Roland rode through the gates of Oakland, ahead of the Albert’s convoy. Veri and the entourage, carrying the injured knight, not far behind. The healers would have to be informed, a room readied, supplies . . .
“Saints’ Bones!” Roland cursed, as he reined in his horse. The lad who darted into his path, stood frozen, eyes wide with fear.
“Watch your place!” Roland shouted. The young snip scurried off. Roland slowed his pace, and watched the boy, now with a group of others as wide- eyed as the lad. He passed more people, not busy with daily chores but in groups, whispering, eyes full of horror, set on Roland as he rode through the inner village. Youngsters darted from cluster to cluster, fleet- footed messengers.
Something was amiss.
In the distance, he saw the Healers run from the chapel, up the castle steps, rushing to get inside. They couldn’t know of a badly injured Albert. Jeffery had not gone as far as the castle for the litter, but stopped at a cottage, took their sleeping pallet to move the man.
Roland urged his horse on, dismounted before the animal came to a full stop, and tossed the reins to a stable boy who stood in the yard. In three long strides he reached the castle stairs.
Dori charged out of the main doors.
“Dori, wait!” Margaret followed, but Dori ignored her shout, as she rushed down the stairs and up to Roland, her blonde hair streaming behind her, panic in her eyes.
“Roland!” Ah, the whispers.
“Dori!” Margaret hurried to reach them, determined to interrupt the meeting, “Wait until we know more!”
“More?” Dori spun around, “There is no more to the telling! You and Roland have to come to believe it!” She turned on Roland, grabbed at his hauberk, pleading in her eyes, in her grasp, “you have to see it now, there is no other answer!”
“Calm yourself, Dori,” Roland covered Dori’s hands with his own, to still their nervous plucking of his shirt. He had to tamp his own impatience, ignore the urgency that prodded with Margaret’s hurried calls to wait.
As even in tone as he could muster, he asked Dori. “What is it I have to see now?”
Margaret reached them, swiping at hair loosened from her snood, as harried and impatient as Roland felt. “It may not be as it looks, Roland, it may not be as it seems.”
He raised an eyebrow at that.
Frantically, Dori pulled a hand free and stroked Roland’s chest, to draw his attention away from her older sister. “She tried to murder you Roland!” Dori whimpered, “She tried, because she knew that once she was gone, she would be safe from retribution. She would be safe in the convent! It is just as she did to our father!”
Roland’s head snapped up, his eyes searched Margaret’s. A depth of worry etched in her gaze. Already, with Veri barely gone, it starts. The venom, the lies, fed and spread. So easily placed, especially with such soft prey as Dori.
Fury, deep and dark, sparked into life. No power in an open hand, Roland kept himself in check and, in so doing, in the calm he fought for, he realized he trusted Margaret. Her sensible pragmatic ways may not show warmth easily, but neither was she easily swayed. She must have sensed the change in him, for she moved forward.
“Dori,” Margaret urged her away from Roland.
Dori would not be shifted. “Stop! I tell you it is time you both see the truth!”
Deliberately, Roland looked into Dori’s eyes. “What is it Dori, what is it I must see?”
Wild-eyed with relief, Dori sputtered, “She is the murderess we all thought her to be. It matters not how good and kind when here. Her true colors have shown with her departure. She poisoned your wine, the pitcher within your room. She wished you dead, brother!”
“Did she?” Display any emotion you show it all. He expressed none. Hannah, just like Hannah.
“It is true,” Margaret sighed, “the part about the poison. Billy, the falconer’s son, the one to move her ladyship’s things. He thought to drink from your goblet. But we do not know how the poison came to be there.”
“Are we certain the wine killed him?” Roland asked. “Many have been within my chamber this day.
Margaret nodded. “I sent the Healers there. They will tell us the nature of the poison.” When Dori made to speak, Margaret hushed her with a quiet word. “That it was poison,” she continued, “no one doubts. There is no other explanation.”
