“Obviously I disagree with you,” Luke said.
“And that should be enough to silence you,” Faithe told Orrik. “Luke is in charge here, not you. If he wants to send those men to Hastings, they’ll go to Hastings, and you have naught to say about it.”
Orrik shook his head disgustedly. “Do you know who the killer is, de Périgueux? Is that why you’re trying to lead us away from him?”
Faithe fisted her hands in her skirt. “Orrik! That’s enough!”
“Is he an old friend of yours?” Orrik persisted.
“For God’s sake, Orrik!”
“Think about it, my lady,” Orrik said. “That man” —he stabbed a finger toward Luke— “comes from the same region, perhaps even the same city, as the murderer. They might have known each other, might even have grown up together. Why else would he be sending those men on this pointless trip to Hastings, when—”
“You’ve overstepped yourself, Orrik,” she said in a low, wavering voice. “Badly.”
“But, my lady—”
“Not another word,” she added grimly, “or I’ll dismiss you myself.”
Silence rang in the hall.
“As you wish, my lady,” Orrik ground out as he executed an arrogant little bow. Turning on his heel, he left Hauekleah Hall.
Luke rubbed his forehead. Alex looked uncharacteristically grave.
“I need some air,” Faithe said wearily, “and I’ve been meaning to see how the vineyard is doing. I’ll be back by suppertime.”
* * *
It came to her as she strolled through the fragrant rows of vines, absently inspecting leaves and stems and roots while she basked in the low sun slanting over the surrounding pastures and meadows.
She knew what she had to do.
Luke wouldn’t like it. He hadn’t wanted her to go to Foxhyrst; he’d probably find this even more objectionable. But the more she thought about it, the more she knew she had to do it.
She walked slowly as the sun gradually settled onto the hilltops, relishing this time to herself. Privacy was a precious commodity in her life; so was silence.
When she spied the distant figure of a man walking toward her, she sighed in irritation. But then she recognized his distinctive, long-legged gait, graceful in its restrained power. She noticed his height, and the soldierly way he held his arms in relaxed readiness. Just watching him walk was enough to make her ache for him. She smiled and walked toward him.
They stepped into each other’s arms and embraced as the sun dipped below the hills, casting the vineyard in an ethereal twilight. He felt so large and warm and solid. She breathed in the wool of his tunic mingled with his familiar, masculine scent, and felt a sense of perfect communion with her world. He’d done that for her; he’d completed her. They’d both been lost, but now they’d found each other, and all was in harmony.
“You are so beautiful, Faithe,” he said, his soft, deep voice resonating against her ear. He kissed the top of her head.
She smiled against his shoulder. “I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
His chest vibrated with silent laughter. “I’m a great hulking brute.”
She shook her head. “You’re a beautiful man, Luke of Hauekleah, and I love you very much.”
“Luke of Hauekleah,” he murmured. “I like the sound of that.”
She looked up at him and said archly. “You’re supposed to say, ‘I love you, too.’”
He laughed. “I do. So much. His amusement seemed to fade. He brushed her hair off her face. “So much it frightens me sometimes.”
“Why should love frighten you?”
“Not love,” he said. “The loss of it. The possibility that... it won’t always be there. That you’ll stop loving me. I think that would kill me.”
“Nothing could ever make me stop loving you, Luke. Nothing.” Faithe wrapped her arms around him and held him close. “What put such a thought in your head?”
After a long pause he said, with a nonchalance that seemed forced, “I’m just out of sorts from being hungry. I’ve been sent to fetch you back for supper.”
“Right this instant?”
“It’s on the table.”
Tell him now. Tightening her arms around him, she said, softly, “I’m going to go to Cottwyk.” Not I want to go. I’m going to go.
She felt the tension course through him. He held her at arm’s length and looked down at her, his brow furrowed. “Why?”
Choosing her words carefully, she said, “I’ve never seen his grave, Luke. I need to see it.”
He frowned as if he wanted to argue with her, but could think of nothing to say.
