CHAPTER ELEVEN
Farringdon House
“Has he awoken yet?” William asked.
Maxton shook his head at The Marshal. “Nay, my lord,” he replied. “We plied him with much alcohol after he was already drunk, so it may take time to sleep this off.”
William sighed heavily. He was standing on the top floor of Farringdon House with Maxton, Kress, Achilles, and Alexander. The four men had just brought in an unconscious man who stank to the heavens of alcohol and body odor, tossing him into a bed to sleep off his binge before telling William who, exactly, the man was and why he was there.
It had been the catch of a lifetime.
William, who happened to be at Farringdon House because his meeting with the king and the marcher lords had dispersed early, stood in the doorway of the chamber that held the snoring drunkard, hoping that they’d found the key to the papal assassins in that smelly, slobbering Scotsman.
“Then I suppose we’ll have to wait until he decides to awaken,” William said. “There is nothing more we can do.”
“Nay, my lord,” Maxton agreed. “We will send a guard up to keep an eye on him.”
Alexander, who was still by the door, shook his head. “Nay, Max,” he said. “I will remain here. He is my quarry, after all. Moreover, I feel as if he is an old friend now. I must stay and greet him when he awakens.”
Maxton agreed with the wave of a hand and the men moved away from the chamber door to go about their separate ways. Before they could get too far, however, William stopped them.
“Max,” he said. “I saw Sean at Westminster Palace earlier. It seems that John is indeed hunting tomorrow in the woods of Windsor, so you and your men may wish to shadow the hunting party for John’s sake. But he mentioned something else, too, because you asked to be apprised of his movements – John is going to St. Blitha in two days to take part in the feast day. St. Blitha is the patroness of hunters, as you know, and he intends to offer prayers so she will bless his hunting bloodlust. It might be wise to appear at St. Blitha as well.”
St. Blitha. There was that name again, that abbey that kept popping up. It wasn’t as if St. Blitha was the only abbey in or around London; there were several, but on this day, St. Blitha was the only one he’d heard of today. First with Andressa, then with the drunkard Douglas, and now the king. Rather fortuitous, he thought. He would happily shadow the man to St. Blitha – he was only sorry it was two days away.
“Aye, my lord,” he said. “In fact, I was already at St. Blitha today. It is a very long story, but I shall do my best to make it concise – this morning, as I was returning to Farringdon House after my night of food and drink, I came across a young woman stealing bread. As it turned out, she was a pledge from St. Blitha.”
“So that’s what happened,” Kress said. “You mentioned St. Blitha this morning, but you did not say why. What in the world was a pledge from St. Blitha doing stealing bread?”
Maxton held up a hand, asking for patience as he continued. “Feeling pity for the woman, I fed her,” he said. “But what she told me… God help me, St. Blitha’s is a place of sin and sorrow. She said that the Mother Abbess sells the food meant for the nuns and pledges of St. Blitha to fill her own table with fine food, leaving her charges to starve. That is why she was stealing bread. The pledge further told me that the Mother Abbess murders women who displease her.”
That drew a reaction from all four of the men; eyebrows lifted in surprise. “A Mother Abbess who murders?” William repeated, shocked. “Are you certain? I have never heard such madness.”
“Nor I,” Maxton assured him. “The pledge, whose name is Andressa du Bose, told me that the Mother Abbess carries a staff with her that she calls the Staff of Truth, but the bottom half of the staff is really a sharp blade sheathed in wood to make it look like it’s part of the staff. She sends those who displease her into the dungeons of St. Blitha, a place she calls The Chaos. No one returns from The Chaos alive because the Mother Abbess evidently murders them with the blade from her Staff of Truth.”
More shocking information. “My God,” William breathed. “A horrific tale, if true.”
Maxton shook his head. “I did not sense the pledge was lying. If you’d only seen the woman, my lord, you would believe her, too. It was a terrible story she told.”
“St. Blitha belongs to Essex, doesn’t it?” Achilles spoke up; surprisingly, he was the most pious of the Executioner Knights, and often wrestled with that faith when carrying out his dark missions. “It is part of the Bishopric of Essex, and I am sorry to say that it is well-known that Essex is a man of questionable honor.”
