The Wolf of Harrow Hall (Tales of the Latter Kingdoms Book 7) Read online

  Interest? What in the world was he talking about? “I fear I do not understand, my lord.”

  “Forgive me. I forget that you are a simple girl from a small village.” I stiffened, but made myself stand calm and still as he continued, “‘Interest,’ Mistress Sendris, is a small percentage of the original sum of the loan, a sort of tax for taking your time to pay it back. So on your two silver pieces, if we were going to ask for interest of ten percent, that would be twenty copper pieces in addition to the two silver you originally borrowed.”

  My head swam. So if he would deign to lend me the two silver, I would also have to give him twenty copper pieces? I had never before heard of such a thing. It sounded like outright theft to me, but I knew I didn’t dare tell his lordship that. “I — I see.”

  “I am not sure that you do, but that is no matter. If I lend you the money to cover your taxes, do you promise that you will repay me with interest?”

  So he was not going to deny me outright. Could I come up with such a staggering sum? Perhaps, if I could convince more of my fellow villagers to pay me with real coin, and not a dozen eggs or a sack of meal or whatever else people tended to use for currency in our part of the world. What would happen if I could not repay him?

  Then you will go to the debtor’s gaol, just as you feared at the beginning. But at least you will have held off the evil day for a six-month, which is something. Much can happen in the span of six months.

  I looked up into his eyes. In the pale light that shone through the many-paned windows, it seemed almost as if there was a spark of gold behind the darkness of his irises. But I knew that strange shimmer must have been only a trick of the light.

  “I promise,” I said, praying that my oath might not turn out to be a lie.

  “Then we must shake on it,” he said, and extended a hand.

  Something in me quailed at having to touch him in such a way, flesh to flesh — it seemed far too intimate — but I knew there was nothing I could do to avoid the contact. Besides, it was only a simple handshake, the ancient way to honor such a deal. I need not make a fuss about it.

  I reached out my right hand and felt his fingers wrap around mine. In that moment, it was as if a spark kindled between us. A strange, pulsing warmth rushed from my palm and up into my arm, and I snatched my hand away.

  Lord Greymount was staring down at me, eyes wide with consternation. “Who are you?” he asked after a weighty pause, the elegant timbre of his voice somehow gone ragged.

  “I — I’m no one, my lord.” That was true enough. I was a woman without parents, without wealth, without a name.

  For a long moment, he said nothing, but only stood there, clenching and unclenching the hand I had touched. I could see the way his breast rose and fell as he pulled in a breath. Was he angry with me? What I had done?

  “Go,” he said then. “Get out of my sight.”

  I couldn’t move. It was if some strange force held me rooted in place, standing only a pace away from him.

  Then I did see a flash of true anger in his eyes, shining gold and orange and red. But no, that had to be a reflection from the fire.

  “Go!” he roared, and suddenly I had the strength to move away from him, to run down the corridor of his suite and out into the larger hallway. The air there was much colder, chilling me to my very core. I began to shiver as I hurried back to my chamber.

  And yet I knew my trembling had very little to do with the unheated corridors of Harrow Hall.

  Chapter 4

  I thought I knew the way. After all, it had seemed so simple when Master Merryk brought me to Lord Greymount’s chambers. I only had to descend three flights of stairs, and then go down a long hallway until I came to the fourth door on the left, which was the entrance to my borrowed room.

  Only when I tried to open that door, I found it locked. I rattled the handle, but it would not budge. Tears of anger and frustration stung my eyes, but I would not let them fall. Bad enough that Phelan Greymount would dismiss me in such a way. But to be found sobbing outside the door to my room? It wasn’t to be borne.

  Not there seemed to be much chance of discovery. The hall around me was empty. In truth, I hadn’t heard a whisper of anyone else in the castle besides Master Merryk and Lord Greymount himself. Was it only the two of them in this great grey pile? No, that couldn’t be right. The steward had told me that there were no women servants, but he’d intimated that there was some sort of household staff. At any rate, I knew the lord of Harrow Hall employed men-at-arms, for I myself had seen them riding through the forest from time to time.

