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CHAPTER ONE

 

Cheverel, England

April, 1160

 

His name was Judas. Not Judas of the Bible, but a Judas all the same—or so his father believed.

     Lady Susanna de Balliol knew better.

     Though the blood spoken between the boy and her claimed him as her nephew, the hearts upon which the name of the other was written made them as near to mother and son as they might come. However, for as well as their bond had served her brother all these years by keeping his son out from underfoot—at inopportune times, ensuring the boy was nearly invisible—Alan de Balliol had scorned them both. Or worse.

     Now, in the failing light of day but a month following her brother’s burial, Susanna slowly inhaled and more slowly exhaled as she and Judas awaited the announcement of whether it was a boy or a girl born to the departed baron’s fourth wife.

     A boy.

     She did not have to be told it in words, for the joy shouted down from the birthing chamber announced it well enough. Feeling herself begin to fold where she sat clasping her hands so tightly she could no longer feel them, she forced herself back in the chair and looked up at Judas where he perched on its arm.

     He was but ten years old, though one would not know it to stand him alongside his peers who would fall short by inches. More, they would not know it to look in eyes that were cursed with a greater depth of experience than they ought to be. Alan was to blame for that, though there were others as well. And she did not exclude herself, certain that if she had tried harder, she could have preserved more of her nephew’s innocence.

     “I have a brother,” he murmured, no joy in the statement, nor animosity. He was simply wary of how the babe’s arrival changed things.

     In spite of one hope after another being trampled beneath the ruthlessness of Alan de Balliol, Susanna allowed herself the smallest hope that things would not change for the worse. After all, her brother was dead, and his second son by his latest wife was just that—second. Regardless of Alan’s suspicions, he had waited to learn the sex of the child before doing what he had surely longed to do for years. Thus, Judas remained heir.

     An obstacle between the newborn son of Lady Blanche and the barony, the voice of worry pecked at Susanna and threatened to upset her sensitive stomach. Such an obstacle would not suit the lady. More, it would not suit the woman’s mother who made not the slightest pretense of having a care for Judas.

     That loathsome, beak-nosed harpy would wish her grandson to inherit the barony, an expectation she had carried high upon her haughty chin since the announcement of her daughter’s pregnancy months past. And that made the situation quite possibly dangerous.

     “It does not bode well,” Judas said.

     How she hated that his thoughts were so familiar with her own when they ought to be racing with those things upon which other boys of his age indulged—swords and riding and running and wrestling and all manner of mischief for which he absolutely must be chastised on his journey toward manhood. But for Judas de Balliol, those things were a distant second to survival.

     Susanna pulled her hands apart and laid one upon his where it gripped his thigh. “It changes naught, Judas. You are your father’s heir.”

     He raised his eyebrows. “For how long, Aunt Sanna?”

     Until it could be proven otherwise. But it could not. Could it?

     She squeezed his hand. “I am sure the king will acknowledge you soon.” Rather, Queen Eleanor, who acted as regent while her husband was occupied with his lands in France as he had been for nearly two years. “And then you will be Lord of Cheverel. Thus, we continue on as always. We stay the course.”

     Judas forced a smile that she wished he felt down to his heart. “We stay the course,” he said and slipped off the chair arm and crossed to the hearth before which they had sat throughout the endless hours of moaning, screeching, sobbing, and cursing.

     He had only just added another log to the fire when the tap-tap-tapping of hard-soled shoes sounded from the stairs.

     He straightened and turned as Susanna pushed up out of the chair, both knowing to whom those footsteps belonged.

     Lady Richenda bounded into the gravely silent hall, her round face uncommonly radiant. Locating her audience that did not include the servants who paused amid their duties to receive news that was already well known, she took quick, short steps to the hearth and halted before Susanna.

     “I have a grandson—a large, lusty boy!” Though her smile did not seem capable of further breadth, it defied its limits when she shifted her gaze to the boy beyond Susanna. “Not a sickly bone in his body. Did you not hear those lungs of his?”

     They were not merely prideful words, and it was only years of discipline that allowed Susanna to maintain a passive expression despite the distaste that sought to bare her teeth. Hopefully, neither did Judas give the woman satisfaction.

     “Congratulations, my lady,” Susanna said, ever grateful it was she who looked down upon the other woman whose thick, compact figure placed the top of her head beneath Susanna’s nose. “And your daughter? How does she fare?”

