The Reiving of Bonville Keep

Kathy Lynn Emerson

Bonville Keep lay two days ride from Edinburgh. Driven by his desire for revenge, Sir Gavin Dunnett and his men made the journey in one. Only the temporary truce between England and Scotland prevented them from laying siege to the castle. An act of war against an English baron would have angered the king of Scots, to whom Gavin now owed allegiance. He was obliged to employ more devious means to gain entry.

At dusk, he donned the full, black gown of a Benedictine and entered enemy territory alone. What he found inside the curtain wall astonished him. The place was ripe for reiving. Guards lazed at their posts. Half the servants were far gone in drink. Even the steward seemed lax in his duties. New to the Borders, Gavin decided. From the bleary look in his watery blue eyes, the fellow had also imbibed a considerable quantity of ale.

"We are about to sup," the steward said. "Will you join us, brother?"

Careful to keep his hood raised to hide his lack of a tonsure, since a full head of black hair on a monk would raise far too many questions, Gavin accepted the invitation.

"A pity monks cannot perform marriage ceremonies."

"You wish to wed?" Gavin asked as they entered the great hall. "Who is the lucky woman?"

The steward gestured toward the raised dais at the far end of the room. "Lady Bonville is a new-made widow and ripe for the plucking."

It was as well the steward did not have all his wits about him, for Gavin could not control his start of surprise. Lord Bonville was dead? Then who had sent him word of Isabella's death?

The logical answer to his question sat in regal splendor at the table on the dais. Beatrice Bonville. Gavin's old nemesis. His eyes narrowed as he stared at her. Seven years had passed since he'd last seen her but she still possessed an exotic beauty. Sleek, glossy, raven locks contrasted with milk-white skin. For a woman whose husband had recently died, she seemed most merry. In spite of losing him? Or because he was no longer alive?

As Gavin watched from a place at a lower table, Lady Bonville smiled and flirted with her flaxen-haired steward and with the black-avised man who seemed to be the husband of one of her stepdaughters. Three of them shared the dais. With their distinctive Bonville hair, its color so pale a shade of yellow that it was nearly white, Gavin had no difficulty picking them out. Two of them looked enough alike to be twins.

A waiting gentlewoman, small of stature with a plain face and drab brown tresses, stood just behind Lady Bonville. Without warning, her mistress turned and boxed her ears. She had been too slow to refill a goblet with wine. The pockmarked servant lad who stumbled and sloshed the sauce as he set a platter full of steaming food on the table, received a hard pinch on the forearm for his carelessness.

"Heartless bitch," muttered the burly halberdier seated to Gavin's right.

"What has Lady Bonville done to you?"

"Refused to pay our quarterly stipend. Says there is no money at all. None to pay her servants. None to attract husbands for Bonville's three youngest daughters. There's talk she means to send them to be brides of Christ at Holystone Priory."

Gavin had a hard time believing Lord Bonville had died penniless. There must be some gold left. Some of his gold. He had sent enough of it here over the years, he thought bitterly.

"There is the child to be dowried, too," the halberdier said.

Gavin dipped his venison in pepper sauce. "What child is that?"

"The half-Scots wench. The old lord's granddaughter. Just seven years old is Mistress Isabella, but they do say she's been ill, nigh unto death, mayhap." He crossed himself piously before draining another mazer of ale.

Gavin scarce noticed if the taste of the sauce on his tongue was fierce or merely pungent. He felt his heart contract. His breathing became labored. His daughter was still alive? What trick was this?

"From what illness does she suffer?" he asked cautiously.

"No one knows."

"How long has she been ill?"

After a moment's computation, something which seemed to tax the fellow's inebriated brain, he answered. "Nearly a month now. ‘Twas shortly after Lord Bonville's death. To keep any possible contagion from spreading, the widow had her moved to the north tower."

Gavin scowled at the dais. Beatrice Bonville had exiled a sick child. Left her to die alone. He drank deeply of his own ale and tried to make sense of what he'd just heard.

Two days earlier, after he'd sent word to Bonville Keep that he intended to reclaim Isabella, he'd received a missive, signed by Lord Bonville, telling him that his daughter, his only child, had died in infancy.

But it was Bonville who was dead. That meant Lady Bonville must have dispatched the messenger. Gavin frowned. Even if she'd expected Isabella to die before he arrived, he could not imagine why she'd lie about the matter.

Far from keeping him away, the widow's callous message had spurred Gavin into action. He'd jumped to the conclusion that Lord Bonville had robbed him, taking under false pretenses the generous sums Gavin had sent to England to defray the cost of Isabella's upbringing.

