The Valcourt Heiress (Medieval Song 7)

Garron wanted to kill Thomas and laugh his head off at the same time.

Thomas hurried on. “I saw my mother’s sad face and I knew my duty. I followed them, my lord, waited for my chance, for there are always a dozen guards patrolling near the east wall, so many eyes to see them and call the alarm. How could these two escape? As I neared the wall, I began to see the guards—they were all on the ground and I knew they were asleep and not dead because I heard a lot of snoring. I wanted to yell, but knew if I did and no one came, they would kill me.”

Whalen’s stone face didn’t change expression. “They are all still unconscious,” he said to Garron. “We found wine jugs around them. The king’s physician will examine them but I believe they were given sleeping draughts. All of them drank.” His voice was colder than the ice that had covered the Thames the previous winter. Garron wondered what would happen to the guards once they awoke. Were it his decision, he’d lock them in a dungeon for a week with no food and no light.

Whalen told Thomas to continue.

He looked at Garron, then dropped his eyes again. “I went after them, my lord, I didn’t even hesitate, what with my poor mother’s voice speaking to me right in my ear. Just beyond the outside wall, there are a score of cooper shops. Beyond the shops at the end of a dark alley, I could make out that they tossed the bundle into the back of a cart and covered it with a blanket. I managed to climb in without them hearing me. I nearly gagged, it smelled like offal and sour ale. I felt the bundle and it was female, but she didn’t move.”

Garron did not doubt that Merry’s mother had used a sleeping potion on the guards. What had she used on Merry? The same thing? Had Jason of Brennan been one of the two men who’d taken her?

“It was a very long time before the cart horses stopped at the edge of a forest I didn’t recognize. I thought it was their destination, and I managed to slip out of the cart without them hearing me. Alas, they’d only stopped to relieve themselves. I wanted to relieve myself too, but I knew they might see me in the moonlight, and I saw again my mother’s sad face, and so I suffered.

“When they continued, I had no chance to climb back into the cart. I ran after them until one of the men must have heard me and turned to look behind him. I was terrified he would see me, and mayhap he did, he called out. I ran.

“I am sorry, my lord, but I do not know how much farther they traveled into the forest. I remember it looked black with only one path leading into it. I knew I had to come back to get help, and so I ran until I could steal a horse and ride back here.”

Garron said very quietly, “You saw neither man’s face?”

Thomas shook his head.

“You heard th

eir voices. Did they sound old or young?”

“Both sounded like older men, my lord, their voices hard.”

So it hadn’t been Jason of Brennan or Sir Halric.

“I memorized the way, my lord, I can take you there.”

Garron felt a leap of hope. “Get your sword from the jakes. Hurry.” He turned to Whalen. “I wonder how they managed to get into the White Tower and down the many corridors to Merry’s room. Indeed, how did they know where she even slept?”

Whalen said, “Four of my guards within the tower were struck down, one of them that patrolled near your betrothed’s chamber is dead. It shouldn’t have happened. By all that’s sacred, what if it had been an assassin who had sneaked in to murder the king?” Whalen looked like he would vomit, then he began cursing. Garron thought Whalen knew well enough that he wouldn’t be the captain of the king’s guard for much longer.

Garron said, “No assassin could get to the king, Whalen, you know that. There are always three guards in the king’s antechamber.”

“Aye, at night, they patrol for three hours, then sleep. But this—”

“Gather men, Whalen. I need you. I will meet you at the eastern gate. Go.” Garron welcomed the anger now pouring into him, it was better than the awful impotence that had rubbed him raw. Now there was a chance. But how much farther had they traveled into the forest after Thomas had run away from them? What if Jason of Brennan had already forced her to wed him, what if he’d already raped her? No, Merry was smart, she would do something to stop him. Besides, even if she was helpless against him, it didn’t matter, nothing mattered—Jason of Brennan was a dead man, he just didn’t know it yet.

When Garron jerked the saddle cinch tighter around Damocles’ belly, his destrier swung his great head around and tried to bite him, but years of experience saved him. He jumped back, smacked his horse’s neck. “I’ll strangle you if you try to bite me again. We have to fetch your mistress to her wedding.”

Garron leaned his face against his destrier’s smooth neck for a moment, felt his great strength, and it steadied him. Merry, he told her silently, use that clever brain of yours, tell him you must make a list before you can wed him. He would swear in that instant that he could hear her saying the words, her voice firm as a nun’s. He was smiling when he leapt on his destrier’s back, and Gilpin wondered at that smile. He looked over at Sir Lyle, sitting atop his destrier, speaking low to his three men. About what?

Three hours later, Garron was as silent as the dozen soldiers riding behind him. The sky blackened, the quarter moon disappeared, the air chilled. It began to rain, hard, driving rain that quickly soaked every man to the skin. It was misery. When they reached the forest where Thomas had gotten out of the cart, they saw the narrow road through the trees was well worn, but the rain had washed away any signs of wheel tracks and turned the dirt to mud. Garron motioned them forward. The trees thickened as they rode deeper into the forest, a relief because it provided some shelter from the relentless rain. They came to two rutted paths that struck out from the main track like two stretched-out arms, and disappeared into the trees. The men in the cart could have taken one of the two paths or continued straight. At that moment, it began to rain even harder, rain sheeted down even through the thick trees, and the men huddled in their saddles, heads down, as Garron studied the two paths for any sign of a cart’s passage. There was nothing but mud.

He split the men into three groups. He didn’t know why, but he simply had a feeling about the path to the right. He, Gilpin, and two soldiers, Arnold and John, left the others and plowed on. He sent Sir Lyle and his men to the left and Whalen took the remainder of the soldiers and continued straight. He’d never prayed so hard in his life that the path he’d chosen was the right one. Some hundred yards farther, the narrow, mud-filled path ended in a small clearing. In the center of the clearing sat a woodcutter’s hut, small but stoutly built. Smoke snaked out of a hole in the roof. Just as Garron pulled Damocles to a halt in front of the hut, the rain suddenly stopped. He looked up to see the moon through the black clouds. He dismounted and shook himself like a mongrel dog. “Stay here,” he told the men. He pounded on the door, called out, but there was no answer. He pounded again. After a moment, a very old woman, wearing an ancient green gown that was still as green as the impenetrable trees, pulled open the old wooden door. She looked up at Garron, paled, took a fast step back, and crossed herself. She whispered, “Be it ye, the divil? All wet and young and beautiful to gaze upon? At least I think ye’re beautiful since there bain’t much moon to shine on yer head. Be ye here to strip my soul of its goodness and take my husk to Hell?”

“Nay, I will not harm you.” And then, with no thought, the words simply came out of his mouth. “I search for the witch.” Why had he said that? Where had those words come from?

The old woman crossed herself again and searched his face in the dim light. “Ye do not want to see her, lad, she’ll split yer gullet wide open, and all yer words will spill out of yer throat and fall on yer boots.”

“She has taken my betrothed. Tell me where I can find the witch.”

She continued to study him, then she nodded slowly, and said so low he could scarce hear her, “Sometimes she comes, not often, and when she does, smoke billows above the trees, black smoke that stinks of Hell itself. Her tower sits not far past the rutted path behind my hut. Aye, she built herself a black tower, or snapped her fingers and it built itself, I know not. It be enclosed behind a high stone wall.” She reached out a heavily veined hand and lightly touched his wet tunic sleeve. “Listen to me, lad, ye don’t want to go there. If she’s taken yer betrothed, then she is no longer of this earth. Ye don’t wish to die, do ye?”

Garron wanted to shake her, but he forced himself to patience. “Have you seen smoke billowing up over the trees?”