     With a frown that likely meant Judas had not responded as hoped, Lady Richenda said, “As only a daughter of mine could. Soon she shall be back on her feet and ready to resume her duties as lady of Cheverel and, now, mother to the son of Baron Alan de Balliol.”

     Whose death made him baron no more.

     Susanna inclined her head. “I am glad to hear it.” And she was, for she had grown cautiously fond of Lady Blanche during the woman’s first year of marriage to Alan. But then Lady Richenda had come to live with them and the influence she exercised over her daughter had changed everything, and only one thing for the better. Alan, who had begun to treat his new wife poorly following their first year of marriage when she had not grown round with child, had become almost genial toward Blanche. All that could be concluded was that he feared Lady Richenda.

     “By what name is my brother called?” Judas asked, and Susanna briefly closed her eyes.

     The lady’s laughter bounced. “Why, he bears the name of Alan.” She raised her eyebrows. “He is his father’s son.”

     Susanna drove her fingernails into her palms to contain the longing to scratch out the woman’s eyes, certain this last barb had gone especially deep beneath Judas’s skin. “My brother would be pleased,” she said, and it was true, for had he lived, he would surely have gifted his name to the second son long denied him.

     Done with the conversation, Susanna said, “I pray you will give our good wishes to your daughter and tell her we look forward to welcoming our new nephew and brother.” She turned up her lips, reached forward, and set a hand upon Lady Richenda’s arm, a gesture sure to send her back the way she had come.

     The breath the woman sucked between her teeth almost whistled. “That I shall,” she said and glanced one last time at Judas before turning on her heel.

     When she disappeared up the stairs, Susanna allowed her shoulders to lower, then her chin. “I am sorry, Judas. I wish…”

     She heard his feet stir the floor rushes and sighed when his arms came around her waist. There had been a time when such expressions of solace and affection were not far and few between, but he had begun to leave them behind, and more determinedly these past months. He had known, as she did, that if Alan de Balliol fathered a second son, the balance of life would be further tipped in a direction that was already too precarious.

     Glad her belly was empty, she drew a shuddering breath. “Ah, Judas, I wish—”

     “’Tis not for us to wish, but to do,” he repeated her words with which they had become self-reliant over the years, then he lowered his head between her shoulder blades.

     Susanna wrapped her arms over his, this son of her heart if not her body, and murmured, “So now we keep watch, Judas mine.” Feeling his nod, she added, “And we pray.”

     “Why?” he said so softly that, had she not anticipated the question, it might have been mistaken for a whisper of air come through the window.

     “He listens,” she reminded him as she found herself doing more often, “even if He does not yet answer as we wish Him to. Believe it, Judas.”

     “’Tis not easy. I…”

     When it seemed his hesitation would know no end, she turned in his arms and lifted his chin. “Tell me.”

     His lids were lowered, lashes brushing the dark smudges beneath his eyes. Finally, he looked up. “Sometimes I would rather believe He did not listen. Do you not think His silence would be easier to understand, Aunt Sanna?”

     She felt a pang in her heart. Often, she had thought it would be better if the Lord did not know what went here below, especially in her younger years before she realized the great number of prayers answered as she had wished them to be. The infant given into her care had thrived despite the loss of his mother, his early childhood illnesses had not proved fatal, that with which he had later been afflicted was now mostly under control, Alan had not sent him away or disowned him, and always—no matter what it cost her—she obtained what they needed to move from one day into the next.

     Acknowledgment of that last caused shame to warm her. And for it, she nearly always began or ended her prayers with, Even if my sins are too great for You to bless me, Lord, I beseech You to bless Your beloved Judas.

     “Do you not think it?” her nephew pressed. “I have thought it,” she admitted, “but ever I remind myself of the prayers that have been answered, which gives me hope that the greatest of these will one day find favor with the Lord.” She kissed his brow. “Do not cease praying, Judas, for your prayers strengthen mine.” And were surely more pleasing to the Lord than her own.

 

 

CHAPTER TWO

 

Susanna would not like it. She said it was for her to steal about and listen in on conversations not meant for their ears, but she had not seen what he had seen, and it might be too late to learn the meaning of it if he wasted time seeking out his aunt. More, he was no longer a child. He was heir to Cheverel, and though he had yet to be formally acknowledged and appointed a protector to aid in the administration of the demesne, he was determined to sample as much of his new position as possible.

     Convinced it was his right to know, firsthand, the workings of his household, he drew back from the window through which he had seen Lady Richenda pass a missive to one of their men-at-arms who had immediately spurred away from the manor house. Shortly, she reentered the hall and cast her gaze about, but she did not see him where he had retreated into an alcove that had served him well for years.