“There is no one else who could have done it!” Dori cried.
“On the contrary,” Roland stated coldly, “it was far easier for any but my wife to administer the poison. She quit the chamber immediately upon rising.”
“It is not true,” Dori countered, “for she was seen, just before leaving this place. She went to the chamber, for her bag of herbs. She was seen.”
“Was she?” Roland asked, “was this really seen?”
“Yes!” Dori relaxed, visibly, so relieved that Roland finally listened, “yes, she was.”
“By whom?”
“By me,” Dori told him firmly.
“Are you certain of this?”
“Absolutely.”
“Where were you standing when you saw this?”
“In the great hall.”
Margaret released her hold on Dori, and stepped back. Roland cast her a quick glance, as he shook his head to still whatever words hovered.
“Did she move through the great hall?” He asked, conversationally.
Skeptically, Dori looked from brother to sister, “of course not, she took the stairs in the entrance hall, raced along the balcony and to your rooms. She was in there only a matter of minutes. Maida told me later she’d gone to get her bag of herbs.”
“She was with you,” Margaret remembered, looking to Roland. He nodded.
“She couldn’t have been, for I saw her.” Dori argued, though the conviction of before now held a note of doubt.
“Did you?” Roland asked, pointedly, but he did not stay to hear her answer, for the urgency he’d felt could no longer be held at bay. “Then you can discuss it with her when she returns.” He shouted, as he ran up the stairs.
“But she is not coming back,” Dori insisted. “That is how she planned to get away with it!”
“On the contrary,” Roland answered from the top of the stairs where he held a clear view down through the inner courtyard, “she has just come through the gates.” He looked at Margaret, who had not been influenced by the most obvious evidence.
Evidence that was so clearly false. But how had it been conjured and by whom?
“See that naught happens to her!” He snapped, grateful that Margaret would see the sense of his words without taking offense to the tone.
This was no time to temper himself. Roland had to find a space where Veri could administer to Albert. A safe place. A secure place at a damn poor time to be finding it!
CHAPTER 19 ~ DEATH
With ground eating strides, Roland strode through the great hall and up the stairs to his chamber, ignoring all those who tried to tell him of the morning’s events.
At the top of the stairs, he saw the healers in the hallway before his room. When he reached them, he found Hannah poised like a martyr before the door. Cynthia already within. In her defense, she was busy trying to counter Hannah.
“Hannah, move!” Roland barked. She jumped, clearly startled, though she did not budge.
“You cannot mean that, Roland! They want to get inside, and there is a dead man, a man your wife . . .”
Her agitation was so contrary to the stoic, still woman he knew her to be, he gentled his tone. “Hannah,” he leaned closer, “Albert has been injured. A room must be readied.”
“You cannot trust these. . .” Her eyes bulged with ferocious righteousness.
“Please, Hannah,” he cupped her shoulders, kneaded the knot of tense muscle, “prepare the room.” He stood between the women and his step-mother, so all she saw was him, “Albert is in far more dire need than the poor soul within my chamber.”
“Oh,” she looked, with some confusi
on, toward Cynthia. Her lip trembled. “Oh,” she said once. Visibly, she unlocked her stiff- armed hold on the doorway. “If Albert needs me . . .but Roland, you must not let. . .”
“Hannah, you are needed. See to Albert.” He distracted, fully aware that he would have to have her watched.
“Yes,” she raised her head, as a pup to the whistle. “Of course . . . Albert.” She left her stand, but not before warning, “Watch them Roland, they can be a tricky lot. Watch them!”
The Healers were there before he could cross the threshold. Jasmine bent over the body, Angelica sniffed at the wine. Cynthia stood, trying to watch the others while she eyed Roland warily. He said naught. It was too late to remove Cynthia, even had he wanted to, which he didn’t. He had her in his sights, that was caution enough.
“Don’t taste it!” Jasmine snapped at Angelica.
