She ran straight into his arms. Her gown was damp with sweat, her hair in wild disarray. He held her for a moment. Her fingers clutched his tunic, and her body quivered against his. He ran a hand over her cheek.
“Please. Can you come with me? Ivo is missing.”
“Ivo? The old man who used to be a cleric in the castle?”
“Aye. Dismissed by the bishop. A cleric. I’ve come from the baker’s where he was lodged, and they said he ran out very suddenly and has not come back.”
“Perhaps he had business to attend to.”
She shook her head. “He said to Estrild, the baker’s wife, that he must see me. That was hours ago. He has missed his supper.”
“Perhaps he’s at the fair and you’ve missed him.”
“Nay. He told Estrild he hated all the bustle. The noise. Nay. He said he must see me. He said he regretted not telling me something. He said perhaps it would help him get his position back.”
“Could he have gone to your cottage? Does Nat know where you are? Surely, he’ll direct this Ivo that you have gone to the village after him?”
“I’ve been home, and back to the baker’s, and home again and even—” She broke off.
“Even?”
“To the hall. To inquire after him. No one has seen him. He’s a very frail old man—ten years Nat’s senior.”
“Then, by all means, let us find him.” There was no denying her. No denying the urgency or concern in her voice.
She took his hand and tugged him along the path, back to the village, and the baker’s. He remembered the place, though he doubted the same man ran the ovens. The baker of his time had been a bluff, leathery man, baked as dry as an old crust.
They questioned Estrild a moment, a woman who immediately fell to bowing and scraping when he arrived. She repeated what Joan had said and added that Ivo had been muttering and rocking over his pot of ale before rising and running out.
“Which way did he go?”
“I canna say. Just out.”
Adam took Joan’s elbow and led her toward the village well. There, a group of seven small boys were crouched, tossing pebbles and shoving each other back and forth.
“How would you boys like to earn a few pennies?”
Their eyes went round, and they nodded in mute agreement. “We’re looking for an old man. He is…” He glanced at Joan, who took over.
“He’s this tall.” She held her hand at her shoulder height. “He has white hair and is very old. He is—was the bishop’s clerk, so he will be wearing a priest’s robe.”
“He may be somewhere in the village still, or even at the fair. The first one to find him will earn an extra penny.” Adam placed a hand to the purse suspended at his waist.
The boys exchanged looks, then dashed off, each in a different direction. Adam took Joan’s arm. “They’ll not be long at the game. While they are gone, we will think of other places he could be.”
“I’ve looked everywhere.”
“Could he have walked to a monastery?”
“He has not the stamina.”
“But would he attempt the journey?”
He slid his hand down her arm to take her hand as he had in the forest. She did not stand at ease.
A shriek drew them at a run toward the baker’s cottage. One of the boys stood there, his hand outstretched toward the ovens, his face so white he looked ghostly.
Adam set the boy aside and strode into the baker’s yard, to the three ovens that, even now, were steaming a bit as the air cooled around them.
Behind him, Joan’s gasp told him she had seen what the boy had. A foot protruded from between two ovens.
She rushed forward, then whirled around, and crashed into Adam’s chest. She buried her face in the wool of his tunic.
Adam took her by the upper arms and held her away. “I’ll see to this. Take the boy off and give him and his friends their reward.” He folded her hands around his purse.
Her eyes were huge, dark, glistening with tears for the old man who lay so crumpled and shrunken in death.
“Are you able?” he asked.
She nodded and hiccuped. He skimmed her cheek with the back of his fingers, wiped the tears away. Then he touched her lips briefly, gently with his fingertips, and turned her. He pointed her toward the gaping boys.
When he saw she was handling the children, he returned to the ovens. Ivo lay behind one oven. Except for the incongruous place of his demise, the man looked peacefully asleep. Upon closer examination, Adam saw a dark patch of blood in the old man’s white hair. The skull beneath the spot felt spongy. He’d not died naturally.