“Exactly,” Maxton pointed a finger at him to emphasize his point. “He also has questionable morals. Remember the nun that was executed in Chelmsford the year we left for The Levant? She told everyone she was pregnant by Essex and was executed for her blasphemy.”
William pinched the bridge of his nose as if struggling with the dark and dirty deeds from people who were supposed to uphold the morality of the church. He’d had his own troubles with them, which made the story Maxton was telling more than believable in his mind.
“I remember,” he muttered. “I’d also heard through reliable sources that it wasn’t the first bastard of the Bishop of Essex. It was simply the one that became public knowledge.”
Maxton shook his head. “Given that quagmire of sex and lies, I tend to believe the pledge,” he said grimly. “She lives behind walls that hide that hell from the world, but more than that, remember that St. Blitha’s was the abbey that Sherry tracked Douglas to. He knows that Douglas spent some time there for an unknown reason.”
William nodded, remembering what he’d been told of the entire situation with Alexander and Alasdair Baird Douglas. He’d also been told of the ensuing conversation in the tavern when Maxton, Kress, and Achilles plied the man with drink and tried to interrogate him, a conversation that still had his head swimming. So much of it was leading, with very little answers. He felt as if they were no better off than they were before.
“We need to find out why Douglas was there,” he said. “If the man is our assassin, then we must find out all he knows. Your conversation with him in the tavern has brought us more questions than answers, unfortunately.”
Maxton leaned against the wall behind him, lost in thought. It was a conversation he’d been stewing over since it happened. “When we spoke to Douglas earlier, he said something that caught my attention,” he said. “He said that our prayers will be answered and we shall have a new king, so clearly, he knows about the assassination order. That was increasingly evident as we spoke.”
“But he also said that no man will answer our prayers,” Achilles put in. “He was very clear about no man answering our prayers.”
Maxton looked at him, his eyebrows lifted. “So we shall have divine intervention?” he said. “A saint is supposed to answer our prayers for the death of a king?”
“He was at St. Blitha,” Alexander entered into the conversation. When the men looked at him curiously, he continued. “You just finished telling us of the terrible darkness of the abbey, of a Mother Abbess who murders and pledges who starve. Mayhap Douglas went to St. Blitha to pray for a successful assassination, knowing of the evil of those who control St. Blitha. Think of it; the Holy Father has a devout servant in the Bishop of Essex, and Essex controls St. Blitha. There must be a connection there that we are not seeing.”
Maxton held up a finger as a thought formed. “Or…,” he said, paused, and started again. “Or given the fact that the Mother Abbess is a murderer, mayhap he sought her advice on how to proceed. Mayhap she is part of the assassination plot, too.”
“Or mayhap she is the assassin,” Achilles said quietly. “Douglas said that no man would answer our prayers. The Mother Abbess is not a man.”
Maxton’s eyes widened as the logic of that statement made complete and utter sense. “The nun,” he hissed. “And John is due to St. Blitha in two days.”
The hammer had fallen. Now, the pieces of the puzzle were falling in line and the astonishment was clear on their faces. An assassin nun? It seemed far too outlandish, but given the clues, it made sense.
No man shall answer yer prayers, Douglas had said.
But a woman could.
“God’s Bones,” William hissed. “Is it true? Do we have to protect John from a nun?”
No one had a definitive answer for him because they were all swept up in the shocking possibilities. As Maxton opened his mouth to speak, a guard from the manor gate appeared on the stairs, distracting them.
“My lord?”
William responded. “What is it?”
The guard shook his head. “Nay, my lord,” he said. “I meant Sir Maxton.”
Maxton looked over his shoulder. “What do you want?”
The guard gestured with a thumb down the stairs. “There is someone asking for you at the gatehouse,” he said. “He says he’s from The King’s Gout. He wants to talk to you.”
Maxton didn’t react for a moment, but then his eyes opened wide and he flew down the stairs without another word. As the guard ran after him, William, Kress, Achilles, and Alexander looked to each other with some concern.
“The King’s Gout?” Kress repeated. “That’s the tavern over by the Street of the Bakers, isn’t it?”
Alexander’s brow furrowed, as if a thought had suddenly occurred to him. “Didn’t Max say that the pledge this morning was stealing bread?”
The light went on in Kress’ eyes. “And then he fed the woman a meal. It must have been at the nearest tavern.”
“The King’s Gout,” they all said in unison.
