Masques of Gold (17 page)

Later Lissa began to feel rather guilty about Binge, although she had not the faintest idea what else she should have, or could have, done. The old woman had been of great help, whether she meant to be or not; Binge's fancies had provided Lissa with a companion when she sorely needed one and would not have acknowledged it. Witta served this purpose admirably; he was not a man who would hurt her and enrage her by not being Justin, and he could be set a task connected with settling Peter's accounts. Moreover, he was quick witted and interested enough to keep her attention on those accounts also. So the evening passed more pleasantly and profitably than Lissa had expected, and she went to bed with the satisfied feeling of work well begun.

That calming influence carried Lissa into sleep, but in that unguarded state the bonds she had set on her grief, her desire, and her imagination were loosened. The pleasant images she had dwelt on of happy debtors relieved of part of their burden dissipated into visions of herself wildly searching through an empty house, a huge place like the White Tower, which had many towers and halls and endless dark chambers within the thick walls. She had been in the White Tower a number of times, most frequently since the last year of her mother's life when Sigurth had found attendance at great state dinners too tiring. Lissa had not feared the Tower when she visited it, not even when a young courtier had taken it upon himself to show her some of the less frequented parts of the keep. But after her mother's death she had the searching dream many times, and now that she felt she had again lost something precious she ran once more through the dark keep, first into an echoing chamber and then into a small dark one, which muffled her voice, calling…calling…

Lissa sat up in bed. Her voice? Had she been calling out? But her throat was not sore, as it often was when the dream lasted a long time, and she had not wakened Witta. Through the open door she could see his pallet and the hump of his body against the dull glow of the banked fire. She listened but could hear nothing and was just about to lie down when she wondered if Binge had called out to her. Uneasily she told herself not to be a fool. She could not hear Binge. The workroom was at the back of the house, her bedchamber at the front, and the sound would not come up the stairs because of the door between the workroom and the shop.

Then there was another sound, a dull thump. That must be something fallen on the roof, or the house settling, Lissa told herself, but her conscience already had its knife into her. What if the madness was only a symptom of another disorder and Binge was really sick? What if the maid had screamed in pain and tried to get upstairs for help but had found the door locked and banged on it or had fallen against it? It was not a very thick door, only meant to keep the apprentices out of the shop and away from the valuables at night. Lissa thought she might hear a loud scream through it; certainly she would hear if anyone beat on the door. She hesitated a moment longer. Then it seemed to her that she heard a faint scratching. Instantly an image of the poor old woman lying on the floor and clawing at the door with her last strength wiped all rational doubts from Lissa's mind. She snatched the household keys from beneath her pillow and jumped from the bed.

The shock of icy night air on her body reminded her to throw on her bed robe before she wrenched the thick night-candle from its heavy, worked iron stick and ran out of the bedchamber. She did not pause to wake Witta. Her guilt at having locked away an old woman when she should have known from her unusual behavior that she must be sick, even dying, permitted no delay or assistance in correcting her cruelty.

There had never been a lock or a bar on the door at the top of the stairs. It was open, no hindrance to check her and give her time to think, but when she stepped on the top stair, a draft made her candle flicker. Lissa thrust the keys into the sleeve of her night-robe so she could guard the flame with her free hand. She was watching that, after a single glance at the stair to safeguard her feet, fearing to be left in darkness and be delayed in finding the door and getting to poor Binge, when she realized what a draft must mean.

Then it was too late. A huge shadow was already halfway up the stairs. Eyes gleamed out of blackness. Lissa opened her mouth to scream, but something burst with a roar and a light like the worst of the great fire, and her voice was drowned.

“Just drop her on the floor,” William said to Hubert, who had knocked Lissa unconscious with a single blow to the head. “I will gag her and tie her.”

Hubert dropped the girl down the bottom third of the stair and went on up into the solar. A moment later a bundle of what seemed like old rags, except that it fell with a solid thud, landed beside William. “There is the boy.” Hubert's voice was somewhat muffled by the cloth that was wrapped around his head. “Tie them and gag them as you will, they might still see or hear something that will be dangerous. The old woman is already dead. Why should we not kill them both and be done with it?”

William ground his teeth briefly, then said, “No, it would be more dangerous to kill them. Believe me.”

Days before, he had finally convinced Hubert that it would be dangerous both to himself and to his master if he was discovered to be involved in Flael's death. Unfortunately once an idea was fixed in Hubert's head it was there for good, and there was no way to shade it. Hubert's response was simple and direct—kill everyone who knew or might know of any connection between him and Flael. William had given up trying to explain why that was likely to create more problems than it solved. He simply insisted that Hubert allow him to judge what was a necessary risk and what, by drawing too much attention from Sir Justin and others, would anger FitzWalter.

