Chapter 10

Phillip suppressed the urge to take his sword and run Neill of Haemesburgh through.

He was surrounded by his own men and his family, all of whom he imagined shared his feelings. Sir Neill was flanked by the castle’s garrison, men who should have at least had some sense of their peril. Yet none of them seemed to. It didn’t bode well for the future.

“Of course we raised the bridge,” Neill said, jutting his chin out. “We saw the lads making for ye and knew ye’d want the keep to remain safe.”

“I believe I would have preferred to be inside it,” Phillip said coolly, “whilst you were about your safekeeping.”

“Ye’re well enough now, aren’t ye?”

And it had taken four dead garrison knights to accomplish that feat. Phillip forced himself to unclench his jaw and keep his hand away from the hilt of his sword. He’d anticipated resistance when he arrived at the keep, but this was something else entirely. Anyone with two wits to rub together would have taken a look at Phillip’s entourage and realized how any battle would end. That Neill stood there, bold and defiant, said that he was either far too stupid to have his current position or he was counting on aid—

Aid from another direction.

Phillip craved time to think as badly as he currently craved a decent amount of sleep. He couldn’t believe Neill was a complete fool, which left him with the truth possibly being that those lads riding in from nowhere hadn’t been simply out for a lark.

“You’re going to want to come to the great hall.”

By the saints, what next? Lads springing up from the rushes to vex him? Phillip continued to look at Neill lest the man think he had the advantage, but gave an ear to his cousin. “Why do I, when you say it thus, want to do anything but come to the great hall?” he murmured.

“Because my ability to convey the nuance of any situation with few words is limitless,” Connor said, sounding slightly amused. “And you’ll want to hurry.”

Phillip glanced at him. “Is it worse than what lies out here?”

“I wouldn’t presume to determine that.”

Phillip was beginning to suspect the entire bloody venture had been doomed from the start. Enemies outside the gates, an unfriendly garrison inside the gates, and heaven only knew what now inside the hall itself. And that didn’t begin to address his other mystery—

He looked at Connor quickly. “Where is Imogen?”

“Inside the hall.”

“Still breathing?”

Connor smiled very faintly. “Words can’t describe the scene. Why don’t you go have a look and Jack and I will keep things from going completely south here. Look you, here is Sir Cederic as well, his sword hoisted in your defense.”

Phillip thought it might be best to leave that alone. There was no love lost between his captain and both Connor and Jackson, something he had wondered about from time to time but never found unpleasant enough to merit his attention. He considered, then nodded. How anything going on inside could be worse than standing outside facing off with the captain of the keep’s garrison who obviously wasn’t interested in much besides seeing him dead, he didn’t know. Obviously he wasn’t going to manage a peaceful takeover without digging deep for powers of persuasion he didn’t often need to use. He already had four dead at the gates because of Neill’s actions. He had no intention of seeing that number increase.

Phillip exchanged a glance with his own captain, Cederic, knew he didn’t need to do the like with his cousins, then walked away. He could only hope he didn’t return to find his lads in a pitched battle, though at the moment, he wouldn’t have been surprised by anything. He reminded himself that his current straits were his own doing, searched for those increasingly elusive reasons as to why he’d thought Haemesburgh was necessary to his future, and comforted himself with how continuing on his current course would save him from having to watch his father come rescue him. Cold comfort, indeed.

He walked into the great hall, bracing himself for the worst. He only made it halfway across the rather decently laid stone before he came to an ungainly halt. Heather—er, Imogen, rather—and the lad styling himself as the lady of the keep were fighting over a sword.

“Look there, cousin,” Rose said suddenly. “I believe ’tis a battle over a sword.”

Phillip shot Rose a dark look. “Aye, I can see that. Do you have any idea why they’re fighting over that sword?”

“I think your lady wants it and the lad posing as Haemesburgh’s lady doesn’t want to give it up.”

Phillip supposed he should have been surprised by what he was seeing, but he just wasn’t. Imogen was indeed there and so was the lady—er, the lad of the keep, whoever he was. The boy was still dressed in skirts, but apparently the events of the day had been dire enough that he’d foregone the wimple. Phillip wondered who he was and what had left him with the cheek to attempt such a ruse.

Where in the bloody hell was Heather?

He walked across the floor and stopped just short of the high table. Imogen was babbling things in that tongue he still had trouble deciphering even though it still sounded and felt familiar, like the echo of a foul dream he’d all but forgotten. The lad who wasn’t Heather seemed to have no trouble understanding her intent, at least, for he was clutching his sword to him as if it were a precious child about to be snatched by ruffians.

