redemption

by Marliss Melton

  The Slayer shrugged and, putting a hand beneath her elbow, assisted her up the dais steps. The latent power in his fingertips sent a private thrill up her arm.

  She greeted the master-at-arms with outward confidence. “Good day, Sir Roger. It appears you plan to go hunting,” she added.

  His brown eyes glimmered with intent. “Indeed I am, damsel,” he replied. “Do you like to hunt?”

  “I enjoy the challenge as much as any man,” came her retort.

  “Would you care to come with me today?”

  “I’m afraid I have a baron to watch,” she replied, bemused by the offer. “I have vowed to protect him every moment I am awake and even whilst sleeping.”

  He acknowledged her reply with a nod. “Please sit,” he said, holding out a chair.

  Both men helped to push the heavy chair into place. The Slayer seated himself on her left side, boxing her into the space between them. Only then did she realize she was seated in the lady’s chair.

  What game were they up to? Her heart beat erratically as she assessed the reaction of the pages carrying out the meal. Several of the servants had paused in their labors to frown at her.

  “Gentlemen,” she said, addressing her companions under her breath. “You do the servants an injustice by seating me here. Kindly seat me elsewhere,” she insisted.

  “We have questions to put to you,” the Slayer replied in the same steely tone. “And we would both do so at once.”

  She swallowed against her suddenly dry mouth. “Suit yourselves,” she said, propping Simon upon her lap so he could stare at the fleur de lis pattern on the table linen. “If your servants are displeased, I warrant you they will find a way to let you know,” she added. “I just hope they don’t take it out on me.”

  Sir Roger and his lord shared looks.

  “Let us eat,” the Slayer growled.

  He nodded at the waterbearer, and the boy approached them with the bowl to dip their fingers. Clarisse noted Peter’s tremulous grip on the basin and heaved an inward sigh. Here was another servant afraid of his master.

  Pages swarmed into the hall, carrying meat swimming in gravy that smelled strongly of thyme. Thanks to Maeve’s efficiency, the food was still steaming. However, Clarisse’s appetite had dwindled. She regarded the trencher of venison, boiled in milk and barley, and wondered how she would eat it.

  As he had done yesterday, Sir Roger cut their trencher in half, giving her the choicest portion of the fare. The Slayer received an entire trencher for himself. She had scarcely taken a bite when he nudged her with his shoulder and said, “I visited the abbey yesterday.”

  Knowing that already, she nodded and kept chewing, though his casual touch had caused her stomach to churn.

  “There is an inscription over one of the doors,” he added in a thoughtful tone. “It bears your name—Crucis.”

  Her heart forgot to beat. Could a simple word give her away? “In truth?” she murmured, affecting a bored voice.

  On her right side, Sir Roger called her name. “Dame Clare, what was that song the minstrel sang to you yesterday?”

  The men weren’t wasting any time in their interrogation. “’Twas ‘The Fiery- Haired Lady,’” she answered. “Have you never heard it?”

  “Perhaps I have. The words sounded different this time.”

  She had nothing to say to that observation.

  “Did you know the minstrel?” the Slayer persisted.

  “I cannot say that I did.”

  “You cannot say?” Sir Roger asked. “Or you did not know him? Please be clearer in your answer, lady.”

  She laid down her spoon abruptly. “Yes, let us be perfectly frank with one another,” she said, desiring to put an end to the game of cat and mouse before they shook her up so irrevocably that she couldn’t think clearly. “The minstrel knew me, it seems, but I do not recall ever knowing him, and I will never see him again, thanks to your lord’s enthusiasm with a blade.”

  To her satisfaction, her sarcasm had the effect she had hoped it would. With an indrawn breath, the Slayer fell silent.

  “My encounter with the man was merely circumstantial,” she continued. “The mockery that he made of me with his song deserved a good tongue-lashing, and that is what I gave him.”

  Her forthright answer left Sir Roger silent, as well, but only for a moment. “What was it about his song, Dame Clare, that so displeased you?” he asked.