Soon, they were all moving down the stairs, thinking there must be a connection between The King’s Gout and the pledge from St. Blitha. So many pieces to a puzzle that was pulling together, but all of them were thinking the same thing – there had to be a connection between the pledge and the tavern, and now someone from the tavern had come to give Maxton a message.
There wasn’t one of them that didn’t want to know the details of that message.
The mystery deepened.
Maxton recognized the messenger.
It was the son of the tavernkeep at The King’s Gout, a tall and pale young man who was half the size of his blobish father. Maxton remembered the young man because he was evidently somewhat of a loaf and when Maxton had been at the tavern earlier, the father had been yelling at the lad because he hadn’t moved fast enough for his liking. There was also a swat with a shovel involved.
But the young man appeared healthy enough, with no imprints of shovels on him. Unless he’d been hit in the head, of course, which was a possibility because had crossed eyes, making it difficult to know where, exactly, the young man was looking. Maxton had the gate guards usher him into the shadowed courtyard.
“Well?” Maxton demanded. “Why has your father sent you?”
The young man looked at him; or, at least, one of his eyes looked at him. “Are ye Loxbeare, m’lord?”
Maxton nodded sharply. “Do you have a message for me?”
The young man looked him up and down. “I do, m’lord,” he said. “From a lady. She wants to know if you’ll see her.”
“What lady?”
“She gives her name as Andra… Andra…”
“Andressa?”
“Aye, m’lord.”
The mere mention of the name seemed to set Maxton on fire. He reached out, grasping the young man by the arm. “Is she at the tavern?” he demanded forcefully. But just as swiftly, he let go of the young man’s arm. “I shall go with you. Let me collect my things.”
But the young man put his hands up to slow Maxton down. “She’s not at the tavern, m’lord,” he said. “Wait here. I’ll bring her.”
Maxton’s eyebrows drew together. “Bring her here?” he said. “Where is she?”
The young man kept his hands up as if to beg patience from the enormous knight who seemed quite fired up by mention of the lady. He dashed away, heading for the fortified door where the guards were, and at Maxton’s urging, the guards opened the door and the young man ran through it.
Puzzled, Maxton was heading for the door himself to see what was going on when the young man suddenly reappeared with a figure in tow. It took Maxton less than a brief second to realize it was Andressa.
She looked frightened and a little dazed, wrapped up in her dirty woolens like a shield from the world at large. The young man had her by the arm, urging her forward, but when she saw Maxton, she needed no urging. Their eyes met and she scurried through the open door.
“My lady?” Shocked, Maxton moved quickly to her. “Are you well?”
Andressa gazed up at him with an expression that told him all he needed to know. No, she wasn’t well. Something was very wrong, and he immediately noticed that she was trembling. As she struggled for an answer to his question, he dug into the purse at his belt and gave the young man a coin. When the young man dashed off, Maxton took Andressa by the arm and gently pulling her into the courtyard.
“I… I am sorry to have come uninvited,” Andressa finally said. “You said that I could leave word for you at The King’s Gout, but… it could not wait for you to receive it. I asked the tavernkeep if he would tell me where you lived and he had his son bring me here. I am very sorry to be such trouble, but…”
Maxton interrupted her. “It is no trouble at all,” he said. “I am glad you found me. How may I be of service?”
Andressa looked around; they were in the interior courtyard of a very big manor house and there were people all around, people she didn’t know. People who could tell the Mother Abbess that she’d come to this place. Suddenly, her fear had the better of her and she began to back away.
“I should not have come,” she whispered tightly, tears filling her eyes as she tried to pull her arm from his grip. “I should go. Forgive me, please.”
There was something desperate and almost incoherent about her manner, concerning Maxton a great deal. As much as she tried to pull away from him, he would not let her.
“Do not be troubled,” he assured her calmly. “No one will hurt you, I promise. What is so important that you had to come and find me?”
Andressa was coming to realize he wasn’t about to let her go so she stopped pulling. But she didn’t want to speak in front of all of these people even though they appeared not to be paying any attention to her. She couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t overhear what she had to say. She was trying very hard not to cry.
“May we… may we speak privately, please?” she whispered. “I do not have much time, my lord. Quickly, please.”