Unfortunately for that lad, he was no match for her, especially after she reached out and poked him in the eye. She seemed to regret that, but that didn’t stop her from tossing the sword’s sheath away and rushing over to the lord’s chair. She shoved the blade into the floor with a sigh of great relief. Instead of hanging her cloak upon that sword, though, she put her hands on it as if she expected it to do something magical.

There was that word again. He suppressed a curse. He could never hear it again in his lifetime and it would be too soon.

He put his hands on the table and looked at her. “What are you doing, lady?”

She didn’t look at him. “I’m going home.”

She said it in French, but her French was as atrocious as was her English. He would have given some thought as to why that might be, but he was distracted by the ridiculousness of what he was seeing. Rose seemed less troubled by it, but she had a strong stomach for that sort of thing. She leaned her hip against the table and looked at Imogen.

“Won’t work,” she said cheerfully.

Imogen turned and pointed a finger at Rose. “Hey, you spoke English before.”

“Well, aye, I do,” Rose said. “After a fashion. I prefer Gaelic. Or French.”

Which seemed to be the case given that she launched into a fair bit of both. Phillip suspected his head would only stop pounding when he wasn’t listening to at least three different languages being tossed about with abandon.

“That’s not Phillip’s sword,” Rose offered finally in a slow, careful French she might have used with a foreign lord who didn’t speak the language past wanting to know where the wine might find itself. “Perhaps you need Phillip’s sword.” She pointed at him in an exaggerated fashion. “That sword there.”

Phillip would have cursed his cousin, but he couldn’t bring himself to. She was one of his favorite people, after all. He realized quite suddenly that Imogen was looking at his sword with the same sort of calculation that he feared he used whilst looking at Haemesburgh. He watched in astonishment as she rounded the table and stopped in front of him.

She only pointed at his sword. “Let me have that.”

“Absolutely not,” he said, feeling faintly horrified. She might have been very lovely and in sore need of a rescue, but there were things he just didn’t do. Giving up his sword was first on that list.

“Oh, be a love, Phillip,” Rose said with a smirk. “Let her have your sword for a minute or two.”

“How do I know she won’t put it in the floor and it will never come free again?”

“Because neither you nor I see your knighting sword there at the moment,” Rose said. “Obviously that spot in the floor isn’t a permanent residence for anything.”

Phillip promised himself a lengthy speculation on that later, after he was certain he would see dusk. Where his sword was at the moment, though, the saints only knew. It wouldn’t have surprised him to have dredged the moat and found it there on the bottom, rusting past any usefulness.

“Sword,” Imogen insisted.

He drew himself up, fully prepared to lecture her on why he, Phillip de Piaget, did not ever hand over his weapon—

Her hand shook.

He closed his eyes briefly. Damnation, the woman’s hands were going to be the death of him. Trembling the night before, shaking now. If there was one thing he simply couldn’t bear, it was a woman in distress. He had no idea who Imogen Maxwell was or what she was about, but it was obvious she was in trouble. How could he not do what he needed to in order to aid her?

He sighed and drew his sword, then looked at the lad in skirts. “Your name, lad?”

“Hamish, my lord.”

“Pull your blade free of the floor, Hamish.”

“But—”

“Now.”

Hamish had obviously been too much at his ease in the keep, for he not only hesitated, but grumbled as he then did as he was bidden. That would be changing quite soon. Phillip looked at Imogen and nodded toward the back of the table. She seemed slightly unsure, so he led the way. He waited until she had joined him behind the lord’s chair before he sighed.

Very well, so the sword he’d been given by his father at his knighting was, according to Berengaria of Artane, enspelled. Losing it had been a blow he had found painful for perhaps longer than he should have, sentimental fool that he was.

The sword he was holding in his hands, however, was an entirely different matter. It might not have had magical properties but it was, in a word, perfect. He had come close to making the smithy his home during its fashioning. The balance was perfect, the steel flawless, and the hilt suited to his hand alone. If ever a sword could have been called magical, ’twas the one he held in his hands. His knighting sword was equally spectacular, true, but the one he held currently was... well, it wasn’t anything he particularly cared to leave behind. But Imogen looked so desperate—

He took his sword and drove it into the crack between the stones.

Imogen put her hands on the hilt, stilled it, then closed her eyes, as if she expected something to happen. Again.

Nothing did, of course. Phillip wasn’t surprised, but what else was there to be done? He could have tried to warn her, but to what end? The woman was obviously determined. He glanced about himself to gauge others’ reactions to the madness. The twins were standing on the other side of the table, looking far too interested for their father’s peace of mind. Phillip could only imagine what sorts of mischief Theo and Sam would now attempt to combine in the great halls of anyone who would let them through the doors. Floors would be assaulted, he was certain.

