She lifted her chin and her eyes scanned the individuals in the crowd just as brazenly as they regarded her. Besides Jeremy and Nell and Erasmus—bounding around the ward as usual—there were five other men and one old woman, wife to the most elderly of the males in the group if her leaning on his arm was any indication. It was the tall, thin man with a dark, bushy beard who chose to step forward from the group and give a short bow.
“I’m called Harmon, milady,” he said solemnly. He turned sideways and motioned toward the rear of the gathering, where a pimply-faced adolescent boy stood next to a short, squat man with eyes that didn’t quite point in the same direction but rolled in opposing circuits, seeming to scan the heavens and the horizon at once. “Dunny and his uncle, Garulf.” The boy bowed, but the older man only stood, his gaze seeming to wander about the ward aimlessly until Dunny yanked on the sleeve of his rough shirt.
Harmon then gestured to the other grown man, blond and middle-aged, his left sleeve tucked oddly across his chest and into his belt, beneath which Dori could only just see the ends of shriveled fingers. “Leland.”
“Milady.”
To the elderly couple, “Edgar and Edie.” They bobbed in Dori’s direction, but they did give her the brightest smiles of the group.
Finally, to the wide woman who still stared at Dori as if boldly taking her measure. “This is Nell. And you’ve met Jeremy,” Harmon finished.
“Unfortunate for her, I’d wager,” the man called Leland muttered just loud enough to be heard.
Dori’s cheeks tingled as the fat Jeremy turned to give Leland a glare. She felt the panic building in her stomach. She would never be safe here at Benningsgate now and these villagers obviously knew it. Dori was very aware that she and Jeremy had been at odds almost since the moment of their first meeting, but she’d thought that after cooperating with each other to safely extract Constantine from the keep they had entered at least into a truce. But it seemed Jeremy couldn’t keep the lord’s presence to himself for even a full day before the few folk remaining in the village had known about it. Not only known about it but had descended upon the keep en masse to see for themselves.
It wouldn’t be long before the news spread to Thurston Hold.
An awkward silence filled the ward as Dori looked over the motley assortment of people staring up at her expectantly. She looked to Constantine suddenly and saw that he was watching her. Her breaths were coming more quickly now and she didn’t trust herself to speak. So she turned atop the pile of rubble and skittered down the back side with as much dignity as she could before walking around the end of the wash of stone and striding across the weedy ward to the opening in the wall.
She heard Erasmus bounding after her, and a moment later she saw his great, gray mass loping near her side. She didn’t warn the dog away, fearful of the sound that might escape her throat were she to allow herself to speak.
She stepped over the stone threshold and made her way toward the wood.
* * *
“She won’t hurt Erasmus, will she, milord?” Jeremy asked suddenly, drawing Constantine’s attention away from the opening through which Theodora had disappeared.
“No, Jeremy,” Constantine said.
“Did you see the blade she carried?” the man protested. “It was bigger than she was.”
“I gave it to her,” Constantine said. “It was Lady Theodora who was first aware there were visitors in the ward. She came to warn me. You must understand that it places her in great danger that anyone knows she is in hiding here.”
“Yah, Jeremy,” Leland said. “You great idiot.”
“It weren’t me what told all you that the lord was even here,” Jeremy burst out and spun around. He thrust a stubby finger at Nell. “I only told her. And I certainly didn’t invite you all up to the ward so as to put ’em both in a panic!”
The bearded Harmon stepped forward, holding his palm up to Jeremy before looking to Constantine. “We would never betray you, milord,” he said solemnly. “Nor the lady either, if it’s your wish that we do not.”
Constantine looked around and saw that all were watching him expectantly. He chose his words with great care.
“Lady Theodora’s husband is the man responsible for this.” Constantine swept his arm around the ward to indicate the old destruction. “It was he who ordered Benningsgate be set afire and now he who is lord of Thurston Hold.”
Young Dunny piped up from the back in his squeaky voice—Constantine couldn’t recall the lad at all; when last he’d left Benningsgate the boy would have been barely older than Christian.