“And there are other reasons,” she continued. “I know you don’t think there are answers to be had there, but I think... perhaps there are. I wouldn’t have said this in front of the others, but I do think ‘twould serve us well to question the local people, and... see for ourselves... where it happened.”
His gaze burned through her; his hands clenched her shoulders. “You mean to go to that...”
“Brothel. Aye.”
“Nay!”
She bristled.
Very quickly he said, “I know I can’t prevent you from doing this if you’ve set your mind to it. You’re used to making your own decisions and going your own way. I respect that. But...” Releasing her, he turned away and rubbed the back of his neck. “For you to even think about setting foot in a place like that...”
“I’m not a blushing maid, remember? I feel certain I can pay a visit to a house of prostitution without swooning.”
“But why should you?”
“To see the place where Caedmon died,” she said. “I may be able to learn something. Perhaps there will be clues about what happened that night.”
“I assume Orrik’s already been there. Why should you subject yourself to all this?”
“Perhaps Orrik missed something. I’d be looking at things with fresh eyes. And as for subjecting myself to this, I’ve told you—I’m not so very fragile. I’ll be fine. And I’ll feel as if I’m doing some good.” She approached him and stroked his face lightly. “I need that.”
“I know,” he said huskily, dragging both hands through his hair. “I know. When do you propose to make this trip?”
“I’ll be busy all this week with the feast of St. Swithun, so ‘twill have to be next week. Monday, perhaps.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “Is there anything I can say to talk you out of going?”
“I shouldn’t think so.”
Sighing heavily, he said, “Then I’m going with you.”
She smiled and slid her arms around his waist. “I was hoping you’d say that. I’ll be glad to have your company.”
He grunted softly, and she thought she heard him say, “Aye, ‘twill be quite the jolly outing.”
Before she could respond, he withdrew from the embrace and took her hand. “Come. Our supper is getting cold.”
Chapter 18
“That’s it,” said the fat priest, pointing to the other side of the churchyard from where they stood. “That’s where we buried him.”
“That’s where we buried him,” repeated the innkeeper, a red-faced fellow in a greasy apron.
Luke didn’t look where they pointed. He looked at Faithe, alert and still, staring at the place where her husband had been laid to rest. Finally, she crossed the churchyard, weaving between the weathered headstones until she stood next to the newest-looking one—a crude wooden slab on which had been carved one word: Caedmon. The grave was isolated from the others at the very edge of the patch of consecrated ground, and the earth over it had not yet had time to settle; it rose in an oblong mound and sprouted a melancholy assortment of weeds and grasses.
Luke glanced uneasily at his brother, who’d insisted on accompanying them to Cottwyk. The journey had clearly taken a toll on Alex; he hadn’t ridden that far since before he was wounded. He leaned heavily against a tree trunk, his expression taut.
“Yo
u shouldn’t have come,” Luke told him—in French, so the handful of Saxons standing behind them couldn’t eavesdrop on their conversation. Lately, however, he’d taken to speaking English even with Alex, to encourage him to become more fluent in it.
“After three months of lazing about on that pallet, I needed a bit of exercise.” The note of strain in Alex’s voice belied his lighthearted tone; he was in pain.
“You didn’t come for the exercise,” Luke accused without wresting his gaze from Faithe, kneeling at the side of Caedmon’s grave. “You came because you were worried about me.”
Alex grinned humorlessly. “The last time we were here, you caused a bit of a stir, as I recall.”
Luke grunted. A bit of a stir, indeed.
“When we rode away from here that morning,” Alex said, “‘twas one step ahead of these good citizens standing behind us right now. They were waving pickaxes and reaping hooks and looking for a Norman to hang—after some rather inventive punishments, no doubt.”
“They wouldn’t mind hanging one still, I don’t imagine.” Luke and Alex had been received with civility by the citizenry of Cottwyk only because they were accompanied by a beautiful young Saxon noblewoman, who also happened to be the widow of the mysterious “Caedmon” who occupied the lonely grave at the outskirts of the churchyard. Luke had a vivid mental picture of these same men standing in the mist over the whore’s burnt remains that morning, brandishing their crude weapons and promising retribution. He hadn’t remembered that clearly until now. This visit to Cottwyk was bound to drag long dormant memories to the surface, just as his visit to Foxhyrst had; he’d best steel himself for them.
