Season of the Raven (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Michaelmas

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  St. Osyth's DAy

  A Note from Denise

  Other Books

  Glossary

  Copyright

  To all of the readers out there who have enjoyed my historical romances. Thank you for reading and I hope you like this mystery just as much.

  My apologies to the people of Warwickshire. I have absconded with your county, added cities that don't exist and parsed your history to make it suit my needs. Outside of that, I've done my best to keep my recreation of England in the 12th Century as accurate as possible.

  "Tonight you sleep with the angels, my sweet," I tell her and press a kiss to her forehead in blessing.

  As I sit back on my heels, I sigh in appreciation. Such beauty! Her skin is fine and soft, spared ever knowing the corruption of lust or the degradation of time. The rain that spits down from an overcast sky settles jewel-like in her dark tresses and on the ring of bright blue flowers I wove as her crown. Her hands are folded sweetly upon her chest, resting atop the posy of meadow flowers I presented to her as her final gift. Now that her nails are pared and her fingers are free of dirt stains, there is nothing to mar their elegance.

  The simple white shift she wears is not as fine as those that adorned her spiritual sisters when they made their journey to the gates of Heaven. For that slight I made my apologies to her, assuring her Saint Peter will find no flaw in her plainer attire, not when she is every bit the equal of those I sent on ahead of her.

  Nor could I have chosen a more perfect site for her translation. Tall meadow grasses rustle on this treeless hillside, tossing their golden heads in gentle rolling waves driven by a persistent wind. As they bow to Heaven's breath, I catch glimpses of scarlet, white and blue—poppies, daisies and cornflowers, remnants of summer past.

  Of a sudden, the clouds part and a single shaft of sunlight sings down. The beam comes to rest on this exact spot.

  For breath after breath, the light persists. Tears fill my eyes. My heart soars in joy. I am not forgotten!

  I know I have always been the most grateful and caring of His servants. But it has been years since I last felt the call to send Him another one pure enough to serve Him in his heavenly house. If that quiet period could not break my faith, I will admit to feeling tried by His silence.

  At last the holy light dims and the time to leave is at hand. I start to turn away only to have my gaze catch on her throat. A tiny rusty smear remains upon the wound that finished her.

  I tremble. Was His light blessing or warning?

  Not so much as a fleck of earthly smut can defile my offerings. Should I fail in this, neither hairshirt nor scourging will save me from roasting in hell forever. Nor should I be saved, for without His blessing, what I do is naught but murder, pure and simple.

  Kneeling at her side, I remove my capuchin. The woolen hood is well-moistened with the rain. Using it, I wipe away the last bit of crusting blood, then survey her once again, seeking further signs of my carelessness. There is nothing.

  "Hold me in your heart, little one. Soon enough I will join you and all your sisters in service to our Lord," I tell her in farewell.

  I sing my prayer as I tramp back to the road, willing her soul safely and swiftly heavenward, while begging our Holy Master to let her body make an easy return to the earth from which it was created.

  Hungry, tired, and crusted with so much dried muck that his chain mail more crunched than jangled, Sir Faucon de Ramis watched the ravens as he rode. At least a dozen of those foul carrion-eaters turned wide circles over the grassy hillside at the far edge of this long low valley. Faucon's lip curled in disgust. Bold creatures those birds were, as quick to feast on the dying as they were to consume the dead. So many in one place always spoke of death, be it human or animal.

  Faucon scanned the treeless slope, then followed the line of the Stanrudde Road to where it crested the hill. There was no sign of human habitation. So, it was some wild creature that attracted the birds this time. Nonetheless, he was grateful to turn his shoulder to them when the time came to urge Legate off the muddy road onto the even muddier track that led to Blacklea Village.

  After nearly two weeks of constant rain, the sky had finally cleared. Now the descending sun stretched gentle not-yet-rosy fingers across a low defensive mound and the village that spread along its top and sides. His view framed by the arch of his helmet's nosepiece, Faucon eyed his destination in surprise. Why in God's name was his auspicious great-uncle calling him to such an inauspicious place?

  The small settlement could contain no more than four hundred homes, if hovels made of mud and manure topped with thatch could be called homes. As in any other place of this sort, the fields that supplied its daily bread were close at hand, just beneath the mound. And just like in any other village, the furrows in the fields as well as the hedges that surrounded them went every which way to take the best advantage of slope, sun and water. In the orchards the trees—be they apple, pear or walnut—were yet heavy with fruits. Harvest time was at hand.

  At the next turn of the track, Faucon came upon a crowd of villagers as muck-ridden as he. They were gathering up their tools. With all the rain, their wheat was too wet to harvest, so it seemed they'd spent the day seeding in next year's crop.

  Although a lone armed man, even one in full armor, wasn't usually a threat, no one called for him to stop and declare his intentions. That suggested Blacklea had a strong protector and had long known peace.

  Shouting and whooping, a gaggle of boys raced from the field and onto the grassy verge. Bare of foot and dressed in brightly-dyed homespun, each one carried a sling and had a sack of stones hanging from his belt. They'd been keeping birds from consuming the newly-sown seeds before they could be covered with soil.