With a prayer for Ivo’s soul, Adam rose and found Joan alone at the well, the boys run off he was sure, to spread the grisly news.
She came into his embrace as if she belonged there.
“He was so kind. A gentle soul.”
“Shhh,” he said. “He’s with God.”
“Do you think he became confused?” she asked. “I don’t understand how he could come to be—”
“We’ll take him back to the keep. There are two physicians there—for those who might be injured in the tournament. They’ll look after him. I want you to remain here until I see the sheriff.”
She nodded against his chest, then took a deep, shuddering breath. Inside the baker’s cottage, her hands shook when she tried to light a wick in a dish of oil.
“What was he to you?” he asked.
“He was Nat’s friend. He clerked here for at least thirty years. The bishop dismissed him.”
She swayed. He came around the table and held her shoulders. He combed his fingers slowly through the silky mass of her hair. He smoothed it from her brow, her neck, and down her back.
She shivered. Her damp gown clung to her body, molded her breasts. He chafed her arms by running his palms up and down her sleeves. Without thought he drew her in again. She pressed against him. He felt her breasts on his chest, her thighs against his. It seemed natural and right to comfort her. The sound of voices in the lane forced their situation upon him.
“You’re to wait here until I return for you.”
He left the baker’s cottage and walked quickly through the village to the stone manor house of the sheriff and his wife. The sheriff was at the fair. It took another quarter hour to locate the man. In a few terse words, he informed the sheriff of Ivo’s death and that he was taking the body back to the castle.
The sheriff provided a cart and a donkey to pull it. With as much respect as possible, Adam lifted the old man into the back of the cart, then he returned for Joan.
She walked at his side toward the castle. The fair, still raging though the hour of darkness was nigh, mocked their task.
Halfway up the castle road, their fingers brushed, and she took his hand as if he’d offered it. There, between two torches, in the shadows, no man or beast save the donkey to see them, they stood, fingers entwined.
He lifted her hand and kissed her fingers. He kept his mouth there, breathing in the scent of her skin. Heat and desire for her warred with a need to comfort her and yet, he must keep his distance.
Shouting turned his attention. He urged her behind the cart. “Remain here.”
The shouting men came to them. He saw who it was, three of his company, in their cups, shoving each other. Lambert, Claude, Eilart. A woman, a whore by the look of her, screamed when Lambert drew his dagger.
More daggers appeared as the other two prepared to challenge Lambert for the woman. Adam swept his sword from its scabbard and in three long strides reached them.
Two of the men backed off, sheathing their daggers, but Lambert clutched the woman and shook his head. “She’s mine. Bought and paid for.”
“You were under orders, were you not? Another drunken incident and you would be dismissed?” Adam spoke mildly, aware of Joan only a few feet away.
Lambert spat on the ground.
Adam slashed his blade across the man’s hand—he shrieked and dropped his dagger
. The man’s cry of pain pierced the drunkenness of the others. They froze, eyes rolling from their friend’s bloody hand to him.
“You are gone, Lambert. You know I tolerate only one lapse and you had it in Lincoln. Get your wound stitched, then take yourself from Ravenswood. Do not wait for the light. If I find you anywhere on the manor, you’ll find my blade less merciful.”
Joan sagged against the cart. She looked as hunted as any doe held at bay.
He gave his men more orders. “Pay off this woman for her trouble, take Lambert for stitching, then find your beds. At dawn, report to the stables and exercise the horses, and there you will remain until you find my favor again.”
Eilart placed his hand on his sword hilt. Adam lifted his and approached within thrusting distance. He was aware that every word he said reached Joan’s ears.
“If you wish to protest, do it now,” he told Eilart. “You are one of my company or you are not.”
The man withdrew his hand. He tossed a purse to the woman and put his arm about Lambert’s shoulder.
Adam sheathed his sword. The whore gripped his sleeve. “They was set on cheatin’ me,” she said. “Yer a brave man to go one agin three.”
