The Warrior's Maiden (The Warriors Series Book 2) Read online

  Nilda's mouth opened for a retort. Before she could spew it, the jingle of harness rings and huff of tired horses reached them from around the guest house's corner, announcing the arrival of Lord Haydon's party.

  Anger drained from Nilda's face. "They come!" she cried with more excitement than was due so unhappy an advent.

  Dismissing Elianne without a glance, she bent to slap dust motes from her habit's skirts. That left Elianne at last free to pass. She started into the gateway, only to have the portress grab her by the arm and pull her a few feet away from Nilda and the gate.

  "Sister, I need to reach my father," Elianne protested.

  Mathilde waved aside her protest. "You'll do your sire's repute no favors should Lady Haydon see you dashing. Wait a bit to follow Sister Nilda and the lady to your father."

  Elianne sighed. Despite the tongue-lashing she knew her father would give her for failing him, Mathilde was right. Sprinting like a servant before the lady would only further upset her sire.

  "As for what Sister Pride over there said," Mathilde continued at a whisper, the angry jerk of her head indicating Nilda, "don't you give it a moment's thought. She'll be in enough trouble when Mother Gertha learns she came here to greet Lady Haydon after being commanded otherwise. And if your father truly leaves you destitute upon his passing, there are enough of us here who want you to sway Mother Gertha on your behalf."

  Although the weight of Elianne's future eased a little with Mathilde's assurance, there was still no guarantee Gertha would take on another impoverished mouth. The thought of Nilda getting what she deserved made the corners of Elianne's mouth lift in sour amusement. Nilda was an earl's daughter, with the arrogance to match her rank. It kept her from seeing that those she dismissed as inferior, which was everyone, returned the favor.

  "There she is," Nilda cried as Lady Haydon appeared around the corner.

  Elianne turned to look. The noblewoman looked far smaller afoot. Her gait was stilted as if she walked on sharp stones. There was no seeing her face, not with her head bowed and her hat yet on her head. Following her like a shadow came the big knight. If his noble mistress looked smaller afoot, he looked even larger. Good Lord, but he must stand a half-head taller than she, when there weren't many men her better. Appreciation stirred in Elianne. Aye, and handsome as well. Above strong cheekbones, his brows peaked over eyes neither too narrow nor too wide. Shaved to a thin line, his golden beard clung to his jaw, lifting around the corners of his mouth to outline his lips. His sleeveless surcoat clung to his broad shoulders and powerful chest, but he moved without the heaviness that usually afflicted big men. His hands were bare; he'd stripped off his gloves, tucking them into the belt of his surcoat to reveal well-made hands and long fingers that seemed too fine for a warrior. If he had flaws at all they were the slight hook of his nose and the harsh lines bracketing his mouth. Those lines touched Elianne's heart, for it was grief she saw etched into his flesh. He'd cared for his murdered employer, and she liked him for it.

  "Lady Haydon, you poor dear widow. Pray come, find your heart's ease in your childhood home," Sister Nilda called, her voice a strained falsetto as she delivered this greeting in the pretense of compassion.

  When there was no reaction from Lady Haydon, Nilda started out onto the cobbled apron before the convent's door, her arms wide in the promise of an embrace. Her offer was ignored. The lady never lifted her head, only continued on at the same slow, painful pace. That was no deterrence for Nilda. She wheeled as the lady passed her, then dropped her arm across the widow's shoulders. The lady jerked weakly to the side, as if to elude this embrace . When Nilda yet clung to her, she stopped, stock-still. Her knight halted behind her, a questioning look upon his face.

  "Remove your arm," the noblewoman demanded of Nilda, her voice hoarse and low.

  Rather than accede, Nilda caught her free hand around the noblewoman's elbow as if to confirm her ownership of this august visitor. "Nay, don't resist me, not when I can see how worn you are. Let me be your escort now, daughter," she crooned.

  Daughter?! Outraged astonishment brought Elianne's fists to her hips. Only Mother Gertha had the right to use that title.

  "Sir Josce," Lady Haydon said, addressing her escort without so much as lifting her head, "remember your vow. Remove this woman from my presence by whatever means necessary." It was a brittle, cold command.