“Aye, they’d be ripe for a hanging,” Alex agreed. “Which is precisely why I chose today for my reintroduction to the saddle.” Alex moved his sword aside to rub his hip.
“Sit down.” Luke pointed to a stump; Alex sat.
Faithe crossed herself and set about plucking the weeds from the ill-tended grave.
“No one will recognize us,” Luke said, unused to offering reassurance to Alex; usually it was the other way around.
“Nay, no one saw us.”
Rather, everyone who’d seen them was dead. Luke had killed Caedmon, then the wench had tried to escape him, only to be felled by lightning.
“We’re in no danger here,” Luke said as he watched Faithe tidy up the grave of the man he’d slain.
“None.” But Alex’s hand stole to the hilt of his sword and remained there.
When the grave was finally stripped of weeds, Faithe painstakingly patted down the earth. Luke’s heart twisted in his chest as he watched her.
She rose and returned to them, brushing the dirt from her hands and kirtle. “Those weeds will be back within days,” she said. “I don’t know why I bothered.”
But Luke did. She couldn’t bear to think of the man she’d shared her life with for eight years spending eternity in such a piteous resting place. Retrieving his purse, he shook out a handful of silver and gave it to the priest, Father Tedmund. “I want that wooden marker replaced with a proper headstone,” he said in English. “A big one, with carvings. An important man is buried there.”
Father Tedmund eyed the coins with an expression of awe. “I’ll order it on the morrow, milord!”
“And see that the grave is properly tended,” Luke instructed. “Have someone keep the weeds off it and put flowers there on holy days.”
“‘Twill be done as you bid, milord.”
Faithe reached out and took Luke’s hand. When he looked down, she gave him a watery little smile and glanced away.
Luke addressed himself to all the men. “We have some questions about the man in that grave.”
“There was another fellow askin’ about ‘im,” said a big man in a leather apron, whom Luke took to be the village smithy. “A ways back. Older gentleman. He even dug up the grave.”
Faithe nodded. “Orrik.”
“Aye, that was his name. We told him everything we know.”
“Well, now you’re going to tell us,” Luke said. “When did Caedmon first arrive here?”
“‘Twas at the end of Christmastide,” Father Tedmund said. “I found him on the morning of Twelfth Day, sleeping in the back of the church.”
“Did he tell you anything about himself? Where he came from? How he happened to be in Cottwyk?”
All the men shook their heads. “He didn’t talk much about himself,” the priest said. “But I gather he’d been wandering around for some time, and just happened upon Cottwyk. We... put up with him, and he stayed.”
“Where did he live?” Luke asked.
The men exchanged looks; several glanced anxiously at Faithe. Father Tedmund cleared his throat. “Some nights he slept in the church.”
“And the other nights?”
The priest’s corpulent face turned pink. “Perhaps milady would like to take her ease in Byrtwold’s inn while we talk.” He fixed Luke with a meaningful look.
“I’d rather stay out here,” Faithe said.
“Er...” Byrtwold, the innkeeper, fingered his ruddy jowls. “My wife brews the finest ale in this part of Cambridgeshire, milady. And you must be tired after your long ride.”
“I’m not tired,” she said. “I’m staying here.”
“They won’t speak candidly with you here,” Luke told her in French.
“I’ll tell them they may speak frankly.”
“Aye, but they won’t. They’ll want to protect your feelings. We won’t learn anything.”
Alex hauled himself up from his stump. “Come to the inn with me, Faithe. I’m tired, even if you’re not, and thirsty as well. I don’t want to sit there all alone.”
She hesitated, frowning.
“Luke is right,” Alex told her. “They won’t talk about... certain things with you here.”
“Fine,” she said with a decided lack of grace. “But you must remember everything they say, Luke, and tell me later.”
