Linda Needham

"Come quick, my lady!"

Kailey Hewett looked up from the fragrant patch of lavender and scrubbed a drop of cool rain off her forehead.

"What is it, Davie?" Sir Robert's young squire was on the battlements above the kitchen gardens, waving his boy-thin arms as if to scatter the heavy clouds from the sky.

"Please, my lady! He's called for you!"

A cold fist closed around her heart. Sir Robert!

"And he's called for a priest!"

"A priest!" Dread washed over her, battered against her knees as she stood.

"Did you hear me, my lady?"

Kailey had heard the boy too plainly, his reedy voice sounding in her chest like the darkest thunder.

"Aye, Davie! Then hurry to the village! Find Father Carigg!"

She raced her panic through the rows of boxed herbs toward the postern gate in the castle wall, cursing herself with every step for having left Sir Robert's bedside. She'd been gone not a quarter hour, and then only to gather fresh medicines for him before the storm broke.

"Please, my Lord, don't take him yet!" A roundly selfish prayer, but Kailey wasn't ready to lose him, would never be. He was family to her, as loving and gracious as any true father could have ever been. They'd had but eight short years together, and now he was dying, slipping through her fingers in the course of a week.

"Not yet. Please!" Kailey hurried through the great hall and up the narrow winding of stairs toward Sir Robert's rooms. She let herself into the deserted solar, trying to calm herself and not come raging into his chamber. He deserved her comfort, her peace at the end of his life--not the storm of grief and weeping that seethed inside her.

Sir Robert had put his house in order, had confessed to Father Carigg and eaten of the Bread of Life, and only this morning had been given extreme unction to speed his soul to heaven. Though she knew that something still preyed upon his burnished spirit, made him melancholy and restive, he did seem at peace with his dying, and so she must be.

Oh, but how can I possibly bid him good-bye?

Kailey snuffled back her tears, wiped her eyes and then slipped past the thick curtains into his chamber, into an eerie darkness that clung to the stone walls and to her heart as well.

The coming storm spilled its watery light over the deep sill of the casement window, barely reaching the rush-strewn floor, leaving only the dying hearth and a single candle to illuminate the whole of the large room.

Even as her eyes adjusted to the dimness, something seemed wrong, the world out of sorts. The shadows between Kailey and the huge tester bed were moving, were dense when they should only have been a gossamer veil that softened the figure of the withered old warrior huddled beneath his counterpane.

But Sir Robert wasn't in the bed at all--he was sprawled backward against the low chest at the foot of the tester, his breathing a ragged, terrifying thread.

And there in the towering shadows above him was a darker presence--a vast, empty place where sunlight must surely go to die.

Kailey had always imagined the Angel of Death to be a wispy delusion of the dying, no more real than a night terror.

But there the phantom stood, faceless and huge and fully-formed.

And now he was grasping Sir Robert by the throat!

"Let him go!" With no more thought than to pull Sir Robert from the brink, Kailey launched herself at the intruder.

But she might as well have thrown herself against a stone gargoyle for all the damage she did. The giant shrugged his granite shoulder and Kailey landed in a hard sprawl across the room, the breath struck from her and stars pricking the insides of her eyes.

"He's finally come, lass, just as he said he would!" Sir Robert's tottering voice rose up like an evensong when he ought to be frightened for his life. The front of his nightshirt was still wound up in that great, gauntletted fist, but he was gazing up at his tormentor, his face incandescent with bliss. "As blessed as the bright angels!"

Mother of mercies! He'd called for a priest because he thought the angels had come for him!

"Sir Robert, you've mistaken a brute for an angel!" Kailey scrambled to her feet in the rushes, swallowed her terror as she picked up the nearest candlestick and advanced on Sir Robert's demon. "And you, sir, will back away and leave this chamber, else I'll be forced to crack this over your head!"

"He won't hurt me, love." Sir Robert's voice was as wispy as his breathing, but his adoring eyes were on the stranger and gleaming, and he was clutching a small, unfamiliar box to his chest as though it were the dearest thing in the world. "Please, Kailey. Do welcome him."

"Kailey."

Her name seemed to rumble out of the sky, echoed sharply in the thunder just beyond the casement.

Sir Robert touched the stranger's sleeve. "Aye," he whispered. "'Tis her."

The stranger hissed and let go of Sir Robert's nightshirt as though it burned him. He straightened to the fullness of his soaring height, stepped away from Sir Robert, and turned his ice-bound gaze on Kailey.