William had chosen this path as the lesser of the evil choices facing him in dealing with Hubert. He could not leave Hubert out of the search of Flael's house for two reasons: First, FitzWalter would surely become suspicious of the exclusion of his simple but faithful henchman; also William wanted a witness FitzWalter would trust to say he had not kept the seal if he could not produce it after the search. Second, William knew he was incapable of searching the house adequately himself and certainly preferred Hubert to any hired stranger.

The trouble with using Hubert was that he was totally indifferent to William's needs and desires unless they affected him directly. Thus William could not simply tell Hubert that the maid had to be killed because she could clearly and convincingly identify William as the man who bribed her to open the house, but that Lissa and the boy, who also knew them both, must not be seriously harmed because Lissa was necessary to his business.

To Hubert, the maid and Lissa seemed equally dangerous and equally worthless. William knew that was partly his own fault. In the excess of his panic on the day he learned of Flael's death and seeming torture, William had found Lissa worthless too and had foolishly confided to Hubert his intention of wreaking vengeance on her for all his own fears and petty spites; however, now that he no longer feared he would be FitzWalter's next victim, his panic had abated. With that, the desire to destroy his daughter had also abated. Heloise had regained her normal place in his regard—an intensely disliked but also intensely useful pawn.

In fact, the tale William had told Binge had not been all lies. One purpose of the invasion of Flael's house was to seek the king's seal, but a secondary purpose, and not far secondary to William, was to make the house uninhabitable and force his daughter to return home. Heloise had gained considerable importance in her father's opinion since she had been married. Her absence from buying trips and from the shop itself had been an expensive lesson to William.

The need to have Heloise at home had led to the preservation of the boy's life—partly because William knew Heloise might suspect he was involved in this “robbery” and if the boy was hurt she would find a thoroughly nasty way to be revenged, and partly so that she would not be openly singled out, the only living witness. With two of the three people in the house alive, the maid's death might be taken as an accident, a quieting that had gone too far. That would be greatly preferable to any serious investigation of Binge's death. William had been as careful as he could, but it was almost certain that he had been noticed talking to the old woman, and innocent as his conversations might have been, suspicions might still be aroused.

William heard the stair creak and looked up hastily, realizing that he had not given Hubert any further instructions. “Never mind these two,” he said. “I will make sure they see and hear nothing. You begin the search of the bedchamber, but do not touch the writings. I will examine those. Take everything apart—the pillows, the feather beds, even the bed itself. We must open the posts to be sure there is nothing inside them. And by Christ's hangers,” he called after Hubert's retreating back, “I will poison you if you tear Heloise's clothes. She will make me pay for new ones.”

“My Lord.”

Justin turned, pulling his shoulder away from the hand that touched it before he came up out of sleep enough to recognize the voice was not the one he expected. Then he was sitting up, asking, “What is wrong?” as Halsig began to repeat, “My lord.”

“Flael's house has been torn apart, my lord,” Halsig said, his face set.

“Flael's—” Justin swallowed the rest of the senseless repetition and stared at Halsig, but the man's face told him nothing, and something had him by the throat so hard that he could not speak. All he could think was that he had delayed; for a foolish reason, his pride's fear that scandal should touch him, that there would be gossip binding him to a suspect, he had not gone to Lissa last night to cure the hurt he had done her. His heart was a cold leaden weight in his throat, blocking his voice and making it hard to breathe. There would be no gossip now. Now it might be too late ever to heal her pain.

Fortunately Justin was not also paralyzed. He thrust Halsig back, jumped out of bed, and began to pull on his clothes, first his chausses, then the shirt and tunic. By the time his head emerged from the tunic, the icy, leaden block of fear had settled down from his throat to his belly and freed his voice. He was able to roar down the stairs for his horse to be saddled, but when he turned back to Halsig, he still could not say Lissa's name.

“What happened?”

“I do not know, my lord,” Halsig replied, his eyes dropping like those of a scolded dog.

“There were two guards on that house, front and back, and you do not know how the house was entered and damaged and those within—”

“The mistress and the boy were only bruised,” Halsig said hastily, adding more slowly, “The old woman is dead, but by accident, I think.”

Justin, bent over the stool on which he was resting his foot to tie his cross garter, flattened the long ribbon with exquisite care. “And your men?” he asked, as he wound the garter and tied it below his knee.

His voice was steady, belying the tears that had started to his eyes. Lissa was safe! Justin fought back the tears of relief and the insane desire to throw his arms around Halsig and dance him around the room. Then he suddenly wondered why Halsig rather than his own servant, Hervi, had wakened him. Halsig, with a broad hunting knife in his belt and a long sword at his side, was loyal…but did Hervi know that? The first rule in any gentleman's household was that no armed man should be allowed to come upon him sleeping. Very likely Hervi's refusal to wake his master himself was only a result of laziness and cowardice, an unwillingness to commit the double sin of depriving Justin of sleep
and
giving him bad news. But whose messenger would he send up next?