  With a twinge of remorse, she spoke the lies she had invented in the wee hours thanks to the nattering servants. “’Twas a reference to my past, sire. The minstrel knew me as Clare de Bouvais. I was once Richard Monteign’s paramour.”

  The silence that followed her pronouncement brought color streaking to her cheeks. She was certain every ear in the great hall had overheard her. Pages froze with interest. The men-at-arms quit guzzling their beer to peer over the tops of their mugs. She could only imagine the expressions on her companions’ faces, as she could not bring herself to look at them.

  Sir Roger cleared his throat. “Lady Clare de Bouvais?” he asked, clearly recognizing the prestigious surname.

  Clarisse was pleased to hear his chagrin. “Aye, Sir Roger. I am Alec’s second cousin—the daughter of a third son who was cousin to Lord Monteign.” It was, in fact, Isabeau de Bouvais who’d been Alec’s cousin, but she couldn’t give herself a different name at that point.

  “But how did you ... ?”

  “Become his preferred companion?” she finished when he floundered for the words. She wondered how many paternosters she would have to say to be forgiven her lies. “I came to my uncle’s keep when I was only eight. After my aunt died, I was the only female remaining in the household. I regret to say that Monteign turned his sights on me.”

  Following these daring words, Clarisse counted the heavy beats of her heart. One, two, three, four. She prayed her story would be believed, for much of it was based on fact. Isabeau, who had lived with the family for years, had left in disgrace and with child, only it was the stable master who had compromised her, not Monteign.

  To her left, the Slayer hissed a stream of deprecations under his breath. She had clearly provoked an emotion in him so strong as to be nearly palpable.

  Sir Roger persisted with his questions. “Why didn’t you tell us this earlier?” he demanded. “Why accept the lot of a peasant when your blood entitles you to more?” He sounded offended on her behalf.

  Clarisse had foreseen that very question. “When I told you that I hailed from Glenmyre, Sir Roger, I saw suspicion in your eyes. You thought I had come to avenge Monteign’s death. I assure you that my uncle meant very little to me.”

  The Slayer spoke forcefully on her left. “You spoke highly enough of him the other night,” he accused. The thunder in his tone gave Simon a start. The baby’s face crumpled, and he began to wail.

  “Kindly lower your voice, my lord,” Clarisse scolded. Scooping Simon off her lap, she turned him to look over her shoulder as she patted his back. “Monteign was good to his people—in that I did not lie. But I hold no allegiance to a man who compromised my virtue.”

  Her words reduced the men to silence a second time. The noises in the hall seemed to echo off the bare walls as she waited for their response. The Slayer took a swig of his wine. Sir Roger cut a piece of venison in half.

  “Why did you call yourself Clare Crucis?” the master-at-arms finally asked.

  “’Tis obvious. Six months ago, I went to the abbey for protection, along with my cousin Alec. I stayed until the illness—” she stuttered over the next few words, finding them the hardest to say— “until my infant took ill and died. I took my name from the inscription at the abbey, rather than use my given name.”

  “Yet why make up a name?” the knight demanded. “Why not return to your family to help you?”

  “My family has cast me out,” she said, adding another lie to the list she’d already spoken, for the real Isabeau had, in fact, gone home. “I am no longer marriageable. They have n
o use for me,” she added quickly.

  “Because you bore a child,” Sir Roger stated.

  “Just so.” Of all her lies, those about having a dead babe caused her the most distress.

  “Are you certain it died of the scourge?”

  “Leave her be!” the Slayer suddenly interrupted, causing Simon’s little body to jerk in surprise. He started to cry again, only to grow calm as Clarisse patted him and spoke in a soothing voice.

  Out the corner of her eye, she regarded the Slayer’s thunderous profile. He glared down at the spoon in his hand. It looked in danger of being crushed in his grip.

  “Leave her be,” he repeated, more quietly.

  Sir Roger ducked his head and dug wordlessly into his portion of the trencher.

  The meal progressed in silence with Clarisse partaking very little. At the end of the table, Edgar belched and patted his belly. Harold slurped the broth off his spoon. Both the lord of the castle and his master-at-arms remained silent, and Clarisse gave thanks for that, as she would sooner blurt the truth than speak one more falsehood.

