Wild and Wicked (28 page)

Geneva choked back a sob.

Did the man have no brains? “Aye, I’ve offered up my prayers for his soul. Now, man, help me with the woman.”

“Oh, right.” Together they managed to help her to the ground. She leaned heavily against Benjamin and he felt her shiver, though he doubted it was from the bite of the winter wind. Nay, she was cold from the inside out. Not only had she witnessed Payton’s death, but she had endured a horrid rape and, finally, been forced to ride next to the body of her beloved. “We’re home, lass,” Benjamin whispered to her as quick, sharp footsteps accompanied by the rustle of skirts hurried toward them.

“What’s this? Oh, for the love of Mary—forgive me, Father—’tis Geneva. Come on, Charles, help Father Benjamin git her into me hut, I’ll see to her,” Iris, the mason’s wife, ordered. “And what is this? Heaven help us. Sir Payton . . . what happened?”

“I’m not certain,” Benjamin admitted.

Iris was a devout woman, mother of three boys, and she worked in the kitchen, oftentimes kneading bread dough or skinning eels or boiling eggs. “Millie—Millie, over here, help me with Geneva.”

“Wha—? Migawd,” the twit of a laundress said. “She’s bleedin’ she is, omigawd, she’s—she’s—and—” She let out a tiny squeal. Benjamin assumed it was that she’d laid eyes upon the slain man. “Sir Payton! What in God’s name—”

“Shh! Geneva needs help, that’s what she needs. As for Sir Payton, there’s nothing we can do for him but pray. ’Tis in the Father’s hands now,” Iris insisted and as Henry came back with the midwife, Father Benjamin followed the women into the mason’s hut, where the smells of warm bread, ale and goat cheese made his mouth water.

The midwife was clucking her tongue. “She’s lost a babe, I’ll tell ye that much. Now we’ll need to clean her up, lay her on the bed there, and we’ll see what we’ll see.” Thankfully Geneva had stopped moaning and Father Benjamin, though he was blind, excused himself to allow the women privacy. “I’ll be outside,” he told Iris and slipped through the door, nearly running into Henry, who had returned after, he claimed, reaching Sir Brennan and giving him the news of Payton’s death. Brennan would come straightaway.

“How’s Geneva? Will she be all right?” the boy asked, concern tinging his words.

“If God allows it. Sometimes He calls us home before we think we’re ready.” Benjamin pulled his cloak around him. He was cold to the marrow of his bones, hungry and tired.

“Like Sir Payton?”

“Aye.” Benjamin placed a hand upon the lad’s shoulder. “We must pray, shall we, for Sir Payton’s soul.” Without waiting for the boy’s reply, he forced Henry’s head into a bent position and offered up a short prayer. “. . . Amen.”

“Amen.”

Benjamin felt the boy’s right arm move as he quickly made the sign of the cross. “Now, run along. See that the mule is taken to the stables and put up proper, then get some sleep, ’tis late.”

“What about him?” he asked and Benjamin knew he was speaking of the slain man.

“Leave him to me.”

“Aye, Father,” the boy said gratefully and slipped into the night, the sound of his footsteps diminishing as the wind picked up and the cold breath of winter blew over the priest’s round face. He thought of the chapel and his warm chamber but didn’t move except to rub his hands together and shift from one foot to the other. Who had killed Sir Payton? Where had they gone after slaying him and defiling Geneva? Was it the soldiers of Black Thorn, or Payton’s men who had turned against him and the sorceress? But why? For gold? For the woman? Out of anger? Oh, who could understand the ways of men? He rubbed his fleshy arms and felt the turn of the wind, bitter cold, sharp as the bite of an asp. Where was Lady Apryll? Why had she not returned? His kind heart bled at the thought that she, too, was in mortal danger. Would she endure the horrid trial that Geneva had faced? Oh, this winter night did not bode well, not well at all.

He thought of Geneva, with her serene voice and noiseless footsteps. She’d always been a calm one and though he disapproved of her use of the dark arts, he’d found her to be kind and intelligent—a woman, he was certain, who, given enough time, would understand and accept the one true God. Oh, how he’d hoped for the day when she would step over the chapel threshold, renounce her sins and accept God as the Father.

Again he deftly made the sign of the cross, then prayed for Geneva’s life.