“Also stunned and bound, but alive.”

Justin had no trouble connecting Halsig's reply with the question he had asked earlier about the guards, and Halsig, who had paused but not finished all he had to say, then added grimly, “They may be sorry for that before I am done with them.”

Halsig's grim promise struck Justin funny in the lightness generated by his relief; he suddenly felt rather sorry for the men, who already had sore heads and might suffer worse harm from being bound hand and foot on such a cold night.

“I suppose they grew careless after four nights with no alarms,” he said, tying his second cross garter and looking up. “Did they tell you how they came to be taken by surprise?”

“I did not stop to ask. When Dunstan, who was the change of watch, found John trussed like a roasting fowl, he came running to me. I went into the house, finding the back door unlocked and unbarred. I suppose, since the word about Flael's sons taking the strongboxes was common knowledge, that some thieves had paid the maid, who spoke much ill of the mistress, to make a quick snatch of the silver and gilt plate in the lady's solar. My lord, I could not believe my eyes. The workbench was ripped from the wall and all pulled apart, the heavy beams split open. Then I saw the old woman dead, under the shelves torn out of the wall. I tell you my heart all but failed me. I thought they were all murdered, but Mistress Heloise heard us and had sense enough to kick something over. She could not call out; she was gagged.”

Justin had belted on his sword, swung his cloak over his shoulders, and started for the stair, but he stopped and turned. “You left her in Flael's house?”

“No, my lord. She is with Master Goscelin. She is a great lady, with no doubt. For all her bruising she wasted not a wail or a gasp but knew just what must be done: Leave one man to guard the house and let no one in, she told me, and send another to fetch help.”

“Did she send you for me?” Justin asked.

“That wouldn't be her place,” Halsig answered stoutly, troubled by the novel idea of being told to fetch the correct person by someone who did not have the right to give him that order. He shook off his discomfort and said approvingly, “She bade us inform Master Goscelin, which was right, and ask Mistress Adela for shelter, which was granted at once.”

She could not have been badly hurt, Justin thought, lingering to listen just to hear Lissa praised, though he knew he was being foolish. Then, making up for wasted time, he walked away from Halsig so fast that he took the man by surprise. “I will meet you at Goscelin's,” Justin said over his shoulder as he ran down the stairs and opened the door.

His horse was not yet there, however, and Halsig caught up. “But the house—”

Justin bellowed his servant's name and what he would do if the man did not appear that instant and, when the sound of hooves followed at once, turned to Halsig. “The house will not forget. Anything it can tell me will be there for me to see if I wait an hour or ten days before I look. But people forget. Most easily do they put out of their minds what frightened or hurt them—or else they add horrors. I must speak to the boy and Mistress Lissa while what befell them is still clear and not diminished or blown out of its true form.”

His servant having arrived, Justin grasped his palfrey's rein in one hand and fetched Hervi a sharp blow on the side of the head with the other, cursing him for sheltering in the warmth of the stable instead of having the horse ready at the door. Once in the saddle, he looked down at Halsig and shook his head.

“I need to take my own advice,” he said. “Do not follow me to Goscelin's house but discover instead what you can from the guards who were overpowered. You can use the servants' hut in the yard to question them. When I have learned what I can, I will join you. Then we will both go to look over the house.”

He rode away on the words, concerned for Lissa but overjoyed at the way all his problems seemed to have resolved themselves. Still, Justin was afraid he was twisting truth into the shape he wanted. Surely if Lissa missed him and desired him she would have asked for him when she was hurt and frightened. But had he not hurt her worse than a physical bruise by seeming to reject her? She was a strong and clever woman. He knew that from the way she had withstood the situation of her husband's death and from what Halsig had said of her reaction to the invasion and damage to her house. No wonder she had not asked for him. Her pride would hold her back from crying for what he had himself shown her she could not have. If he rushed into Goscelin's house with fond words and cries of joy for her escape, Lissa would probably break his head sooner than she would embrace him.

No, he could express his joy for her escape, and apologize for the danger to which she had been exposed. That was only normal courtesy, together with an explanation of why he had not expected her to be in any danger—and, if he was fortunate enough to be left alone with her, he could say a word about his fear of embarrassing so new a widow by too great attentions. That was a safe excuse for having stayed away. Later, when they were more certain in their loving, he would tell her the truth, that he had so feared her power over him that he could only flee her and hide himself, and she would laugh and preen herself as a beloved woman does.

The pleasant imaginings were laid aside, perhaps to be renewed by mingling with reality, Justin hoped, as he drew his horse to a halt before Master Goscelin's house. There was a groom waiting, and every crack in every shutter shone with light. The door opened before Justin touched it, exposing Master Goscelin himself in furred slippers and bed robe.

