on his back.
She picked up her snow-soaked skirts and fell silently in beside him.
Guy’s deep voice rang out. “Could I have avoided bringing you and Regalo to this house, I would have.” With his hand on his sword hilt and the other wrapped around Regalo’s ankles, he pushed the door open with his foot and stepped across the threshold. He scanned the long dark hallway. “This place reeks of death.”
A sliver of light slipped through a crack between the wooden doors that opened into the great hall. Guy’s footsteps trod down the hallway, across the familiar glazed green and yellow tiles. His shadow tracked him, moving along thick stone walls, walls devoid now of the tapestries and flax sconces that once lit the place with color and with warmth. The cold air that filled the space smelled lifeless and stale, like the air inside a cathedral during a funeral mass. Guy motioned for Sybilla to follow, glad that the low light would keep anyone from noticing the sweat on his upper lip.
He pointed to the half-eaten bowl of pottage sitting on a long trestle table. “Looks like Dunback is still here. Somewhere.” The same beaten long table, serviceable and once of good quality, sat where it always had, in the center of the room. But the hearth that stretched across the east end of the room was filled with broken furniture. A small fire radiated from the fireplace and its golden light looked inviting, despite the source.
Guy set Regalo down beside the fire. The remnants of Roselynn’s spinning wheel crackled in the flames, the wooden spokes sticking up like charred fingers.
He swallowed, clenched his fists to keep dragging out what had once been her most prized possession. She’d been sitting by the fire spinning when he’d come to say goodbye. A one-eared yellow kitten at her feet batted at a ball of wool.
“Be careful, Guy,” his sister told him, setting her work aside. Then she threw her arms around him, her tears wetting the neckline of his tunic. “Mayhap when you return, you’ll have niece or little nephew to tell of your heroics, God willing,” she blurted out in a voice she barely managed to control. “Sir Walter and I…we’ll need your help with the harvest.”
Guy knew they didn’t need his help. The farm thrived and, even without him, they would do well. He’d made certain of it by recruiting the strongest men from the village, and the hardest workers. Sir Walter paid them well in shares of the crops and in beer.
Guy had kissed her on the top of her head and reassured her King Richard would have the French well beaten by mid-summer.
But he did not return until November—eight years later. Too late for Roselynn and her son.
He closed his eyes. Self-loathing filled his empty soul. He relished the stiffness and strain in his back from carrying Regalo. It distracted him from the pain in his heart.
He leaned on his sword and rubbed his forehead.
Sybilla took the wineskin filled with goat’s milk from her shoulder and offered Regalo a drink. He consumed what was left with vigor. Having sucked the wineskin dry, the colt promptly curled up like a hound just returned from a satisfying hunt, and slept.
The front door flung open and banged against the stone wall.
Simon strode in holding Dunback by the scruff of the neck. The old toothless man grinned and stared through glazed eyes.
Simon released the old man. “Look who I found in your cellar, Guy. The man who’s supposed to be guarding your reserves, not drinking them.”
Dunback smiled apologetically. He stumbled forward, his patched and dirtied woolen tunic reeking with the smell of soured wine. “Welcome home, my lord. We’ve missed you.” He bowed and almost lost his balance as he glanced at the foal sleeping by the fire.
Guy helped the man to his feet. “We? Who in God’s name is here besides you?”
A blank look crossed Dunback’s hollow face. His foggy eyes lit up with something quite akin to madness. “Why the Lady Roselynn, and her little babe, sir. We’ve been waiting for you. And the new reeve needs your help. The fields need threshin’.”
Every nerve in Guy’s skin fired at once, every muscle in his body tensed. Holy Mother, the man was as dolt-witted as a loon. Worse than he was five months ago, when Guy found him cowering in the woods, terrified and ashamed that he’d escaped and survived the night of the murders, when his Lady Roselynn and the baby John had not.
The white-haired, frail-looking steward belched and tittered.
Guy shook his head. This was the man he’d left accountable for running Baldwin Manor in the months after Roselynn’s death? ’Twould seem Dunback, once capable and honest, had done little more than drink himself into a stupor while he hid from winter’s grip and talked with private ghosts.
Guy searched his soul for patience. The last time Dunback had been questioned about that night, he’d collapsed into a rambling fit and begged for his life. The agony of having one who knew the answers but who could not reveal them, set Guy’s blood coursing.
He ran his hand through his hair. The last of his sister’s spinning wheel caught fire and collapsed into the ashes.
Sybilla stepped back from the hearth, her eyes wide and worried. She sent Guy what he guessed was a silent plea for compassion.
Guy folded his arms. No sense in harboring ill will toward a mindless old man whose days were numbered, judging by the redness of his nose and the jaundiced pallor of his cheeks. “I must thank you, Dunback, for watching over the place in my absence. Where have you been sleeping? Upstairs?”
“No, sir! You know the Lady Roselynn and her babe sleep up there. I’ve made my pallet here, sir, where you used to sleep, right here by the fire.” He lowered his bleary eyes and wrung his hands. “I only burned what I needed to stay warm,” he continued, as if he still had wits enough to know he’d be reprimanded for using furniture for kindling.
He limped over to the foal. “How ’bout I watch him for you? We’ll keep each other warm.” He patted Regalo on the rump, as if there was nothing odd at all about a foal sleeping hearthside in the great hall. Dunback stretched out beside him and rested his head on the colt’s withers.
Sybilla smiled.
Simon pulled the cork from the wine. “Before you leave us for your drunken dreams, where’s the food?”
Dunback interlaced his fingers and rested his hands on his chest. “A good hunk of bread, pottage and a little wine is all I need. But I reckon you’ll be hungry after fighting for the king. There be dried eel out in the kitchen if you want some. But no eggs. I ate the chickens.” He closed his eyelids and his eyes sank deep into their sockets. Mouth open, he snored.
Guy picked his cloak from the floor and tossed it over the old man and the foal. “Simon, we’ve yet to break our fast. Would you—”
“Get the food? Anything else?” He shot a beleaguered glance at Sybilla, as if to say please release me from my duties.
Sybilla averted her eyes, avoiding contact with Guy’s. “I’ll help. Which way to the kitchen?”
Without waiting for an answer, she started toward the great door.
Guy caught her by the wrist. “Oh, no you don’t. It’s blizzarding outside and you’re