  Spying the ewer of spiced wine making its way to the table and signaling the meal’s end, she breathed a silent sigh of relief. The tension swirling about her had made the rest of the meal intolerable. She planned to enjoy a sip of wine and then excuse herself, citing the need to feed Simon. The men would desire privacy, of course, in which to discuss her latest revelations.

  Peter edged along the back of the dais filling their goblets one by one. Clarisse watched him reach out and pick up the cup she shared with Roger. A stream of garnet liquid rushed into the vessel from the pitcher. She could not have predicted any more than Peter that the gyrfalcon would suddenly flare his wings, knocking the youth’s arm aside.

  The newly filled goblet sprang from Peter’s grasp. Wine spattered Clarisse’s chest and Simon’s backside. The bronze goblet bounced musically from the table to the dais to the floor.

  The baby wailed in distress. Clarisse gasped in surprise. The gyrfalcon, panicked by the noise, beat his powerful wings to escape the chaos, but his jesses held him fast.

  “Clumsy youth!” Sir Roger scolded, attempting to calm the raptor.

  The Slayer rose to his feet, looming like a thundercloud. Clarisse took one look at the ashen page and shot to her feet to protect him. “’Twas not his fault,” she declared.

  The warrior ran an astonished look over her soiled gown. The men-at-arms ogled the scene from the benches below. Servants froze in expectation of violence.

  The Slayer’s gaze cut to Peter. “Clean up this mess,” he ordered, jerking his head. As the page reached for the linens Dame Maeve held out to him, he nearly spilled the rest of the wine.

  “’Twas not his fault,” Clarisse repeated, snatching the ewer out of his grasp and setting it on the table.

  The boy stuttered his apologies and started sopping up the mess.

  The Slayer frowned down at her, and she realized it was neither the spilled wine nor the ruined gown that irked him. No, it had more to do with his having to accept her new identity. As a noblewoman, her behavior toward him and to his servants no doubt made more sense. Yet she saw anger, even loathing in his eyes, and it frightened her.

  “You will need a new gown,” he stated more quietly, taking in her sodden bodice while another, similarly primal emotion flashed in his eyes.

  It was then that she realized her gown was molded to her breasts, making her nipples clearly visible beneath the wet fabric. Christian de la Croix had noticed, as, no doubt, had most of the males in the great hall. Clarisse angled the babe across her chest to guard against their staring.

  “Come,” the Slayer said, indicating she and the babe should leave the table.

  Sir Roger stood as they skirted past his ruffled falcon. “My apologies, my lady,” he mumbled. Yet one glance at his inscrutable expression and she knew he hadn’t accepted her tale wholeheartedly.

  She patted his shoulder as she passed him. “Rest assured that I came here for protection, nothing more,” she said convincingly. At least that was the case now that she would not do Ferguson’s bidding.

  “Then you are safe here,” he called to her retreating back.

  Heartened, Clarisse peeked over at the Slayer’s expression only to question whether that was true. She did not feel particularly safe in this man’s presence, especially now that a predatory silence cloaked him. She felt threatened by the simple touch of his fingertips as he curled them about her elbow, helping her down from the dais.

  “Lady de Bouvais,” he said, almost mockingly, as they crossed the hall toward the sweeping staircase. “I will send more gowns to your chamber. You may choose those that please you.”

  His narrowed gaze dared her to decline his generous offer.

  “How kind,” she murmured, wondering at his motives. Did the Slayer assume, because of her story, that she was now his leman by default? Pray God that was not the case.

  Peter rushed toward them with the heavy cradle and the clear question on his open face whether he should be the one to accompany her and the wee baron. Nodding her acquiescence, she turned and led the youth up the steps toward her chamber.

  She wished she could shake the niggling suspicion that she had just dug herself a deeper hole.

  Clarisse studied the gowns Nell had draped on every bit of furniture in her room. The chest, the bed, and the new dressing partition were covered in garments fit for a queen. Dyed every shade and color of nature—blue, orange, saffron, purple, and green—the gowns were fashioned from the finest wool and linen. Shot with silver thread or embroidered with ribbons, tassels, and lace, even precious silk, each one came with matching slippers, all a bit too big. She had never seen such luxurious attire in her life.