“Come in, come in,” he said. “I am glad you stopped here before you went to the house. Mistress Lissa is a most determined young person. As soon as she heard me tell Halsig to report this to you, she insisted on staying awake until she had spoken to you. I am not certain why. She had little enough to tell me.”

Justin blinked at the master goldsmith, who seemed a trifle offended by Lissa's preference. He smiled self-deprecatingly. “She has a great confidence in me, owing, I fear, to a mistaken impression of my kindness.” He chuckled at Goscelin's unbelieving expression. “If we ever find the time and I do not forget, I will explain how that came about, but now I think I had better go to her at once.”

Goscelin nodded and gestured for Justin to precede him up the stairs. At the entrance to the solar, he guided Justin to the right and, without saying a word, pointed around a sharp corner. Then he walked very deliberately back across the solar and withdrew into his bedchamber. Justin watched with a troubled frown. Were Goscelin's feathers simply ruffled because Lissa had not chosen to trust him in a moment of crisis, or did Goscelin sense, as Justin had when he questioned her after Flael's death, that she was hiding something?

Two steps took Justin to the corner, into a small extension of the solar, which he realized took up the width of the stairwell. The space was almost filled by a cot piled high with pillows. There was just room enough for a large brazier, the air around it shimmering with heat, at its foot. Justin saw that much before Lissa—who had been half sitting against the pillows, facing away from the light in the solar—turned her head toward him.

“Who?” Justin choked, forgetting everything he had intended to say, barely getting the one word out in his rage. Her face was all swollen on one side, black and blue, with one eye shut. “Who?” he croaked again, stepping forward and going down on his knees beside the cot. “I will kill him. I will kill him over many years, an inch of flesh at a time. Who did this to you?”

“I do not know,” Lissa whispered. “He was just a—a black shadow and—and the head—the head was all black too with gleaming eyes.”

She shuddered and Justin reached out. She came into his arms, wincing, but clinging when he murmured he was sorry he had hurt her and would have let her go.

Then she sniffed and lifted her head so she could see his face. “But it was no evil spirit,” she said. “His fist was solid enough.”

“I will kill him,” Justin muttered.

“I will not hinder you,” Lissa agreed with a watery chuckle, “but your knees will soon hurt. Take the stool.”

Justin bent and kissed her hair. “I never meant for you to be in any danger, beloved. I would not have let you stay alone in the house if I dreamt you might be hurt. There were guards, Lissa, front and back. I do not know how they could have been taken by surprise—”

There was only one word in all that speech that had real meaning for Lissa, and she repeated that. “Beloved?”

“Is that name displeasing to you?”

“No, oh no. Only…if you could not come yourself because of business, why did you not send with Thomas a word of—”

Lissa hesitated and Justin chuckled. “Yes? A word of what? What could I tell my cousin to say to a day-old widow whom I did not dare face myself for fear of blackening both our names?”

He pulled the stool nearer and sat, and she leaned against him so that he could not see her face. That was as well, because the sight wakened such senseless rage in him that he could not think clearly about anything. Still, in the little pause that followed his explanation, he wished he could guess what her response would be so he could plan an additional defense. But he did not need one. Lissa gave a little sigh.

“What a fool I am,” she murmured. “I did think of that, but I would not allow myself to hope it was true. So I deserve my punishment; if I had had greater faith in you I would not have suffered at all.”

“I did not entirely enjoy our separation myself,” Justin remarked dryly. “In fact, I was quite out of charity with you most of the time. I went so far as to wonder if you had put something into my food or wine to bind me to you—” He heard Lissa laugh. “It is not at all funny.”

“Yes, it is,” she said. “You have no idea how many times I have refused to mix love potions, because I am so sure they will not work and then it might be said that
all
my remedies were faulty. Also, such things are elaborate formulae and can take hours or days to mix. Did you imagine I kept one by me at all times to use on any man who came along? And worse, do you think I am so poor a thing that I cannot draw a man without? Then you should be ashamed to yield, even to a potion.”

Justin kissed her hair again, chuckling himself. “I am glad to know that you used no artificial means to enchant me. Still, you have done so.”

He was more enchanted with her than ever, and for perfectly sensible reasons—for the musical voice that was a delight to his ears, for the warm, lithe body he held in his arms, for the sweet nature that blamed itself first without self-pity.

She put up a hand and touched his face. “Does enchanting the mayor's warden deserve punishment?”

Instinctively Justin tightened his grip, and Lissa cried out softly. “Dearling, forgive me,” he said. “Let me lay you down.”

His voice was trembling, and when he had propped her carefully against the pillows, Lissa took his hand. “Do not look so tragic. You have done me no harm.”

“I am angry,” he said, but Lissa had turned her face half away so that he could see only the unhurt side and that helped him realize one part of what was troubling him. “Also, I want to stay here with you at the same time I want to go to the house to discover from it any hint of whom I should pursue for this outrage.”