“They’re my men, and I owe you an apology for their behavior. How they act reflects on me.”
The woman ran off, purse clutched to her chest, and his men lurched up the castle road. He realized he was now one man short to take the tournament field. He must find a replacement immediately or forfeit.
Joan looked as if a high wind had buffeted her. He read her thoughts. He touched the small, pathetic shape of Ivo. “They did not do this.”
He tried to take her arm, but she shook him off.
“My men may drink too much and fight over women, but they do not hit scholarly men over the head.”
It was an oblique reference to her own father’s death, and he regretted reminding her. She smoothed the covering over Ivo’s body.
“My men did not do this,” he repeated.
She turned around and looked at him. The wind whipped her skirt against her body, her hair across her cheeks.
“You are one of them—a mercenary—are you not?” Her voice was barely audible. A whisper on the wind.
What would it serve to try to justify the manner he’d used to rise or the men he chose as his companions on the way? There were good men in all companies. And ill.
“I am,” he said.
Chapter Fourteen
This time, as Adam and Joan walked the final half league up to the castle gates, they did not touch, not the hem of her skirt to his boot, nor the brush of her shoulder to his.
The gatekeeper summoned the bishop’s dean, who made a face of irritation, then left to fetch the priest. Joan stood watch over the cart until finally, the priest came from the chapel. Within moments, Ivo was gone.
Adam stood awkwardly by the empty cart.
Joan spoke to him in the same level tone she had used with the priest. “Thank you for your care of Ivo. He was a good man. Now, I must tell Nat what happened.”
“Joan.”
“It is best we not—”
“Say any more?”
She nodded and in a moment was absorbed into the last rays of the sunlight, a slender sylph of green against the harsh gray of stone walls.
* * * * *
Joan broke her fast after chapel the next morning with an apple and cup of warm wine. She forced herself to think of her duties. Nat had already received his orders from the bishop. Despite a torrential rain, a score of deer must to be taken to feed the men who accompanied the suitors as well as the many merchants and craftsmen drawn to the castle for the fair.
The suitors would not dine on venison. They were to have roasted swan with apples and pears stewed in spiced wine.
Joan combed her hair. The comb, made of horn and delicately etched with flowers, had been her mother’s. It, and the other treasures, a faded blue ribbon, a needle case made of ivory from the Holy Land, were all she had as mementos.
Like the ribbon, the faces of her parents were faded in her mind, overlaid with the image of them lying in blood, faces contorted in pain and death. Time had not faded those images a whit.
“It was more than ten years ago,” she said to the lymer curled under the table. “And yet, I blamed Adam for his men’s behavior and them for that deed done to my family so long ago.”
She set out a trencher for Nat along with a cup for his warm wine. He would need it. A drip drew her attention. Repairing the thatch would be another chore for when the suitors left. How many pennies would that take?
Rain hissed in upon the hearth to sizzle on the roaring fire.
Adam Quintin would leave with the others. Why did it matter? Why was she so confused? One moment she hated all he stood for. The next… It did not bear thinking of.
Could a man be faulted for making his way as best he could?
The door opened with a bang.
“Mars is missing,” Nat said. The rain ran off his mantle and hair.
“Mars? Do you mean Matthew?” She pushed the door closed against the wind.
“Nay, did I say Matthew? I mean Basil.”
“How? When?”
“Since we went out to set the hunt. I fear the worst.”
Joan handed Nat a drying cloth and took his mantle. “He can’t have gotten out on his own.”
Nat rubbed the rain from his face and hands. “Aye, those damned kennel men and the lads were gambling and drinking last night, by the bishop’s leave, they say. Now, someone has stolen our best dog. I’d like to toss the lot o’ them.” He gave a quick glance to the door. “And the bishop. Thank God yon maid will pick a husband and Gravant will go back to his palace.”
Joan bit her lip. “Do you think Oswald might have taken Basil? He might want to see the hunt go badly and then put himself forward.”