“Hemlock.” Angelica stated, without the need for a taste. She’d seen the blackness of the victim’s tongue, and the foam at his lips. No other, such violent death possible.
Jasmine rose and crossed to Roland, “Someone should have heard him, the thrashing.” With a quick glance at the victim, she then turned to the door, counting paces as she crossed to it. “Hmmm.”
“Was the door found open or closed?” Roland asked of the guard stationed there.
“You’d have to ask the maid, milord, the one who found the fellow.”
“Get her.”
“Aye, milord.”
“When was the wine poured?” Cynthia ventured to ask.
Surprised that she would enter into any discussion with him present, Roland assessed his sister-in-law.
“Why do you ask?”
“Why?” Cynthia mocked, “My, but I can’t seem to think why? Except that it gives a sense of time for the poison to be administered, perhaps. Or maybe a way to address any and all people who could have had contact with the decanter.”
Roland didn’t want a confrontation with her, he didn’t want her knowing just how much he preferred her gone from this place, so he soothed his anger, offering her an apology.
Jasmine measured the paces from the victim to the doorway, eyeing her path shrewdly.
“Hemlock works quickly, but not so quickly the boy could not have made it to the door. I would have thought he would have been desperate for help.” She spoke as though to herself, “and hemlock would bring on convulsions, yet no furniture has been disturbed, not even the rug he’s lying upon. Not so much as a twist to his tunic.”
Roland moved closer, surprised he had not thought of such things, but then he knew little of herbs and plants, or the reactions they caused. He moved closer to Billy’s body.
“Are you saying he was moved here?”
It was Jasmine’s turn to seem startled, as she pierced his regard with her own.
“I am not saying anything, merely wondering. It is possible that his thrashing about could not be heard beyond these walls. They are thick and the door would have been shut.”
“How do you know that?” Roland asked.
Jasmine snorted inelegantly, “If he was drinking your wine, he would not want another to come upon him, would he? Unless, of course, you encourage your servants to drink from your goblet.”
“I see your point.
“Lord Roland?” Angelica spoke quietly, “There is only one measure missing from the decanter. A full goblet’s worth but no more. Is it your way to have the vessel filled to brimming? Have you taken any wine since it was filled?”
“No.” Roland shook his head, thinking back, knowing, for a certainty, that he’d not drunk wine last night or this morn. “It was fresh yesterday and I had no cause for a sip. And yes, it would be filled to the brim.”
“Jasmine?” Angelica questioned. Her companion nodded.
“I see your point, sister,” she answered.
“What point?” Roland quizzed while Cynthia asked, “how much could he drink before . . .”
Jasmine held her hand in the air, signaling them both to stop. “I doubt he’d have time to finish a goblet’s worth.”
“I see,” Roland said thoughtfully, nodding, noting the empty goblet upended upon the floor. Though no wine remained in the vessel, neither was there wine spilled upon the rug. “Very good, Cynthia.”
“Me?” She asked, affronted, “Why me? It was they,” she gestured at the two Healers, “who first brought the thought to mind.”
“Aye,” he nodded once more, absently, as a guard ushered Maida into the room.
“This was the maid,” he informed them.
She kept her head turned to the corridor, as she stood in the doorway. The soldier pushed her further into the room. Against her will, her glance shot to the body, then away again.
“I know nothing,” she warbled, tears pooling in her eyes.
“Nothing?” Roland asked, gently.
She shot him a quick look, then away. “Nothin’, milord.” She curtsied.
“Not even whether the door was open or closed when you entered?”
With a clip her head snapped around. She stared at Roland. “It was closed, milord.”
“Was Billy still alive?” he asked quietly, softly, moved closer, kept his eyes on her, held her gaze. Her head shifted back and forth, back and forth, though she did not utter a sound.
“Maida,” he prompted, “he was your beau, was he not?”
Her mouth fell open, surprised that he’d know of such matters, but still she said nothing.
“Perhaps you can help us find whoever it was who took your Billy away from you.”
The shaking of her head her only response.
