“You said heiresses complained and whined and ordered everyone around. You said they had rabbit teeth. I do not.” And she gave him a big smile, showing small white teeth.
“No, you don’t, do you?” And he turned away from her without another word.
Merry opened her mouth to call after him, but Aleric shook his head at her. “Leave him be, mistress. It is a blow, who you are. The heiress of Valcourt. It is something I never would have imagined, Garron either. And you were that boy in Clandor Forest. He must think this through, it is his way.”
Merry watched him stride away.
“He is not brooding, Aleric, he is looking at all the repaired barracks and outbuildings, the cottages for our workers.” She watched him walk to the large cleared area that stretched out from one of the inner walls, a short fence protecting it. It would be her herb garden.
Aleric said, “Even I have heard of you.”
“Most have.”
“This is very bad, Merry. I do not know what will happen. Are you really the Valcourt Heiress?”
She nodded, so filled with misery she couldn’t find words.
“By all Saint Cuthbert’s broken toes, this is an amazing thing, but no matter. Garron will decide what to do. How much fresh ale do we have?”
“Enough, I believe. Aleric, is there any reason to tell anyone else who I really am?”
“It wouldn’t matter since none of the people would know of you and what you are. I am willing to wager Sir Halric now realizes exactly who you are, and that means Jason of Brennan now knows as well. This is not good at all. I must tell Garron that Sir Halric recognized you.”
When Garron entered his chamber, he saw that Gilpin had filled his new bathing tub. As Garron sank down into the steaming water, he closed his eyes and tried not to think, but it was no use. “Leave me, Gilpin.” He now knew the name of the Black Demon—Jason of Brennan. He knew the man to be more rapacious than most men, a man who would slip a stiletto in another man’s back if he could not gain what he wished by looking him in the face. He was the man who had destroyed Wareham, all in search of Arthur’s silver coins.
What would he do now? At least Garron now knew the name of his enemy.
If only that were all. Marianna de Luce de Mornay, the Valcourt Heiress. What in the name of all that was holy would happen now? Soon enough, he realized, he could very well be a dead man.
26
MEIZERLING ABBEY
NEAR CHEDDLEFORD ROWLEY
EAST ANGLIA
You are an idiot.” Jason of Brennan wanted to leap over the huge table covered with foul-smelling vials and jars that held things he didn’t want to know about, and throttle the magnificent goldenhaired creature who stared at him with open contempt.
The sharp eye-watering smell of sulfur wafted to him, as if a trap door to Hell had opened. He was not afraid of her, he wasn’t, nor was he an idiot. He would show her what he was made of, he would sound as calm and reasoned as one of the king’s counselors, or his damned father. He knew he looked imposing in his black tunic, with the studded silver belt that fastened his gem-encrusted sword to his side, and drew himself up. “I am not an idiot. Sir Halric is not an idiot. I told you, madam, Halric did not realize Lord Garron had gone to Wareham. Who was there to tell him? Who was there to tell me so I could inform him of the fact? He expected all those remaining within the walls to be starving, desperate for help. There was no reason to believe his ruse would not work.”
The beautiful witch sneered at him, contempt now bursting from her voice. “Ah, but you tell me he saw this very fit soldier standing atop the ramparts, yet it did not occur to Sir Halric to wonder if mayhap something had changed? He still kept to his fiction of offering aid? Given this, would you not call him an idiot? And given you are his master, does it not follow that you are an idiot as well?”
Her words slammed against him like hard grit, abrading his flesh, irritating him to his soul. He looked down at his boots for a moment. What could he say to her accusation? What she had said was logical. The truth was the truth. He said finally, hating those words coming out of his mouth, “Aye, I suppose that is what happened. Still—”
“I am distressed that my excellent plan was so poorly executed.” And she gave him a smile that promised more suffering than he could imagine. He hated her in that moment, as much as he hated this immense chamber filled with strange smells and thick brood
ing shadows since the window shutters were always closed against the sunlight. Jason imagined he could feel the bright sunlight beating against the shutters, trying to come in, but to no avail. The billowing shadows crowded in on the branch of candles on Abbess Helen’s large worktable. He knew there was something malignant lying in the midst of those shadows, something waiting to rip out his throat, that or drive him to madness, and it lurked, and waited. He knew he would have no fear of her if he could grab her by her golden hair and drag her out of this malevolent room, out of this hideous gray stone abbey, away from her private army, and her blank-faced nuns who all treated her like a queen, and fling her to the ground. Would her body be as beautiful as her face when he ripped that ridiculous black habit off her?
She sat back in her finely carved chair and regarded him over her steepled white fingers. “Halric should have known everything there was to know about Wareham before he went there, but he did not. He should have known that Arthur’s brother had arrived to succeed to Wareham Castle. He should have stopped at neighboring villages and inquired, but he did not. He should have sent a soldier to study the castle before ever he went to Wareham, but he did not. I should have slit his throat, were I you.
“And you, as his master, you should have ensured he knew what to do, instructed him if needed, but you did not. I cannot believe you have failed me yet again. I fear you are not a very good tool. Mayhap my loyal Abel will have to search elsewhere for a better one.”
Abel was the man who led her private army, a hard man and vicious, not a dollop of mercy in him. On the other hand, Jason rarely showed mercy himself. He said, “The failures you speak about—they are about two different matters, so there is only one failure for each endeavor.”
Contempt blossomed again on her white face, a face too white, too unlined, and her brilliant eyes narrowed on his face, and he wished he’d kept his mouth shut. How could she be so beautiful and yet have a daughter full-grown? But he knew, oh aye, he knew. Abbess Helen de Mornay was a witch. If she hadn’t left her lord years before, he probably would have killed her, before she killed him. He eyed a line of vials on shelves behind her filled with potions to make a man’s guts twist and shrivel as he said, hating the whine in his voice, “I am no man’s tool.”
She laughed, a melodious sound, soft and lovely. She gave him a look of amusement. “Nay, of course you are not. You, Jason of Brennan, are a woman’s tool. You are my tool, defective though you be, you are still mine, until I decide otherwise.” She paused a moment, looking toward the shadows, into them, he believed, and he knew he saw those shadows roil and twist. He forced himself to stand perfectly still, to show no fear, for he knew to his guts that would be fatal. He stared at the powerful abbess who had ruled Meizerling for more than fifteen years now, mayhap the wealthiest abbey in all of England, filled with learned parchments and beautifully illuminated manuscripts. She even had several women scribes, something that he’d never heard of before. Her damning words flowed into him, reduced him to nothing at all. He drew himself up again, taller this time. He was a man, he was strong, he wasn’t anyone’s tool, man or woman. Abbess or no, she was still a woman withal, yet in odd moments of honesty, in this terrifying chamber with its deep shadows that held evil, he knew he was afraid of her, and he hated himself more for that than for his excuses. At odd moments, he wondered if she even needed the six ever-vigilant soldiers who stood alert and at the ready outside her door, ready to pour into the room and kill anyone she pointed to. Could she point a long white finger at him, the one with the massive emerald set in finely worked silver, chant a few words, make that stinking sulfur smell fill his nostrils and choke him?