Lord of Midnight

by Jo Beverley

  At the beginning, she supposed. Stylus in hand, she went in search of the guards on duty the night that Ulric had returned home. One of them was in the guard hut, repairing some piece of leather equipment. “I was on the walk, lady,” he said, pushing a thick needle through the skin. “Osric was manning the portal gate and spoke to him. He’s up on duty now.”

  Claire climbed the steep ladder to the wooden walk along the inside of the palisade. Up high, the wind was brisk and rather pleasant, for the day was heavily hot. Claire paused to look over the countryside, spread like a woven cloth before them. How peaceful and fruitful it was—except for the clash and bang of warlike training just below.

  She turned her back on that and walked over to the guard.

  The man bowed. “Lady Claire?”

  “You spoke to Ulric when he arrived the other night?”

  “Aye, lady. I was down at the gate that night.”

  Stylus poised, Claire asked, “What exactly did he say?”

  The man screwed up his face. “Very little as I remember, lady. It was a bit of a start, him turning up like that. I think I said something like, ‘Ulric! Where’ve you been, man? We thought you dead.’ ”

  “And what did he say to that?”

  He thought some more then nodded. “He said something about being left for dead.”

  Claire dug the words into the wax. “Someone had attacked him?”

  “Dunno, lady.”

  “Did he seem wounded?”

  “Nay. Dead weary, and probably with sore feet, but not wounded.”

  Claire smoothed out the bit about an attack. “Where did he go when he passed through the gates?”

  “He just sort of stood there, lady, as if he didn’t know rightly where to go. But Ralph—he always has an ear out for anything happening—he popped out of the guardhouse to tell him there was a feast going on, and plenty to eat and drink in the hall. Ulric looked right surprised.

  “Surprised?” She made another note.

  The man looked away uneasily. “Well, lady, he surely knew about Lord Clarence’s death …”

  “Oh, I see. So, what did Ulric do then?’

  The guard dug deeper into his memory. “I think he said, ‘They’re celebrating the lord’s death?’ Something like that. I said, ‘Not the death, the betrothal. Lady Claire’s marrying the new lord, this Renald de Lisle that the king sent here.’ ”

  “And what did he say to that?” Claire could imagine what a shock it must have been.

  The man shook his head. “Nothing, lady. He just stared at us, then turned and tramped off toward the hall.”

  Claire made a few more notes then looked out over the countryside again, thinking. She was assuming that Ulric had known about de Lisle, but maybe he’d been separated from her father before the end. It was hard to imagine. Ulric had been fiercely attached to Lord Clarence.

  But why then hadn’t he stormed into the hall to denounce the murderer? He must have hated Renald de Lisle as much as she did.

  As much as she should.

  A change in sound drew her attention down, down to the military training below. The mixed noises had stopped, leaving only a rhythmic one almost like music, like a drum.

  Stripped to the waist, Renald de Lisle was disintegrating the tree trunk. Massive muscles flexed in his back as he hacked—front-stroke, back-stroke, down-stroke and up—with his dark sword. Light on his feet, he circled the tree in a macabre dance, each strike fatal if the target had been a man.

  As in the sword dance at their betrothal, Claire was snared by a terrible beauty in these deadly skills.

  At last he stopped, leaving some wood for the others, but not much, and turned, flipping back hair obviously soaked with sweat. Sucking in breaths, he looked up and froze, seeing her there. Abruptly, he turned and drove the sword to quiver deep in the heart of the wood.

  Claire turned and fled down the narrow ladder to solid ground, shuddering from a gesture she could not begin to understand.

  It took time to steady herself, to pull back from horror, but then she regained her purpose, and with even greater intensity. She needed to destroy Renald de Lisle before he destroyed her.

  Reading over her notes, she didn’t feel much farther forward. It was perhaps strange that Ulric hadn’t rushed in to protest the union, but he’d always been taciturn and slow to act.