“There isn’t anything you could tell us?”
The silent negation continued.
“Did you move anything within the room?” She signaled nay. “Who came in here, after you found him?”
She failed to respond, with words or movement.
“Who, Maida? I am your lord. You must answer me. ‘Tis the only way I can keep all my people safe.”
Her eyes grew huge and round. Her face flushed, then drained of all color.
“She’s going to be sick,” Jasmine announced crisply.
That broke the spell. Roland cursed, turned and left the women to tend to Maida. Her reluctance to answer him, her lord, her protector, billowed his fury. Whoever it was, tried to murder him, tried to pin it on his wife, had undermined his people’s confidence in him. He would accomplish nothing without their aid. He was there for them, just as they were meant to be there for him.
Such was not the case.
Maida was frightened.
Of him?
Of the situation?
Of the ones responsible?
He didn’t know the answers, failed to comprehend the solution. Too many causes could be the base of her fears. Was she overwhelmed with the loss of her beau? Was finding the body more than she could assimilate? It would dent the sensibilities of the most stable lass.
He wouldn’t push her. Not yet anyway. Not yet.
“See to her,” he told the others, despite the fact they’d done so already.
Distancing himself from the confusion, the fuss, he crossed to the window, to peer out, yet he saw nothing. He needed answers.
Beyond the room, he could hear strong strides and loud voices; soldiers returning with Veri. A delicate flower, swash of color, among great gray boulders of men. The door burst open, proving him right. Four men poured into the room, each of them from the castle guard. Men he had yet to know, as new to them as they were to him.
“Milord,” the oldest, Olaf, bowed low but not without an arrogant lift of eyebrow, “We have come for the witches.”
A gasp rent the air, to echo away into eerie startled silence.
“Witches?” Roland queried.
The officer glanced at Jasmine and Angelica before looking back at Roland.
“As was ordered, Sir. For complicity in the murder of Billy, the falconer’s son.”
Interesting. Roland leaned against the wi
ndow frame, stroked his chin in thought. The soldiers shifted in their places, made uneasy with the silence. None dared but a quick, slanted glance at the women. Roland noted that the women held themselves better than the men. Jasmine, Angelica, even Cynthia stood straight and tall, seemingly at ease. Other than the first heartfelt sound of fear, they showed no emotion at all.
Roland turned to them. “Do you see any witches here?”
“No, I do not,” Jasmine answered coolly.
“Milord,” one of the soldiers objected, “We was told to get them, and get them quick like, before they hurt any more people. Yourself included.”
“Who ordered this?”
“Lady Hannah, milord,” the third man offered.
“Lady Hannah, you say?”
“Aye!”
There was no time for more questions, before Jeffery rushed into the room, followed by a wiry old man with gray-streaked hair.
“Billy, my Billy!” The old man mourned, diving headlong for the body, held back by the force of Roland’s quick grasp.
“Wait, old man, just wait. Then you can have your Billy back.”
“They murdered him,” he cried, tears running heedless down his face. “My youngest boy. A good lad he was. A true falconer!”
“Aye,” Roland nodded, holding the man still, for he did not want another close to the dead man until all questions had been noted.
Jeffery leaned over to whisper in Roland’s ear. “It is your wife, milord. They are claiming she committed this murder. We have her surrounded but blows are near to falling."
Rather than address the danger of the situation, very quietly, very gently, he spoke to the one they least expected him to address.
“Lady Cynthia?”
“Milord?” She bowed, clearly baffled by the attention.
“See to this man. See that he is listened to and comforted.” He studied the dead lad upon the floor. “Do not let anyone move anything until we get this sorted.”
“Indeed,” she softened, gliding to the falconer, lowering down to where he knelt upon the floor. She cradled his face in her hands, urging him to look at her. With soft words and gentle reassurance, she guided him to his feet and over toward the windows.
Roland addressed the men before him, those who had come for the witches. “Who,” he asked them with strained control, “is your lord?”
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