     With a square-edged smile that bespoke satisfaction, she bustled forward and up the stairs.

     Judas followed. Measuring his footfalls to avoid the creaks in the steps he had learned to stay clear of long ago, he ascended to the first landing and peered down the right-hand side of the corridor in time to see the door of his stepmother’s chamber close—not quite all the way.

     Moments later, he stood alongside the door opposite the crack that allowed a glimpse within, that small slice revealing Lady Blanche in a chair near the window, a bundle in the crook of her arm.

     “I have done it!” Lady Richenda’s voice was more tempered than usual, likely in deference to her grandson.

     “Done what, Mother?” Her daughter sounded nearly as fatigued as she had three weeks past when Judas had been summoned to her chamber and she had drawn back the blanket to reveal his brother’s face—one he had rarely seen since, as if she feared he would do the babe harm.

     “I have done what we spoke of yesterday and the day before and the week before,” Lady Richenda said.

     Silence fell, and Judas wondered what passed between the two women that should cause neither to speak. Had he made a sound? Did they suspect someone listened at the door?

     Much to his disgust, his heart that was already causing a terrible commotion in his chest, beat harder.

     Then, blessedly, the conversation resumed. “I wish that you had waited, Mother. I am not yet myself, and I do not know when I shall be. My thoughts are ever escaping and I am so tired. And, Lord help me, I do not understand why I feel such terrible sorrow.”

     “Need I remind you that your husband is dead? And, for the moment, your son is but a spare?” For the moment…

     Sharp laughter sounded from the younger woman. “That first is not so bad, and sometimes I think the second—”

     “’Tis not for you to think, and most certainly not while you are in such a state!”

     A shrill gasp sounded. “Mayhap I would not be in such a state if you allowed me a wet nurse! God’s mercy, this child drains me!”

     And that child began to fuss.

     “See what you have done!” The robust Lady Richenda appeared in the crack and, when she disappeared, the bundle was gone from Lady Blanche’s arms.

     There was nothing more to be learned over the next minutes as Lady Richenda paced back and forth and crooned in a voice so raspy and coarse Judas was surprised that the infant calmed.

     “I want a wet nurse,” Lady Blanche restated.

     “Our Alan is too important to be given into the hands of another, but once his future is secure and all threats to his wellbeing are removed, you shall have your help.”

     Lady Blanche groaned. “Do you truly believe the queen will grant us an audience?”

     Guessing she spoke of the missive just sent, Judas steeled himself for what was to come—that for which he and Susanna had kept watch.

     “I have placed all my hope in it being granted,” Lady Richenda said. “We must pray it is.”

     Pray! Judas nearly spat. If her prayers were answered as she wished, then it would be hard to believe her God was the same as his, even though the priest told that one should not question the workings of the Lord.

     “Still,” Lady Blanche said, “what if she does not reject Judas’s claim to Cheverel in favor of my son’s?”

     There it was, the only surprise being that it was so soon set in motion.

     “Though my husband snarled and spat that he could not have beget a child such as that one, never did he outright disavow him. Never did he set the words to parchment.”

     Judas looked down. Though he knew what his father had believed of him and had felt his sire’s disgust on those occasions when others bore witness to his son’s gasping and wheezing and writhing, it still pricked in those places that Judas had yet to harden.

     “God’s teeth!” Lady Richenda erupted, setting the babe to crying. “If your husband had but waited a month to die! A month!”

     “As he did not, Mother, what do we do if the queen determines there is naught to prove Judas is misbegotten?”

     The tap-tap-tapping of the older woman’s feet that not even the rushes could quiet told Judas she was pacing again, doubtless trying to resettle the babe. “Lady Susanna,” she said. “I am certain she knows the truth, just as her brother believed.”

     Does she? Judas wondered. She owned that she did not, assured him she was certain he was born of Alan de Balliol, but—

     “If she could be made to talk,” Lady Richenda mused.

     “You know she will not. She loves the boy.”

     “Fool that she is,” Lady Richenda muttered, then laughed. “Of course, now that you are delivered of a son, the best solution to that whelp’s claim to Cheverel is for him not to arise from one of his attacks.”

     Judas jerked. She wished him dead? That he was not prepared for, and it shook him so deeply he felt a constriction about his chest—of the sort that could leave him gasping and flopping like a fish tossed to shore.

