Chapter Three
McClearn Farmstead
C
layton McClearn and his friend Isaac Galt rode along the dusty ridge demarcating the northern boundary of the McClearn farmstead. The morning sun beat down on the fields mercilessly. It was shaping up to be an unseasonably hot day for so late in the year.
Two oxen, dragging a massive iron-tined plow toiled in the field below, turning over the cropland. A young man in grubby coveralls and a broad-rimmed hat cracked a long whip above the animals’ backs, urging them to struggle onward. The crop yield had been plentiful that year, and the subsequent auctions at Wyndhaven and Steerton had been quite successful. Such good news however, did little to raise Clayton’s spirits.
“What news from the Frontier?” Clayton wiped the back of his hand across his sweaty brow. “I’ve heard nothing in weeks. It’s unusual for it to be this quiet.”
“Lord Westwood has been on the Frontier for at least the last two months.”
Clayton cursed under his breath. “Now it makes sense.”
Isaac grimaced, his graying dark hair blowing in a sudden gust of wind. “Most of what I hear is just talk. It’s been so long since the last Incursion. What if we’re overdue for one?”
“We are, Isaac.”
Isaac nodded, stroking a hand along his close cropped gray beard. “There
is
talk of a levy. The last time there was a levy … ”
Clayton remembered all right. The countryside had emptied of able-bodied males between age 14 and 45, all flooding toward the Frontier. It had been the oddest sensation to ride along the Border road, and meet so many of the men he’d grown up with. Few of them had survived through the next year.
“You know something don’t you, Isaac?”
“As I said, just talk, my friend.” Isaac’s horse snorted as he had the animal pick its way through a patch of exposed rock along the ridge.
“Complacence and decadence are even worse enemies than the
nocturne
; they’ve always known when we’re rife with it.”
Clayton had foolishly allowed some hope to steal into his heart. Crops were plentiful, the population was booming —and that wasn’t even counting the steady trickle of Others that were being encountered with increasing regularity. There hadn’t been an Incursion in more than twenty years; most of the soldiers on the line at the Frontier had no memory of the enemy.
Clayton and Isaac did though; they had enough memory for ten lifetimes.
“You’ve got fine strong oxen down there, Clayton,” Isaac said, nodding toward the toiling draft animals in the field below. He sat high in his saddle, his straight back and keen gaze belying his 49 years.
“That they are, my friend. Rory picked them up from the Tilders’ stead for a song. The old woman had no use for them once her husband passed, and her sons decided to sell the land.”
He remembered long ago on a visit to Westwood Manor what he’d seen pulling plows in their fields. It hadn’t been oxen. The thought made him shiver, knowing that his daughter was held captive at that very same manor.
Clayton leaned an elbow on the pommel of his saddle. “You didn’t come here to talk about the Frontier or my draft animals did you Isaac?”
Isaac chuckled, the epaulets on his broad shoulders gleaming in the morning light. “Alas, no. I’ve something to propose, actually.”
“Go on.” Clayton had wondered why his friend had decided to slum with the yokels in the hinterland. Wyndhaven, with its intrigues and opportunities, was the proper place for a trader like Isaac Galt. Still, a part of Clayton was glad to see his old friend, if for no other reason than to distract him from his failure to protect his own flesh and blood.
Isaac lowered his voice. “Before I do, I need your solemn word that this will remain between us and the wind.”
Clayton sighed. “I should have known. This is farm country, Isaac. We don’t piss around out here about things. Let’s just hear it.”
“What are you prepared to do about this? You know it cannot stand.”
Clayton shot his friend a sharp look. “Dictating to me how to run my affairs now? What do you know of it?”
“I’ve heard enough. It pays to be privy to information in my line of work.”
“My options are bad and worse, Isaac. I’m at her mercy, and she knows it.”
“So take Sophie back. I know you can. I’ve seen what you’re capable of doing.”