“Is she a spy, milord?” Dunny asked. “Sent here by her husband in case you returned?”
Constantine paused. The thought had never crossed his mind. Although perhaps it would have if Dori hadn’t been so ill.
“Why else would she leave her child?” Nell added in a low, pressing voice. “The lord of Thurston Hold announced that she died in childbirth.”
“The man currently in residence at Thurston thinks Lady Theodora is dead,” Constantine said. “She only seeks help in regaining custody of her infant son before it is revealed that she lives. She was very ill when I discovered her here. I didn’t think she would survive.”
Nell brought a hand to her expansive bosom. “But her father, the old lord . . .”
Again Harmon interjected. “We will honor your wishes, Lord Gerard.” When Constantine looked at the man, he saw nothing but sincerity on his face. “All at Benningsgate—even those who moved on to Thurston Hold—have prayed for your return. Now that you have, you won’t want for loyalty.”
Constantine’s chest tightened and he nodded, once more clasping arms with the man who had once made the carts for Benningsgate. He wondered for a moment why Harmon hadn’t followed his wife and daughters to Thurston Hold to work in the keep there; Patrice had valued the women highly.
“Come to the village, my lord,” the elderly Edgar piped up. “The lady as well. There is no shortage of dwellings to be had—several still in good order. We all shall be better able to look after you there, and you will more quickly know if strangers approach Benningsgate. Our good, strong men—Jeremy and Dunny and Leland and Garulf—could have you outfitted this afternoon, I’d wager.”
Constantine looked around and saw the other males in the group— obese and blind and crippled and adolescent—puff with pride. This was the whole of their village now; they’d only had one another to depend upon for years.
And now they wanted to help Constantine, the lord who had abandoned them.
But Edgar had failed to mention Harmon in that group, and so now Constantine looked to that man.
As if sensing the question on Constantine’s mind, Harmon glanced to the jagged outline of the keep. “I’ve brought more rope and other supplies with me. I figured you and I had a task to finish. It’s best that we get right to it, is it not, milord?” He met Constantine’s eyes.
He hadn’t thought to gain the keep again until his knee healed, but with another man to help him, Constantine felt the burden lift slightly from his shoulders.
He nodded at Harmon. “It is. Much of the rubble may be too large for even both of us to move. Would that we had an ass or a horse to which we could affix a rope should we require it.”
Nell piped up brightly, “Why, Jeremy’s got an ass!”
“Aye, milord,” Dunny added with enthusiasm, “Jeremy has a big, sturdy ass!”
Leland snorted. “Verily, his ass is huge. Forgive me, milord, but I’m surprised you haven’t noticed it before now.”
“That’s it,” Jeremy growled, pushing through the small gathering of folk toward the blond Leland. “I’ll rip that shriveled branch from your body and beat you to death with it, you yammering bastard.”
But Leland whooped through his broad grin and leaped nimbly around the perimeter of the group to evade the lumbering man giving chase. Edgar and Edie turned as one and crept along in Leland’s wake, continuing to clutch at each other and display
their unfathomable happiness through their largely toothless smiles.
Nell smiled up at Constantine. “With your permission, milord, I’d prepare your rooms. Would you be choosing the cottage yourself?”
Constantine shook his head. “My thanks, Nell, but the lot of you would know better than I.”
Jeremy paused, bent over, his hands on his knees, and gasped for a moment, holding up one fat forefinger. “I’ll . . . fetch Pearl. Send her . . . up . . . with Dunny.”
“Back home again, Garulf,” the boy said, taking hold of his uncle’s hand and guiding it to his shoulder.
“Oh, aye. They’re coming,” Garulf said as he shuffled obediently behind Dunny. His voice was shockingly steady and deep for one of his decrepit appearance. “Like mine, like mine. Happy teeth. Happy claw.”
“Don’t mind him, milord,” Dunny said, glancing at Constantine with a look of humility. “He talks out of his head. Says the same things over and over.”