     Breathe! he silently commanded. In through the nose. In. Hold. Out through the mouth. Out. Slowly.

    “Unfortunately,” she continued, “I have seen fewer of his attacks this past year. And when he is taken with them, always his aunt is there to coax the breath back into him. If it could be arranged—”

     “Cease!” Lady Blanche lurched out of the chair, disappearing from view. “God preserve me! There is something very wrong with you, Mother.”

     As her protest sank in, the dots before Judas’s eyes danced away and he drew a slow breath of sweet air. However, his throat stoppered when a sharp crack of flesh on flesh sounded, followed by a cry far different from the infant’s.

     “Do you or do you not want Cheverel for your son?” Lady Richenda demanded.

     A whimper sounded that made Judas reach for the door handle. However, reason prevailed before he could reveal himself. Curling his fingers into his palm, he lowered his hand. As much as he longed to act the lord of Cheverel and aid his stepmother, his interference would not be tolerated. Not yet.

     “Hear me well,” Lady Richenda said. “You will do what is required to secure your son’s future, your future, and mine. Do you understand?”

     Lady Blanche cried out again.

     Feeling very much his ten years and hating the way they wore upon him, Judas pressed his arms tight against his sides and stepped back from the door.

     “Do you understand, Blanche?”

     “I understand! Do not! Pray, stop!”

     Unmindful of the temperamental floorboards, Judas backed away. Blessedly, whatever sound his feet stirred up was surely masked by the increasingly unhappy babe. More blessedly, he had not the voice to yelp when a hand closed around his arm.

     He swung around to face his aunt where she stood on the landing. Eyes wide with urgency, a finger to her lips, she shook her head.

     He allowed her to guide him down the stairs. And the rest of it—the walk from the manor house to the bank of the river where she urged him to sit against an ancient oak—was as if seen through a haze.

     When he finally lifted his head from her shoulder, she cupped his cheek and smiled sadly, “Judas mine, I wish that you had not listened in.”

     “Then we would not know what I know.” Haltingly at first, then in a rush as emotions gave way to anger, he told all and glimpsed upon her face what he thought was fear. In the end, she assured him there was hope in Lady Blanche’s response to her mother’s wicked suggestion and reminded him that he mostly had control over his breathing attacks. Thus, she concluded that their only real worry was whether or not Queen Eleanor would grant Lady Richenda an audience.

     Judas concurred, though he did not truly. Despite his aunt’s continual intervention and because of it—his punishments often falling upon her—his father had taught him well what to fear. And Lady Richenda was to be feared. Still, wishing to give Susanna comfort as ever she gave him, he let her believe she had eased his concerns.

     “Sanna?” he said when they rose to start back.

     She sighed and met his gaze. “The answer to what you would ask of me is no different from the other times I have answered, Judas—I do not know.”

     “Lady Richenda believes you do, just as my…father did.”

     “And, as is often the case, the lady is wrong.”

     He drew himself up to his full height, for he had never before ventured as far as he was about to. “Then what do you think?”

     She caught her breath and, as was her habit when pressed to account for the past, gripped through the material of her bodice the pendant upon its slender chain. “What I think,” she finally said as she lowered her hand to her side, “is that I have no right to guess at something so far beyond my reach.”

     He did not want to accept her answer, but he could see he would gain no other. Not this day. But perhaps another day once he raised himself above the weak-kneed Judas de Balliol who had been so affected by what had passed between Lady Richenda and her daughter.

     Resignedly, he nodded.

     As they walked back to the manor house over which dusk had fallen, they agreed they would continue on as always. They would stay the course. They would keep watch.

 

 

CHAPTER THREE

 

Cheverel, England

May, 1160

 

She wished he would not look at her with such imaginings in his eyes. Though she told herself she ought to be at least somewhat accustomed to the regard of men who deemed her passing pretty, it was hard to forget she was no longer the plump, splotchy-faced girl who had gone in search of her friend, Judith, that day.

     “Aye, I shall keep watch over him,” Sir Elias said and bent his head nearer. “But it shall cost you a kiss.”

     And he would get it, though that was all. “If that is the price I must pay.”

     He chuckled, winked, and stepped away from her.

     She watched him wend among the fenced areas where a handful of men-at-arms and squires practiced at arms. When he reached the farthest area where Judas swung a sword against another of the few knights she trusted—an older man who had been her father’s man before her brother’s—she turned opposite.