His reply was cut off as men suddenly surrounded them. Kress, Achilles, Alexander, and William were suddenly there, all around them, and Andressa panicked at the sight of so many armed men. She shrunk back from the big knights, struggling to pull away from Maxton again, so much so that he grabbed her with both hands and pulled her against him, trying to give her some comfort.
“Have no fear, lady,” he assured her quickly, backing away from his friends to put distance between the frantic lady and the strange knights. “They will not hurt you, I swear it. They are simply clumsy, but they mean you no harm. Please meet my close and good friends Sir Kress de Rydian, Sir Achilles de Dere, Sir Alexander de Sherrington, and William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke. Surely you have heard of Lord William? He is a very great and important man.”
Andressa was looking at all of them with big eyes, caught up in a web of men that had her re-thinking her idea to seek out Maxton. It didn’t seem like a good idea any longer, but she felt as if she was trapped now. She couldn’t even respond to his introductions. She looked at him, her big eyes pooling with tears.
“Please,” she begged again. “I must speak to you privately.”
Maxton simply nodded, holding a hand out to the four men hovering around them, silently pleading with them not to follow. They obeyed, but it was clear they didn’t want to. Seeing the very poorly dressed woman in Maxton’s grip suggested this was the very pledge Maxton had been speaking of throughout the day, something that had their curiosity sharpened. She was from St. Blitha, and they all knew that St. Blitha was the key to this entire mystery.
Maxton knew that, all too well. He knew exactly what they were thinking as he put a big arm around Andressa’s shoulders and led her back into the house, into the darkened ground level. The only thing down here were armories and kitchens and servants’ rooms, so he took her up the great mural stairs and into the first chamber they came to, a smaller receiving room that was next to the massive solar.
The receiving room was generally meant for retainers of the great men who would attend The Marshal in his solar, so it was comfortable and well-appointed. It was also private, with only one door and one window that faced out over the inner courtyard. Maxton escorted Andressa inside and turned to close the door, but the moment he released her, she drifted over to the other side of the chamber and collapsed in the corner.
Distressed, Maxton watched Andressa roll herself up into a ball and sob. She had her hands over her head in a protective gesture, as if hiding from something quite horrible. With a sigh, one of great concern, Maxton made his way over to her.
“My lady,” he said gently. “What has happened? All you need do is speak the word and I will do all in my power to help you. Please tell me what has happened.”
It took Andressa a moment to respond. In fact, her only response was to lift her head and wipe off her face with her dirty sleeves. It was all she had. She was a quivering, weeping mess and Maxton sat carefully in the chair nearest her, not wanting to startle her.
“My lady?” Maxton said again. “Please tell me – what has happened?”
She wiped at her face, furiously, before daring to look at him. When she did, he could see the tears starting all over again.
“I do not know what to do,” she murmured, her lower lip quivering. “I do not know who to ask for help. You have been kind to me and I thought mayhap…”
“Mayhap… what?”
“Mayhap you could tell me what to do.”
“About what?”
Her face threatened to crumple again but she fought it. She had little time to speak and didn’t want to spend the entire time weeping like a fool, but God, she needed to cry, just a little. It had been building up since her meeting with the Mother Abbess, an explosion waiting to happen. But the explosion was over now.
She needed to tell someone.
She took a deep breath.
“You must swear to me that you will not repeat what I tell you,” she said.
He nodded. “Of course,” he said. “What is it?”
Andressa took another deep breath. “I need your help.”
“Tell me what I can do to help you.”
“I am so frightened. I have never been so frightened in my entire life.”
“Why? Won’t you please tell me why?”
Her gaze grew intense. “You must tell the king not to go to St. Blitha for the feast day.”
Maxton never knew that one little statement could electrify him so much. His entire body began to tingle, tensing up as if he’d been wound up as tightly as he could go.
“Why is that?”
Andressa wiped at her eyes that continued to leak. “Because if he goes to St. Blitha, he will be murdered. They will murder him!”
“Who will murder him, Andressa?”
“The Mother Abbess and her attendants.”
Maxton couldn’t help his reaction; he slid out of the chair and onto the floor beside her, reaching out to pull her towards him. His big hands trapped her as his dark eyes drilled into her with white-hot intensity.
“You will tell me everything,” he said as calmly as he could manage. “From the beginning, please. How do you know this?”