Constantine raised his hand in farewell and watched the boy depart. When he looked back to Harmon, he saw the bearded man was also closely watching the boy and his uncle as they slowly traversed the ward, but his brow was furrowed.
“What is it?” Constantine asked.
Harmon looked to him quickly, the frown falling from his face. “Beg pardon, milord. Lost in my thoughts, is all. Shall we begin?”
Constantine clapped Harmon’s shoulder and slowly started toward the keep, seeking to preserve as much of his leg as he could for what would likely be a long day ahead. But he couldn’t help but hold in his mind’s eye the look of concern on the bearded man’s face at, according to Dunny, what was typical behavior for the affected Garulf.
And he chose to concentrate on that rather than the memory of Theodora Rosemont charging into what she likely thought was certain danger, his blade in her hand, ready to come to his aid.
* * *
Dori jerked her ragged skirts free from the wet, thorny canes shooting forth from the verdant forest floor like tethered arrows. She couldn’t take five steps before she was snagged again, and trying to hold them gathered together before her only resulted in her shins becoming colder and wetter and crisscrossed with stinging red welts. The thin, razor-sharp blade was of no use against such limber ropy vines, and so she tucked the knife into the double loop of the apron she wore and trudged on, seeking to gain as much distance as she could from Benningsgate without actually becoming lost.
At last she spied an old, wide stump, its weathered top indicating the tree had been harvested some time ago. Dori half-fell onto it on her hip, yanking her skirts after her a final time before letting them fall in a sodden heap against her legs. Erasmus ran around her in two full circuits before coming to an uneasy halt, his blockish head erect, his tongue lolling from the side of his mouth.
“Go back and leave me be,” she grumbled at the dog.
The sounds of his heavy pants seemed to ricochet off the humid air of the forest.
Dori flapped her hand at him. “Go on. Go back.”
Erasmus flinched to the side, as if he was eager to take off bounding once more through the trees, but when Dori failed to gain her feet and follow he hesitated. The dog yawned widely and shook his head, licked his muzzle noisily, and then turned in a half circle to flop down in the long weeds with a sigh. But he wasn’t still for long as his ears twitched and he turned his head, his eyes bright and his posture stiff. Dori couldn’t hear anything, and yet a moment later the dog leaped to his feet and galloped away, leaving her alone with only the dripping leaves and the faint roar of the river for company.
She was perhaps in greater trouble now than she had been on the night she’d come to Benningsgate. No fewer than eight people knew of her existence now, and those people hadn’t been too keen on finding her with their lord and master, Constantine Gerard. She didn’t know how much longer she could delay her return to Thurston Hold. If Glayer Felsteppe discovered she was still alive and had been hiding all this time little more than a stone’s throw away, he would certainly realize that Dori was only biding her time until she could retrieve her son. He was depraved and evil, certainly, but he was also cunning, and at the merest hint of Dori’s survival he would take flight with her child.
And then, Dori knew, Glayer Felsteppe would make sure Dori was hunted like one of Jeremy’s half-wild forest swine until she was cornered and cut down.
“Lady Theodora?” The unmelodic female voice cut through the wet air, interspersed with the crashing strides of Erasmus.
Dori sighed and pressed her lips together. Was it not enough that she had been humiliated before everyone there, being seen in the peasant woman’s apron? Nell would press the point by chasing Dori down and taking the garment from her?
Dori stood from the stump and picked at the knot, her ire rising as she remembered the goggling gazes of the villagers. They were all likely pleased to see that she had fallen to such a state.
By the time Erasmus led Nell to her, Dori was unwinding the wide apron and pulling it over her head.
“There you are, milady,” Nell panted as she came to a stop.
Dori wadded up the apron and threw it at the woman, who barely caught it before her face. Then Dori picked up her skirts and tromped past Nell, heading toward Benningsgate once more.
“Lady Theodora?” Nell called after her.
But Dori did not slow, jerking her skirts free from the clinging vines. Erasmus bounded nimbly in and out of her path as she struggled forward.