     With the crash and clang of blade upon blade sounding behind, her brisk steps making her skirts snap at her ankles, she followed the servant whom the cook had sent to fetch her. Another problem with the menu? A delivery of foodstuffs that had not arrived? Had Lady Richenda once more put the back of a hand to a kitchen boy?

     Vexed that it continued to fall to her to manage the household while Lady Blanche slid from her fifth week post-birth into her sixth, she entered the kitchen some minutes later. It was empty.

     She turned to the servant who had fetched her. Discovering the girl had disappeared, she stepped back out onto the garden path by which she had gained the kitchen and called, “Hilde!” and twice more as she strode among the vegetables that would soon find their way into the kitchen.

     “Milady?” The cook’s head popped up from behind a low-lying bush. “There be somethin’ ye need?”      Susanna halted. “I understood ’twas you who needed me.”

     The woman sat back on her heels. “Nay, milady. All be well with my pots and spoons, roastin’s and stirrin’s.”

     Had she misunderstood the servant? No, the girl had definitely said she was sent by Hilde.

     Susanna heard it then—the absence of steel upon steel and grunts and shouts that had receded as she advanced on the manor house. Though diluted, those sounds should yet be present.

     She snatched up her skirts and ran for the training field that lay downhill from the manor house. Please, Lord! she sent heavenward as she flew past the soldiers’ barracks, the smithy, the stables. Protect Judas!

      It was worse than the worst sight imaginable, for never had she seen him in such distress where he lay in the dirt on his back with knights, men-at-arms, and squires gathered around as if the throes of death were a wonder to behold.

     Scrabbling at his chest and throat, choking and wheezing sounds issuing from his gaping mouth, legs alternately kicking and stiffening, Judas de Balliol struggled to keep hold of life.

     She shouted his name, and the brightly-clothed figure she pushed past caught her arm.

     She stumbled, landed hard on a knee and, as she wrenched her arm to free herself, snapped her chin around and found the impassive face of Lady Richenda above her.

     Susanna knew herself to no longer be the fourteen-year-old girl who gasped at any cruel word spoken in her direction, who hunched her shoulders up to her ears at the first sign of physical aggression, but until that moment she had not realized just how far she had risen—though some would say she had fallen.

     She came up snarling and swinging and, an instant later, gave expression to the one who so lacked it. Taking no moment to savor the horror, pain, and crimson mist distorting the woman’s face, she sprang away and dropped to her knees alongside Judas.

     “Breathe!” she commanded as she dragged him up into her arms. “In, Judas, in!”

     His dark head lolled against her chest, and she nearly cried out, but then his lids fluttered and there came the thready sound of air being dragged in through his nostrils.

     “That’s it. Hold it—just a moment.”

     As he did so, she lifted his lax hand from the dirt, placed it in his lap, and began to trace the sign of the cross upon it. “Now breathe out…out…slowly…”

     He parted his lips and exhaled. His next breath was stronger, as was the one that followed. And those who had stood around watching and doing nothing to save him, began to murmur.

     She dropped her chin, letting her hair fall forward to curtain their faces. Thank you, Lord. Thank you.

     Judas’s fingers closed firmly over hers, preventing her from tracing crosses in his palm.

     She raised her lids and saw he had tilted his face up to hers, the eyes with which he regarded her steady and reflecting none of the sickly fatigue usually present.

     “Judas?” she breathed.

     He smiled grimly, whispered, “Now we know, Aunt Sanna.”

     “What?” No sooner did she ask than everything fit painfully, perfectly together. Lady Richenda was responsible for this—had sought to bring about what Susanna had tried to convince Judas that the woman would not do. Indeed, the lady had even tried to hold Susanna back. And Judas had used whatever opportunity had been given him to test his brother’s grandmother by meeting cunning with cunning, his ten-year-old heart corrupted by the need to survive.

     Something inside Susanna broke, something she knew needle and thread would not put back together. The pieces were too hard, too sharp, too jagged. Thus, the sob that stole from her throat was followed by another, part relief that it had not truly been a near mortal attack he suffered, part grief over his stolen childhood, and—selfishly—part despair that this was her life. For years, her hell had worn the face of her brother. Though his hand had rarely landed a blow to her person, the constant beatings dealt by his hateful words had wounded deeply. But at least it had not been deadly—not like this new hell that wore the face of murder that could take from her the only being in the world who mattered.

     She heard Judas’s voice and felt his arms come around her, but she could not stop crying no matter the spectacle she made of herself. Not until she heard another voice, one so hated it could not be ignored, did she drag herself out of her insides and back into the dirt of the training field.