Andressa felt as if she wanted to vomit as he asked that question. She’d been wanting to vomit since the moment the Mother Abbess clued her in on a plot as dark and deadly as anything she was capable of comprehending.
She’d come to Maxton because she didn’t know where else to turn, and as Andressa looked at the man, she realized one thing – there was something immensely comforting about him. He was so close to her that she could feel the heat from his body, and the fists gripping her arms were the size of a man’s head. He was big, and he was powerful, and it occurred to her that never in her life had she known such safety or comfort.
Amidst all of the terror she was experiencing, the man made her feel as if nothing in the world could touch her, not even the darkness of the Mother Abbess. It was something she’d never experienced before, and in that realization, some of her terror fled. She could think more clearly now.
She had come this far. He needed to know everything.
“After you left today, I was brought before the Mother Abbess,” she said.
He grunted. “I thought so,” he said, sighing with regret. “I heard the fight. I am very sorry to have caused you trouble, Andressa. That was never my intent.”
She shook her head, calmer now. “I thought you had caused me trouble, too,” she said, a weak glimmer of mirth in her eye. “But in truth, you did not. When I was brought before the Mother Abbess, I was certain she was going to punish me for speaking to you, but instead, she said some very strange things.”
“Like what?”
Andressa thought back to the conversation, organizing her thoughts against the fear that the very subject provoked. “She told me that she had been watching me,” she said. “She told me that she wanted me to take the veil and become her personal attendant. She spoke of things I did not understand at first; she said that she and her attendants, nuns she has known since childhood, have been called upon to do the bidding of our Holy Father. She said that he had entrusted them with missions, many times. I did not know what she meant until she started speaking of men who were dead. One man, in particular, was the Bishop of Leeds. He died at St. Blitha following a feast the year after I came to the order. The Mother Abbess said that our Holy Father asked her to kill him and she did. Now, she says that our Holy Father has asked her to do the same thing with King John and she wants me to participate in it so that I can learn her ways.”
Now, it was Maxton’s turn to feel sick to his stomach. He had experienced many things in life. He’d seen more than his share of sorrow, and death, and of betrayal, but never in his life had he heard about nuns who killed on command. Even though he and the others had been speculating about a deadly Mother Abbess only minutes earlier, he wasn’t sure he really believed that. His money had been on Douglas, the double-agent. But at the moment, a baby could have knocked him over, so stunned was he. One good push and down he’d go.
He was still trying to drink it all in.
“You are sure of this?” he managed to ask. “She told you that the Holy Father wishes for her to assassinate the king?”
Andressa nodded. “That is what she said,” she assured him. “A messenger from the Holy Father came to tell her of this command. In fact, I saw the messenger; he was at St. Blitha two days ago. I remember because he bellowed to me, wanting to know if the woman he was speaking to was indeed the Mother Abbess. I was afraid to answer because I could hardly understand him. I did not wish to give him the wrong answer.”
“Why was it difficult to understand him?”
“Because he was Scottish.”
Another revelation. Now, he knew what Alasdair Baird Douglas had been doing at St. Blitha – he hadn’t been praying about an assassination or asking the Mother Abbess’ advice on it. He’d been there to tell the woman is was her duty to kill the King of England, straight from the mouth of the Holy Father.
Maxton was deeply astonished with what he was hearing; it was confirmation and clarification of the great mystery they’d all been dealing with. The Holy Father had indeed sent more assassins to fulfill the mission that he and his Unholy brethren had refused, only the assassins were something Maxton would have never considered –
Nuns.
He never saw that coming.
As he became increasingly lost to his own thoughts, he could see Andressa looking at him anxiously. He loosened his grip on her arms and began to caress her slender limbs, comfortingly. He could see how utterly terrified she was.
In truth, he didn’t blame her in the least.
“She wants you to assist her, does she?” he said calmly. “What did you tell her?”
Andressa drew in a long breath; she was calming a great deal, but the mere mention of the Mother Abbess made her tense up again.
“I agreed,” she said. “I did not know what else to do. She told me if I spoke to anyone about this, then I would end up in The Chaos.”
Now, it was all coming together and Maxton was starting to understand why she was so terrified; she’d been burdened with a huge weight, knowledge that would create stress and havoc with even the most seasoned man, and then her life was threatened if she spoke about it. This poor woman had been forced to endure hell over the past four years, cast off by a greedy aunt and left to the mercy of the soulless sisters of St. Blitha.
