William didn’t want to tell her what he knew. That was Keller’s privilege. Therefore, he did the only thing he could do, he stalled.
“It is possible that I saw him with your husband,” he said. Well, it wasn’t much of a lie. He had seen Keller and Trevyn together as Keller knelt over the old man’s corpse. That was technically seeing them together, wasn’t it? “Wait here in the sunshine and I will find your husband and send him to you.”
He seemed terribly polite for a man who had been mildly rude to her most of the night. She would have wondered about his sudden change in behavior if she hadn’t been so preoccupied with finding her father.
“I will come with you,” she said. “I do not….”
William cut her off, holding up his hands to prevent her from following him as he began to move away. He had no idea where he could find Keller and he didn’t want the woman trailing after him, so he began heading in the direction of the gatehouse of Nether.
“Nay, Lady de Poyer,” he said, very nearly insisting. “Remain here so that I may find you easily. I do not know where your husband is and I do not wish to drag you all over the grounds, so stay here and I will return as quickly as I can.”
He passed a glance at the soldier standing behind her as if to silently emphasize that the man keep her in that particular location. The soldier received the silent message clearly, going so far as to nod as William headed off towards the gatehouse. Chrystobel watched him go with her hands on her hips, wondering why the man was nearly running away from her. Now his odd behavior was causing her to notice. Watching him race off, she finally shook her head.
“Why would he want me to stand here in the cold?” she wondered, mostly to herself. “I can just as easily wait for him in the hall. It would not be too far for him to go in order to find me.”
Since the soldier escorting her had been in the keep all night, he had no idea what had transpired in the great hall or what lay in store for them. When Chrystobel moved to the massive entry door that led into the great hall, he simply followed. He didn’t want to stand out in the cold, either, and he doubted he could have persuaded the lady to remain out in the cold light of day. Trailing after her, he passed through the door just behind her, listening to her gasp the moment she entered the hall.
There was a big puddle of blood on the floor near the feasting table. Even though the hall was dark, without a fire in the hearth or anything to light the dimness of the room, she could still see the blood at the end of the long table. Frightened, Chrystobel ran towards it, standing over the puddle and trying not to become ill at the sight of it.
“What happened here?” she demanded to anyone who could answer her. With no reply, she began looking around frantically. “What happened? Who was injured here?”
The only person she could see was the soldier standing next to her and he had no answers to provide. But that didn’t stop Chrystobel from pointing to the blood.
“What happened?” she asked the man. “Find someone who can tell me why there is blood on this floor!”
The soldier shook his head. “I will not leave you, Lady de Poyer,” he insisted, then he, too, began to look around. “There must be a servant nearby who can tell you what happened.”
Chrystobel’s gaze was drawn back to the blood on the floor. It was beginning to make her rather nauseous. The sight and smell of blood always did.
“God’s Bones,” she hissed. “What could have happened here? It looks as if someone was terribly injured.”
The soldier simply nodded, eyeing the blood as he moved away, wandering to the eastern end of the room where a side door led out to the bailey. He thought perhaps to find a servant there but all he managed to find was a trail of blood. It was evident that they carried the person who left the puddle on the floor out in this direction. As the soldier looked around at the dark and empty servant’s alcove, he shrugged and headed back into the hall.
Chrystobel was still standing over the bloody floor, most concerned at the sight. She noticed the soldier coming from the east end of the room, however, and she turned to him.
“Is there no one back there?” she asked.
The soldier shook his head. “Nay, my lady.”
Chrystobel thought it was very strange that there were no servants in the hall at this early hour. In fact, the entire circumstance was beginning to concern her. As the soldier passed by the darkened hearth, she pointed to it.
“Wait,” she told him, watching him stop. “There is a passageway next to the hearth. Push open the wall to the left of the hearth and see if there is anyone in the passage. Sometimes the servants use it to come in from the kitchen yard.”
The soldier turned obediently to the hearth, peering at the stone wall on either side of it. Since it was so dark, it took him a moment to see unmortared seams along the left side of the hearth and he gave a shove, watching part of the wall swing back on great iron hinges. But it was the last thing he would ever see as a figure suddenly materialized from the darkened passage and plunged a knife into his belly.
Chrystobel saw the soldier go down, falling into the passageway so that she could only see his legs sticking out. She was curious, concerned, until she saw Gryffyn emerge, stepping over the supine body of the soldier with a bloodied dirk in his hand. Then, it was as if all rational thought left her. A cry of terror erupted from her lips just as Gryffyn looked at her, his dark eyes filled with hatred and murder.
Chrystobel screamed again, louder than before, and ran for the hall door, but Gryffyn was faster. He grabbed her before she could reach the exit, yanking her away from the panel so that she fell onto the floor. Once she was down, he kicked her in the leg just because he could. He wanted to see her cry.
“You little bitch,” he snarled, stalking her as she wept and struggled to crawl away. “You betrayed me! I told you what would happen if you betrayed me!”
Chrystobel was beyond panic. Her greatest fear was now a reality before her and she was nearly frozen with terror.
“Please, Gryffyn!” she cried. “Please do not kill me!”
Gryffyn was beyond fury. He was in the realm of madness as he watched his sister struggle across the wooden planks. When she tried to get to her feet, he hit her on the head, so hard that she fell back to the floor, only half-conscious. It pleased Gryffyn immensely. Now, she would make an easy target for him, easier than their father had made. He could hardly believe the luck of finding her without more than one escort. It had been a stupid thing for her to do, but he knew her to be stupid. As he gazed down at the struggling woman, the only thing he could feel was an overwhelming sense of satisfaction that he would have his way, one last time, as he pulled the sharp blade of his dirk across her tender throat.