His eyes were clear and gray and drew her dangerously, as though to the edge of a stark cliff, as expertly probing as the sleek-bladed dagger that gleamed in its silver-webbed sheath against the folds of his cloak. Sir Robert's dark angel should have smelled of cinder and gall, but the cool trace of mountain-stirred clouds hung about him, made her draw in another breath of him, though she expelled it in a fury.

"I don't know your commerce, sir, but we are full up with heartache here." Kailey rushed to Sir Robert and gathered his slack-boned frailness into her arms, felt his feeble pulse and wanted to weep. His nightshirt was damp and cold, and he'd grown light of limb, as though his hasty spirit was working its way through his skin. "Whatever your business with Sir Robert, my lord, speak it quickly, and then be gone."

"Nay, Kailey! He mustn't leave. He's come all this way." Sir Robert touched his unsteady hand to her cheek, raised his lake-blue eyes to a place beyond and above her, to the intruder and his chilling silence.

"But, Sir Robert--"

"He's brought me such peace this day, Kailey. You'll see. Someday you'll see."

Kailey heard Marchand's curse, felt his heavy footfalls on the planking as he moved sharply away from them, far across the chamber to the dampened hearth.

Sir Robert's eyes misted as they followed him. She saw a dreadful longing there, and the cold ashes of hope. An eddy of uneasiness brushed against her heart. This man was no ordinary stranger, no rogue intruder.

"Your name, sir?" Kailey meant to sound commanding as she wrapped a blanket around Sir Robert's shoulders and stood up to face him full on, to let this man know that she was no coward where Sir Robert's life was concerned. But her words had tumbled out in a whispered rush, hardly a threat to this too-real figment of Sir Robert's imagination.

But the man's gaze was not imagined at all. It swept the length of her as he turned toward her, ruffling her hair, the edges of her gown--like the cool, down-drawn current of a falcon's flight.

"I am Baron Simon de Marchand." His voice was tethered in restraint, its resonance so immeasurably deep that it seemed to shake the stone walls and rattle the rushes beneath Kailey's shoes. "I am sheriff of this shire."

"Nay, sir, Lord Fletchard is sheriff of Chestershire."

"He was." The surety of Marchand's words snapped at Kailey's courage like the howling winter wind.

"What do you mean, my lord? What's happened to him?"

"Fletchard was hanged two days ago in the bailey at Chester."

Hanged. Not that! Not Anson Fletchard! Kailey had to force a breath before she could speak again. "What was the charge against him?"

Marchand watched her from beneath his starkly shadowed brow, his distaste for whatever he saw in her candidly clear in the iron planes of his jaw, in the ice glinting from his eyes.

"Treason," he said finally, flatly.

Kailey caught the felling word in her throat before it became a gasp; she couldn't speak it for the heat and the bitterness that stirred in her chest. Fletchard wasn't capable of such a coward's crime; he wouldn't have risked his home--his family.

Aye, but her own father had, and he'd paid the price with his life, as Kailey paid for it still. Lord Fletchard's children would suffer dearly if Marchand's word could be believed.

"How do you know so quickly of Fletchard's execution? Were you there as witness?"

"As the king's justiciar," Marchand said easily, as though his own ambitions were as untouchable by the law as his heart was unreachable by simple compassion. "I heard Fletchard's plea in my court."

"Sheriff and judge; how wickedly convenient, my lord."

Marchand took a step toward her, bringing him into the pale light from the window. His brow sharpened and shaded his eyes more deeply. His face was clean-shaved and roughly angular; his midnight hair was shot through with fine steel threads at the temple.

"I judged only the merit of the Crown's plea against Fletchard's treason, madam. I care not of his guilt or innocence. God alone can judge the intent of a man's heart. And in the king's court, that judgement is left strictly to the Almighty."

"With a few falsehoods mixed in to help prove the king's plea?" She'd never seen eyes so icy-gray and distant, nor flecked at the edge with the golden yellow of an eagle's. His precisely-carved features lost their easy diffidence and hardened to flint. He bent to her, was as close as a breath.

"No man speaks falsehoods in my court, madam," he said through his straight, white teeth. "Truth is the way and the light of the law."

"Aye, and forgiveness is the way of the Lord. Isn't it?"

Marchand drew back sharply, as if she had struck his cheek soundly with her hand. "Think what you will, madam."

"As I always do, my lord sheriff. And if you'll tell me why you have come to High Stoneham--"

"He's come, lass, because I sent for him."

Kailey turned in her amazement and found Sir Robert struggling to stand on his unsteady legs, still clutching the box against his chest.

"You, Sir Robert? How?" Fearing he'd fall, Kailey slipped her shoulder under his. "When could you have sent a message?"

"I whispered my wishes to Hinch."

