“I could always use a trained fighter,” Roald proposed.
Martin shook his head. “Beggin’your pardon, my lord, but I’m done with that. Not gettin’any younger, nor any faster. Time to take what I’ve earned and settle down.”
“Like a horse put out to pasture, eh?”
Martin frowned as if the comparison displeased him, but he nodded nonetheless. “Aye, you could say that.”
“Well, it’s a pity, but of course, if that’s what you’d prefer,” Roald said amiably. “I give you good night, then, Martin. And if there’s ever anything I can do for you, you mustn’t hesitate to come to me and ask.”
With a bow and another grin, the soldier tugged his forelock and started to pass the French nobleman, heading for the end of the alley.
He never made it. With the speed of an adder, Roald grabbed him by the neck from behind and shoved his pretty silver dagger up under the man’s ribs.
His eyes wide and wild, gasping for breath, Martin flailed like a landed fish as he tried to free himself. Unfortunately for him, while Roald was not as big or muscular, he was strong. And determined. Still holding the bigger man around the neck with his arm, he pulled out the dagger and shoved it in again.
Weak, the blood pouring from his side, Martin sank to the fetid ground, falling with a thud when Roald finally released his hold.
Out of breath and with a look of disgust, Roald pulled his dagger free and wiped it on the man’s no doubt flea-infested tunic. “Should have worn mail, you stupid ox,” he muttered as he grabbed the pouch. Twenty marks—or even a portion of that—was still worth holding on to. His greedy little whore of a mistress had been demanding a present from the new lord of Ecclesford. He would give her a ring or some such bauble, and he trusted she’d be suitably grateful. After all, there was no need to go rushing off to his estate. Mathilde and Giselle would be too upset by their father’s death to do anything but mourn for days yet.
As for Martin, when his body was found, people would assume he was just another fool who came to London and got himself murdered.
They’d be right.
CHAPTER ONE
THE FOX AND HOUND in the county of Kent lay ten miles from the castle of Ecclesford along the road to London. It was a small but comfortable inn, with a walled yard, a taproom frequented by the local farmers and food slightly better than one usually found in such places. Inside the building was the aforementioned taproom, redolent of damp rushes, ale and cheap English wine, smoke from the large hearth and roasted beef. A little natural light shone in through the wooden shutters, now closed to keep out the cool, moist morning air of late September.
Five days after Roald de Sayres killed the former garrison commander of Ecclesford Castle, two women went up the rickety steps leading to the chambers where guests could lodge for the night. One of the women, beautiful and blond, trembled with every step that brought them closer to the rooms where the guests slept. The other who led the way appeared full of confident conviction as she marched briskly upward, oblivious to the creaking of the stairs and motes of dust swirling around them. Nothing was going to dissuade Lady Mathilde from her quest, not even her own rapidly beating heart.
“Mathilde, this is madness!” the lovely Lady Giselle hissed as she grabbed hold of her sister’s light gray woolen cloak and nearly pulled the white linen veil from her head.
Grabbing at her veil to hold it in place, Mathilde turned toward her anxious sister. In truth, she knew what they were doing was outrageous, but she was not about to lose this opportunity. The innkeeper’s son, who knew of their troubles and their need, had come to them the day before and told them of the young nobleman who’d arrived alone at the Fox and Hound—a merry, handsome Norman knight with a very thin purse.
His looks mattered not to Mathilde, and indeed, she would have been happier had he been homely. But the knight’s nearly empty purse caused her to hope that he would be glad of the chance to earn some money, even if he had no personal interest in their just cause. The lordly brother and equally lordly friend the knight had mentioned also made her hope he might be the answer to her prayers.
“What else are we to do?” she asked her sister, likewise whispering. “Sit and wait for Roald to take Ecclesford from us? If this fellow is who he says he is, he could be exactly the sort of man we need.”
“Perhaps Roald will not dispute our father’s will,” Giselle protested, as she had every time Mathilde mentioned her plan to discourage Roald from trying to take what was not his. “He has not yet come and—”
“You know as well as I how greedy he is,” Mathilde replied. “Do you really believe he will accept losing Ecclesford? I do not. He may come today or tomorrow, demanding that we turn the estate over to him. We must do everything we can to prepare for that.”
Giselle still didn’t budge from her place on the step. “This knight may not want to help us.”
“Rafe said he was poor. We will offer to pay him. And after all, we aren’t going to be asking him to risk his life.”
“But why must we go into the bedchamber?” Giselle asked piteously, wringing her hands with dismay. “We should stay in the taproom. He will surely awaken and come downstairs soon.”
“We have been waiting for too long as it is,” Mathilde replied. “We cannot sit all day in the taproom, especially when there is much to be done at home, and did you not see the clouds gathering over the hills to the south? If we do not start for home soon, we may get caught in a storm.”
“We know nothing of this man beyond what Rafe has said,” Giselle persisted, “and he was only repeating what the Norman told him last night. Maybe the Norman was merely bragging. A man may say anything when he’s in his cups.”
Perhaps the young man had been drunk, or exaggerating or lying, and if that was so, obviously he wasn’t the man to help them. But if he wasn’t lying, Mathilde wasn’t about to let a knight related to a powerful Norman nobleman in Scotland and who was a friend to an equally powerful lord in Cornwall slip through her fingers without at least asking for his help. “If this fellow seems a liar and a rogue, we will leave him here.”
“How will we be able to tell if he’s honest or not?”
“I will know.”
“You?” Giselle exclaimed, and then she colored and looked away.
Shame flooded Mathilde’s face, because Giselle had good cause to doubt Mathilde’s wisdom when it came to young men.
“I’m sorry,” Giselle said softly, pity in her eyes even as Mathilde fought the memories that flashed through her mind.
“I once made a terrible mistake, but I have learned my lesson,” Mathilde assured her sister. Then she smiled, to show she wasn’t upset, although she was. “But since I may misjudge this man, I’m glad that you are here to help me.”
Without waiting for Giselle to say anything more lest her sister’s doubts weaken her resolve, Mathilde ducked under a thick oak beam and rapped on the door to one of the two upper chambers. Each would contain beds made of rope stretched between the frame, bearing a mattress stuffed with straw, as well as a coarse linen sheet and a blanket. Each bed would be large enough to hold at least two grown men, possibly three. There was little privacy at an inn; however, Rafe’s father had assured them the Norman was the only guest still abed.
“Maybe he’s already gone,” Giselle whispered hopefully when there was no answer to Mathilde’s knock.
“The innkeeper would have said so, or we would have seen him leave,” Mathilde replied as she knocked again, a little louder this time. She pressed her ear against the door.
“Perhaps he left in the night,” Giselle suggested.
“Maybe