Simon’s snoring skipped a honk.
Guy leaned toward her. “He is the horse Lady Morna says will help me find the murderer I seek. What can be more important than that?”
“I need him. His stud fees will pay the collectors who’ve claimed my family’s horse farm. Without him, I’ve no way to live. No hope of ever buying back what I have lost.”
Guy held up his hands. “No hope? No way to live? Mais je vous ai sauve, non? But I have rescued you, no? For three years you will be provided for, and you can help me train the colt. By then he’d be big enough for me to ride and you will have your freedom. But, I will not sell him even then.”
Sybilla fumed. His smattering of French annoyed her. She folded her arms. “But he is mine and I was born a freeman. I don’t know how to live any other way.”
Guy rolled a dazed Regalo into an upright position. “Then you must learn, Mistress Corbuc. It is not too much ask. I saved your life. Now help me save his.” He patted Regalo. “Roselynn and baby John were murdered. They were innocents, Mistress Corbuc. Help me avenge their deaths,” he added softly.
Sybilla sank down. She was indeed indebted to Sir Guy of Warwick for saving her life, and she sympathized with his loss, even felt the grief in his words. But three years?
A sense of obligation filled her heart. God’s bones, Sir Guy of Warwick had a way of persuading her to agree to things she should not. She pushed the spout of the wineskin into Regalo’s mouth. “Three months. Regalo should be weaned by then. Agree I have repaid my debt in three months.” She lifted her chin.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Lift your head like that, slightly to the left with your chin jutting out. You do that every time, just before you say something you know I will not like. It is not the mannerism of a servant. Best not to do it.”
Sybilla wiped at an imaginary smudge on her cheek with the back of her hand, a habit she had when she was agitated. “Sir Guy, I implore you, give me leave in three months’ time. Agree my debt to you is paid by summer’s end.”
Regalo stopped suckling.
Guy took a deep breath, his face pensive. “Six months. More time to wean him. But you must understand—six months, or six years from now, I will not sell the colt. And you cannot practice horse midwifery while you live with me at Ketchem Castle. The law there is no more forgiving. For six months you will simply be my servant.”
Sybilla felt the blood pool in her feet. “Ketchem Castle? You are taking me there?”
Guy nodded. “It’s where I live and train. I am a knight in service to my lord. Where did you think I would take you?”
Sybilla tossed the wineskin aside. Her empty stomach suddenly felt like it was filled with lead. She glowered at Guy. “I hadn’t thought that far. I cannot live in a castle. The stink, the noise, the walls. Six months at Ketchem is too much.”
Regalo flopped back onto his side.
Guy’s eyes darted to the foal. “Three months then. Three months you will stay and work at Ketchem as my servant, and then you are free to leave.” He leaned back, crossed his ankles and stared into the fire. “In three months take your leave, go to Scotland, or to Ireland where it’s safe to ply your trade, or take a husband if you choose…”
Sybilla looked up, alarmed. Marriage was as bad a fate as servanthood as far as she was concerned. Her mother labored on the farm while her stepfather gambled away everything they earned. And the day the collectors came, she’d sent her fourteen year old daughter from her arms and climbed into the debtor’s wagon along with the man she said she loved. That kind of love Sybilla would never understand. She’d never marry, never put her heart, or her fate, in a man’s hands.
She sat down, tucking her feet beneath her. “I’ve no interest in a husband, Sir Guy. I’m better off alone. I’ve lived on my own since I was girl. It hasn’t always been easy, but I am not afraid of hard work. With God’s grace and the generosity of Margery, the smith and others, I’ve survived. I’ve still got my freedom.”
Guy’s gaze swept over her and he raised his eyebrows, as if to say he’d seen beggars who were better off.
Sybilla straightened her shabby blue gown, a sackcloth compared to Lady Morna’s garments. Shame tugged at her pride. There’d been a time when she’d owned two fine dresses, and her family had inhabited a cottage much like this one, with a stone floor and finely carved furnishings.
Guy arose. “I’ll see that you get a new dress once we arrive at Ketchem.”
Sybilla felt her cheeks flush. By the saints, as if she cared if he thought her poorly dressed.
He pulled her to her feet and spun her round to face the table. “You need to eat, Mistress Corbuc. And rest. I’ll wake you to feed Regalo. We leave for Ketchem at morning’s light and not an hour later.”
Sometime in the wee hours of the night, Guy raised his heavy eyelids. After his last swig of ale, he’d laid his head down on the table, but even when sheer exhaustion plagued his wakefulness, sleep evaded him.
He rubbed his bleary eyes and focused. The fire had long grown dim, and Regalo still slept, his form obscured by shadows. Mistress Corbuc sat next to him, slumbering with her arms sprawled across the table, her chin resting next to a half-eaten bowl of stew and her fingers still clutching a spoon. Her eyes were closed, and thick, pale lashes lay against her fair cheeks. Her golden hair spilled down her shoulders.
She was not much older than his sister, Roselynn, who had been so fair of face she’d captured the attention of a wealthy, landed knight. Sir Walter Highthorn was too old to be her husband, but he was kind and rich and when he offered for her hand in marriage, Roselynn accepted. Like Mistress Corbuc, she’d had the same fiery spirit, and the same sense of pride.
Guy studied the faint freckles scattered across Sybilla’s nose. He denied the impulse to touch her, to run his fingertips across her smooth, white cheeks. Part of her appeal was her dogged independence. So like his sister, who’d been insistent she could take care of herself and her son after Sir Walter died. The old knight’s heart had simply stopped while he slept by the fire one evening.
It wasn’t long thereafter when raiders came, riding in on the cloak of night, hiding in the darkness while they did their murderous work.
At that thought, Guy’s belly burned. He grabbed his gut. He’d brought death to his sister and his beloved nephew as if he’d killed them with his own hands. He’d been too long at war, eight years in France in the service of the king. Morna had begged him not to go…
He should have been at home watching over Baldwin Manor.
His heart heavy, Guy eased up from the table and he let his gaze roam the smoky cottage. An eerie sense of foreboding filled the air and his senses stood on guard.
Morna had predicted this strange little foal would lead him to the killer. He’d stop at nothing to keep the colt alive and in his possession. He hadn’t expected to be so drawn to the horse midwife who assisted with the foal’s birth and refused to let him go. Blessed saints. Why ever had he kissed her? Simon was right. Dangerous women always found him, or rather, he found them.
Regalo stirred, rousing Guy from his thoughts. The colt’s lips parted with a little grunt and he squeaked. Then a second squeak followed the first, the next deeper. Guttural. The colt sat upright, his front legs extended, his hind legs crooked beneath him. His ears pricked forward and he swung his head around to stare at Guy as if to say help me.
Regalo barked. Once. Then again. His eyes rolled back in his head and he lifted his nose, continuing to bark, the eruptions interspersed with dog-like whines that sounded much like howls.
Hell to the devil. The colt was howling and barking like a