  Elianne's eyes widened as Mathilde gasped. The lady had just given her knight permission to slay Nilda!

  Breath gusted from Nilda. She snatched back her hands with such violence that she stumbled on the uneven cobbles. She dropped, hitting the apron's hard surface with enough force that the clack of her teeth meeting was audible.

  Free once more, the lady walked on toward the gate, looking neither right nor left. Sir Josce was just as intent. Although his eyes had darkened in concern as he followed his lady, his gaze never left his lady's back. In the courtyard, Nilda clambered to her feet, her expression torn between her need to be witnessed leading the lady across the convent grounds and confusion at this unexpected rejection. Pride won. She started after the departing symbol of her prestige.

  Instantly, Sir Josce shifted to block Nilda's advance, then shifted again when she tried to dart past him on the other side. Elianne watched in curiosity. She was liking him more by the instant. Here was a good knight, indeed. Although his lady had given him leave to use his sword, his hand had never once moved toward its hilt.

  Beside Elianne, Mathilde loosed a heartsore sigh as Lady Haydon neared them. "Oh, Beatrice. Can your grief truly be so deep that you threaten those who love you?" the portress whispered in sad question.

  As if pricked to it by Mathilde's pained tone, Lady Haydon's head turned in their direction. Elianne stared, shocked. The lady's face was ashen. Her dark eyes seemed empty, even soulless.

  "Dear Lord, but she's the dead afoot," Mathilde cried in quiet horror, grasping Elianne's arm in a frantic grip as the lady made her aching way past them and into the nun's compound.

  Sir Josce followed, only to stop at the center of the gate, his stance blocking Nilda from entering. Hissing in frustration, Nilda halted not arm's reach from him, fair hopping from foot to foot as she sought a way around him that didn't include either making physical contact or stooping like an old woman to dart beneath one of his arms. The first was unthinkable to Nilda, the other wholly beneath her dignity.

  He turned to face Elianne and Mathilde, his gaze moving from the nun to Elianne. His eyes were a wondrous shade of blue. As their gazes met, a new and strange sensation came to life deep in Elianne's belly. It swiftly grew into discomfort as his look lingered into a stare. Men never stared at her the way they did at other women. She and her sire shared the same square chin, forceful thrust of nose and straight brows. While Elianne thought this combination of features gave her father a certain rugged handsomeness, she felt they robbed her of her femininity, especially considering her unusual height. Indeed, among the royal soldiers her sire commanded many referred to their lord sheriff's unwed daughter as his cock-less son.

  "Help me," the knight said, his gaze yet on her as if he meant his words only for her. His voice was but a deep rumble. "Lady Haydon is not herself just now, and what she intends may harm her more than her soul can bear. Go to your lady prioress. Tell her to come to the ice house. Warn her at the same time," he went on, his voice deepening in emphasis, "that no man must accompany her as she comes to join my lady."

  Not herself? Josce bit back a harsh laugh. Jesu, but that was an understatement. Why, right before his eyes Beatrice descended into complete madness, for in no other state would his stepmother command him to attack a holy sister. He gave thanks Beatrice hadn't thought to stop his tongue the way she'd bound his hands and tied him to her side Almost holding his breath, he waited for the tall serving woman's response. No great beauty she, not with her broad face and wide jaw. But, her nose was straight and true, neither overly long or too snub, and her brows delicate slashes above the most astonishi
ng clear green eyes. Caught in its casual tail, her hair tumbled around her, the honey-touched silken wealth fair begging for a man's hand to straighten it. Nay, no beauty, but handsome, indeed.

  Swift of foot as well, and that was what Josce needed. She must once more lift her heels, this time on his behalf. If the sheriff truly was here waiting for them, as Beatrice believed, Josce needed him to stay away from the ice house. The pompous nun standing before him loosed an odd little cry at his words, and darted to one side. Only then did Josce notice he'd shifted a little in the other direction, leaving space between his body and the gateway's inner wall. Even as he tried to once again fill that space, the nun ducked low and shot beneath his blocking arm.

  "Beatrice!" she shouted, trotting stiffly after Lady Haydon. "Wait. You cannot enter our house with a man as your escort. Stop! Wait for me!"