He heard men approaching, boots crunching against the cold ground and short bursts of angry conversation over the rise of the wind.

“Father Benjamin,” Father Hadrian said and the older priest’s shoulder’s sagged. “Where have you been? I thought you were going to visit the bedridden who were not able to attend mass. Oh, no. ’Tis Lord Payton!”

“Sir Payton,” Benjamin corrected, attempting not to show his disgust at the younger man.

He sensed the younger priest bending over the body and heard another man—Sir Brennan?—swear under his breath. “Murdered. Run through.”

“For the love of our Father, what happened?” Brennan’s deep, worried voice.

“I know not,” Benjamin admitted but sketched out what he had gleaned.

“You did not find him while you were ‘visiting the bedridden,’” Hadrian charged.

“That is true. I decided to go onward into the forest.”

“Why?” Hadrian demanded and, when Benjamin was not forthcoming, added, “You lied to me and lied to Sir Brennan, whom Lady Apryll left in her stead. This will not go unnoticed, you know, when the lady returns. I assume you saw no evidence of her, or the others who left with Payton?”

“Nay, only Geneva.”

“The witch!” Hadrian spouted in contempt. “God has seen fit to punish her for her pagan ways.”

“Nay, I do not believe—”

“You will have to explain yourself when Lady Apryll returns,” Hadrian interrupted.

“And so I shall,” Benjamin agreed.

“Now, you said the sorceress survived? Where is she?”

“Geneva is inside, being tended to by Iris and Britt.”

“As I said, the holy Father has struck her down for her heathen ways.”

“I think not.”

“Bah! What do you know, old man?” Hadrian charged. “You have no backbone to stand up to the heathens, now, do you?” As Benjamin opened his mouth to protest and point out that Jesus often walked among the sinners, Hadrian added, “I’ll hear no excuses. You have a position here at Serennog, a position that comes with responsibilities. What kind of example are you setting, Father Benjamin, by leaving the castle, lying to me and Sir Brennan, and returning with Sir Payton dead and an ailing sinner who herself lied her way out of the keep and forever flaunts her pagan ways? What have you to say for yourself?”

“I ask no forbearance for my behavior. I will speak to the lady when she returns. As for Geneva, she was with child, Father. The babe is lost.”

“God’s vengeance for a child conceived outside of the sacrament of marriage. It, too, would have been a savage and God saw fit not to let it live, to strike it down before it defiled our earthly kingdom.”

“’Twas but a babe,” Benjamin argued.

“The devil’s spawn. And with original sin and the sins of its mother. ’Tis a blessing it didn’t live.”

He swept into the hut and Benjamin leaned against the exterior wall. There was no stopping Hadrian once he started ranting about the wages of sin or the suffering of those condemned to hell.

“What do you think happened?” Sir Brennan asked. He was a calmer man, one who took his responsibilities to heart, and had a level head. Some called him weak. Benjamin considered him thoughtful, a cautious knight not quick to make rash decisions.

“I am not certain, but I think she saw Payton, who was the father of her child, mortally wounded, and then the men who killed him took their turns with her and she lost the child.”

“Where is Lady Apryll?” Brennan asked.

“I know not.” Benjamin turned his face to the knight in whose charge Serennog was left and though he could not see Brennan’s reaction, he felt the man’s sadness, sensed his fear. Brennan was far from the strongest of the knights within the castle, though surely one of the most loyal and kind.

But Brennan was unable to stand up to the likes of Father Hadrian, and the young priest used the man for his own purposes, even taking up residence in the lady’s chamber within the great hall. Something was very, very amiss.

From inside the hut, Geneva, who once was stoic and silent, let out a horrid scream. Benjamin shivered.

“We must find the lady,” Brennan said, as if to himself.

“Aye . . . and soon.” But in Father Benjamin’s heart, he was afraid it was already too late. Serennog and the woman who ruled her were already lost.

This thought had barely passed through his head when he heard the sound of hoofbeats and bridles jangling. The guard at the gate shouted, “Who goes there?”

“’Tis Isaac. Open the gates, I’ve got some wounded men with me.”

Hadrian was out the door of the hut as fast as if he had Satan himself at his tail. “Open the gates! Draw up the portcullis! These men left with Payton.”