His daughter had been a newborn when Gavin had last seen her. He'd left England the same day he'd buried Mariotta Bonville, his beautiful young English wife. Since then, he'd gained fame and fortune fighting in tournaments on the Continent and hiring out as a mercenary. He'd given little thought to Isabella. Indeed, when he'd heard the child was dead, and had been all along, he'd felt more anger than grief. Enraged at what he'd seen as Bonville's duplicity, Gavin had vowed to reive Bonville Keep and take back all that hard-earned gold from the man who'd dared deceive him.

He should have known, Gavin thought, that Beatrice would be the real villain in this. She was the one who had objected, eight years earlier, when he'd asked Lord Bonville for his daughter's hand in marriage. Beatrice had told her husband that Gavin was not worthy to wed Mariotta. She'd denounced him for being a Scot and called undue attention to his poverty. At the same time, behind her husband's back, she'd tried to get Gavin into her bed.

When he'd declined this dubious honor and threatened to expose her wanton ways if she did not withdraw her objections, Beatrice had been furious. They'd avoided each other throughout his brief marriage to Mariotta. Afterward, blinded by his grief for the wife who'd died in childbirth, Gavin had accepted Beatrice's show of sympathy at face value.

What a fool he'd been to leave his daughter here! A belated sense of guilt fanned the flames of Gavin's resentment toward Beatrice, even though he knew he'd had little choice. In truth, he'd have been no fit caretaker for an infant.

Lord Bonville, on the other hand, had seemed an ideal person to look after the child. Mariotta's father had possessed more experience than any man in England when it came to raising up young gentlewomen. In hope of a son to inherit after him, he'd married four times. The first three wives had been fertile but had produced only girls. Twelve in all. The last Lady Bonville, Beatrice, had been barren.

Staring at the woman on the dais, Gavin felt his anger at her intensify until a red haze seemed to form in front of his eyes. He blinked hard to regain control of his emotions, but his desire for revenge did not dissipate. The monk whose robes he'd borrowed would have advised him to forgive Beatrice. Gavin was more inclined to make the wicked woman pay for her sins.

Supper and the revelry that followed continued deep into the night. During those long hours, Gavin bided his time, listening and learning as much as he could from the conversations around him. It seemed to be the popular belief that Lord Bonville had spent all his money marrying off the first nine of his daughters.

Most people also knew that the steward, Michael Barlow, was Beatrice Bonville's lover. So was James Maplett, her step-daughter Marion's husband, the dark-haired man on the dais. No one said much about the other Bonville sisters, or about Isabella.

Gavin waited until Beatrice retired for the night, then slipped quietly out of the great hall. He started toward the north tower, then stopped. He had time, he realized, to carry out part of his original plan. He could still assuage his desire for revenge.

Afterward, he would reclaim Isabella. Exhaustion dulled Alison Bonville's usually sharp reflexes. Despite her best efforts to stay awake, she'd fallen into a fitful doze and was slow to realize the significance of a rush of cooler air into the tower chamber.

A faint shuffling sound–leather-shod feet on the rush-covered floor–had her eyes popping open in alarm. At the same time, she caught a whiff of spilled ale and damp wool. Almost too late, a sense of imminent danger engulfed her.

Alison sat bolt upright on the window seat, reaching for the knife that hung from her belt as she searched the dimly lit room for an intruder. Rage and fear in equal parts filled her heart when she saw a dark shape bending over her niece's bed. Her only thought to protect the defenseless child, she launched herself at this threatening figure.

She attacked just as he started to lift Isabella into his arms, but some small, inadvertent sound on her part was enough to warn him of another presence in the chamber. At the last possible moment, he released his burden and started to turn. Instead of finding its target in his back, where Alison had hoped to damage some vital organ, her blade struck his shoulder and stuck there as he turned to face her fully.

Heedless of the danger of reaching across the breadth of his massive chest to grasp at the hilt of the knife, she tried to retrieve her weapon. Her fingers barely grazed it before he seized her wrist in a crushing grip. To cut off any outcry, his free arm clamped down with bruising force across her back, pressing her face into the muffling folds of his robe.

Instinctively, she struggled, but it was impossible to break free. Even breathing became difficult once her nose and mouth were tight against his chest. She dimly realized, too late for it to matter, that even had her aim been true, she'd have done little damage. She could feel the thick padding of a quilted gambeson beneath an outer covering of wool. Her small, sharp blade was imbedded in naught but cloth.