  I couldn’t stand in this corridor forever. It appeared I must go in search of Master Merryk so that he might guide me back to my rooms. Yes, by doing so, I could get myself even more lost. On the other hand, I didn’t really see how much more lost I could be than I already was. At any rate, going in search of the steward would offer me some much-needed distraction. I couldn’t forget the strange heat which had flooded up my arm when I touched Phelan Greymount’s hand. Never in my life had I ever experienced such a thing.

  And that strange flash of hot color in his eyes?

  No, that must have been my imagination, brought on by the shock of what I had felt.

  Who are you? he had demanded, as if I hid some terrible secret from him. But I was hiding nothing, although much had been hidden from me throughout my life.

  My hands shook, and I buried them in the folds of my borrowed skirt, glad that I had been offered that much hospitality. The gowns in the wardrobe were not only grand, but warm as well.

  Still clenching my skirts, I turned away from the door where I’d stood and went to the landing, then looked down the hallway in the opposite direction. It did not look familiar at all, with a runner of muddy-colored weave covering the center of the floor. I would not waste my time going that way.

  It seemed that down was the best direction to go. Perhaps I had miscounted the number of flights we had actually climbed, and I still had to descend one more to reach my borrowed chamber. But when I went to the door I thought might be mine, again it was locked — as were all the others in that corridor.

  Abandoning any caution I might have possessed, I tried every door in that hallway, only to find them all shut against me. No one came out to demand what I was doing, and so I truly began to think my wild theory had been true, and that no one inhabited this enormous building save the man who owned it and his lone servitor.

  Well, even if that happened to be the case, it still meant that Master Merryk must be about somewhere. Jaw clenched in determination, I descended the stairs once again, this time going directly to the ground floor. As I neared the bottom, I hesitated, for at last I did hear the murmur of men’s voices, more than I had ever thought I had heard gathered in a single place. Once again, my hands began to tremble, but I told myself to be brave, that I was still Lord Greymount’s guest, even if he had dismissed me so rudely. Besides, perhaps one of the men I now heard could direct me to my room.

  I emerged into a great hall with a lofty ceiling of alternating carved beams and flat panels of dark wood. At the far end of that hall was a fireplace so large that it seemed as if entire tree trunks burned within it. Clustered near that fireplace, sitting at a long table with benches on either side, was a group of about twenty men wearing the dark blue wool doublets, trimmed in grey, that I recognized as the livery of his lordship’s household. Here in the castle, they had apparently abandoned the steel greaves and helmets they donned when they rode through the forest on official business.

  As one, they turned and looked at me when I began to make my gingerly approach. A murmur swept over them, but I could not make out what they were saying. Everything in me was telling me to turn around and head back up the stairs. That was foolishness, though, or at the very least a nervousness I needed to ignore. Certainly I was safe enough here.

  One of the men stood and came toward me. As he grew closer, I could see that he was probably of an age with his lordship, and ther
efore in his early thirties. The resemblance ended there, however, for while this man was also dark-haired, his eyes were a pale, restless blue, and a jagged scar marred one of his cheeks. That scar seemed to move of its own accord as he grinned at me, pulling his expression into something resembling an exaggerated grimace.

  “Well, and who are you, my lady?” he asked.

  I hesitated, uncertain as to whether he knew very well who I was, and so mocked me with that “my lady,” or whether he truly had no idea who I was, and so gave me the honorific because of the rich garments I wore. But my grandmother had always said it was better to expect the best of people, rather than the opposite, and so I said, “My name is Bettany Sendris, sir. I am a guest here in Lord Greymount’s castle.”

  Something in my reply apparently amused him, because he threw his head back and laughed. Discomfited by his reaction, I glanced past him to see what his companions were doing. They all had remained seated, but I could tell that they watched our exchange with some interest.