"To Hinch?" The old jester had a memory like a sieve. "And he remembered?"

"Aye, Kailey. 'Tis a miracle." Sir Robert's craggy features had softened and corners of his eyes were lit with expectation. "But there are miracles yet in the world, aren't there, Simon?"

"Don't, old man! We are finished." Marchand's voice hissed like low lightning across the chamber, seemed to strike Sir Robert in the chest, dropping the old man back onto the chest-lid with a startled grunt.

Kailey grabbed up Sir Robert's hand and glared at Marchand.

"I can't imagine what crime you think has been committed on these grounds, my lord sheriff. Or if you have come early as the king's corner to collect the duties of death. But if you harbor an ounce of compassion for this man--"

"Compassion, madam?"

Kailey stood her ground as Marchand approached, growing ever colder as he came. He was a threat to everything she loved.

"Guards!" she shouted, though the word came out in a useless croak, and she could only pray that someone was near enough to hear.

But Marchand dismissed her completely and set her aside with a sweep of his huge paw. When Kailey swung back on him, he was bearing down on Sir Robert, as he had done before.

"Where is this priest, old man?" he asked beneath his breath. "I haven't got all day. And, pray God, neither do you!"

"How dare you, Marchand!" Kailey yanked at his thick arm to dislodge him, but he didn't budge. She yanked again. "Summoned or not, you will leave here--"

"Ease yourself, Kailey." Sir Robert's throat sounded raspy and thick, distorting his words. "My feelings are not so easily damaged, love. And your anger is misspent, Simon. As it has always been."

So that was it. An old bitterness brought here to Sir Robert's deathbed. "Sir Robert, you know the sheriff--"

"Aye, Kailey." He smiled tenderly into the hate-mottled face above him. "We once knew each other very well, didn't we, Simon?"

Marchand paused, then shoved angrily away from Sir Robert. "That was another lifetime, old man."

"Aye, it was, my boy." Sir Robert took Kailey's hand; his was as cold as the memory of winter, but his eyes were warm and tearing as they rested on Marchand's broad back.

"You see, Kailey--Simon and I were once father and son."

Kailey felt outrage blossoming on her cheeks in great blotches of crimson.

"He's your son?"

"Aye, lass."

The shadow son, estranged since his youth--the great sorrow of Sir Robert's life; now the cold-hearted justiciar, come to torment and abuse him in his last moments.

"You are a wicked man, Marchand! How dare you treat your father with such dishonor! How dare you abandon him!"

"He didn't, Kailey." Sir Robert touched her elbow. "Please. The fault between us was mine alone. He knows that."

"Enough chatter, old man!" Marchand whirled on them, cold-fire gleaming in his eyes. "Time to be done with this business."

Aye, now she understood why Marchand had come. The great vulture, ready to pick the bones white. "Have you no decency, Marchand? You are your father's sole heir--his estates come to you uncontested."

That brought Marchand's sharp gray eyes back to hers. He clenched his fist around the hilt of his dagger, leaned closer as if to make certain that she heard.

"I claim nothing of his, madam." His gaze flicked over her and then gave quick assessment to the rest of the chamber, as though she were a part of the offending inventory. "I've had quite enough of him to last my life through. Though I suspect that my eternal damnation will be to meet him again in hell--"

"Kailey, please." Sir Robert struggled for another hard-won breath. "You must hear this from me now."

Still blazing with anger, Kailey knelt at Sir Robert's knee and gathered her peace about her. "Tell me, my lord. And then to your bed."

"Yes." He seemed to relax, smiled crookedly down at her. "You see, I--" he looked again at Marchand "--I once gave a most solemn and sacred promise that I would care for you--"

"And so you have, my lord." Kailey tried to memorize the bright goodness in his smile, for she would be long years without him--this father of her heart.

"I had promised that I would see you happy through all of your days with me--"

"You've done that abundantly, Sir Robert."

"Then be sure to tell him so, Kailey." His eyes were glassy and distant. "He must believe."

"He will." She hadn't the faintest idea where Sir Robert's fevered thoughts had suddenly taken him, or who he spoke of, but she would grant him anything to give him peace in his last hours.

"And when I'm gone, sweet... when I die, he'll do his best to keep you."

And then she knew: Sir Robert spoke of the Almighty. She'd always had an orphan's eager trust in His tenderness, had always felt deeply loved and looked after. As if a great benevolence had woven itself through her life.

"Aye, Sir Robert, though I am the most undeserving of creatures, He has always kept me kindly."

Marchand stirred on his nearby precipice and Sir Robert's fog-damp eyes found him, unblinking. "You can't know how kindly, my girl. Or with what courageous devotion." Tears coursed their way down his leathery cheeks, and a sob nearly choked him.