“You will not end up in The Chaos,” he said quietly, rubbing her arms in a soothing gesture without really realizing he was doing it. “I would not let them do that to you.”
Andressa was looking at his face as he spoke. In fact, the moment he started caressing her arms, discreetly but unmistakably, she found herself looking at him with increasing interest. The way he made her feel – safe and warm and comforted – was pushing aside the abject terror she’d been suffering since leaving St. Blitha, taking her back to the days at Okehampton when she was safe and warm and comfortable, living the life of a respected ward for Lady de Courtney.
Her mind drifted back to the days of feasts and knights and chivalry, days that were only distant memories to her now. Thoughts of Rhyne popped into her head again, but as she looked at Maxton, she could see that Rhyne had been a foolish boy compared to the man who now held her in his grip. She remembered seeing knights of Maxton’s caliber at Okehampton, great men with great legacies, but they were unattainable to her. At least, that’s what she believed. As she continued to gaze at Maxton, she wished with all her heart that he could see her as something other than what she was – a dirty, poor pledge.
She wished it could be otherwise.
“Will you please tell the king not to come to St. Blitha?” she asked again. “He must know of the danger should he go there. I do not know how they are planning to kill him, but they promised to teach me.”
Maxton’s dark eyes lingered on her for a moment. “They gave no indication?”
She shook her head. “Nay,” she said. “Except… except I am to assume new duties in the garden tomorrow with Sister Petronilla.”
“Who is that?”
“One of the Mother Abbess’ personal attendants,” she said. “The Mother Abbess said that Sister Petronilla would teach me what I needed to know.”
“She is one of the assassins?”
“Aye.”
Maxton considered that for a few moments, but not for long. He was still lingering on what he’d been told as a whole. He needed to speak with William, desperately, but he wanted to make sure Andressa was calm before he left her. He had much to do and more than likely little time to do it, and the pale pledge in his hands had been the key to everything. Without her, he’d still be hunting phantoms.
That poor, sweet, frightened little rabbit.
“Surely you must be hungry,” he said to her. “I would like you to remain in this chamber and rest, and I shall have food brought up to you.”
She started to get that panicked look again. “Where are you going?”
He smiled at her, giving her arms a squeeze before rising to his feet and pulling her along with him. “I must speak to The Marshal about preventing John from going to St. Blitha.”
“Nay!” she cried, grabbing him with her boney fingers. “You must not tell him what I have told you! You swore that you would not!”
Maxton understood her panic. Carefully, he sat her down in the nearest chair, taking a knee in front of her hand holding both of her cold hands in his big, warm mitts. He looked her directly in the eye as he spoke to her.
“What you have told me will not go any further, I assure you,” he said. “But it is also a task that cannot be handled by one man. We are speaking of the king, Andressa, and if I am to tell him he cannot go to St. Blitha, he will want to know why. Do you understand that? There are others I must trust to help me.”
Her eyes were filling with tears again. “But… but if the Mother Abbess discovers I have told you…”
He shook his head and squeezed her hands. “She will not know,” he said. “She will never know. In fact, now that we know of her plan, we will remove her from St. Blitha so that she can never harm anyone ever again, including you.”
The tears stopped and her eyes widened. “Remove her?” she gasped. “How… why…?”
Maxton lifted her hands to his lips, kissing her fingers sweetly. “Trust me,” he murmured. “Please, Andressa. You have asked for my help and I am so glad you did. I swear to you that I will protect you with my life. You have come to me with trust and now I ask you for the same as I help you solve your problem. Will you do this?”
She was still lingering on the kiss; it had been so sweet, so subtle, that her heart was racing because of it. It was a struggle to focus on his question.
“I… have been without anyone close to me for such a long time,” she said, her voice trembling. “I had friends at Okehampton, and my parents and I were also close, but since I have been at St. Blitha, I have learned that every day is a fight for survival and that there is no one I can trust because every woman at St. Blitha is also fighting for her survival. I do not even know you, yet your kindness this morning was endearing. It has been so long since I have known any kindness.”