  “Indeed?” the man said, once he had recovered himself. “That is an interesting tale, my lady, for you must know that no woman has graced the halls of this castle for almost two decades.”

  My first response was to say that he must be mistaken, but I held my tongue. Surely he knew better than I who or who not had been here during Harrow Hall’s past. Still, my mind reeled at what he had just told me. Truly, had not a single woman set foot here for almost as long as I had been alive? What on earth could be the reason for such a strange omission?

  “That may be,” I said, hoping the man-at-arms hadn’t noted the way I paused before answering. “As I have never been here before, I cannot say one way or another. All I know is that his lordship offered me shelter from the storm.”

  “It’s true,” offered another of the men, who had approached while I was speaking with the first man-at-arms. “Heard her banging on the gate and fetched Master Merryk. Near dead she was.”

  “She doesn’t look dead now,” said the first man-at-arms, giving me a leer. Or at least, it appeared to be that sort of look. The scar on his cheek tended to twist all his expressions. “And why did you not tell the rest of us about her, Lewyn?”

  “Because Master Merryk told me not to, that’s why,” Lewyn responded. He seemed somewhat older than the man-at-arms with the scarred face, perhaps as much as forty, with laugh lines bracketing his bright blue eyes and a few flecks of grey in his dark hair.

  My lips parted. I wished to thank him for his kindness in hearing me and bringing me inside and out of the storm, but I did not have the opportunity, for the other man-at-arms spoke again.

  “Don’t see why she had to be such a secret.”

  If the way the scarred man kept looking at me was any indication, I thought I could guess why the steward had wished to conceal my presence here. Since Lewyn, the older man, seemed far more sympathetic, I addressed my next words to him. “Do you know where Master Merryk is? I fear I cannot find my way back to my chambers, and so that is why I have come in search of him.”

  Lewyn began to reply, but the scarred man overrode him, saying, “Surely you don’t want to go back into hiding quite so soon, pretty lady? Come and sit with us by the fire. There’s warm cider.”

  The very last thing I wanted to do was go and sit anywhere with him. True, Lewyn seemed steady enough. But still, I was a woman alone, and the thought of being surrounded by men I didn’t know quite unnerved me. “I — I thank you for your kind invitation,” I said. “But I think it is better if I go back upstairs. I am sure if I retrace my steps, I shall be able to find my room.”

  “And hide yourself away? That would be quite the waste, now, wouldn’t it?”

  He laid a hand on my arm, fingers encircling my wrist. I wanted to jerk away from his grasp, but feared that doing so would only cause more of a scene. Lewyn seemed distressed on my behalf, but not enough that he apparently intended to intercede. Was the scar-faced man his superior, even though he was clearly younger?

  A wave of cold air entered the hall, causing the fire to flicker. Despite the man-at-arm’s grip on my wrist, I turned to see the source of that cold blast, and realized it had come from Lorn Merryk entering through a side door, one that possibly led to the castle’s courtyard. Snow thickly coated the hood and shoulders of the dark cloak he wore. My attention, however, was caught by his two companions: a pair of great white dogs, their coats quite as snowy as the world outside. They looked at me with keen golden eyes, then shook mightily, flinging bits of snow in all directions.

  “What is this?” Master Merryk demanded.

  At once the scar-faced man-at-arms let go of my wrist. “Nothing at all, Master Merryk. It seems Mistress Sendris here lost her way, and we were only trying to put her to rights.”

  The steward’s keen dark gaze flicked toward me. “Is this true? Are you lost, mistress?”

  That much I could admit to. “I confess I am. When I was finished speaking with Lord Greymount” — there was a nice understatement! — “I retraced my steps to my room, but I must not have been paying as close attention as I thought to the route, for I did find myself in an unfamiliar part of the castle. So I came down here, as I heard voices and thought I might find someone to assist me.”