"No one has been more loved than I, nor better cared for." She had made her family wherever she'd found one lacking, and loved with as much devotion as if they shared blood and sinew. "I shall be taken care of, and loved again."

"Always! Dear Kailey--" His every breath now sounded as if from a faulty reed.

"To your bed, now. Please?"

He nodded. "Aye, it's time."

Stifling a sob that would surely fell her, Kailey slipped her arm around Sir Robert's frail ribcage as he tried to stand. But his legs wouldn't have him and he dropped back onto the chest.

Shamed that she couldn't bear Sir Robert's weight on her own, Kailey turned to Marchand.

"Will you help me?"

The hearthlight played accusing shadows across his face, layering its sharp planes and hollows with the restless ghosts of the men he'd sent to the gallows.

The moment dragged like a winter storm. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from weeping. "Please."

Without a word, Marchand lifted Sir Robert into his arms as he would have a sleep-weary child and carried him easily to the broad bed.

Kailey drew down the counterpane, but Marchand was still holding his dying father against his chest, an act of filial love perverted by the hatred that hardened the son's jaw. Kailey was seized by the sudden image of Marchand crushing the life out of Sir Robert.

"Put him down, sir! Can't you hear him struggling to breathe?"

Marchand settled Sir Robert against the bank of pillows, then moved like a wraith to the opposite side of the bed, an unrelenting sentinel of death.

Kailey straightened the covers and kissed Sir Robert's cheek.

"Kailey, love, you must...." Sir Robert's voice was little more than a vapor, his breath as cold and hollow as a cave wind.

She bent closer, her ear to his mouth, her eyes upon his son's unforgiving glower. "Again, please."

"Marry," he breathed.

Marry? She couldn't have heard right. She was not a true ward, was penniless, her family's name a pariah. Nay, he'd said something else.

"Do what, Sir Robert?"

"He'll be good to you, Kailey, girl--"

"Damn it, woman! Do you not listen?" Marchand's vast shoulders were drawn back, his chest high and wide, and his great, gloved fist was wrapped around the hilt of his long-bladed dagger. "I've come here to take you to wife."

Kailey stood slowly on legs of applesauce. Her palms had gone clammy, and now the pounding in her ears had become a roar.

So this was Sir Robert's grand scheme for her welfare! He was truly feverish if he thought she could make a suitable wife for Simon de Marchand!

"I thank you, Sir Robert," she said, without glancing down at him, "but I need no husband."

"We will wed, madam," Marchand said in a voice that he must use to frighten the life out of those who stood accused in his court. "And the deed will be done this day."

Blessed Mary, he had all the charm of a pit viper! To have no husband at all would be better than to marry this heartless justiciar. A husband meant family, and making a family out of Simon de Marchand and his arrogance would be near impossible.

"Please, Sir Robert, I know you mean well, but this marriage would be a grievous mistake."

"'Tis my greatest wish, Kailey. For your happiness, and my son's."

"Damn it, woman!" Marchand came round the foot of the bed like a gale off the ocean. "It will be done as I say!"

What would this sheriff, this defender of the king's peace, think of this marriage if he knew who her father had been?

Aye, let him try to swallow that burr.

"Do you know who I am, my lord?" She left Sir Robert's bedside and went to face this would-be-husband. "I am the daughter of Neville Hewett, a man hanged for treason nearly twenty years ago. Did you know that?"

Marchand met her stare full on, but she could see that it cost him every second: in the rise and fall of his breathing, in the tiny beads of sweat that bristled in the stubble of his beard. He was a man ready to deny her, and in spite of herself, she felt the stir of loss deeply. A family never begun.

"I know of the charge against Hewett, madam." His admission startled her out her next thought--left her to watch a paleness gather around his finely wrought mouth, as though he could taste the taint of treason and detested it. "I know of his trial and his fate. I know of the newborn daughter that he left--"

"A penniless ward, orphaned the same day by a mother who died of her grief. Neville Hewett was my father; I've not abandoned him, and I never will. If his name offends your honor, you'd best not take me to wife."

"Enough, woman!" He clipped his words, left space between them.

"I have no dowry, my lord, but a family name that will surely haunt our marriage and your tenure as justiciar if the king discovers it. For all these reasons and more, this marriage makes no sense. Unless I'm a secret heiress, with a great treasure entombed somewhere?"

Sir Robert slid his hand across his heart, gave her doting smile. "You are my treasure, lass."

Marchand made a derisive snort then leveled a gloved finger at her. "You'll marry me, woman, because I say so."