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T heobold dropped the garrote like it was a snake. “Is this what I think it is?”

“If you mean an implement to kill someone, yes. Why do you have it, boy?” Sir Robert asked.

“I don’t. I mean, I found it in your jerkin when I was packing your shirts.”

“What?” Sir Robert’s eyes widened. “Why? Did you put it there?”

“No. I didn’t know what it was until I picked it up.”

“What was it doing in my shirt?” Sir Robert asked.

“I don’t know. I came in and saw that someone had packed your bags already.”

“Who did this?” Sir Robert asked.

Theobold shrugged. “A servant, perhaps? I couldn’t say. I pulled the first bag I saw and began redoing it but then felt the handle and took it out to see as you came in. Honest, sir. I wouldn’t.”

“Where did it come from?”

“Search me.”

Sir Robert’s face clouded. “Remind me, how did Lady Eleanor die?”

Theobold swallowed. “Bronwyn said she died by a garrote, judging from the hard, red lines on her neck.”

“And now we find one amongst my things.” He breathed in noisily. “Someone is playing a dangerous game. They have put this in here, hoping to cast suspicion on me.” He shook his head.

“What do we do with it?”

“The garrote? Hide it. Get rid of it. No doubt whoever hid it is hoping it will be found and I’ll be labeled as a culprit and blamed for Lady Eleanor’s death. Whoever they are. Give it here.”

Theobold handed the garrote to him and Sir Robert quickly approached the small stone hearth in his room, then thought better of it. “Come to think of it, let’s keep it.”

“Why?”

“To use as proof,” Sir Robert said. “Someone came in here and planted this. They want me to look the fool and likely thought that like so many other servants, you would be lazy and not notice that someone had packed my bags already. I want to be ready when I am accused of murder.”

“Who would want to frame you?” Theobold asked.

“Isn’t that what the empress wants you to figure out? You and that maidservant, or kitchen maid, whatever she is. Find out who planted this and you’ll have your murderer.” Sir Robert’s face was grim, and he stroked his short beard. It was brown fading to grey, and bristly.

Theobold took back the garrote and felt revolted at its touch. He didn’t want to touch the thing, especially as its thin thread was stained red. He stuffed it in a spare cloth and put that in his shirt.

Sir Robert saw his discomfort. “Remember you are not your family, boy. Their trade is not yours, and it doesn’t have to be. You don’t need to have any part in it. The empress values you for your sword and your mind, as I do.”

Theobold nodded. It still bothered him, to know that a murder weapon was now on his person. He hated it. The garrote was a tool to kill, to murder. A sword and shield were used for defense and had saved his life before. He felt dirty just having touched the garrote.

“As for who might want to ruin my good name, I should think any of the empress’s knights, or Stephen’s.

But for this, I would say it’s only a handful of men.

Think of this: Stephen’s men are in jail or on their way to Bristol.

Sir Ranulf and that new squire of his among them.

But even fewer men knew that Lady Eleanor died of a garrote. ”

“So that means…” Theobold started. “Only those in the tent after her murder could have known.”

“Unless Sir Bors was telling the truth, and if there was a second guard there, then he killed the good lady with the garrote and fled, then put it here to frame me. But he’d have needed to know for certain that the empress knew how Lady Eleanor died. So…”

“That means one of the people in the tent with us did it.”

“Now you’re using your head. Find them, and you’ll have your killer.”

Theobold packed the rest of Sir Robert’s bags and then hurried to the kitchens. Arriving almost breathless, he ran into a cook, who stopped him with a hand. “Oi, what are you doing?”

“I need to speak with Bronwyn. Please, it’s important.”

The cook grumbled. “All right. But only for a moment. The woman’s worn out from cooking for the feast, like the rest of us. She’ll be asleep on her feet soon.”

“I won’t be long.” He moved past the cook and approached the familiar feminine shape of Bronwyn, who was wiping down a worktable. “Mistress Baker,” he started.

Bronwyn stiffened and turned around. Her expression was frosty. “If you’re hungry, there’s some leftover bread and a bit of drippings over there.”

“That’s not why I’m here.” He came toward her.

She swallowed and looked up, her rag in her hands.

“I need to talk to you,” he said, stopping a few feet away.

“I think you’ve said enough, don’t you?” Her eyes narrowed.

“What do you mean?”

“Lady Alice told me. Apparently, you two are very close, and when she asked if you…” She looked away.

