Page 39

C ELESTE’S SCREECH OF HORROR echoed against the stone walls of Penterwell.

Bea made no sound at all as she ran toward the bloodied, exhausted men riding into the courtyard.

She lost all ability to speak when she saw Kiernan mounted on his horse and holding Ranulf in front of him, one arm around her beloved’s sagging body.

“Kiernan, are you hurt?” Celeste called out. “What happened?”

Kiernan answered, but it was not to Celeste he spoke.

He looked down at the distraught Bea clutching his stirrup as if she was about to fall herself.

“We saw some men putting in up the coast and tried to capture them. We were winning the fight until more came to join them. That’s when Ranulf was wounded. ”

Wounded. Wounded, not dead.

As something approaching vitality returned to Bea, she gestured at the grooms who’d come rushing out of the stables when they, too, heard the sentries sound the alarm.

“Take Sir Ranulf to his chamber,” she ordered, the words little more than a hoarse croak.

As the men hurried to obey her, Maloren appeared at her elbow. “Oh, my poor lamb! My lady!”

Bea straightened, shoulders back, expression resolute—a lady of power and majesty and strength of purpose. “I’m not the one who’s hurt. It’s Ranulf and some of these other men who need help. Find me clean linens for bandages and I’ll need hot water. Please bring them to Ranulf’s bedchamber.”

As Maloren rushed to do as she was bidden, Bea walked over to Kiernan. She ignored Celeste, who waited anxiously nearby.

“The smugglers—what happened to them?”

“I don’t know, my lady. After Ranulf fell, we retreated because by then, we were outnumbered.”

Bea turned next to the garrison commander, who was likewise sweaty and exhausted. “Send a soldier to summon the townsfolk to the market street, Gareth. After I have seen to Sir Ranulf’s wounds, I’m going to address them. We’ve been patient long enough.”

Gareth nodded, awed by the determination in Lady Beatrice’s face as she turned on her heel and marched into the hall.

T HANK G OD THE WOUND WAS not deep, Bea thought as she pulled a needle through Ranulf’s ruined flesh.

His assailant’s blade had slid along the ribs, sparing the vital organs, and although Ranulf was unconscious, she guessed it was more from lack of blood than anything else.

He moaned softly as she finished and she spread his own ointment over the stitches, just as Constance had done for Merrick not so long ago.

In some ways, it was fortunate that Merrick had been wounded in his arm by a boar spear; otherwise, she might not have learned what to do now.

Fortunately she did, and she tried to concentrate solely on her task, determined to do her best so that Ranulf’s wound would heal cleanly, without infection, even if it would leave a scar.

At least he was alive. Thank God, he was alive.

As Bea worked and prayed her hope and gratitude, Maloren hovered nearby, anxious but blessedly quiet, handing Bea what she asked for without hesitation or squeamishness.

As Maloren watched her lambkin working with such skilled composure, she saw not the child she had nursed and fussed over and worried about all these years. She saw Bea’s mother reborn, only with a competence and capability her dead darling had never possessed.

“There now,” Bea said, sitting back and wiping her brow with the back of her hand. “I’ve done the best I can.”

“That’s as tidy a stitching as ever I’ve seen,” Maloren assured her. “He’ll get better, you’ll see.”

“I pray God you’re right,” Bea said, rising. “Stay with him, Maloren. I doubt he’ll wake soon, but if he does, call for Tecca and have her bring him wine and water, and bread and meat, if he can eat it. He must get his strength back.”

“Won’t you be here?”

“I hope to be, but first, I have to speak to the people of Penterwell.”

B EA LOOKED OUT over the villagers gathered in the main street of Penterwell and thought of Ranulf lying pale and wounded in his bed, the same bed where they’d so recently and happily consummated the love they shared.

“People of Penterwell,” she announced, her voice strong and carrying down the street lined with curious people. “Your castellan and one of his patrols have been attacked. Even now, Sir Ranulf and several of the men who serve to protect you lie wounded in the castle.

“Ever since he came here, Sir Ranulf has tried to be a fair and just overlord. He’s been as horrified as you by the recent murders of at least two good men and poor Gwenbritha.

He’s tried to find out who is responsible, to no avail.

He has overlooked things he need not because he understands your reasons for disregarding the king’s law and sympathizes with you.

But murder and now an attack upon him and his men mean the time of patience is at an end.