  Damn him! He'd thought her too prideful to stoop to such a maneuver. Whirling, Josce lifted his heels to once more put himself between his stepmother and the nun she wished to avoid. Warned to his approach by the jingling of his mail, the sister threw a frantic glance back at him. Her pace quickened until she scurried. It wasn't fast enough. Keeping his gait an easy jog Josce swiftly came abreast of her.

  "Stay away from me!" the nun shrieked and shied to one side, cowering against the convent's church, a simple stone building with mossy wooden shingles for a roof. Josce passed her without a glance, steadily closing the distance between himself and Lady Haydon.

  "Where do you think you're going?" the sister threw after him. "You don't belong within our walls. Get you hence!"

  An instant later, the plump nun streaked past Josce, her veil flying and skirts lifted. She veered toward the buildings at the far end of the compound. Relief warred with Josce's worry. She hadn't seemed as bright as the tall woman. She had to remember to warn her prioress that it must be only women who came for Lady Beatrice

  "Mathilde, what are you doing?" Sister Arrogance called after the speeding nun, new shock in her voice.

  The scuff of equally swift footsteps rang from behind Josce. He glanced over his shoulder to find the tall woman sprinting toward him.

  "Where do you think you're going!" Sister Arrogance shrieked, new viciousness in her voice.

  "The ice house," the woman replied calmly.

  Relief shot through Josce. He wouldn't have to deal with Beatrice alone in the ice house.

  "You hussy, Elianne! Forward hoyden!" the pompous nun threw after her. "Get away from him, or I'll tell your sire. See if I don't!"

  Elianne. Josce rolled her name over his tongue and thought it suited her. So not a servant then, not if she could ignore a sister's command.

  This Elianne did not slow her pace until she came abreast of him, and matched him stride for stride. By the standards of his courtly upbringing, Josce should have been disgusted by her bold behavior and movements. Instead he found their matched pace oddly intimate.

  Elianne sent him a tiny smile. She owned just the sort of mouth he liked on a woman, lush lips that invited kissing. Awareness of her grew, seeping past his cloak of grief, then through skin and bone until desire stirred, startling him.

  "I've sent Sister Mathilde to the prioress as you commanded. Know that Mother Gertha will come with all haste to the ice house," Elianne told him as Lady Beatrice led them down the side of a tall, two-storey building, surely the chapter house, the place where the nuns did their communal business. "Even if Mother Gertha isn't in time to meet your lady at the ice house, I've seen to it she won't be alone. Look behind us and be reassured."

  Josce glanced over his shoulder to find three silent sisters, brooms in hand, following them. Their faces were creased in concern, their skirts whispering across the courtyard's hard-packed earthen surface. His tension eased into gratitude. Aye, the more sisters the better. When they realized what Beatrice intended, they'd find a way to protect her from herself. Elianne

  had done better than simply offer him aid, she'd mounted a fully fledged rescue.

  "My thanks," he told Elianne, his gaze once more on Beatrice.

  His stepmother obviously knew where she was going. He sighed. Dear God, he wasn't ready to confront what Beatrice meant to see. Then again, perhaps what she wanted didn't exist.

  "The ice house," he began to ask Elianne, only to find himself incapable of speaking of his sire as a dead man. "Is what Lady Haydon expects to find truly there?"

  That it took Elianne no more than an instant to decipher his cryptic question said much of her intelligence. Her answer came by way of a somber nod, although compassion took light in her green eyes and pity softened her fine mouth. She cared that he ached, and, stranger though she was to him, she offered what little consolation she could.

  That she might try to comfort him only increased that sense of intimacy Josce felt between them. With it came the certainty that in her arms he might forget that he was now a man without kin or family. He shoved aside that thought. It wasn't a woman's arms he needed to ease what ached in him, but the blood of thieves staining his sword. That, or the sheriff's. Only then would he be satisfied.

  "Lady Haydon's message promised arrival before None. It's now an hour past that time. Where are they?!" Sheriff Reiner du Hommet demanded of no one in particular as he lumbered across the room again.

  Adelm of Nottingham, captain of the sheriff's guard and the son Reiner had sired but refused to acknowledge, watched patiently. Reiner not only moved like a bear, he looked like one, even dressed in his best: a new scarlet gown bright enough to glow in the room's dimness. His heavy gray beard covered the lower half of his face, while craggy brows and his age-whitened forelock, spilling out from beneath his brown cap, covered the other half.