A child's whimper penetrated the haze of Alison's desperation when her captor's soft-spoken command to be still could not. The moment she stopped fighting, he loosened his grip sufficiently to allow her to gulp in much-needed air.

"Isabella," she whispered in a hoarse croak she scarce recognized as her own voice.

His hesitation lasted no more than an instant. As soon as his hold on her eased, Alison dashed to the girl's side, all thought of calling for help banished by her need to assure herself that Isabella was no worse.

The forehead beneath her palm was cool and dry. Isabella responded to the familiar touch with a little sigh and sank once more into drugged sleep. With loving fingers, Alison brushed a wisp of hair away from her niece's face. Only then did she realize that the intruder had moved silently to the other side of the bed. Belatedly, she recognized his outer garb as that of a monk.

Confusion held her motionless as he knelt, his attention fixed on the child's pale face. The man was no Benedictine, no matter how he was dressed. Only moments earlier, she had been certain that he was a murderer bent on killing Isabella, but watching him now, Alison experienced an odd sense of familiarity. Inexplicably, she no longer feared him.

Without looking at her, he spoke in a soft, deadly voice. "If you cry out, I will kill you."

"At this hour of the night, the servants are all asleep and what guards may have been posted are most likely deep in their cups, their wits addled." Even sober, they'd have been loath to bestir themselves. None of them felt much loyalty to the Bonvilles these days. Why should they when they had not been paid for months?

As if surprised by her comment, the man lifted his head. For the first time, Alison saw the face of the man she'd tried to kill.

Recognition sent her reeling.

She had been right. This was no monk. Nor was he a brigand or a border reiver, as she had supposed. He was no stranger, either. The man kneeling opposite her was Isabella's father. It might have been years since she'd last seen him, but she'd never forgotten his eyes. They were the color of a stormy sea at dusk.

"What is wrong with her?" He indicated his daughter.

"Lady Bonville tried to kill her."

The moment the words were out, her hands flew to her lips. Even if this was Isabella's father, it had been passing foolish of her to make such a claim.

He stared at her without speaking, the angry flare of his nostrils the only indication of his feelings. Then he reached again for the sleeping child, lifting her into his arms as he stood. "She will never hurt Isabella again." He started toward the door.

"Wait."

"Silence, woman, or I'll bind and gag you."

His tone made Alison realize that he had taken her for a servant. It was an understandable error. To nurse Isabella, she had put off the trappings of a noblewoman. The cote-hardie she wore over her linen chemise, its full skirt short enough to clear the ground but long enough to hide her flat, leather slippers, was made of plain russet-colored wool, bereft of decoration save for the belt that held the now empty sheath for her knife and an undecorated leather bag.

Gavin Dunnett had no reason to think her one of his wife's little sisters. She'd been a child of eleven when he'd last seen her. Moreover, Alison's distinctive Bonville hair, of the pale blonde color some poets called "silver-gilt," was covered by a simple linen coif.

"Isabella is my daughter," he said.

Alison had no wish to challenge his rights. The girl would be far better off with him.

So would she.

"She needs warm clothing," Alison told him. "And someone to look after her. Give me but a moment and I will pack her belongings and mine, too."

It was the perfect solution, Alison thought. She could not bear the idea of being separated from Isabella, to whom she had long been more mother than aunt. And after what had happened earlier tonight in Beatrice's chamber, escaping across the border into Scotland had undeniable appeal.

She had been dreading the new day, but until Gavin Dunnett appeared she'd given no consideration to flight. She'd had no place to go. Now, in spite of all the unknown danger that might lie ahead, she felt like a condemned prisoner who'd just been offered a pardon.

"Make haste," he said.

Within minutes, Alison had Isabella bundled into layers of wool and camlet and had retrieved her own warm outerwear. The child was stirring when Gavin once again lifted her.

"Who are you?" she asked in a sleepy voice.

"I am your father."

Isabella looked around for Alison.

"He is your father, Isabella. We are going to go with him now. We must be very quiet."

Her eyes wide and solemn, Isabella nodded.

Alison followed Gavin Dunnett down the narrow, winding steps cut into the thickness of the wall and along the passageway that led to the cavernous, vaulted kitchen that occupied the ground floor of the north tower. They passed through, mere shadows, unseen by any of the servants sleeping there, and exited by way of a heavy wooden door. Gavin paused just outside, at the top of a flight of worn stone stairs. Below them was the inner bailey, an open space they'd have to cross in order to reach the postern gate.