     "Poor child,” Lady Richenda said. “Certes, he must needs rest if he is to regain his strength. Help him.”

     Susanna snapped up her chin. To the right stood the one who had been thwarted, though perhaps she would succeed another day.

     When Susanna saw what her fists and nails had wreaked upon the older woman, it was hard not to laugh. Lady Richenda’s veil was askew, upper lip smeared with blood that had not been completely wiped away, and four livid scores ran down her left cheek onto her neck.

     “And assist Lady Susanna,” she continued. “She is not herself, distraught as she is over her nephew’s illness.”

     The two men-at-arms who stepped forward did so without conviction, as if uncertain of Susanna for her having attacked the other woman. Fortunately, their dragging feet provided the time needed for her to stand on her own and pull Judas up beside her.

     “Aunt Sanna?” he said, his shortening of her name in the presence of others revealing how shaken he was. But, then, never had he seen her so reduced by emotion.

     She swallowed hard against hiccoughs that, in her youth, had followed a torrent of tears. “I am fine,” she said and put an arm around his shoulders. As he leaned heavily against her, his foresight in doing so but another ache to her heart, she set her gaze upon the men-at-arms. “We do not require your aid,” she said and drew Judas with her to where Lady Richenda quite impossibly tried to look down her nose at them, squat thing that she was.

     “If you ever again…” Susanna drew a deep breath. “…lay a hand upon Judas or me, I vow you will know exactly how distraught I can be made to feel.”

     The lady’s eyes widened, showing yet more of the hatred she bore them.

     “Test me if you dare, my lady.” Susanna turned Judas opposite and, picking her gaze over those who had but watched, walked slowly past them.

     Only when they were far enough ahead to not be heard by those who followed did Susanna ask Judas, “Where did Sir—?”

     “My lady!” someone called.

     She pressed her lips closed and continued toward the manor house.

     “The boy is well?” asked the one who drew alongside.

     She swung her gaze to the knight, identified him as one of the majority who had followed her brother’s lead in disparaging Judas over the years. Now he answered to Lady Blanche and her mother, though he and the others would answer to Judas once he was acknowledged as heir. If he was acknowledged.

     “The Lord of Cheverel is well,” she clipped, “though we have not you to thank, have we?”

     The man’s grimace seemed genuine, but she took only slight comfort in it, knowing that though he was not as hard-hearted as some, he would bend to whoever wielded power. And that was not yet Judas.

     “I am sorry, my lady. We knew not what to do to help the lad.”

     And had not even thought to try. However, the older knight with whom Judas had been at practice and the one to whom she was to have owed a kiss had known what to do. And they had not been among those gathered around Judas.

     “I left my nephew in the care of Sir Elias and Sir George. Where did they go?”

     The man shrugged. “They were summoned by Sir Talbot.”

     The head of the household knights and securely under the thumb of Lady Richenda. It had all been planned.

     Determining Judas could just as well answer her next question, Susanna said, “We are most grateful for your concern, Sir Knight. Good day.”

     He opened his mouth as if to say more, closed it, and turned aside.

     After confirming that Lady Richenda, who followed with a knight on either side of her, remained distant, and once they were past the smithy and the curious regard of those nearby, Susanna said, “How came you to lose your breath, Judas?”

     He looked up, and a bit of a smile curled his lips. “You know I did not truly lose it, aye?”

     She sighed. “Nearly too late for my heart to bear.”

     “I thought it best you also believed,” he said, then answered, “When Sir Elias and Sir George were called away after you left, I knew something was afoot, but just as I decided to return to my chamber as you would have me do, Sir Morris said he would finish instructing me at swords.”

     Susanna caught her breath, for though the knight was small of stature, he was quick and wily, so much that his skill at arms was as feared as that of the head of the household knights. Remembering his hard, bruising kiss—one not owed but stolen—and grasping hands, she swallowed bile.

     “I was fair certain of what he had been set to do,” Judas said, no longer leaning as heavily upon her as they neared the manor house, “and full certain when I saw Lady Richenda at the fence. Thus, I let him push me hard until I felt the air grow thick.” He gave a dry laugh. “Then I gave the hag what she wanted.”

     Susanna gripped his hand tighter. “Judas, I am sorry.”

     He looked up at her out of eyes that nearly belonged in the face of a wizened old man. “It changes everything.”

     She inclined her head. “I fear it does, meaning you had best stumble and give me your weight again.”