“Lady Theodora, please wait!”
She was jolted to a stop by her traitorous skirts yet again, and this time her yanking did not free her. Dori pulled and leaned back against the resistance until she heard the fateful rending of the cloth, but then it was too late, for the angle of her body was so severe that she could not correct it in time. She gave a strangled cry as she toppled back into the weeds.
“Hold on, milady!” Nell called out. “I’m coming!”
But Dori was attended to immediately by the great gray beast that was Erasmus, the dog stepping across her midsection and thrusting his wide, damp head into Dori’s face, sniffing and snorting with great interest.
Dori threw up her hands, pushing at the long muzzle with gasping shrieks, but it was like trying to shoo away a sinking ship, and Erasmus seemed encouraged by the sounds coming from Dori’s mouth.
“Get off, you!” Nell shouted. “I said get . . . off!”
Dori gasped as the air before her face opened up at last. She looked up and saw the wide, rosy-cheeked Nell bent over her, a meaty fistful of Erasmus’s scruff in her left hand, and yet the animal didn’t seem chastised in the least, his ever-present pink tongue flopping from the side of his mouth in time to his pants.
“Are ye injured, milady?” the woman asked with a concerned frown.
“No.” Dori swiped at her mouth with the sleeve of her right forearm, but it did little in the way of cleansing, as it seemed the entire back half of her person had pressed down into the thick, soft forest tilth. She held her arms away from her body and looked at them with dismay.
“Come on, then.”
Dori raised her gaze back to the village woman, who circled her fingers at Dori and then reached out with the same hand and grasped her left arm just above her elbow. Dori couldn’t help but draw comparisons with the way the woman seized the dog, and although her pride made her want to jerk from the woman’s hold, it felt as if all the energy had burst out of her and flowed away along the ground when she’d fallen.
And so Dori reached across with her right hand and grasped the woman’s stout forearm, which was much like taking hold of a tree branch, and held tight while Nell pulled her to her feet.
“Mercy,” Nell said as she hesitantly let Dori go. “I’ve picked leeks thicker than you.”
Dori didn’t respond to the slight as she was too busy staring down at the asymmetric puddle of her skirts. The rip she’d heard the day before had been only the start and now Dori could feel the relative
coarseness of her overskirt against the skin over her hips.
“Damn!” Dori said with a stomp of her foot. She raised her head to glare at the woman. “I hope you’re at last pleased.”
“Wha?” Nell looked up from regarding the same catastrophe with an expression of concern.
“You couldn’t wait to put me in my place by demanding your stupid apron back immediately, could you?” Dori accused, trying to muster all the anger she could to cover her humiliation and fear. “You had to . . . you had to pursue me even into the wood!”
Nell’s eyes went wide for a moment and then narrowed. “I followed you because I wanted to help, even as poorly behaved as you were. And I’ll have her highness know, the embroidery on that apron took me a year of saving scraps of thread and another year to sew! It’s my best piece, and better than anything you’re wearing at present.”
“I never said it wasn’t! And I happen to have admired the needlework very much to Lord Gerard!” Dori shouted.
“Well, I thank you!” Nell barked.
“You’re welcome!” Dori yelled.
Erasmus’s head had swiveled back and forth as if it was on a pivot throughout the exchange, and now that there was at last an uneasy silence, the dog gave a high, breathy whisper of a whine.
Dori looked back down at her skirts with a sigh. She bent over and tried to pull the remainder of the cloth that was still hanging somewhere near midthigh from beneath her overskirt, but it was stubbornly attached and only caused her to wobble on her feet. She stood on the thing with one foot and lifted the hem of her overskirt to gain a better hold but nearly fell over again, so she let the whole lot drop back to the ground as she stood aright and brought her hands to cover her face.
The first gasping sob took her so by surprise that she simply gave herself over to it. Dori bent her knees and sank to her bottom on the forest floor and wept loudly. It didn’t matter now that Nell saw her. Dori couldn’t be anymore humiliated if she tried.
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