  “Did they belong to Lady Genrose?” she asked with growing reluctance.

  “Oh, nay, m’lady,” Nell assured her. “These belonged to Lady Genrose’s mother, the baroness. She loved to look the part, if ye know what I mean.”

  Clarisse recalled the rumor that the Slayer had killed the baron and his wife on their pilgrimage to Canterbury.

  Nell kept talking, unaware of her thoughts. “Lady Genrose wore naught but gray and black.”

  “She was mourning her parents, no doubt,” Clarisse supplied.

  “Nay, I mean that’s all she ever wore. She desired to be a nun, you see. But as the baron’s only child, she had no choice but to marry.”

  “How did her mother, the baroness, die?” she asked pretending ignorance and wanting to hear Nell’s version of the story as she ran her finger over the embroidered bodice of a saffron gown.

  “Whilst on pilgrimage,” the girl predictably answered. “She and the baron got nay farther than Tewksbury when they fell fiercely ill. ’Twas the food they ate in an inn, someone said. An awful way to die, do ye not agree?”

  Clarisse gave a delicate shiver. “Wholeheartedly.”

  “Which will ye wear first, m’lady?” Nell prompted, eager to test her wings as a lady’s maid.

  Clarisse deliberated a moment. Accepting these gowns from Christian de la Croix meant embracing the lies she had told at the midday meal. In wearing them, she would be acknowledging her social status as a noblewoman. But did he also expect her to be his concubine?

  “This one,” she decided, liking the way the saffron sleeves fell away at the elbows and hung down on either side.

  “Perfect!” Nell exclaimed.

  Clarisse withdrew behind the dressing partition that had been dragged into her chamber by two young boys. She peeled off the sodden turquoise gown, which the servants would have to clean or replace its bodice with a new panel. Then she submitted to Nell’s pampering as the maid wiped her down with lavender water. Before Nell could catch a glimpse of the pale stripes across her back, Clarisse tugged on a clean chemise. The marks that Ferguson had placed there would be hard to explain in light of her story.

  Moments later Clarisse examined her reflection in the looking glass. The mirror was too s
mall to tell her much about the gown’s fit, but the saffron color turned her eyes to liquid gold. In truth, I do look more like a leman than a nurse now, came the troubling thought.

  “Ye look lovely, lady,” Nell enthused, unaware of her mistress's thoughts. “I knew ye was gentry the moment I laid eyes on ye. Wille ye still be wantin’ to come with the servants to Abingdon on Friday?” she asked.

  Clarisse was counting on it. Everything she had done and said depended on her ability to reach Alec. “I would like to, very much,” she answered. Whether the Slayer would let her go was another question altogether.

  Nell chattered enthusiastically as she combed her lady’s hair. Clarisse, who had begun to fear that she would never be left alone, was relieved to hear a knock at the door.

  Her maid went to answer it. “My lord,” she squeaked, stepping to one side.

  The Slayer ducked beneath the lintel and drew up short. Clarisse experienced his stare as a bolt of lightning striking her from the sky.

  “I wish to speak with you,” he said in a voice that was oddly reserved.

  “That will be all, Nell,” she told the girl, who slipped out of the chamber immediately, wisely leaving the door ajar. Clarisse stood up from her seat on the chest, feeling her hair swing softly at her hips and wishing Nell had had time to plait it. To her relief, the predatory glint had left the warrior’s eyes. In its place was a brooding thoughtfulness.

  He looked away to locate Simon. Approaching the cradle, he studied the rise and fall of his baby’s back as he slept. Clarisse had found sufficient time to feed him before Nell’s arrival with the gowns.

  “So peaceful,” he remarked in an envious tone. He lifted his gaze and caught her curious regard. “I came to apologize,” he admitted unexpectedly.

  She cut him short. “Sir Christian, you have been most generous with me. Please, say no more.” Apologize! She felt her neck grow warm with shame. For pity’s sake, she had gone to the man’s home to murder him. And now, all she had done was to deceive him yet again.