Nothing seemed to be stirring. No one challenged their progress as they went past the kitchen garden and the fish pond stocked with trout and pike. They made it safely across a small wooden bridge and reached the high stone wall without mishap.

"I've a currach hidden a short way downstream," Gavin whispered as he unbarred and opened the oaken gate. Just on the other side, a path descended to the riverbank.

Alison turned to take one last look at her home. To her horror, she saw armed men streaming toward her across the little bridge.

"Stop her!" one shouted. "Do not let her escape!"

Alison pushed hard at the door in the wall, slamming the postern gate closed before the rapidly approaching guards could catch sight of Gavin or Isabella. She turned back toward the castle, calling out, "I have no intention of going anywhere. Can a lady not enjoy a moonlit walk in her own garden without causing such a to-do?"

Rough hands seized her. Alison recognized Michael Barlow, the steward. The others were men-at-arms under his command.

"Release me, sirrah! What have I done to warrant such treatment?"

"Murder," Barlow said.

"Who has been murdered?"

"You know the answer to that question, Mistress Alison, else why would you try to run away? Your stepmother is dead. Stabbed through the heart."

He shoved her into the arms of one of his men.

"Lock her up for the crowner to question! No one is to talk to her until he arrives." Mistress Alison?

From his place of concealment on the other side of the postern gate, Gavin Dunnett absorbed the shock of this revelation. The young woman who'd fought him to protect Isabella was no mere nursemaid. She was Alison Bonville. One of Mariotta's sisters. Isabella's aunt.

She could not have killed Beatrice.

In spite of the fury with which she had attacked him, he did not believe her capable of murder, but his opinion, Gavin realized, would not save her. She had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now that she'd been taken into custody while trying to escape, no one at Bonville Keep would trouble to look elsewhere for a killer.

She'd gone quietly so he and Isabella could get away.

There could be no other explanation for her silence.

When the tramp of boots had receded and it was safe to move, he set Isabella on her feet and hunkered down until their eyes were level. "Who cares for you, Isabella? Who looks after your needs."

"Mine Aunt Alison."

He was not surprised by the answer. "Not some servant?"

Isabella shook her head. "Is it true you are my father?"

"Aye."

"Mine Aunt Alison has told me stories about you. She said you are a brave and honorable knight."

Gavin had men and horses waiting at an encampment only a short distance downstream. He could take Isabella there and set out for Scotland at first light. Once she was certain Isabella had time to get safely away, Alison could accuse him of the murder, thus regaining her own freedom.

But would she? And would they believe her if she did? Gavin frowned.

With Beatrice dead, he supposed there was no need to kidnap his daughter. As long as no one learned of this visit to the castle, he could return in daylight and claim her openly. If he did so, he would also be able to help Alison, who out of love for his child had sacrificed herself.

He sighed.

A brave and honorable knight, she'd called him.

She had been listening to too many ballads, tales of knights with pure hearts and noble intentions. What she'd seen here on the Border should have given the lie to such fancies. Real knights served whatever man paid for their services. They cared little for honor and less about those who got in their way. No matter who won any of the wars between England and Scotland, the folk who lived in the Debatable Land were the worse for it. Man, beast, and crops, all were trampled under the hooves of knights' horses and the bootheels of foot soldiers.

After seven years, Gavin had grown tired of fighting, tired of killing. He'd had no interest in finding employment in another endless, futile war. He'd had enough of innocent people dying. He'd returned home to Scotland to purchase a modest and remote estate. There he'd hoped to settle down, raise his daughter, and with God's blessing find a new wife to give him more children.

In a quiet voice, he told Isabella what they must do. Several hours later, his black armor polished so that it gleamed in the sun and his black warhorse lifting him above the head of his squire, who rode upon a mule, Sir Gavin Dunnett once again entered Bonville Keep. This time the steward came out to greet him with a wary look upon his face.

"We are in mourning here," he announced. "We cannot offer hospitality."

"And you are?"

"He is Michael Barlow, Lady Bonville's former steward," another voice interrupted. "Now that she is dead, I am the one who will decide who is welcome here."

Although Gavin recognized the speaker as James Maplett, husband to Marion Bonville, he inquired as to his identity. When he received the answer he expected, he asked by what authority James laid claim to the castle.

"I am the husband of the eldest of Lord Bonville's heiresses."

"Is that all it takes, then? To be the eldest daughter's husband? You would yield your authority to the husband of an older sister?"