“She overheard you saying I was just a servant. A nobody. Just someone the empress told you to get close to because she suspected I knew too much about Lady Eleanor’s murder.

A silly kitchen maid you were supposed to charm, like any other woman. Is it true?”

His cheeks burned. He noticed her eyes were red. “Have you been crying?”

“Tell me the truth. Is what Lady Alice said true?”

He met her gaze then could bear it no longer and looked away.

Bronwyn stared at him. Her eyes had been so full of hope, but now they filled with unshed tears. Her voice was dull. “So it is. I should have known. Lady Alice wouldn’t lie. Not about this.” She turned away when Theobold caught her wrist.

“Let go of me,” she said.

“Listen to me.” He dropped her wrist. “I found the weapon used to kill Lady Eleanor.”

“What? Where?” Her eyes darted around, looking to see who had heard.

“I was packing up my master’s bags for tomorrow—”

“What’s tomorrow?” she asked.

“We go to Winchester, for Empress Maud’s pre-coronation ceremony. The men of the church are to recognize her and the nobility are to come. But that’s not important. What is important is that I found the garrote used to kill Lady Eleanor in my master’s things.”

“Sir Robert? He did it?” She gave him an incredulous stare.

“No. He found me and was as surprised as I was. I was surprised because his bags were already packed after he asked me at dinner to pack them, and when I went in they were done, but messily. Like someone had just thrown the clothes in. He’s always been of a steadfast nature and likes things done a certain way, down to how his bags are packed.

Neither he nor I did such a poor job, so when I went to unpack and pack them again properly, I found it. ”

He felt it, sitting there in the bolt of linen cloth against his skin. His skin started to crawl at the thought of it. An implement of torture, of death. He hated it.

“What does this mean?” she asked.

“Someone wanted it to be found in his things. Perhaps to accuse him later, or if his bags were searched, for it to be found.”

“Like Lady Morwenna when she accused Lady Alice of stealing the empress’s crown. She was so sure, and she was furious when there was no sign of it.”

“Yes, exactly,” he said, taking heart at the excited gleam in her eyes.

Then he grimaced. He should have known Lady Morwenna was up to more than just foul tricks.

“Whoever did it meant to get my master in trouble, but also, they would have had to have known that Lady Eleanor had died by the garrote, and that we knew how she’d died.

Otherwise, they’d have planted the weapon for no reason.

That means only a small number of people would know—those in the tent when she was found. ”

“That’s a small number of people,” Bronwyn said.

“Yes. We’re close to figuring it out. But I have to go. We’re leaving in the morning.”

“You still are set on that? But you can’t leave. Not when we’re so close to figuring out who did this.” She pressed her lips together.

“It’s why I wanted to tell you first. So you would know and be on your guard.”

“How much time do we have?”

“Not long. The empress already asked me about our progress in finding the culprit. She’s given us till her coronation in London,” he said. “Bronwyn, I…”

She looked at him, her expression pained. He wanted to do more, to tell her how he felt. How he’d been an idiot, a fool, unquestioningly following his empress’s orders to get close to her, and how was in serious danger of losing his heart in the process. He wanted to…

The moment was gone. She huffed, “Well, then, that’s your problem to solve. I’m just a simple servant, after all. Safe travels.” She left him.

His shoulders slumped. He wanted to take her hands in his, flour and all.

But he didn’t dare. Not when she’d been hurt so utterly, again and again.

He mentally cursed Lady Morwenna’s gossiping tongue, and himself for falling into her traps.

By wanting to protect Bronwyn from Lady Morwenna’s tormenting, he should have known someone else had been listening.

He’d lost her now, possibly forever. “Farewell, Mistress Baker.”

He quit the kitchen then, furious with himself with every step. He was a fool, and what was worse, he knew it.

Theobold traveled to Winchester with the empress the next day but learned nothing, and frustration ate away at him.

He hardly noticed much, aside from the grey and rainy days that bled from one to another, as March blurred into April.

Many times he’d taken a pen to parchment, wanting to write Bronwyn a note, but when he had a quill and parchment before him, ready to take down a word, his powers of persuasion failed him.

He felt like a coward. He, Theobold Durville, tongue-tied at what to write to a young woman.

When he could smile and charm any woman between the ages of fifteen and thirty.

He didn’t understand it. What was this hold the kitchen maid had over him?

When he rested his head on his saddlebag at night, her face greeted him, and it was the last lingering thought that dwelled in his dreams when the morning broke.