“I ask you, I plead with you,” she said with firm resolve, “if anyone knows anything about the murders, or the men who fought Sir Ranulf’s patrol today, tell me.

You must no longer think only to protect your own selfish interests, your cache of tin, the coins you’ve earned by smuggling.

Do you think those men who killed Hedyn and Gawan care what happens to you?

Do you think they see you as anything other than something to be used to gain more profit for themselves?

Will they hold a hall moot and listen to your disagreements and try to render fair judgment?

Will they be your voice before Lord Merrick?

Will they represent you to the king and try to keep him from making laws that are harsher and taxes more unfair?

Or will they cause the king’s anger to fall ruthlessly upon you all?

“Help me find out who is responsible for these deaths and the attack today. Let us bring them to justice, before worse befalls us.

“Think about what I’ve said, people of Penterwell.

Think about Sir Ranulf, lying wounded in his bed, and how he waited, hoping that one of you would have the courage and wisdom to come forward before things went this far.

Have pity on yourself, if not for him or those already dead and those they left behind, and help us catch the men who seek to do you harm. ”

Bea fell silent, having said all she had come to say. For a long moment, only the cry of the gulls broke the quiet while she waited, more than half anticipating someone would speak up then and there.

They did not. Instead, the people began to drift away, muttering among themselves.

“My lady?”

She discovered Myghal at her elbow. “Yes?” she asked, wondering if he had something to tell her that could erase her disappointment and despair.

“It’s little Gawan, my lady,” he said. “I stopped in to see Wenna and he’s got a fever. She’s frantic, my lady, and begged me to ask you to come.”

As concerned as Bea was for little Gawan, she hesitated. What if someone finally decided to come forward and she wasn’t at the castle to hear them?

“Please, my lady!” Myghal begged, desperation in his eyes. “He’s burning up with it. And he can’t keep his milk down, either.”

That decided her. And, she told herself, she need not stay long at Wenna’s cottage. If little Gawan were seriously sick, she would have Wenna and the baby come back to the castle with her.

Together she and Myghal hurried along the lanes until they came to Wenna’s cottage. Myghal stepped back to let Bea open the door and enter.

The moment she did, she sensed that something was wrong. There was no fire and the cottage was not as neat as—

She felt the sharp tip of a sword between her shoulder blades. “Not a sound, my lady,” Myghal said quietly behind her. “Not a word.”

She whirled around to face him, backing into the room as he moved forward, the sword now at her throat. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “Have you gone mad? Where’s Wenna? Where’s the baby?”

“They’ve been taken and there’s only one way to get them back,” he replied. “Sit there on the stool, my lady, and don’t move, or I might have to hurt you, and that I don’t want to do.”

Bea could hardly believe what was happening. “Myghal, please! If they’ve been abducted, we should go to the castle, fetch more men to search—”

“I know who took them and where they went,” he said as he gestured with the sword. “Sit down , my lady.”

She did as he ordered. All those times she’d been uneasy in his presence, she’d been right to worry. How many times had this snake been close to her and she’d convinced herself she had nothing to fear?

As Myghal had convinced Ranulf he was trustworthy, and Hedyn and Sir Frioc, too.

Myghal pulled a piece of rope from his belt and began to tie her wrists.

“Myghal, please,” she said as he bound her hands behind her, “how can tying me up here help get Wenna back? We must go to the castle. Even if Ranulf is hurt, there are his soldiers, his garrison commander and Kiernan, too. We’ll find her and—”

“No!” Myghal snarled. “The men who have Wenna will kill her if we do that. They’ll stop at nothing to get what they want, and what they want, my lady, is you .”

“Me?” she cried, aghast. “But why? For ransom?”

She was sure Constance and Merrick would pay for her safe return, but that didn’t lessen her fear, or her danger. Many things could go wrong between now and then.

Myghal pulled the bindings tighter and she thought she heard him sob.

“Let me go and we’ll get Wenna and her baby back,” she pleaded, trying not to sound frightened. “Let us help you. I won’t hold this against you. You’re not thinking clearly because you love her and you’re desperate.”

“It’s because of me they’ve got her and you, too.”

“But they don’t have me yet. There’s still time to—”

“No!” he snapped. “There isn’t. It’s now or never for Wenna and little Gawan. Be quiet, my lady. I don’t want to hurt you, but if you don’t stop talking, I’ll have to gag you.”

He was going to have to gag her.