  In their native English, the boys threw goads at each other, daring one another to get closer to the knight. They leapt and hopped over clumps of grass, trying to outrun the trotting horse. Legate gave a snort.

  Faucon grinned as he understood. His big-hearted boy wasn't as tired as he'd been pretending. He gave the courser his head.

  His steed curved his neck in a pretty bow of gratitude, then stretched his legs. In an instant, the boys all bellowed in frustration as the horse left them well behind, his easy gait swiftly eating up the distance to the base of the mound and the flimsy gateway in the village's wholly inadequate defensive wall.

  Legate was almost into the opening before Faucon caught a glimpse of the flock of sheep on the other side. He brought his mount to a sliding, dancing halt, just before overrunning the shepherdess. With a cry, she stumbled back from the horse and his deadly hooves. Her sheep scattered, baaing and milling about the narrow lane until it was blocked. The noise brought several housewives to their doorways, their arms crossed and their eyes narrowed against the possibility of livestock invading their front gardens.

  "My pardon," Faucon called out in her tongue as the shepherdess caught her footing and straightened. "Are you hurt?"

  Dressed in rough go
wns of vibrant green, the young woman looked up at him. She wore no head covering, and strands of gentle brown hair straggled and curled out of what had once been the sober confinement of her plaits. She seemed plain until she smiled. The turn of her lips was so compelling that Faucon couldn't help but smile back.

  "Ah, racing with our boys I see," she replied in the French of England's ruling class, as the lads who'd tried to outrun Legate streamed into the gateway to thread through her flock as they made their way home. "Would you be Sir Faucon de Ramis?"

  "I am," Faucon replied, as startled that she knew his name as by the fact that she spoke his native tongue with but a hint of an accent.

  At that, she put her hands on her hips and studied him as boldly as any whore. Her gaze measured the breadth of his shoulders and the length of the sword buckled at his side, as if she could gauge his strength and prowess by eye alone. Apparently he fell short, for she gave a disappointed shake of her head.

  "Crusader or not, I fear you're too young to be pitted against Sir Alain. Our sheriff will be sucking the marrow from your bones in no time," she told him.

  Faucon frowned at her. "What are you talking about? How do you know me?"

  She only cocked a brow at him and smiled once more, sharp amusement filling her blue eyes. "Oh, I shouldn't like to spoil the surprise. By the by, your bishop awaits you at the house, not at the church."

  She offered him a bold wink, then put her fingers to her lips and freed a whistle so sharp that Faucon winced and Legate danced. A dog, deerhound-sleek but the same dusky brown color as her sheep, appeared from the back of the wayward flock. Tongue lolling, it darted silently from one side of the track to the other, nipping and snapping, knitting the sheep into a unit. It drove the reformed flock past Faucon and his horse and through the gate within a breath. The shepherdess followed, taking up a position at the rear of the flock this time.

  "Which house?" he called after her.

  "Follow the track to the green. You'll know it when you see it," she called back without turning, her voice still warm with amusement.

  Now, as befuddled as he was tired and filthy, Faucon urged Legate up the rising track, which quickly became no more than two well-used ruts in the ground. It took but a few short moments to reach the village green at the top of the mound.

  Studded and rutted with the rocky remains of some ancient construction, the grassy expanse played host to a dozen horses, palfreys all, save for one churchman's donkey. Among them was the graceful gray Faucon recognized as his uncle's favorite mount.

  The men who rode these horses were also in the green. With the rain at an end, some had thrown their cloaks onto the piles of rocks to lounge in what sun they could catch, while others crouched in tight groups on the wet grass and gambled, that being the thing most men did to pass an idle hour or two. To a one they wore rough brown and green hunting garments beneath their leather vests.

  Blacklea's church sat on one side of the grassy expanse. It was small, but built of stone, its square tower lifting above a gleaming slate roof. Directly across the green from the church was a house.

  The shepherdess was right. This was the only abode in Blacklea that could possibly serve his uncle. Made of reddish stone blocks set in thick white mortar with a roof of dark slate tile, the house was three times the size and twice as tall as the largest of the cottages it overlooked. Although its door was on the second storey, accessible by a set of wooden steps that clung to its exterior wall, there was no keep tower for a final refuge.

  One of the waiting men came forward to greet him. "Sir Faucon?"

  "I am," Faucon replied. How did everyone here know him when he knew them not at all? Although this man did look familiar. Then again, after traveling to the end of the world and back again, Faucon had seen so many faces that everyone seemed familiar to him these days.

  "I'll take your horse for you, if he'll allow me," the man offered.

  "He will," Faucon reassured him. Although more than capable of carrying Faucon into battle, Legate was no nobleman's deadly destrier. "He's only a courser, and calmer than most at that."