It was a confession of sorts, a glimpse into the protected, confused, and frightened world of Andressa. Maxton could see how vulnerable she was and it touched him; he was fortunate. He had close friends he could trust. But when it came to an emotional and personal level, much like her, he had no one at all. He had seen forty years and three; he was an old man to some, but to others, he was seasoned and wise and strong. But there was one thing in all of those years that had escaped him –
Someone to love.
Did he see that in Andressa? All he knew was that in the short time he’d known her, he had feelings towards her that he’d never had for anyone, at least that strongly. The woman was terrified and cold, and hungry, and all he wanted to was shield and protect and feed her. He wanted to take care of her. He didn’t know why other than his gut told him that he should.
His instincts had never been wrong.
“I am coming to think that our unexpected meeting this morning was not a mistake,” he said quietly. “Although I have never given much stock in God because, surely, I destroyed my chances of ascending to heaven long ago, I think that he brought you to me.”
She had wiped her tears away, listening to him intently. “Why?”
He forced a smile. “Because you need someone to trust. Clearly, you need me.”
Andressa wasn’t sure if he was joking; something in his eyes told her that he was for the most part. But not entirely. There was a glimmer there, something warm and kind, that made her racing heart flutter yet again.
“I will admit it looks that way,” she said. “I suppose I could have gone straight to the king with this and try to tell him, but I thought you might be of more assistance.”
He shook his head. “I did not mean that, entirely,” he said. “I mean with everything. You needed food this morning and I was happy to provide it. You need help now, and I am also happy to provide it. You see? God knew you needed me, although I am not entirely sure why he would send you to someone who has one foot in hell. That has me puzzled.”
Andressa cocked her head, thinking of the conversation they’d had earlier whilst by the stream. You cannot possibly imagine how un-kind and un-generous I am, he had said. She was deeply curious about that statement, as she was about the rest of him.
“In the short while we have been acquainted, you have alluded to things you have done in this life,” she said. “Although I cannot imagine you being anything other than what you are to me – a strong, honorable knight – tell me why you think you have one foot in hell.”
“Think?” he snorted. “I know.”
“What have you done?”
He let go of her hands, rocking back on his heels and averting his gaze. “That is a question with many answers.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
He cast her a long look suggesting he was displeased with the fact that she’d ably trapped him. She’d shown such trust in him and now she was expecting the same. Clever girl. When she smiled timidly, he simply shook his head with feigned frustration.
“Of course I trust you,” he said. “But why do you wish to know about an old knight like me? I am nothing in the grand scheme of things except that I have sinned more than most.”
“What have you done?”
He grumbled softly, with displeasure, but answered. “I have always been a man of great talent and little remorse,” he said. “Lords and kings have used that combination for, shall we say, unsavory tasks.”
“Like what?”
“You truly wish for an example?”
She nodded, firmly, and he frowned at her. Still, he dutifully continued. “Very well,” he said. “You have asked for it. Whilst in The Levant, my cohorts and I were tasked with the abduction of a Muslim general. You met the men I speak of outside, though you probably cannot recall their faces – Kress de Rhydian and Achilles de Dere. The Christian armies called us the Executioner Knights and the Unholy Trinity, among other things, but if there was an impossible task to accomplish, it was given to us. Like the abduction of this general; the Christian commanders believed he was responsible for an ambush of Christian knights outside of the city of Nahala, so my colleagues and I were charged with abducting him and bringing him back alive. You do not want to hear more than that, my lady. Trust me when I tell you it was an unpleasant task.”
But Andressa was listening closely, very interested, indeed. “But I do want to hear more,” she insisted. “At this moment, I still see you as a great and noble knight. I do not think there is anything you could do, so terrible, to shatter than opinion.”
He looked at her, then. “What if I want you to continue believing that,” he said, his suddenly tone hoarse with emotion. As if he was pleading. “No one has thought such things about me before.”
Andressa felt silent a moment, but it was a thoughtful silence. “No man is perfect unless his name is Christ,” she said. “There are only degrees of mortal perfection, and to many, that is in the eye of the beholder. Did you kill this Muslim general, then?”
“I did, but only when he tried to ambush me. He knew we were coming.”
“Then you did it in self-defense.”
“I also killed his seven-year old son who stabbed me in the leg with a dagger. Am I still great and honorable to you now?”
She didn’t hesitate. “The boy tried to kill you. Did you have a choice?”