  Ulric must have been a lad of about Thomas’s age when he’d been made servant to the baby Clarence. Despite the age difference and lifelong attachment, he’d never tried to meddle in her father’s decisions. He’d certainly said nothing about Lord Clarence’s plans to join the rebels, simply packed the bags and had the armor polished.

  He’d been a faithful servant, though, and his death must be avenged. So, where could she look next? He must have spoken to someone.

  She inquired in the kitchens. A couple of people remembered him being at the back of the hall near the doors, but neither recalled who he sat with. Coming in late, he’d likely ended up among some minor servants of one of the guests. And the guests and their servants had all left.

  Claire made her way through Summerbourne asking her question, asking also for any information about Ulric’ s movements on that night.

  She was emerging from the bakehouse, her tablets softened from the heat but unmarked by anything useful, when she saw Renald walking toward her. He wore fresh garments, and though his hair was wet she suspected it was from well water now rather than sweat. He looked both cool and cold.

  “I understand you are making inquiries about Ulric.”

  “Are you going to forbid me?”

  “No. But I insist on accompanying you.”

  She closed her tablets with a snap. “I see. Thus preventing me from finding out the truth.”

  “Thus preventing us from both asking the same questions of the same people. Since I didn’t kill Ulric, I’m as keen as you to uncover the truth.” He hooked a thumb in his wide leather belt. “I understand your purpose, Claire. Now understand mine. I intend that eventually we will find some amity in this marriage, but that will be difficult if you believe me a sneak murderer.”

  “Amity! Even if you could prove you didn’t kill Ulric, you’ve admitted killing my father.”

  “Yes.”

  She stared, but when he said nothing more—not an excuse, an explanation, or a plea for forgiveness—she turned and headed for the next shed. “No one but you had reason to kill poor Ulric.”

  “No?” He matched her step for step and she couldn’t stop him. “What about Lady Agnes? She seemed set upon our marriage and might not have wanted anything to prevent it.”

  “Gran?” She stopped to face him. “You’re moon-mad! She can’t rise out of a chair without agony.”

  “She was lady here once and must know people who would do her will. She indirectly threatened to have me killed.”

  “Why would my grandmother have Ulric killed? Even if she knew what he would say, she only had to keep him quiet until after the betrothal.”

  Those dark brows rose. “An excellent point. I suggest you write it down for later consideration.”

  “Why?”

  “It’ll come to you. Now, tell me what else you’ve found out.”

  She thought of refusing, but there wasn’t any point. She tucked the stylus into the loop designed to hold it. “Nothing. A few people saw him in the hall, where he ate a little and drank rather more. Those I’ve found so far were all serving, so they’d no time to ask about his journey. No one seems to remember who sat beside him, or anyone in particular he spoke to.”

  “Where did he sit?”

  “At the rear of the hall. Very close to the doors. He came late, so he took the closest space.” She realized his tone had been rather strange. “Why?”

  A silenced stretched, and he seemed almost dazed.

  “Are you all right?”

  Still staring at nothing, he said, “An older man with grizzled blond hair and a big nose—”

  “What abou
t him?”

  “Do you know such a man?”

  “Why?” If someone else had fallen into madness, she was going to succumb herself.

  It was as if he didn’t hear. “And I think … a wench with rather bulbous eyes and flushed cheeks.”

  “That sounds like Dora from the dye house. But what… ?”

  He shook himself and turned to her with a shrug. “I have a gift of sorts. I remember pictures. I can remember some of the hall during that meal, and I think I remember Ulric sitting between those people.”

  “But you didn’t know him.”

  “I saw him in your father’s service.”

  Of course he had, but it was like icy water down the spine. “Don’t you hesitate to speak of it?”

  “Why should I?”

  She tried to chip his soul. “My father wrote about your visit to him in the Tower.”

  “Wrote? Where?” He sounded surprised, but not at all guilt-struck. If only she could believe that he truly suffered guilt, perhaps she could begin to forgive him, but she was beginning to doubt that he had a soul at all.