     He did not hesitate, for he also knew they would not be watched as closely if he appeared too weak to rise from bed over the next several days.

 

 

“I did not expect it to be so easy to claim my reward,” Sir Elias murmured as he stared up at Susanna where she knelt beside his pallet. “My lady ought to exercise more caution lest she be thought overly enamored of my person.” Smiling sleepily in the light cast by the half moon outside the window, he brushed his fingers across her lips. “In the middling of night…beside my bed…alone…”

     As much as she longed to clamp her teeth upon those fingers, she pushed his hand aside and rasped, “You have earned no reward.” He sighed. “I did what I could. Some things cannot be helped.”

     It was true. Neither he nor Sir George could have refused Sir Talbot’s summons, but that did not mean she was in this man’s debt. Yet.

     Sir Elias eased up onto his elbows, and when his blanket slipped down, she was relieved to see he wore an undertunic. “How fares the boy?” he asked.

     She hesitated. Though committed to what she had come to ask of him, still she feared it could be a mistake. Unfortunately, there was none better to aid her. “That depends upon you, Sir Elias.”

     “Me?”

     “Judas and I require your help.”

     “Another favor?”

     She tried not to swallow hard, but there it was. “More than ever I have asked of you, but which, I believe, you are honorable enough to grant.”

     He chuckled. “Am I?”

     “Certes, you have heard tale of what happened to my nephew in your absence and must know ’twas by design. Thus, I ask you to save him from further attempts upon his life.”

     “How do you propose I do that?”

     Catching herself dragging her teeth across her bottom lip, a nervous gesture vanquished years ago, she quickly remedied the habit. “By delivering Judas and me to Wulfen Castle.”

     His eyebrows soared, and he whistled low. “That is no place for a lady. Indeed, I am told women are forbidden within its walls.”

     Susanna knew that, but the fortress renowned for training boys into knights was where she would find the one who might be able to alter the dangerous new course set for Judas’s life. Whether the man could be moved to do so was another matter.

     “And even if you find welcome there, my lady, ’tis a good two days’ ride.”

     “This I know, but it is all that is left to us. Will you take us?”

     “If I do,” he said slowly, “you know I cannot return to Cheverel. Indeed, it could prove difficult to sell my sword arm to another lord.”

     “You are assuming Judas will not be awarded his father’s title, and I tell you that when he is, your services to Cheverel’s new lord will be much needed. And Sir Talbot’s will not.”

     He stared at her, then he began to smile. “It seems you have bought yourself a savior, my lady.”

     She sighed loudly.

     “However,” he added, “this favor will cost you more than one of your kisses.”

     Though her soul jerked, she nearly laughed. Of course it would cost more, but if it saved Judas…

     She rose to her feet lest this time he demanded payment in advance and said, “So be it. After you have delivered us safely to Wulfen, you shall have your reward.”

     Thus, the bargain was struck—a great favor for something far greater than a favor. But that was the way of things. At least in the life of Susanna de Balliol.

     Before the sun thought to part the darkness and warm the land, the three of them stole from the manor house that, by all rights—or perhaps not—belonged to the boy who peered longingly over his shoulder until they were distant enough to spur the horses to flight.

 

 

CHAPTER FOUR

 

Wulfen Castle, England

May, 1160

 

Everard Wulfrith, second born of Drogo Wulfrith, was not in the habit of rising three hours before dawn—often two, but rarely more. However, something had disturbed his soul. A dream? A sound? Movement where there should be none? That other sense that could not be called upon but had often proved as valuable as his other senses?

     He breathed out, peered at the night-shrouded land through the white mist expelled from his mouth, then pushed off the battlement against which he had braced a shoulder this past quarter hour.

     The squires he passed along the wall acknowledged him with one “My Lord” after another and he nodded at each in turn. Noting one who was unsteady on his feet and making an effort to keep his eyes open, he marked it in his mind to discuss with the knight charged with the squire’s training the appropriateness of giving the young man a night watch. Age and size were not always the measure by which one moved through the ranks toward knighthood.

     As he neared the steps that both descended to the outer bailey and ascended to the roof of the gatehouse, his ears picked up the sound of what, perhaps, that other sense had first known.

     Two horses, perhaps three. And four more that rode in pursuit, the latter belonging to the mounted guard that patrolled the castle’s bordering wood for occasions such as this.

     Everard shouted a warning and was pleased when he saw that already those on the walls were lighting additional torches to illuminate the land before the walls. Changing course, he took the steps two at a time to the gatehouse roof where he found the aged knight who had once been in service to his sister-in-law, Lady Annyn.