Caught off guard by the question, Maplett conceded that he would. "But there are none here," he pointed out. "In that you are mistaken. I am Sir Gavin Dunnett. My wife, Mariotta, was older by a year than your Marion." The smug look on Maplett's face was replaced by one of chagrin. Barlow gaped at Gavin in shocked disbelief. Ignoring them both, he caught the eye of the halberdier with whom he'd supped and tossed the fellow a pouch heavy with coins. "Use that to pay back wages," he commanded.

His generosity stilled any protests guards or servants might have made. The arrival of the rest of his men silenced belated objections from Barlow and Maplett.

Once he had control of Bonville Keep, Gavin closeted himself with his daughter, who had done as he bade her in the wee hours of the morning and returned to her bed, saying nothing to anyone of her father's nocturnal visit. After reassuring her that all would be well, he entrusted her to the keeping of Alison's two younger sisters. Then he ordered Alison released from captivity and brought to him. Gavin Dunnett reminded Alison of a caged beast as he paced back and forth in the tower chamber. At last he turned on her. "Did you kill Beatrice Bonville?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing. You have certainly profited by her death."

"I did not kill her, either. Oh, I thought about it." In a few pithy words, he told her of Beatrice's claim that Isabella had died in infancy and his intent, when he'd believed that lie, to reive the castle. "I deemed it a just revenge to liberate a few of Beatrice's favorite pieces of jewelry before coming for Isabella."

So, Alison thought, he'd broken into the castle treasury. She did not begrudge him any of the trinkets he'd taken. Indeed, she would not have blamed him if he had killed Beatrice.

"Does it matter who stabbed my stepmother?" she asked. "I can think of no one here who mourns her passing."

"It rests with me, as temporary caretaker of this castle, to discover who killed Lady Bonville, if only because the crowner has already been sent for. In search of the king's share of the criminal's estate, he'll want someone to blame. Being English, he'd delight in finding evidence against a Scot."

"So you propose to give me to him instead?"

"I propose that you help me discover the real killer. If you did not murder her and I did not, then it only makes sense that we work together to find the truth." Taking Alison's agreement for granted, he barked another question at her. "You accused Beatrice of poisoning Isabella. What did you mean?"

"Why, what I said. Two days ago, I returned early from an errand on which Beatrice had sent me and caught her dosing Isabella with a substance I did not recognize. Soon after, Isabella suffered a relapse. She became violently ill. I feared she would die, even though I treated her with nettle, and goat's milk, and honey water, and even mustard seed. All the antidotes I knew of."

"She first sickened hard upon her grandfather's death, or so I have been told. Was that the result of poison, too?" "I think so. When she fell ill, no one knew the cause, just as no one knew what caused my father's sudden demise." "Do you mean to say Lord Bonville was murdered?"

"I cannot prove it. He was not a young man, nor in the best of health."

Gavin seemed to read her mind. "You think Isabella saw something . . . heard something . . . but would she not have told you?"

"Not if Beatrice threatened her. I think she did. And then, to make sure of Isabella's silence, she tried to kill her, too. There is henbane missing from the stillroom."

"A poison?"

"Aye. Oh, there was reason for it to be there. My father suffered from gout. Henbane leaves, stamped with populeon ointment, are used in its treatment. But the juice, if enough be taken internally, can kill in a matter of minutes."

"A dangerous poison, then."

"Aye. Just smelling the flowers can make one drowsy. A small dose cures insomnia. A larger one causes an unquiet sleep that ends in death."

She did not add that some superstitious folk believed the plant could also be used as a love charm–if it were gathered it in the early morning by a naked man standing on one foot.

"Did you tell anyone of your suspicions?"

"Only my sisters."

"Which sisters?"

"The two who are younger than I am. I was born tenth, Tertia eleventh, and Ysende twelfth."

"The three Beatrice meant to send to Holystone to be nuns."

Alison bristled. "If you think that would be reason enough for one of us to kill her–"

"Can you account for their whereabouts every minute of last night? For that matter, can you prove you were here with Isabella when Beatrice was murdered?"

Alison was unable to school her features in time. One look at the expression on her face and his suspicions about her returned. "What is it you have not told me, Alison?"

"Nothing to do with murder." She sighed. Better Gavin hear the truth from her than wonder if she'd committed a much greater crime. "I searched my stepmother's chamber while she was still at supper. I was looking for the missing container of poison. I found nothing. I dreaded the morrow–today–when Beatrice would take me to task for my actions, but I did not kill her to prevent being scolded."

"How would she know you'd been in her chamber?"

"Christiana saw me creeping away."

"Christiana?"