  She turned to walk away, but he caught her arm. “Wrote where?”

  It wasn’t worth fighting over. “In his journal. That book’s not a retelling of the story of the Brave Child. He tells the story of the rebellion with himself as Sebastian.”

  “I thought so.” He released her, but his face was set in anger. “He planned all along to bring matters to a court battle.”

  It took her a moment to understand him. “Are you daring to suggest that my father planned his own death?”

  He gave a short, bitter laugh. “Oh no. He had more faith in God than you. He believed he could win.”

  “And so he would if not for that sword!”

  “Don’t be foolish.”

  “Foolish!” Claire realized she’d screamed it at him, and saw some servants turn to stare. She sucked in a breath and said, “My father was a good and righteous man—”

  “—who was seriously astray in his vision of right and wrong.”

  Claire hadn’t realized that rage could make a person dumb. When she regained her voice, she said, “My father was never astray except when he misjudged a false friend.”

  She stalked away but he said, “Don’t you want to find out who killed Ulric?”

  She wanted to attack him. Like Thomas, she wanted a weapon and a chance to hurt him. The only weapon she had, however, was the truth about Ulric’s death.

  If he’d been telling the truth about recalling pictures, then he might have identified people who had spoken to Ulric. She couldn’t give him the chance to get to them first—to either frighten them into silence, or ensure their silence by yet another murder.

  “Right,” she said, whirling back. “Dora will be in the dye house. It’s outside Summerbourne, down near the river.” She headed toward the gates, not looking to see if he followed.

  “So,” he asked, close behind her, “what did your father write about me?”

  Horror stopped her, turned her to face him. “What kind of monster are you? Do you have a soul at all?”

  “All men have a soul. I can ask Nils to read it to me.”

  She didn’t want him or his clerk touching that book. She said the thing she hoped would hurt the most. “He liked you.”

  “You could take that as paternal guidance.”

  “You have the sensitivity of that log you destroyed. He expected to weep over your body!”

  “Claire, I did weep over his body.”

  And, like a blow, she saw that it was true. Those tired, bloodshot eyes he’d brought to Summerbourne were from weeping over his deed.

  “But you still killed him,” she said.

  “But I still killed him.”

  And there it lay between them like iron, like rock, cold and unbreachable.

  “Then may God forgive you, for I cannot.”

  They walked in silence down toward the river, side by side, but eternally divided.

  The dye house and the tanning sheds were located out here to be close to water, but also because no one wanted the stink too close. As the smell hit, Claire hesitated.

  He put a hand on her arm. “Why not let me go in and ask this woman to come out to you?”

  She twitched away. “And give you chance to scare her into silence? No, thank you.”

  He had to stoop to go through the low door into the pungent rooms full of vats and steam. Colored cloth and yarn festooned from hooks in rafters and walls. Huge vats simmered, and colored puddles muddied the earth floor. Going through the door, Claire wrinkled her nose at the stink of sour urine. The local men were encouraged to donate to a vat there as often as possible. It was needed in the dyeing process.

  She spotted Dora working over a boiling vat, sleeves rolled up, skirt kirtled high as she poked cloth under the seething blue liquid.

  “Dora!”

  The woman looked up, pushing damp tendrils of brown hair back off a red face stained with blue. “Lady?”

  “I need to speak to you. Find someone to take your job and come outside.”

  The chief dye woman was coming over anyway, and so Claire left her to manage and drew the young woman outside into the cooler, fresher air.

  “Yes, lady?” asked Dora, looking nervously between Claire and de Lisle, though the nervousness could simply be an effect of her protruding pale eyes.

  “You’re not in trouble,” Claire assured her. “We’re just trying to find out what Ulric, my father’s man, did on the night he died. We think perhaps he sat with you at the meal.”

  “Oh, aye, he did, lady. Though only for a while. He came in late, and then I had to go and lend a hand in the kitchens.”

