Again she wondered if he was only pretending not to know German. But she thought she’d better play along with him — for now. “That I must leave.”
“Please, Lady Margaretha. Promise me you will come back. Promise me you will remember what I said, and go and tell your father. Yes.” He frowned again. “I’m afraid you must go and tell Duke Wilhelm. But you must not let Lord Claybrook hear you or know you are suspicious of him in the least. You must be extremely careful with what I have told you and not tell anyone except your father. Promise me.”
Margaretha’s mind was spinning. She wasn’t sure what to believe. She had thought him mad, until he’d told her the story about Lord Claybrook murdering his sister’s friend because she was pregnant with Claybrook’s child. Had his unbalanced mind invented the story? The details, including the fact that he claimed they were both from the same part of England, made his story seem more authentic.
If his story was true, then he was indeed in danger, and so was she, simply because he had told her. Now she understood why he hadn’t wanted to tell her his name.
Still, it was all so difficult to believe. Lord Claybrook a murderer? It hardly seemed possible. A man who cared as much as he did about the fashion of his garments didn’t seem likely to murder anyone, did he? But it wasn’t as if she knew any murderers or their clothing preferences.
His deep blue eyes pleaded with her, even as Frau Lena stood next to her, urging her to leave the room.
“Very well, I promise,” she told him.
“Please be careful.” The expression on his face made her feel as if they shared a secret, as if he trusted her.
No one had ever trusted her with a secret, not since she had revealed to her mother that her older brother, Gabehart, was sneaking out at night. And there was the time her sister had accidentally broken her mother’s looking glass. Once pressured to tell what she knew about it, Margaretha had spilled the entire truth. Her sister didn’t speak to her for two days.
Frau Lena nudged her toward the open doorway. “Go on. Let him get some rest.”
Margaretha looked over her shoulder at him as she walked out of the healer’s chamber. He watched her go, as sane and solemn as the priest during Holy Eucharist.
It was only too sad that he likely was not sane at all.
“My name is Colin,” he said softly.
She stared back at him, then nodded. “Colin. It suits you.”
“Please be careful,” he said, as Frau Lena nudged her out the door.
Chapter
7
As Margaretha went to look for her father, she couldn’t stop thinking about Gawain — or Colin, if that was his actual name. In a certain manner, she felt responsible for his welfare, perhaps because she had been there when he was brought in, nearly dead, by the potter’s apprentice. Or perhaps it was because she was the only one who could speak his language. He couldn’t even communicate with Frau Lena. Margaretha was nearly the only person in Hagenheim who spoke English.
Being needed was a good feeling.
Her father was not in the solar, and neither was anyone else. She came down the stone steps to the first floor. Hearing voices in the Great Hall, she went in.
Margaretha’s mother and sisters, Adela and Kirstyn, were sitting at a trestle table with a chessboard and chess pieces.
“Come play with us,” Kirstyn called. “I’m playing chess with Mother, and you can play something with Adela.”
“Yes, Margaretha. Play with me!” Adela jumped up and ran toward her. “I don’t like chess and there’s no one to play backgammon with me.” Her blue eyes sparkled and her little hands grasped Margaretha’s arm.
“In a minute, Adela. Don’t pull my arm off.” Margaretha’s mother was staring down at the chessboard. “Mother, where is Father?”
She smiled and patted Margaretha’s cheek. “He and Valten have gone to the training field with the knights to show Lord Claybrook their drills.”
“Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“No, but I don’t expect them until late in the afternoon. They took food with them. Why do you ask?”
“I wanted to talk to him . . .”
Her brothers, Steffan and Wolfgang, burst into the room. They made so much noise, shouting and fighting over a sheathed sword, that her voice was drowned out.
When the two boys stopped fighting long enough to look over at their mother, she was giving them her stern look.
“Boys, why are you fighting over that sword?”
Steffan and Wolfgang looked at each other, then turned back to their mother. “It’s a secret,” Wolfgang said.
“Yeah,” Steffan chimed in, “and we can’t tell secrets in front of Margaretha, because she talks too much.”
Margaretha’s chest tightened. “Well, you fight too much. Why don’t you go annoy someone else.” She had a secret at this very moment, and she wouldn’t tell anyone but her father. It was a shame she couldn’t tell her brothers how wrong they were about her.
Steffan shrugged. “Everyone says you talk too much.”