He shook his head, slowly. “Nay,” he said. “I did not because the child had clearly been trained to kill. I told the boy’s mother that right before I slit her throat – I told her that she had raised a killer. Now… do you still think I am great and honorable?”
That gave Andressa pause. “Why did you kill her?”
“So there would be no witnesses to the death of her husband and son.”
It was a blunt, brutal, but truthful answer. Andressa sat back in the chair, pondering what she’d been told. It had been more than she’s bargained for, but oddly enough, it didn’t change her mind about him. She had a rational quality not easily found.
“You were at war,” she said quietly. “I am sure the woman would have killed you if she’d had the chance. She was your enemy and there is no shame in killing an enemy in times of war.”
Maxton shook his head slowly. “That is not why I did it,” he said. “I did it because I wanted to. Because I did not want to leave her alive. My lady, you do not seem to realize what I am telling you – I am a killer. I am paid to kill men and women, and children if I must. When I tell you that I will remove the Mother Abbess from St. Blitha so she can never again harm anyone, know that I have no such reservations about the fact that she is a woman. It matters not to me. I will do what is necessary, and I mean every word I say.”
Andressa believed him. His confession about the Muslim general and the man’s family opened her eyes to him a little, but the truth was that all she could see was a man fighting to survive. Perhaps it was foolish of her, but that was her opinion.
No one would ever change it.
“I believe you,” she said quietly.
“And you do not think differently about me?”
“Nay.”
Maxton wasn’t surprised to hear that, but he thought she was still a little idealistic about him. But as he’d said… perhaps he wanted her to think that way of him. He wanted her to think that he was noble and kind, because God only knew, no one else did. More and more, the little pledge was breaking down something in him, walls he kept up, great things that protected everything about him. He’d spent years building those walls. But with her, those walls were cracking.
He could feel it.
“As you wish,” he muttered. “Now, I have things to attend to. While I am away, I wish for you to rest and I shall send you food. I must go speak with The Marshal and ask him what he thinks we should do given this situation. Will you wait here whilst I speak with him?”
Andressa glanced to the window; the sun was starting to set, sending pink ribbons across the sky. “It will be dark soon,” she said. “I… I told the Mother Abbess that I had to deliver laundry to Lady Hinkley, but even she said that Lady Hinkley often likes to talk and invite the less fortunate to a meal. But Lady Hinkley was very busy with her party tonight and she did not invite me in.”
Maxton was on to her line of thinking. “Then if you stay here a little while and feast with me, the Mother Abbess will think you are with Lady Hinkley.”
Andressa nodded and there seemed to be some relief in her expression. Even a few hours away from that hellish place was a God-send.
“Aye,” she said after a moment. “She will think that.”
“Then you will stay a little while? I am sure the cook has a very good supper planned.”
That seemed to close the deal for Andressa. Two good meals in one day was nearly unheard of in her world.
“I will stay.”
That pleased Maxton immensely. He stood up, gazing down at her as she sat in the chair. To him, she looked so forlorn and vulnerable. He could only imagine what the woman looked like in all her glory; if she was beautiful now, scrubbed and fed and dressed, she must have been a sight to see.
And that gave him an idea.
“Wait here,” he said. “Do not leave this chamber. Promise?”
She nodded. “I do.”
“I’ll be back.”
With that, he quit the small chamber and she could hear him outside, barking to the servants. Hot water. Food. And build a fire in the retainer’s chamber! Andressa heard him snapping orders, fading away as he went down the stairs, until she could only hear a dull rumble.
Alone and worried, she remained in the chair he’d left her in until there was a knock at the door. The latch lifted and a servant with wood and peat entered, swiftly moving to the hearth and starting a lovely, warm blaze. The room filled with a golden glow and when the servant left, Andressa went to the hearth, sitting next to it and warming her frozen body. The Mother Abbess wouldn’t allow for fires at St. Blitha unless it was snowing, so more often than not, Andressa had to warm herself by the fire she used to heat the water for her laundry. There was no other opportunity.
But now, she was in a warm chamber with a warm fire, basking in a luxury she hadn’t had in four years. It was heavenly. But not heavenly enough that she forgot about her situation, or the fact that she needed to return to St. Blitha soon.
Back into the heart of the Devil.
She prayed she’d done the right thing by seeking Maxton. God only knew what tomorrow would bring.