  Claire tried not to show her excitement. It might make the woman more nervous. “Did he speak to you?”

  Dora frowned as if this were a difficult question. “He said a greeting as he sat down.”

  “Did you know he’d just arrived?”

  “I suppose. He carried a staff and pack.”

  Claire wanted to shake information out of the woman, but only patience would work. “You know he was my father’s personal servant?’”

  “Aye, lady.”

  “Weren’t you curious? Because of Lord Clarence’s death.”

  The big eyes remained blank. “Nay, lady. I was watching the tumblers. Right clever, they were.”

  Claire shared an exasperated look with Renald, then quickly looked back at the servant. He was the enemy.

  “So, all the time he was sitting there, he didn’t say anything more?”

  Dora idly scratched beneath an ample breast. “He told me to shut up.”

  “To shut up?” Claire couldn’t help but look at her husband again, and surprised twitching lips.

  A murderer shouldn’t have an infectious smile. He really shouldn’t.

  “I was only being friendly, lady. Talking about the tricks. Asking if he’d seen the like. And he told me to shut up.”

  “So he wasn’t talking to anyone at all?” Even though she knew Ulric was taciturn, Claire felt that in a properly run universe he would have said a bit more before dying.

  As if picking up her thought, Dora offered, “He might have said a bit more to Sigfrith.”

  “Sigfrith?”

  “He were on his other side.”

  Claire paused halfway through incising the name. “Sigfrith from the stables?”

  “Aye, lady.

  Claire completed the name. “Thank you, Dora. You’d best get back to your work.”

  But Renald spoke. “Hold a moment, Dora. Did you notice anyone else speak to Ulric while you sat beside him?”

  The woman frowned, which had the alarming impression of pushing her eyes farther out. “I do think some folk paused behind to speak. But they didn’t stop. Why would they with him not wanting to chat?”

  “You don’t remember who these people were, or what any of them said?”

  “I were watching the entertainers, lord.” She pondered
a bit more, and seemed to find scratching helped the process. “I think I remember someone … Someone said something like, ‘Ulric. I thought you dead.’ Yes. That jogged my memory, like. About who he was. And the lord’s death. It made me sad for a moment …”

  “But you have no idea who any of these people were?”

  She looked between them, rubbing red and blue hands on gray skirt. “Nay, lord. Lady.”

  He nodded and thanked her, then drew Claire away. “Let’s hope this Sigfrith can help us more. I assume he’s the man with grizzled blond hair and a big nose.”

  “Yes.”

  “You seemed startled by his name.”

  He was too perceptive by far, but she wasn’t going to tell him Sigfrith was a relative of sorts. That would only give him more excuse to try to foist his crime on her grandmother.

  She was beginning, however, to wonder about that herself. She’d never seen any sign of connection between Lady Agnes and the man, but if her grandmother wanted a hired killer, she might turn to a foster brother.

  It must be nonsense.

  Gran?

  Try as she might, however, Claire could not swear that ordering a murder was entirely beyond Lady Agnes.

  She reminded herself fiercely that Renald was the murderer. He had the motive. She simply had to prove it.

  “We’d best go to the stables,” she said, setting off toward the gates. “I don’t suppose your pictures show who stopped to speak to Ulric?”

  “I have no control over what lingers and what fades.”

  “But then, you wouldn’t tell me if you did.”

  He stopped her with a hand in her girdle. “Claire, if I killed him, these matters have no importance. If I didn’t, I want you to have the information that will clear me.”

  She turned to him. “No importance? I’m not thinking you wielded the blade. I doubt you had time. But you only had to order one of your men to do it. I assume they kill on order as you do. So, what if Sigfrith remembers that one of your men stopped to talk to Ulric?”

  “Let’s go and ask him,” he said shortly and led the way at a brisk pace.

  Chapter 19

  Since learning about Sigfrith, Claire had noticed the man more, and even detected a faint resemblance to her father. She’d never spoken to him, however, other than about stable matters.