Rose was simply staring at Imogen thoughtfully, as if she hadn’t expected anything else.

He put his hand over Imogen’s. “Perhaps a rest, aye?”

She looked absolutely stricken. He started to reassure her that the world had not ended when he heard a commotion outside that made him wonder if he might need to rethink that. He pulled his sword free of the floor.

“I’ll bring it back later,” he promised, wondering if that was perhaps the most daft thing he’d said all day. He left Rose with the little lads, then walked out of the great hall, half expecting to see a pitched battle.

Instead what he saw was the remains of a failed mutiny. Heather’s men had been herded into a little group with his own men surrounding them. He loped down the stairs and walked over to where his captain stood, looking impossibly grim.

“They’re unhappy with the change of command,” Cederic stated.

“Are they?” Phillip asked politely. “And do they have a suggestion on how that might be resolved?”

“I believe,” Cederic said, “that they would like to see your head on a pike, my lord. Preferably outside the front gates. They’re a tidy lot, apparently.”

“Aye, who are ye to march in here and take over?” Neill spat, all pretense at friendliness gone. “You, the least of the spawn of that heartless whoreson from Artane—”

Neill stopped speaking. Phillip supposed that might have been because his fist was currently residing in Neill’s mouth. He took a deep breath, examined the back of his hand for embedded teeth, then looked at Heather’s captain to see if he’d had a change of heart. Apparently not.

“I am someone whose right it is to manage this keep,” Phillip said evenly, “my father’s parentage aside, though you will pay for that insult to my honored grandmère. Do you dare dispute my claim?”

“I do,” Neill shouted. “Prove it!”

“The banns were read,” Phillip said, “and not recently, if memory serves. I’ve heard nothing of anyone claiming I have no right to this cesspit of a holding. Your lady is missing, your lord is dead, and his son doesn’t seem to be manning the high table.”

“But—”

“Show me to your priest,” Phillip said shortly. “We’ll see what he has to say on the matter.”

Neill hesitated only briefly before dragging his sleeve across his mouth, then turning and walking away. Phillip followed him with a pair of cousins and his two fiercest guardsmen at his heels.

He held out hope that the chapel would be at least as clean as the stables, but once he reached it, he wondered why he’d wasted any energy wishing for the same. He paused and looked at a dark substance that seemed to have flowed from beneath the front doors, dripped down the stairs, and pooled on the courtyard. Blood?

Ah, nay. Ale. He realized that as soon as the doors were opened for him and he had the opportunity to look inside.

The priest was indeed in the chapel, which seemed fitting, with what looked to be the entire collection of the keep’s libations, which seemed less fitting. How no one had noticed their lack of drink he couldn’t have said, but perhaps those at Haemesburgh were of a less pious bent than others and had never set foot in the chapel.

It only took a moment or two before he thought he might understand the hesitation. The priest was not only beyond drunken, he was angry. Phillip hadn’t but walked into the chapel before the man was spewing out slurs against Scots, Englishmen, and the makers of the ale he’d obviously had far too much of.

“Bartholomew,” Phillip bellowed.

His squire was, as always, there by his elbow, uneasy but dependable. “Aye, my lord Phillip?”

“I seem to sense this one is babbling in the priests’ language.”

Bartholomew’s eyes were very wide, but that was nothing noteworthy. He was perhaps better suited to the peace and tranquility of a monastery than he was the rigors of more earthy pursuits, but that was not his lot at present. He gulped, then nodded.

“He is, my lord,” Bartholomew agreed.

“Translate for me, would you?” Phillip didn’t need that aid, to be sure, but there was no sense in anyone in the keep knowing as much. It was always wise to have a secret or two in reserve. He’d learned that from his sire, whom others underestimated at their peril.

He had to admit that Robin of Artane was a damned fine chess player.

Bartholomew hesitated. “Would you prefer me to leave out all the vile bits?”

“Oh, nay,” Phillip said, “just give me the unvarnished whole.”

Bartholomew took a deep breath, then faithfully relayed all that was said. It consisted of little more than the same disparaging of anyone the priest seemed capable of bringing to mind. Phillip had to admit even he was having difficulty understanding the man, but Bartholomew was doing his manful best to give a faithful recounting of what he was hearing. There was a great deal about secrets and shadows and undiscovered plots, which Phillip credited to the man being very possessive of his drink.