"Beatrice's waiting gentlewoman. I was certain she would tell Beatrice, but I meant to brazen it out. It is not as if I stole anything." She sent him a pointed look. "But then you came, and I did not want to lose Isabella, and I saw a chance to get away from Beatrice's wrath, besides."

"Or a chance to escape punishment."

It hurt to think he still did not trust her. And angered her. Hands on her hips, Alison glared at her accuser. "Ask Christiana. She can swear no body was in Beatrice's chamber, dead or alive, when I left it."

Where else, she wondered suddenly, had Gavin gone before he came to the north tower for Isabella? He'd been in the great hall, disguised as a Benedictine monk. That much she'd surmised. But that left several hours unaccounted for. Could Gavin have killed Beatrice? The possibility turned her almost as cold as her fear that he would continue to suspect her of the crime.

Gavin heaved a gusty sigh. "I believe you, Alison. I need no confirmation. Let us go, together, and talk to Isabella." In the inner chamber in which his daughter had slept before her banishment to the north tower, a room she'd shared with Lord Bonville's three unmarried daughters, Tertia and Ysende kept their niece company. So did Christiana Talbot. Gavin did not notice her at first. It was easy to overlook the plain-faced waiting gentlewoman when she was in the company of a flock of tall, slender, fair-haired Bonvilles.

"This chamber adjoins the one where when Beatrice was struck down," he said to Alison's sisters. "Did you hear anything?"

"We slept soundly," one of the sisters told him. They looked too much alike for him to tell which one she was. "I heard naught until Christiana screamed," the other said.

"You found the body?" He turned to stare at the gentlewoman. His intense gaze seemed to fluster her.

Before he could pose his next question, Alison asked one of her own. "Did you see anyone near Beatrice's chamber after I left it?"

"Only Lady Bonville herself," Christiana replied. "She'd ordered me to sleep on the truckle bed, in case she wanted something fetched in the night."

Gavin lowered his voice in deference to his daughter's presence, although the child seemed intent on a piece of embroidery and was paying no attention to their conversation. "She slept alone?"

"Aye, Sir Gavin. For once."

Gavin frowned. "But if you were in the room, how did the killer reach her without waking you?"

"I went out to use the privy," Christiana mumbled. "I was only gone a few minutes. When I came back, I noticed that the bedcurtains were askew. Then I saw the blood."

"Could one of her lovers have killed her? For jealousy? For revenge? Because she rejected him?"

"She never rejected anyone," Alison muttered.

Christina looked discomfitted, but after a moment her face brightened. "I have remembered something! She did have a falling out with one of them. A Scots emissary visited here a month ago. Lady Bonville seemed most taken with him at first, but he left in anger."

Another lover? "Before or after Lord Bonville's death?"

"He left the day after. But he might have come back!"

Clearly, she hoped he had. Better, to her mind, that the killer be an outsider.

"I thank you for this intelligence, mistress. It may be most significant."

Christiana bobbed a curtsy and fled the chamber.

Gavin let her go, but he could not so easily dismiss the disturbing possibility she had raised. If Bonville's death, or Beatrice's, had been motivated by some political intrigue between England and Scotland, then he might never discover the truth.

After a few more questions, which yielded no new information, Gavin sent Alison's sisters away. Then, in a gentle, coaxing voice, he spoke to his daughter. "Lady Bonville can no longer harm you, Isabella," he said. "She is dead."

The child looked up from her embroidery, her small, pinched face too somber for her years. "Dead? Like Grandfather?" He nodded.

"Is the man dead, too?"

"What man, Isabella?"

Although she stabbed her needle into the cloth with more force than necessary, Isabella did not answer. She was stitching a rose, Gavin saw, in blood red silk.

Alison knelt beside the girl's low stool. "Your father speaks true, sweeting. No one will hurt you ever again. But you must tell us everything you know."

A single tear dropped onto the fabric. "I wanted to keep Grandfather company."

Gavin settled himself on the floor, tailor-fashion, the better to hear his daughter's soft-spoken words. With one hand, he reached out to her. The other sought Alison's fingers until, with the kneeling woman and the seated child, he had formed a circle. He could not be certain how the others felt, but the contact rendered him calmer and more hopeful.

"You did nothing wrong, Isabella," he said.

"Lady Bonville told me to stay away."

"She banned you from your grandfather's sickroom?"

Isabella nodded.

"And you disobeyed?" Alison dried Isabella's tears.

"Yes."

"Tell us, sweeting. What happened then?"

With a final sniff, Isabella glanced at Gavin, then set aside her embroidery and turned to her aunt to confess. "I crept back to sit with him. He did not wake up, but I think he knew I was there."