Nat paused in the act of drying his neck. “Oswald? The new alaunt?”
“Nay,” she said, handing him a wooden cup of ale. “Oswald Red-hair. Lord Roger’s hunt master. If Roger wins Mathilda, we’ll have Oswald to deal with.”
“He’ll want my place.” Nat said it as if it had only just occurred to him. His forehead puckered into a frown. “We canna let that happen, child. Is Oswald the one whose dogs shrink when a man raises his voice?”
“Aye.”
“Then we’ve naught to worry about. I’ve just to tell Mathilda the man’s got cruelty in ‘im and she’ll send him on his way.”
Joan knew it would not be so simple. “If it was Oswald that took Basil, he’ll not succeed in making trouble. Matthew is ready to stand in Basil’s place—”
“He’s too young, apt to run off on a diversion.”
She had more confidence in the lymer’s abilities. Nat had not watched the dog’s rapid progress with her hand signals, and only the youngest alaunt, Simon, was fiercer in guarding her.
“We’ll find Basil, then. I’ll look now.”
Nat sank to a stool and cut some of the cold meat pie. “This on top of Ivo. It makes me feel old.”
“You’re not old, Papa.”
“At least we have rain today and Mathilda will not want to ride out, though she wants games and singing in the hall. And Ivo scarce dead a day.”
There was naught to be done about Nat’s grief over Ivo. The masses they would say for his soul must ease some of the pain. Basil, however, was another matter.
She touched Nat’s shoulder. “All will be well, Papa. I’ll find Basil, I know it.”
His bowed shoulders rose and fell in a dispirited shrug. “If ye say so, child.”
His crisp, curly hair was thinning across the crown, the skin showing through spotted with age.
“Would ye go out and look for him…now? I’ll take Matthew and see if we’ve a stag still in the valley.”
Joan glanced at Nat’s mantle. The cloth steamed gently before the fire, draped on a bench. He should not get wet.
“If Basil’s been let loose or gotten
out on his own, he might be scavenging in the village.” Although she said it, she did not believe it.
The dog was disciplined. He would not wander far or miss his daily bread. She felt a shiver of unease. “If Oswald took him, or one of his men, as he might not risk doing the deed himself, then I will complain to the bishop. Put on dry clothes, Papa.”
Nat stood up, his eyes bright. “First I’ll see to those idle huntsmen and fewterers who’ll do naught but game in the hall if not given some task.”
She helped him on with his mantle, putting the pin straight, then donned her own.
“I set great store by that dog.” Nat shook his head. “I remember when I brought him from Winchester. He was all paws and tail.”
It was not so. Basil was born and raised on Ravenswood.
Joan accompanied Nat to the kennel, where he handed out work to the idle men, the kind of work that was saved for just such a day as this: repair of collars and leashes, training of the younger dogs, construction of bed racks.
After casting about the perimeter of the kennel for some sign of Basil, a paw print perhaps, as the dog had a slit across his right fore paw, one that might leave a telltale impression, she walked slowly through the inner and outer bailey.
The air held a tang of wood smoke from the many fires burning about the tents. Their smoke twisted low to the ground. Men huddled inside, or near fires, few doing more than stirring something over their reluctant flames.
She gave a whistle now and again, but no hound crept from behind a building or tent, sheepishly hanging his head for escaping his kennel. As rain filled the impressions left by her pattens, she knew it was useless to search for paw prints.
“I’ll see those boys thrashed,” she muttered, as she drew her hood close about her cheeks. “Half the night in the village, still half drunk this morn. And with the bishop’s say so. Who is he to interfere in our work? Now, we’ve lost a valuable animal.” As she said it, she knew Basil was just as much a friend to Nat as Ivo had been.
She thought of Oswald making his claims that Nat was incompetent, citing the wagering as evidence along with the missing of the lymer, and realized they’d lost more than just a dependable dog. Yet she could not quite bring herself to think of the dog as stolen. It meant a deliberate plot.
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