There was hesitation and Benjamin felt a movement beside him. “What’s happening?” Henry whispered, suddenly at Benjamin’s side, as if he’d been lurking in the shadows all along.

“Open up!” Brennan ordered as he swept past the priest on his way to the gate.

Ancient gears ground and the heavy metal grill clanged upward. The feeling of foreboding in Father Benjamin’s heart bored ever deeper. The ground shook as if dozens of horses raced into the bailey.

“Is it really Isaac? Has he returned with Payton’s soldiers?” Benjamin asked the boy.

“Aye. And Sir Melvynn. And Sir Douglas and others.”

“Soldiers you know?” the priest clarified.

“Some, but not all, and the leader, he is a scarecrow of a man. And he wears the colors of Black Thorn.”

“A traitor,” Benjamin whispered and held back his other thoughts, for they were dark indeed. “Is Lady Apryll with them?” he asked, though he knew the answer.

“Nay.”

“You must be my eyes, boy,” Benjamin said softly. “So watch carefully.” He pulled Henry closer to the side of the mason’s hut, hoping to melt into the darkness.

“Who are you?” Brennan shouted.

“Rudyard of Black Thorn. My men and I are in alliance with Payton and Lady Apryll. Though we wear the colors of Black Thorn, we have pledged ourselves to Serennog.” Benjamin heard Geneva moan from in the hut and he drew the boy farther away, around the corner.

“Then you have not heard,” Brennan said. “’Tis sad news. Payton is dead. Father Benjamin brought back his body along with one of our women who herself is near death.”

“Aye.” Hadrian this time. “The witch, Geneva.”

“She lives?” The stranger’s, Rudyard’s, voice.

“For the moment.”

“’Tis Black Thorn’s doing,” Isaac charged. “He and his soldiers must have come across Payton, defiled her and killed Payton when he tried to stop them.”

There were gasps and cries, as more people had joined the crowd that was gathering near the mason’s hut. Men grumbled while women whispered quiet outrage.

“This is but conjecture,” Brennan cautioned.

“Aye, but I know Devlynn of Black Thorn.” Rudyard again. A few of his men mumbled their agreement.

“Each of these men with you has turned against Black Thorn?” Brennan asked, clearly skeptical.

“Aye.”

“That’s right.”

“All of us.”

Different voices chimed in. All in agreement and yet Father Benjamin felt the discord among them, the lies that were unspoken, deep currents that ran beneath the words. ’Twas Satan’s doing.

Miranda tucked her daughter into her bed. Leaning over, she kissed Bronwyn’s smooth forehead. The girl sighed and rolled over, her lips moving in her sleep. She was an angel, a perfect child.

Except for the fact that she’d been born female. Hence, she was as cursed as her mother and grand-mother, born to serve and breed. Oh, there were those who believed it was women who ran the world, that with their charms, seduction, gentle urging or blatant bribery they could make a man do what they wanted. Women had but to be smarter, to scheme, to plot what they desired and simply trick a man into doing their bidding. Some believed women got exactly what they wanted.

Miranda knew differently.

Had she not been married off to a man older than her own father, a man who had wanted a young wife to bear him an heir? Had she not been told that her sole purpose was to bear Lowell of Clogwyn a son? Even though the elderly man’s infirmities had rendered it impossible for his cock to remain hard enough for penetration, Miranda was required to give him an heir. ’Twas folly. Fortunately the old coot was full of himself and drank himself into stupors often enough that he believed he’d got his young wife with child. His biggest disappointment had been that the baby had been a girl. He had no thought that the child might not be his.

And so Miranda, a woman who had always held her virtue and principles high above those of her brothers, had compromised herself and passed this precious child off as Clogwyn’s daughter when she was actually fathered by a dark-haired knight.

How had she come to love a man so deeply, a man who would never be able to claim her?

Sadly, Miranda brushed a curl from Bronwyn’s cheek and sighed. It was a wonder that no one saw the resemblance, though she had purposely picked a man who had the same coloring as her aged husband had in his younger years.

How foolish she’d been to fall in love with him. ’Twas an impossible situation. One even she couldn’t rectify.

She thought of Lady Apryll, one of the few women who ran a castle on her own. Now she was a prisoner to Devlynn, though, Miranda suspected, Devlynn was falling in love with his hostage.

Well, it served him right!