  “Well, I can take you up,” Master Merryk said. The dogs he held pulled at their leads and came over to me, sniffing curiously at my skirts. One of them pushed his snout against my hand and whined faintly. I began to scratch his ears, and his eyes shut in ecstasy. “Now, that’s odd,” the steward commented, even as he gave a stern look at the two men who had been standing next to me. They both slipped away to join their companions near the fire — but not before the scar-faced man gave me a last, lingering glance.

  I repressed the urge to shudder, instead saying, “What is odd, Master Merryk?”

  “Doxen and Linsi,” he replied with a nod toward the two dogs, who were now both getting their ears scratched, one to each of my hands. Not that I minded; their soft, warm fur felt marvelous against my cold fingers. “They’re not known to take to strangers.”

  “Ah, well,” I said, bending down so I could better reach their ears. “I am not precisely a stranger, am I? For I have been staying here in the castle for almost three days now. Perhaps they were already used to my scent.”

  “Perhaps.” Master Merryk still looked troubled, however. But then I saw his shoulders lift slightly, and he went on, “Let me take you back to your room, Mistress Sendris. And then I will bring you your supper.”

  Both of those things sounded wonderful to me. Privacy, and some food. Perhaps then I would be able to gather my wits and attempt to analyze precisely what had passed between Lord Greymount and myself.

  So I nodded, and the steward led me from the hall. Before we went, however, he undid the dogs’ collars from their leads, and they bounded ahead of us, as if they were determined to be the ones to guide me back to my chamber. And indeed, perhaps my comment about them knowing my scent had some merit, for they did go unerringly to a room on the third floor and stop in front of its doorway, tails wagging.

  “They are very beautiful animals,” I said as Master Merryk opened the door for me. “Are they yours?”

  “Oh, no,” he replied. “They are Lord Greymount’s — I was taking them for their evening constitutional. Which, I fear, wasn’t much, because of the weather. But they are bearing up quite well, all things considered.”

  It was on my tongue to ask tartly whether his lordship was above exercising his own dogs — but then I realized that of course he was. Even in as small a household as this, someone like Phelan Greymount would have someone to cook his meals, wash his linens, mop the floors — and oversee his dogs’ care and feeding. “So you are taking them back up to him?”

  “Yes, now that I’ve seen you safely here.” Master Merryk’s expression grew exasperated, and he said, “Doxen, come!”

  For the dog had pushed past me and was nosing contentedly around my chamber. He sent a glance in our dire
ction and came trotting over, pink tongue lolling happily from his mouth as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  “It’s quite all right,” I reassured him. Truly, I would have been happy to have those dogs stay with me for a while. It would be quite difficult to feel alone when blessed with such companions. My grandmother and I could not afford to feed a dog, although we’d had a cat to keep the mouse population down. One would have thought my grandfather would have a dog to help him with his hunting, but every dog he’d ever met made him sneeze quite violently, and so we’d done without. I’d often wished to have a dog of my own, having watched with some envy other families in the village who had as many as two or three.

  Master Merryk hesitated then, looking from me down to the two magnificent animals. I wondered if he meant to ask me how my interview with Lord Greymount had gone, and what on earth I should say if he did. But instead he gave me a nod, saying, “Well, I’d best be upstairs. His lordship will be wondering where his companions are. And then I’ll see to your dinner, mistress.”

  He headed toward the staircase, the dogs trotting amiably at his heels. I was struck by a sudden image of Lord Greymount bending down to stroke them, those long, sun-browned fingers of his half-buried in their luxuriant white fur. In that moment, I thought it might be quite a good thing to be a dog, if it meant getting to revel in such caresses.

  Then I shook my head, and told myself not to be such a fool. Considering the way we had parted, I doubted very much that I would ever be on the receiving end of Phelan Greymount’s caresses.

  * * *

  I slept restlessly that evening. My previous two nights in the castle, I had enjoyed more or less uninterrupted slumber, but try as I might, I couldn’t seem to find a comfortable position in my borrowed bed. Which seemed silly, considering how its feathery, downy softness was far more luxurious than the straw mattress, suspended by ropes, that I slept on at home. No, I feared the bed was not at fault here.