Clayton tried to ignore the searing memories. The blood, the rush of the kill, the pain. His heart was suddenly racing, his pulse loud in his ears. His mind wanted to forget those memories; his body could not.
Isaac sat forward in his saddle pointing at his friend. “You’ve got no choice, Clayton.”
He shook his head. “Choice is the one thing I do have, Isaac. The problem is that I can’t bear to make it.”
Isaac shook the reins of his steed, the white horse accelerating to a trot. “Be honest with yourself, you old fool. You
must
act, else you’ll never see her again.”
Clayton, shaking his own horse’s reins to keep up, looked at his friend. “She has me, Isaac. I’ve nothing to fight her with. But I’ll be damned if I give in to her demands — noble right or not.”
“So what then? Appeal to the Council?”
Clayton cursed under his breath. “A waste of time. They only care about the damned Frontier. They’re shitting in their drawers from tales of bogeymen and the whispers of old women. They’d never move against a noble. It would be lip service only — then nothing. Meanwhile Sophie would suffer for it.”
“She’s suffering already, Clayton.” Isaac’s voice was grave.
“Aye, I know it — and it’s tearing me apart.”
Isaac pulled his horse to a stop and looked at his friend. Galt’s gaze was hard. “We’ll help you.”
“I know what you’re about.” Clayton turned his horse to face Isaac’s. “Your boy needs to stay away from my daughter.”
“That’s not really the problem right now is it, Clayton? For God’s sake man, don’t let that witch do this to you! What would you rather have? Owen courting Sophie, or your daughter at the mercy of Miriam?”
Clayton stared at his friend, shaking his head, hoping Isaac couldn’t sense his desperation, his hopelessness.
Isaac looked down a moment, then cast a sidelong gaze at Clayton. “How is my boy?”
Clayton was surprised that Isaac had refused to visit his son. Perhaps it was simply a father letting his progeny make his own way in the world, but he knew if it were he in Isaac’s shoes, ten thousand horses couldn’t have dragged him from his injured child’s side. “He was sore for a week after her soldiers got done with him. Rory’s wife patched him up as best she could, but he might scar. Only time will tell, but he’s a strong lad. It would’ve been even worse for him if the soldiers had taken him back to Westwood.”
He saw a pinched look cross Isaac’s countenance for the briefest of moments, then the former military man clenched his jaw, his eyes narrowing. “That wasn’t your fault either, Clayton, so don’t go saddling yourself with it too.”
“It’s not that simple.” Clayton ran a hand through his gray-flecked black hair.
“What is this hold Miriam has on you?”
He was stunned at the words, feeling a humiliating flush he hoped Isaac’s keen eye wouldn’t discern in the bright sunlight. “Isaac, I —”
“Just tell me, damn you! I’ve already said enough to get me hanged if you decide to wag your tongue about me. I want to know what this harpy has on you, so we can figure out a way around it.”
Clayton felt a surge of admiration for his friend. He knew Isaac hadn’t a clue what he was in for in crossing blades with the Westwood family, but he knew his friend would be at his side no matter the cost. He blew out a breath, and dismounted. He paced for a minute, Isaac watching him in silence. “She and I — before Elizabeth — were involved.”
“Gods,” Isaac muttered, shaking his head.
“Miriam wasn’t the way she is now. She was fair, even sweet, at times.” Clayton gazed across the broad field stretching out in the valley below. “But something’s happened to her over the years. Her heart is as black as night now.”
“What does she want from you?”
“That’s the trick isn’t it? I’m not really sure.”
“You’re lying. What was it you just told me about not pissing about?”
Clayton scowled at his friend. “She wants … me.”
“So if you lay with her, she’ll let your daughter free? What’s so hard about that choice?”
He turned on his friend, rage surging through him. “So, you think I should just fuck her and be done with it? Just like that, eh?”
“Clayton, wait.” Isaac held up a hand.