     “My Lord,” Sir Rowan said, then set himself in the space between two battlements.

     Breathing in the breeze that skittered across his face and over his shaved head, Everard strode to the battlements to the right of the other man. He leaned forward and caught sight of two horses carrying three riders, next the four mounted guard who would soon overtake them.

     Within two hundred feet of the walls, the trespassers were surrounded and held at swordpoint.
    Everard smiled at the fearless efficiency of those young men who would soon don spurs and a Wulfrith dagger that proclaimed to all that they were the worthiest of knights.

     The words exchanged between the uninvited and the guard carried across the cool air, but they were too distant to make sense of them. When one of two figures mounted on a single horse struck out at the squire who had edged near to yank back his hood—rather, her hood, as told by the voice that berated him—Everard murmured, “That is settled.”

     It was rare for the uninvited to be admitted to the castle, nearly unheard of for a woman to be let in. Nearly since his sister-in-law, Lady Annyn, had found a way in and his own sister had, for a time, needed to be hidden from King Henry.

     Though tempted to leave the mounted guard to send the riders on their way so he might sooner set to his morning prayers, Everard held.

     “I shall deal with them, my lord,” Sir Rowan said when the squires, flanking the trespassers, guided their mounts toward the gatehouse.

     Everard neither accepted nor declined, for though he knew his time was better spent elsewhere, his curiosity was roused.

     As those escorted forward drew near, he noted the man wore the trappings of a knight—chain mail and sword. The woman who rode beside him with her hood down about her shoulders had the bearing of a lady. Much of her hair, torchlight giving it the cast of a river stirred with silt, had escaped the neck of her mantle and fell around the dark-haired boy who sat on the saddle before her with his face turned up and eyes fixed upon the walls.

     “Who goes?” Sir Rowan called as the horses were reined in a few feet from where the uppermost edge of the drawbridge settled when lowered.

     The lead squire’s gaze first found Everard, but quickly shifted to the one who had called down. “Sir Elias Cant requests sanctuary for the lady, the boy, and himself. He tells they are pursued by those who seek their deaths.”

     Everard returned his regard to the boy who had yet to move his gaze from the castle walls. He was of a good size, well on his way to manhood. The woman…

     Her gaze, intense even in torchlight, grazed his before shifting to Sir Rowan. Guessing she was near the age of thirty, Everard concluded she was the boy’s mother. Was the knight her husband? More, was it true someone wished them dead?

     “With regret,” Sir Rowan said, “we cannot grant admittance. Women are not permitted within our walls.”

     The lady turned her head sharply toward Sir Elias, gripped his arm, and leaned near. Whatever she spoke, the words were not loud enough to reach those on the walls, but they were impassioned.

     Sir Elias nodded and returned his regard to the battlements. “Sir Knight, our situation is dire, for our pursuers are not far behind and our horses cannot carry us much longer.”

     There was little room for exaggeration in that last bit, for even from such a height, Everard could see that the animals whose breath heaved white clouds upon the night had been ridden hard.

     “I see no immediate threat,” Sir Rowan replied. “Ride on!”

     Once more, the lady appealed to her knight, and with such animation that the boy finally tore his gaze from the walls to attend to the exchange. As the woman settled back in the saddle and raised her face to Sir Rowan, Sir Elias called, “We ask that you deliver a message to Sir Everard Wulfrith.”

     Everard frowned. He was certain he did not know the lady. Not only had she shown no recognition when her eyes lit upon him, but Wulfen Castle was nearly all there was to his life, especially since it had been mostly given into his keeping following the marriages of his older and younger brothers. Perhaps she simply knew of him from a son or brother who had trained here.

     “What message?” Sir Rowan demanded.

     “We pray he will grant us admittance—if naught else, for the sake of Lady Judith.”

     Everard jerked. Not even the cruelest blade could have so deeply delved and bled his innards as that name. But his Judith? Judith who had become another man’s wife? Judith who was no more?

     Realizing he no longer drew breath, he straightened from between the battlements, slowly breathed in, slowly breathed out.

     Movement to his left returned him to the present and he looked across his shoulder at the knight who advanced on him—and who was not quick enough to disguise the concern upon his face.

     “My Lord?” Sir Rowan halted alongside him.

     Discomfited at having slipped into the skin of the young man he had been at twenty and two years of age, Everard expelled his next breath on the words, “Lower the drawbridge.”