  It only took Reiner a few steps to circle this room. He moved around the prioress's work table, set for this day with a ewer and wooden bowl for washing, and a tray of cold foods to offer their honored and grieving visitor, and came back to face Prioress Gertha in her chair of state at the far wall. But then, it wasn't much of a chamber, any more than it was much of a priory. This establishment was well on its way to failure, driven to it by decades of poor management and a greedy king. The only treasures Gertha could lay claim to were a golden communion cup and the deeds between the priory and its tenants.

  From her stance behind the massive chair, the nun attending Gertha lifted her head. Sister Amabella, the priory's cellaress, shot a swift glance toward Adelm. So brief was this look that he barely had time to register Amabella's impatience before she once more lowered her gaze to her folded hands.

  As he'd done so often these past years, Adelm wondered why no one recognized Amabella as his dam. Sculpted by twenty-nine years of enforced holiness and an austere diet, her features were as angular as Adelm's. Their black brows owned the same curve, their eyes were the same dark color. Hidden beneath her wimple was silver hair the same shade as his, both of them having gone to gray before their twenty-eighth year.

  "God's blood," Reiner bellowed, "but I've had enough of this waiting. Even Elianne is late. I say keep your guest for yourself. I'm leaving."

  Reiner's impatience and his obscenity brought tiny Gertha to her feet. Her face was the picture of calm as she tucked her hands into the sleeves of her habit. "Pray guard your tongue in my presence, my lord sheriff," she warned Adelm's father, her gentle tone that of tutor to student. "Remember that this is God's house, and find peace within yourself."

  Adelm's mouth tightened into a hidden smile. Until only months ago, England had lain under papal interdict, all her churches and holy houses closed to her inhabitants, as the pope sought to bring King John to heel. Instead, a defiant John had claimed both the overlordship of and the income from all England's monasteries. For the past six years, Adelm had served in Reiner's stead as this priory's royal administrator, his one job to strip what little profit the house generated for his monarch. That was long enough for Adelm to learn that Gertha's mask of serenity concealed a near hatred for her sheriff.

  "I'll speak as
I please, where I please," Reiner snarled back.

  Adelm straightened with a start, his arms opening. Although Reiner despised the prioress for being his legal equal and his superior by birthright, he knew better than to goad Gertha. Interdict was no more. That meant Gertha was now free to make good on her threat to close the convent's doors on her sheriff. If that happened, they would lose access to Amabella, and, through her, seven years’ worth of their stolen wealth. Gertha's face stiffened. She slowly turned her back on her king's sheriff to look at Amabella. "Sister Cellaress, where is Sister Subprioress? She should be here to greet Lady Beatrice."

  "I haven't seen Sister Nilda since Prime service this morn, Mother," Amabella replied, her voice as emotionless as Gertha's as she spoke of her chief tormentor. Nilda encouraged the other gently-born nuns to snub Amabella, a mere merchant's daughter. Nilda couldn't bear that their mother house had sent Amabella here to use the monetary skills she'd learned at her merchant-father's knees to bring this house out of destitution, something Amabella might have achieved if not for King John and interdict.

  Reiner wheeled again. This time Adelm could see the panic writ plain upon Reiner's face, and his dismay tightened into disgust. He'd risked his life to reap ill-gotten wealth for his debt-ridden father, and what did he get in return? A sire who became a weak brick in the wall of silence they needed to save them now.

  Of a sudden, those nuns gathered outside the prioress's office awaiting Lady Haydon's arrival cried out. Their voices were shrill, not welcoming. Reiner whirled toward the door, reaching for a sword he didn't wear. Startled, Adelm did the same.

  Footsteps pounded up the exterior stair, then the shrieked open, slamming against the wall behind. Sister Portress exploded into her superior’s office, her askew and her chubby face red from exertion. "Mother!" she shouted, then her mouth quivered and tears leapt to her eyes. "Oh Mother, our Beatrice has been driven quite mad. Elianne follows her to the ice house to do what she can, but says you and only you must come quickly."