It took another quarter hour, but the priest finally seemed to run out of dire things to talk about. He gasped out a final curse or two, then his eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped over a sack of what Phillip was sure would turn out to be hops. Once he began to snore, Phillip set a guard over him, then turned back to his most pressing problem.

“Do you have a dungeon?” he asked Neill. “You’ll need proper accommodations, wouldn’t you agree?”

The man’s eyes fair bulged from his head. “As if ye’d have the—”

He grunted, his eyelids closed, and he slid to the ground in a very untidy heap. Myles stood behind him, resheathing his sword. He looked at Phillip.

“They have a rather austere garrison hall, my lord,” he said easily. “The others have been invited to take their ease there. Shall this one join them?”

“I don’t like the look of him,” Cederic said with a frown. “I think we should make an example of him, if you’ll have my opinion, Lord Phillip. A final example, if you understand me.”

His captain was generally not wrong in his opinions, but Phillip couldn’t bring himself to consider Sir Neill anything but ambitious and irritated to find his ambitions thwarted. There was no sense in not simply confining him until he had better reasons to look for another solution.

“I’ll meet him in the morning in the lists instead,” Phillip said. “Perhaps we’ll come to a better understanding there.”

“If you wish, my lord,” Cederic said slowly. “I’ll simply say that I’ve seen his kind before. He won’t rest until he’s had what he feels he’s due.”

“Perhaps I’ll manage to convince him to take a different course,” Phillip said firmly. “Tomorrow, in the lists. I appreciate your aid, Sir Cederic. If you can see to a guard for the lads locked up in the garrison hall, I’ll see to our defenses.”

And what lay outside the walls as well, though he supposed that would keep for another few moments. He watched his captain direct a pair of lads to heave Neill up and over their shoulders. He was carried off without delay. After exchanging a glance with Sir Wiscard, which he knew would result in the keep being secured by their own men, Phillip paced along the edge of the courtyard and examined the most pressing mystery of all: what had happened to the lord of Haemesburgh’s family.

Heather was most definitely missing, perhaps either dead or escaped. Her squire had been masquerading as chatelaine for the saints only knew how long. The keep’s captain had been acting as the keep’s lord for a likewise indeterminate amount of time and didn’t seem particularly inclined to give up the opportunity to take his turn in the lord’s chair. For all Phillip knew, Neill had been the one to insist that Hamish don gel’s clothes and pass himself off as the lady of the keep.

Obviously things were not as he’d assumed they would be. Granted, he hadn’t visited but a time or two in the past five years, but he’d accepted being rebuffed by a woman leaning over the walls and telling him to go to hell, a woman he’d been fairly sure had been Heather of Haemesburgh but now suspected might have been her squire. He’d sent missives, true, and Heather had deigned to reply, telling him in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t welcome in the keep. He wondered now if that hadn’t been Heather, but rather someone writing in her stead? Perhaps it was time to have a look at the priest’s hand and see if it looked familiar.

And perhaps whilst he was about that goodly work, he could look at himself in a water trough and learn to recognize a complete idiot when he saw one.

’Twas nothing more than he deserved for having allowed events to proceed along without him for so long. His father would have agreed.

He stopped thirty paces from the great hall when he realized that Imogen was standing at the hall door, looking as if she had no idea what to do with herself. There was another mystery there. She was obviously not Heather of Haemesburgh, but that left him with no clue to who she was in truth. He would have simply asked her who she was and why she found herself in his betrothed’s keep, but he had trouble understanding her.

He paused. That was perhaps not as true as he would have liked. Her accent was very odd, but she wasn’t completely beyond understanding. There were other things about her that he found much more disturbing, but he wasn’t quite ready to face those as yet.

At least she’d given up trying to filch a sword. He had aunts and cousins of the feminine persuasion who thought nothing amiss with a woman hoisting a blade. He hadn’t wanted to offend them, but secretly he’d been appalled. A woman with a sword? What next? Nay, ’twas a man’s duty and privilege to protect those weaker than he and in his case, that included every woman he knew.

He paused, looked at his cousin Rose standing next to Imogen, and wondered if he might be wise to revisit that opinion. ’Twas possible, he had to concede, that he might be wrong.

“My lord?”

He turned to see Sir Myles standing there, looking fierce. Ah, a distraction. He welcomed it gladly.

“Aye?”

“I wondered if you cared to send a scouting party outside the gates?”

“Of course,” Phillip said with a nod. Damnation, he was in trouble. He was going to be dead if he didn’t solve a few of the tangles in front of him. A daft, terrified wench inside his walls, a garrison he couldn’t trust also inside those walls, and unknown foes waiting for him outside.

He didn’t want to think about what else he might discover at the most inconvenient time possible.