“Of course.”
Alex escorted her across the road to the humble inn on the other side. Luke turned back to the men. “I take it Caedmon stayed with a woman.”
“Helig,” the smithy said, “the whore what was struck by lightning. But only sometimes, when she didn’t have no other customers.”
“She felt sorry for ‘im,” Byrtwold explained. “Used to let him sleep by the fire.”
Luke rubbed his jaw. “What did he do with his days?”
“Roamed here and there,” said Father Tedmund. “Did odd jobs sometimes for meals when he was... himself. Other times, he’d beg for whatever could be spared. And when he was at his worst, someone would always give him something to eat, or buy him a pint.”
“We never guessed he was a man of consequence,” a gaunt fellow in the back put in.
“Never,” the priest concurred.
“What do you mean,” Luke asked him, “‘when he was himself?”
Father Tedmund looked very ill at ease. “How well did you know this man?”
“Not at all,” Luke answered. “He was my wife’s first husband.”
The priest nodded. “Good. ‘Twould be harder if you’d been a mate of his, to tell you how he was.”
“How he was?” Luke said.
The smithy crossed his arms. “He were mad, that one.”
“Not all the time,” someone corrected. “They came and went, those spells of his.”
“Aye, but toward the end, he was mad as a ferret.”
“‘Twas those headaches of his that did it to him,” Byrtwold said.
The priest nodded. “Aye, he’d get the most hellish pains. He’d grab his head and start screaming and rocking back and forth. Especially when there was any kind of loud noise or a lot of activity.”
“He did it during the plow race the day after Epiphany, and then again on Shrove Tuesday, when we was all out playing games on the green.”
“Aye, he set up such a fierce howlin’ we had to drag him away.”
An unwa
nted memory ambushed Luke. He saw his sister, Alienor—once such a quiet, gentle creature—tearing out her hair and shrieking, “There’s something in there! I can feel it!” And, according to the Moslem physician who’d treated her, there was, indeed, a lump growing in her brain. She became wild, striking out at her sire, her siblings, the servants. In the end, they’d had to tie her down.
“He’d talk nonsense, that Caedmon,” the innkeeper said. “Prattle on and on about angels and devils and whatnot. We got to where we didn’t pay him no mind.”
“Kept on about the demon inside his skull,” said Father Tedmund.
“Demon?” Luke said.
“Aye, a demon trying to get out. He’d hit his head with his fists, slam it against walls.”
“Sometimes he’d hit us.”
“Aye, well, he was mad. He couldn’t help it. And I think he was sorry, after. He’d get real quiet and stay that way for days.”
Thinking back to Alienor, Luke strained to remember details from those final, nightmarish months, details he’d spent years trying to forget. “Did Caedmon ever have seizures?”
“Like fits?” the smith asked; Luke nodded. All the men murmured affirmatively. “Happened from time to time. He never remembered them once they was over.”
“Did he complain of double vision?” Luke pressed.
“Aye, he’d get dizzy and see two or three of a thing.”
“Perhaps there was a demon inside him,” the fat priest allowed. “But in between the bad times, he could be... almost normal. And you could tell he was a good man—or had been, before the madness struck. I suppose that’s why we took him in the way we did, and tolerated his spells.”
“You liked him,” Luke said quietly.
Father Tedmund pondered that a moment. “We liked the man he’d once been, when we caught glimpses of him, and we felt sorry for what he’d become.”
“And he never spoke about his past?” Luke asked.
The men all shook their heads, except for Byrtwold, who said, “Once he did. He was in his cups, he was. He’d spent all afternoon in my inn, drinkin’ and mutterin’ to himself. When I told him ‘twas time for him to leave, he set up quite the hue and cry. Punched me in the face he did. Bloodied my nose. But then he sees that blood and he starts blubberin’ like a baby. Starts goin’ on about how he can’t go home no more. He can never go home, on account of he don’t want his wife seein’ what’s become of him.”
Lords of Conquest Boxed Set Page 94