"I am sure that comforted him," Alison said.

"Then I heard someone coming, so I hid myself behind the screen."

"What screen?" Gavin asked.

"It conceals the close stool," Alison told him. "Go on, Isabella. What did you hear?"

"Lady Bonville. She said–" Isabella broke off and looked about to weep again.

"What did she say?" Alison now held both of Isabella's hands in hers. Their eyes were locked.

"Hold him down while I make him swallow it."

Alison's gaze shifted to meet Gavin's, then away. Even though they had suspected as much, it was a shock to hear Beatrice's guilt so clearly revealed. He could only imagine how his daughter had felt.

"Did the man say anything?" Gavin hated to force Isabella to go on reliving that terrible day, but there was no choice. Beatrice might be dead, but her accomplice was not.

"I heard noises," Isabella whispered. "Choking and sputtering."

Her grandfather's death throes.

"And the man? Did he say anything when the noises stopped?"

"He said all this would be his now that Bonville was dead."

"Did you recognize his voice? Think, Isabella. Had you ever heard it before?"

"He whispered."

Alison wrapped the girl tight in an embrace. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for Gavin to shift his position so that he, too, could fling one comforting arm around their shoulders. Neither of them objected. Alison even managed a faint smile of approval.

"What happened after Beatrice and the man left?" he asked.

Isabella's eyes filled once more. "I came out of hiding and I saw him. Dead." A choked sob all but obscured the word. "I ran away, back to mine own chamber, but she saw me."

"Beatrice saw you leave the room?"

"She caught me and shook me till my teeth rattled. She said if I ever said a word about what went on in Grandfather's chamber, she'd kill me. I promised not to tell anyone, ever." Isabella turned wide, confused eyes to Gavin. "Why did she still hurt me when I promised not to tell?"

If Beatrice had not been dead already, Gavin thought, he'd kill her now for what she'd done to his daughter. He rose stiffly when Isabella dissolved once more into tears and went to stand by the chamber window while Alison calmed her.

He was still there some time later when, exhausted by her weeping, Isabella finally fell asleep.

"She is not yet out of danger," Alison whispered as she came up beside him.

"Aye. It stands to reason that the same person who helped Beatrice murder Lord Bonville also killed Beatrice."

"A falling-out among criminals?"

He nodded. "And if he knows what Isabella overheard, if he believes there is any chance she can identify him, he will try to silence her."

"Then we must discover who he is," Alison said. "One of Beatrice's recent lovers, that much seems certain. That narrows the field to three."

"Two, unless you think the Scots emissary returned to the castle in disguise."

She sent him a speaking glance. If Gavin had done so, someone else could have. Aloud, she asked, "Which one seems more likely? Michael Barlow or James Maplett?"

"Barlow wanted to marry Beatrice. It is not unheard of for a steward to wed his . . . mistress. In that way he'd have gained power and, perhaps, wealth. All this would be his. But if that was his goal, why kill her? With Beatrice dead, he'd have nothing."

"A lover's quarrel?" Alison suggested. "A crime of passion?"

"Maplett had a better motive. He expected by Beatrice's death to gain the Bonville estates, by virtue of being the husband of your sister Marion. But any fool should have known his reasoning was faulty. He is no more the Bonville heir than I am."

Alison looked thoughtful, but she had no more to contribute. She went off to question the servants while Gavin talked to the Bonville men-at-arms. A few hours later, they were no closer to a solution. Gavin swallowed the last of the ale in his mazer and contemplated the dregs. Would that he could read the truth in their pattern. ‘Twas as good a method as any.

Word had come just before they sat down to sup that the crowner would arrive on the morrow. Gavin was determined to present him with a murderer and be on his way soon after. Truce or no, it was dangerous for a Scot to linger long on the English side of the border.

Old Lord Bonville had known that. It had been, in truth, his only objection to Gavin's marriage with Mariotta. Kinship, he'd said, made for a strong bond, but an outsider would always find acceptance hard to come by. A pity, he'd joked, that Gavin did not have the look of a Bonville.

Gavin blinked. Could the answer be that obvious?

He turned to Alison, with whom he shared a trencher, and whispered a question in her ear.

After giving him a startled look, she nodded. "There has scarce been time for word of my father's death to reach the cadet branch of the family. They settled in Cornwall generations ago."

"Motive for murder." He started to rise.

Her hand on his forearm stayed him. "Which murder?"

"Both."

But she shook her head. "I do not think so, for I have remembered something, too. And yet, I do think that if you accuse my father's poisoner of murdering Beatrice, you might just startle her killer into speaking."

