LITMIR.BIZ

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glanced over at Kenneth.

      “Lord Eudo’s courier delivered her to the keep,” he explained. “She was supposed to stay in the kitchen with the cook. Obviously, the child disobeys as easily as her sister.”

      Clara shot him a scathing glare, which he deflected immediately. Aye, her mother had pushed her own child out of her home, and his threatening her with a sword after the ordeal she’d already endured was harsh, but, he argued with himself irritably, if she’d stayed in the keep’s kitchen as she’d been told to do, he wouldn’t have nearly killed her just now.

      “You knew Brindi was here and you didn’t tell me?” Clara’s voice was a mere breath of shock.

      He stiffened. “You were in the dungeon. I would have seen she was cared for. I’m not a beast.”

      “But you knew she was at the keep all the time we were walking here? That she was brought here like a sack of grain?”

      “Aye.” He tightened his jaw. “In Lord Eudo’s letter, he warned his brother that the guild masters feared a confrontation with Lord Taurin—”

      Clara’s brows shot up as she interrupted him to ask, “You know him?”

      “Nay, I have not met him. But I read the missive that explains how Lord Eudo discovered the truth about why you were sent here.” He shook his head. “You brought trouble to your people with your own stubbornness and refusal to reveal a slave girl’s location. I suspect that once the townsfolk discovered Brindi, they feared the same of her and shipped her off to Lord Eudo. I don’t blame them a jot.”

      Clara pulled her sister closer and covered the child’s ears. Then, with a glower at him, she set Brindi down on one of the two benches, the child’s back to him. She kept her hands on the girl’s shoulders. “What do you know about Rowena?” she asked Kenneth over her sister’s head.

      So that was the slave’s name? ’Twas a good start to finding her location. He kept his face impassive. “I know enough. You have no right to interfere with a Norman lord’s personal affairs. And you certainly do not have any right to send fear through the town of Colchester or bring trouble to Dunmow.”

      “If I caused any fear, ’twas for good reason. And I have every right to help save a person’s life.”

      “The girl and her child would not have been hurt!”

      She let out a laugh. “I beg to differ! She has run away from a cruel man. If he catches her, he’ll kill her!”

      “How do you know what Lord Taurin will do? ’Tis clear he wishes to keep the child, and if so, ’twould hardly be in his best interests to kill the girl on whom the babe depends.”

      Her eyes flared. “What is the punishment for a slave running away?”

      He shrugged, looking away, not wanting to tell Clara that slavery had been abolished. ’Twould have Clara heading to London to demand Rowena’s release, right from King William. “A beating?”

      “I doubt Rowena would be so fortunate,” Clara answered. “Besides, as a new mother, would she survive a simple beating?”

      He remembered Ediva’s struggle in childbirth. Nay, this Rowena would not have survived a beating had it come directly after childbirth. But it had been at least a month since the child had been born. Surely Rowena had recovered sufficiently to bear her punishment now. He asked, “And you aiding her? What would your punishment be?” In Normandy, those who abetted runaway slaves were often punished more harshly than the slaves themselves. Though the king had abolished slavery, the Normans here would have brought their punishments with them. Aye, Clara was also in danger.

      “My punishment is not important. I am pledged to save lives.” She shook her head, flame-colored hair dancing like a fresh fire. “As a soldier, you wouldn’t understand. You take lives. You don’t save them.”

      He bristled, his teeth set on edge by her accusation. But he would not be drawn into a useless argument. There was nothing more sinister here than a child who’d slipped from the cook’s supervision. “At least all is well, then.”

      She flung out her arm in the direction of the doorway. Her cyrtel, simple and faded, swished out with her. “Nay, all is not well! You’ve terrified my sister, and look what you’ve done to my door!” Her words, like her hand, sliced the air with alarm.

      He turned and cringed briefly at the sight before him. He’d not meant to batter down the door, but ’twas an old thing, brittle with age and weather. The sun had beat down on it for too many years. Now it lay in splinters, good for nothing save kindling.

      His heart sank. The surge of fight in him a moment ago had cost Clara much. Good solid wood was saved for the keep, for defenses and strongboxes. The most Clara could hope to purchase to replace her door, should she have the money, would be a mix of discarded pieces patched together, something that wouldn’t hold up in any of the storms they’d see during the coming winter.

      And even now, the night’s chill rolled unhindered into the tiny hut, one draft fluttering the lamp’s flame. He swallowed, then straightened. “I will replace it on the morrow.”

      “With solid, quality wood, reserved for the keep?”

      He groaned inwardly, knowing the cost and his duty to pay for it. “Aye, solid wood.”

      “And what of tonight? ’Tis cold out.”

      “Burn the scraps we have here.” He glanced around, spying the worn yet laundered curtain the old midwife had used to separate her sleeping chamber on the far side of the hearth. He pointed to it. “Use that for a door tonight.”

      “And what about safety? You were quick to draw your sword, so you know of the dangers that night can bring.”

      He had been quick to draw his sword because he’d thought that someone had broken into her home. “Very well,” he said. “You and Brindi build a fire and share the pallet in the other room. I will sleep in front of the door.” He’d planned to do so, anyway. Nighttime would have been a perfect opportunity for her to slip out to visit Rowena. He had planned to use her table as a bed, as was the custom of many soldiers.

      But considering what he’d just done to the door, ’twould be wiser, not to mention warmer, to set the table on end to block the nighttime draft. “I’ll use the table as a door.”

      With a heavy sigh, Clara began to gather up the scraps of wood, cradling them in the crook of her left arm, but keeping her fingers curled. Brindi, with one eye on Kenneth lest he draw his sword again, reached out to snatch up a few pieces, also.

      Kenneth sagged. ’Twas not the way this evening was meant to go. Aye, his few meetings with Clara today had not gone favorably at all, but if he was to discover where Rowena was, or to convince both Clara and Rowena that the child was better off with his father, acting as he had just now was the worst plan of action.

      As Clara kindled the fire, he hefted up the table and blocked the doorway with it. Soon, the hut glowed with heat and light, a welcome sight for all three. Clara herded her sister into the other room. Then, with a cautious and oddly fearful look on her face, so different from what he’d seen on it when they met in Colchester a month ago, Clara drew closed the curtain that separated the rooms.

      Had it only been a month? He’d gone to Colchester to escort Clara back. The tension in the town that day had been rife, but no one had said a word as to why. He’d just assumed it was Clara’s fiery personality that had made the others eager for her departure, but of course, now he knew differently. Still, she could take a lesson or two from Lady Ediva, who, though strong-willed, was gracious and not given to flares of temper.

      Once the makeshift door was set firmly in place, Kenneth turned. This hut seemed to be some combination of two buildings, with the hearth and its chimney wall shared by both rooms. The sound of Brindi’s quiet whispers rolled through the space above the crackling fire. Kenneth could barely hear Clara’s soft, soothing answers. Deciding to ignore them, he wrapped his cloak

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