Seemingly unconcerned by the anger leveled at him by the inn’s owner, Arblette said, “What do you propose, milord?”
Elias set before him a purse of a size similar to the one given Lettice, this one holding a quarter of his remaining coin. “Half now, half when you deliver the woman to me.”
Arblette stared at the offering. “May I?”
Elias loosened the strings and spread the leather just enough to reveal the contents against a silken red lining.
Arblette whistled low.
“Agreed?” Elias said.
“I can but summon the witch under pretense I have another babe to dispose of.” He raised his eyebrows. “’Tis for you to capture her ere she disappears in a sudden fog—which she does sometimes. I would not have the wrath of one such as that fall on me, especially as I am no mighty warrior as your blade tells you to be.”
The Wulfrith dagger, prominent on his hip, not only as a matter of pride but to warn any who thought to set upon its bearer.
“When I have her in hand,” Elias said, “you shall gain the second half of your coin—though no clearer a conscience unless you continue to delude yourself in believing the Lord approves of leaving his most lovely creation in the wood to die.”
“Most lovely…” Arblette snorted. “Ye may say that of babes merely unwanted for poverty’s sake, the lack of food taking them a bit later than were they left to the wood, but you cannot say that of those sinful creatures born out of wedlock and abominations come forth with misshapen heads and bodies and marked faces.” He nodded. “I do the Lord a service.”
Who crawls beneath my skin? Elias wondered. Not even when foul trickery caused him to yield Lady Beata Fauvel—now Marshal—to an unwanted marriage had he so longed to harm another. Prayer was what he needed. And assurance the boy he may have fathered was not in need of rescue.
He cinched the purse, shoved it nearer the man. “Summon her.”
CHAPTER TWO
Six months. They felt like years.
Honore of no surname lowered her forehead to the floor. Gripping her beads, she prayed, “Almighty, You are all. You see all, hear all, feel all.” She drew a shaky breath. “You can do all. I beseech Thee, wherever Hart is, turn his feet back to us. Deliver him to these walls unharmed and smiling his sweetly lop-sided smile. Bring him home.”
To give the Lord time to consider her request in the hope he might finally act on it, she waited several minutes before setting before Him others in need of grace and healing.
When the bells called the sisters to prayer an hour later, she pressed upright. Soon the chapel would fill with holy women, one of whom Honore was not and would never be. She had work of a different sort—and of equal import, she believed.
She stepped out the side door and paused to allow the sun’s heat burning away the clouds to warm places grown cold whilst she prostrated herself before the altar. It felt wonderful, tempting her to delay her duties, but she had been gone too long and Lady Wilma was generous enough with her time.
Honore bounded down the steps and headed around the rear of the chapel so she might sooner reach the dormitory. And halted a step short of colliding with a squat nun.
“Forgive my recklessness, Sister Sarah.” She bobbed her head deferentially. “I am late to—”
The nun raised a staying hand, and when Honore seamed her mouth, tapped her own lips.
“Dear me!” Belatedly realizing she had spoken louder than usual as she was in the habit of compensating for a muffled voice, Honore drew up the cloth draping her shoulders which respect for the Lord—and the abbess’s assurance He thought her beautiful—bade her lower before addressing Him.
“I was at prayer,” she said as she arranged the covering over her head. “In my haste to relieve Lady Wilma, I neglected to set myself aright.” She drew the trailing end across her lower face and fastened it on the opposite side. “I thank you, Sister.”
It was not cruelty that caused the nun to remind the younger woman of what was best kept concealed. It was kindness, Sister Sarah well-versed in the superstitions of many within Bairnwood Abbey, be they nuns, lay sisters, servants, or residents—especially those of the nobility who resided here because of advanced age, a babe whose birth must be concealed, or to escape an unwanted marriage.
“How fares your good work?” the nun asked.
“Well.” It was true, though it felt otherwise these six months.
Sister Sarah inclined her head. “I pray thee a good day, Honore.” She stepped around the younger woman and continued to the chapel.
Resuming her course to the dormitory, Honore muttered, “You must cease this grieving. It does him no good. It does you none. Hart is gone. Pray for him and leave him to God. The Lord can protect him far better than you.”
Easy to say. Hard to do. The loss of the boy hurt deeply, and worry over him nibbled at her every edge. If she did not gain control of her emotions, soon she would be eaten all the way through.
Honore jumped out of the path of a cluster of nuns also destined for the chapel. As they passed, she landed beneath the regard of a middle-aged woman bringing up the rear, she who was not yet garbed as a bride of Christ. But soon, it was told, the novice’s family having supplied the funds necessary to make an esteemed place for her at Bairnwood.
Honore held the woman’s keen gaze, refusing to be cowed by one who was her equal—or nearly so. Had Honore wished to become a nun, for a dozen years now she would have worn a habit. Instead, she had been granted her request to use the funds paid for her keeping in a way surely as pleasing to the Lord.
As the novice neared, the woman moved her eyes to the swath of material covering the bottom half of Honore’s face, then lowered her gaze further.
Honore reached up and closed a hand around the short string of prayer beads she usually kept beneath her gown’s bodice. As noted months past, it was similar to the ones hung from the girdle of the novice who was now past her.
Honore slipped the beads beneath the neck of her gown and continued to the farthest dormitory which housed the abbey’s female lay servants.
As soon as she entered the building whose northern end had been converted from a dozen individual cells to one great room a decade past, Lady Wilma moved toward her. “Settle yourselves, children,” she called over her shoulder, “else there shall be no honey milk with your dinner.”
As moans, groans, and mutterings answered her, Honore noted the woman’s anxious eyes. “What is amiss?”
Lady Wilma halted before her. “The raggedly lad was here.”
Honore drew a sharp breath between her teeth. She had hoped she would not see him again, that the abbey’s plans to render the boy’s master useless would be completed ere she was called upon to once more leave the safety of these walls.
“He said his master bids you meet him two hours ere matins,” Lady Wilma continued.
Midnight, then—a perilous hour, especially if the dense fog that had arisen these past nights returned.
“He told you are to bring twice the amount of coin.”
“Twice?” Honore exclaimed.