“That’s the perfect plan isn’t it, Isaac? Listen to the woman who paraded her wares in front of me any chance she got? Even in front of my own wife? The same woman who’d constantly sent me missives inviting me to lay with her, as if my marriage were a mere inconvenience to be worked around? Should I give in to the woman who asked me to her bed before Elizabeth’s body was even
cool
? The same woman who could absolutely crush me if she so chose? What if I did, and she wanted more? What then? You haven’t seen what goes on at Westwood, Isaac —but I have. Her soul is corrupt, sick.”
“Stop, I didn’t mean to anger you. We need to talk rationally about this.”
“I
am
talking rationally, Isaac!” he said, beating his chest with a hand. “The problem is you aren’t listening! She has me
right
where she wants me, and we both know it. Nothing short of armed confrontation is going to change that.”
Isaac’s gaze locked with Clayton’s. “Then let us talk about that.”
“You daft prick. She has more men at arms in her goddamned bodyguard corps, than all the farm militia in the valley combined.”
“What about the Korsgaards? There’s no love lost for the Westwoods there I can tell you.”
Clayton shook his head. “Max Korsgaard is on the Frontier, so he can’t very well help us here, even if he were so inclined! The captain that Max left in command of the Korsgaard garrison is as cowardly as he is incompetent. Without Max, there won’t be anyone to lead their men.”
“The Holstenborgs, then?”
Clayton grunted. “Dirk Holstenborg would be a possibility, yes. There is a small problem though. His wife Sandra is perhaps the closest friend Miriam has. He’d have no choice but to sit it out, and his snake of a wife would likely find out beforehand anyway. No luck there.”
Isaac dismounted from his horse, and walked to his friend. He clasped Clayton’s shoulders in a strong grip, a grim smile on his face. “Then let’s talk about how we do this my way.”
Chapter Four
Westwood Manor
“W
hat’s she done to deserve this, Miriam?” Sandra, her rouged lips pursed, glanced over at her friend.
Miriam strolled over from her great mirror and stood close to her friend, Miriam’s shapely dark-haired form a pleasing visual contrast to the slender fair figure of the Countess.
“Oh, she still has this silly idea that she gets some say as to what, or more to the point,
whom
she lays with,” the handsome lady said, wagging a long beringed finger up and down dismissively. “She’s being shown the error of her ways.”
“I see. Not content with her station in life is she?”
“Not exactly,” Miriam said, staring down at the subject of the conversation. “She serves passably well, especially at table. But she still can’t get used to the fact that this is a house run by a woman, and that as a servant of the house, she is expected to serve that woman’s needs —
all
of them.”
“Missing a boy back home or some such?”
“Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but the girl seems to be averse to women. Sad, but true. Isn’t that right, dove?” Miriam said, raising her voice slightly.
“Ah, not a good attitude to have here at House Westwood, girl,” the Countess said, her voice soft. “You’d be wise to shape up quickly”
“She has this odd notion of only being attracted to men, and says she’s never been with a woman before!”
“How selfish of her! What a bizarre thing for a girl to think, Miriam!”
“Isn’t it though?” Miriam lit a few more candles about the dim room. “It’s as if she thinks it
matters
that she’s only attracted to men. Servants do just that — they serve. She just needs to come to grips with the fact that a major part of her duties here in my house, indeed the most important duty, is attending me. Until she gets that through her thick skull, I am just going to have to train her in proper behavior at this manor.”
“Well, I can hardly make anything between these bars and the fact that she’s tucked away in this corner, love. Perhaps we might get a better look at her?” The Countess’ clear blue eyes sparkled brighter in the fire-lit bedroom.
“Oh, I suppose we can, Sandra. She’s in there to think, to decide if she’s going to accept the truth of things.” Miriam stooped down, her movement graceful, her hands smoothing the wrinkles out of her deep green silk dress. Her friend, clad only in a sheer white gown, lace décolletage only partially concealing jutting breasts, knelt down as well, face slightly flushed, eyes intent.