  As predicted, Legate tolerated the stranger's touch after a reassuring pat from his master. Faucon dismounted, only to groan as his feet met the earth. Almost a full day astride with only a few short breaks left pins and needles in his legs. Leaning against Legate, he pulled off his helmet and hung it from its tether on his saddle. After pushing back his mail hood, he removed the leather coif he wore beneath it and stuffed the cap into his helmet. As he reached for his pack, which contained his finest attire wrapped in oiled skin to keep it dry, the man holding Legate's bridle gave a jerk of his head toward the house.

  "They're impatient for your arrival, as they hoped to be gone from here by now. You're to present yourself immediately. Go, knowing I'll see your mount is fed and watered."

  They? Then again, his uncle rarely traveled without at least a few men near his own rank to bear him company, or some storyteller. William of Hereford was especially fond of men who could spin a proper tale.

  Faucon grimaced as he looked down at his mud-stained surcoat and filthy chain mail. It did his father's name no honor to present himself to his betters looking like this. But if the choice was between being filthy or irritating his uncle by delaying him, well, that was no choice at all. He started up the steps on still-clumsy feet.

  The thick door at the top was bossed in metal and scarred as if more than one army had tried its strength and been rebuffed. He reached for the latch, then hesitated. What if his mother was right, and the handwritten note from Bishop William commanding him to ride at all haste to this meeting meant an advancement in Faucon's fortunes?

  Until this moment he hadn't dared believe it possible, even if he was eager for any purpose his powerful kinsman might find for him. Anything was better than the sorry half-life he'd been living of late. That made presenting himself so completely covered in mud impossible.

  Tucking his stained gloves into his sword belt, Faucon ran his fingers through his matted hair. After rubbing as much of the muck and dirt as he could from his surcoat, he opened the door and stepped inside.

  The chamber within was so small it hardly deserved the name 'hall.' At the back of the room, a man knelt in prayer at a modest prie-dieu set beneath a narrow window. Enough light streamed through that opening to reveal the shaved skin on top of his bowed head and his black habit. A Benedictine monk.

  At the center of the room, two other men sat at a simple table made of planks set on braces, a chess board on the tabletop between them. Faucon paid little heed to the man with his back to the door, other than to note he was dark of hair and wore a leather vest atop a rough tunic. Instead, his full attention was on his uncle.

  Bishop William of Hereford stared at the board in front of him, so lost in concentration he hadn't yet noticed his nephew's arrival. Faucon had not seen his august relative since departing England for the Holy Lands with England's king, Richard, Coeur de Lion, five years past.

  If new silver threaded his uncle's black hair, his face seemed the same as ever. Like Faucon and his mother, William's features wore the stamp of the de Vere family. His brow was broad, his cheeks lean and his nose long. And then there was that chin. Faucon hid what he considered a far-too-pointed chin beneath his neatly-trimmed beard, but the bishop had sculpted his facial hair to a narrow thread that accentuated the acute line of his jaw.

  When another moment passed and his granduncle remained focused on the chessboard, Faucon cleared the road dust from his throat. "My lord uncle, I have come as you requested," he said in quiet announcement.

  William lifted his head, a smile already bending his narrow lips. His opponent shifted on the bench and looked over his shoulder. Faucon gasped in surprise.

  "Lord Graistan! What are you doing here?" he asked of the man who was the elder half-brother to his cousins.

  Rannulf, Lord Graistan, came to his feet. Taller than either Faucon or William, he was in his middle years but maintai
ned the form of a man who counted on the strength of his sword arm to hold his livelihood. "That is something I've been asking myself all day, Pery," he replied, a quick smile bringing warmth to his gray eyes and banishing the native harshness of his roughhewn features.

  He used Faucon's pet name, a name devised by Lord Graistan's youngest brother. Pery was short for Peregrine, a play on the meaning of 'Faucon.' Faucon had welcomed it. Far better to be called Pery than Falcon, even if his name supposedly came to him from an ancestor—one of the men who had followed Rollo the Viking into Normandy—as his mother claimed. Indeed, Faucon would have preferred a simple Thomas or well-used Robert, since neither of those names inspired taunts.

  "Truth be told," Lord Rannulf continued, "all your uncle and I have managed to do here this day is waste hours waiting for your arrival."

  "Waste them, indeed," William of Hereford snorted, fond irritation filling his voice. Although Lord Graistan wasn't blood kin to the de Vere family, he was among William's greatest supporters, as had been his sire before him.

  The bishop's bench chittered across the wooden floor as he came to his feet. Like the baron, William was also dressed in hunting green, although his tunic was trimmed in golden embroidery at the neck, sleeves and hem. He pointed at the chess board. "You call this game wasted time, Rannulf? I have you on the run. I've almost got you!" he gloated.

  "Hardly so! I'd never let you catch me, not when your win would result in you stealing my son's inheritance from me," the nobleman retorted, his tone more taunt than complaint.

  "My lord, have a care how you speak to our lord bishop!" Filled with outrage, the chide came from the monk at the back of the tiny hall.

  Startled that one so humble would dare so much, Faucon watched the black-robed brother come to his feet, his prayer beads clutched tightly against his chest. Outrage pulsed from the man.

  Lord Graistan's expression could have been carved from stone. William lifted a warning hand without turning to look at the monk.