Gavin did not ask for an explanation. He trusted Alison's instincts. Abruptly, he stood, scattering the remains of his meal, and called for more light.

When every sconce boasted a torch, every candlestick a taper, Gavin's gaze went first to Maplett, then moved on to Michael Barlow. "You are an imposter," he said to the latter, "and a murderer. You will hang for your crimes."

Before he could enumerate his reasons for accusing Barlow, Christiana Talbot cried out in distress. Everyone turned to look at her.

"You must not harm him. He did not kill Lady Bonville!"

"How can you be so certain?"

Christiana sent Barlow a glance filled with painful longing, then squared her shoulders and faced Gavin. "Because I killed her."

"Did you, by God?" In spite of Alison's prediction, Gavin had not expected this. "Why?"

"To keep Michael from marrying her." As if that confession sapped all her bravado, she dissolved into tears.

It was some time before Gavin could extract a coherent story. Details emerged in fits and starts, punctuated by much wailing and many loud lamentations.

Michael Barlow had promised to marry Christiana, but when Lord Bonville died, he'd told her he intended to wed the widow instead. He'd have it all, he'd bragged. Desperate to win him away from Beatrice, Christiana had confronted the other woman in her bedchamber.

"I told her she could not have him." Tears flowed freely down Christiana's pale cheeks. "He was mine! But she laughed at me. Made sport of me. Said I was too plain of face to take him away from her."

In a moment of overwhelming rage, Christiana Talbot had used the knife with which she cut her meat to stab Lady Bonville to death.

Gavin felt sorry for the woman, even as he ordered her taken into custody. "Seize Barlow, too," he added.

"You cannot arrest me," Barlow protested. "She's just told you she acted alone. She killed the woman I meant to marry. I had naught to do with it."

"But you had everything to do with another crime. You helped Beatrice Bonville kill her husband."

Barlow began to sputter a denial. Gavin held up one hand to silence him, then told the gathered company what Isabella had overheard.

"Arrant nonsense," Barlow declared. "You say yourself that the child did not recognize the voice of Lady Bonville's accomplice. He could have been anyone. That Scots emissary–"

"There might be more than one man willing to kill at Lady Bonville's bidding," Gavin interrupted, "but only one had an inheritance to gain. By law, the Bonville title and much of the estate goes to the last baron's closest male relative. A distant cousin, I believe. Distant enough that church and state would permit him to marry the widow if he chose to."

"No. No, I–"

"You carry the proof of your inheritance with you, Master Barlow. If that is your name. You are the only man here who could be the Bonville heir, for you are the only man here who has the Bonville hair."

At a signal from Gavin, the men-at-arms pulled Barlow out of the shadows. His flaxen locks shone silver-gilt in the candlelight, rendering futile any further denials.

As the prisoners were led away, Gavin turned to Alison. "How did you guess Christiana was guilty?"

"She slept that night in the same chamber with Beatrice, the same chamber where my father died. That meant there was no reason for her to leave the room to visit the privy. That chamber is furnished with a perfectly good close stool, behind the screen where Isabella hid."

"But why did you think she'd confess to save Barlow?"

Alison looked surprised he should ask. "Everyone in the castle knew about Christiana's unrequited passion for my stepmother's lover." The next morning, after the crowner had accepted Gavin's evidence and ridden away with two murderers in custody, Gavin came to collect his daughter and her belongings. Alison was waiting with the girl, her own possessions packed and ready.

"I will accompany Isabella to Scotland," she informed him. "I am certain that whatever distant male cousin is next in line to inherit cares not a whit what I do or where I go."

To her surprise, Gavin did not argue. He merely pointed out, lest she have any false hopes, that under English law a man could not marry his deceased wife's sister without a papal dispensation.

"I am not interested in marriage," she informed him in a haughty voice. "I am content to be Isabella's companion."

"Better than life in a nunnery," he agreed.

Dusk was falling by the time they crossed the border. Gavin turned to Alison and smiled down at her through the open visor of his helmet.

"Then again," he said in a conversational tone of voice, as if there had been mere minutes instead of most of a day's ride between his last remark on the subject and this one, "Scots law on marriage differs from the English."

"In what way?" she asked.

His smile widened into a grin as he produced the Bonville betrothal ring, the one piece of jewelry he'd not returned to the castle treasury. "In Scotland it is a much simpler matter for a widower to marry the sister of his late wife." She smiled back at him, a twinkle in her bright blue eyes.

"I know," she said, and extended her hand.