Glayer looked to the old woman with a sigh. It irritated him so when she acted as though she had a brain inside her wizened raisin head. “I’ve no idea, and I really couldn’t care less. Glander and I shall not be rushed. We will have a leisurely journey to the city, and while we are there, we will avail ourselves of Henry’s every courtesy. Even if Simon survives the journey, it shall likely be no fewer than two months before his feet touch English soil again. Why on earth would it possibly matter?”
“My confidence in the man has been shaken,” she said with a dreary frown. Everything about the woman was dreary, as if she’d steeped so long in sheep dung that it had flavored her very person. Glayer fancied he could still smell the filth on her, the same smell that had been soaked into the dirt floor of the single thatched room that had been his childhood home, turning his thoughts decidedly dark even as Eseld seemed to be expressing concern for the worn-out Simon.
“Perhaps he no longer has your best interests at heart, my lord. When I fetched him for you, he seemed as though he could turn . . . defiant. Perhaps once he is away from Thurston Hold he will go elsewhere rather than toward that to which he was directed.”
“It’s none of your concern,” Glayer said, frowning down at the boy, who seemed to have lost all interest in the acres of land they passed through, pointing to Glayer’s power and wealth. The little spit had fallen asleep. He handed the awkward bundle back to Eseld with little ceremony. “Simon is firmly under my control, of that I am supremely confident. He will perform the task I have given him precisely as I have set it forth. And if for some reason he dies en route or chooses to betray me—again, highly unlikely—it matters not.”
Eseld’s already wrinkled gray brow crinkled even further above where her eyebrows should have been as she rocked the infant on her lap.
What a disgusting creature.
Glayer sighed. He couldn’t resist telling her, though. She would be so impressed with his cunning and brilliance.
“I’ve a sealed message on my person, swearing in my own hand to the naughty misdeeds of Father Simon as regards his beloved Bledsoe. The priest will be ruined before he reaches Austria and he won’t even know it. If he survives the journey, he’ll likely kill himself upon his return. Either end is perfectly acceptable.”
Eseld’s eyes widened, and Glayer felt a swelling of pride. He’d known she’d be impressed.
“Why would you want that, milord?” she asked faintly. “I thought Father Simon dear to you.”
“He was necessary at one time, true. Now he has become superfluous. He knows too much of what I’ve had to do to gain my current position, and unless he is ruined, his testimony might carry some weight. After he and the simple abbot are neutralized, there shall be no one of any reputation who can speak against me. Simon was a loose end, Mother dear, that’s all. But he’s all tied up now.”
Eseld’s face was slack until his last words, and then a bright smile crept across her face and she pulled his son in an even-closer embrace. “I do so love it when you call me mother.”
“Ugh,” Glayer grimaced and turned back to the window to avoid her repulsive countenance. “Shut up.”
Chapter 11
Dori couldn’t help her scream as the huge dog took Constantine Gerard to the ground. Some sort of wolfhound that seemed nothing but long limbs and exaggerated head, covered in wet, gray fur as its mouth lunged toward the lord of Benningsgate’s face. Constantine seemed to be trying to wrap his arms around the beast for some sort of leverage, and she expected to see blood flying at his guttural shout.
The owner of the dog appeared in no hurry to rescue them from his beast; in fact, Dori feared he must be of the diabolical sort, for she could hear his laughter at their predicament even as he sauntered on toward them. If there was any hope for Constantine to survive this attack—indeed, for Dori to survive after the animal was done mauling the man on the ground and before the dog’s evil master was upon them both—Dori would have to provide it.
She looked around the steep, sodden bank and her eyes caught sight of the thick, black tree branch, half rotted where it had been washed onto the grass by the flooded river. She had no other weapon and so she dashed to it, wrenching its heavy mass from the tangle of weeds and using all her strength to raise it above her head. She gave a cry of determination as she staggered toward where Constantine Gerard still lay beneath the animal, and she saw a brief flash of his face, his teeth bared in a terrible grimace.
“No! No!” he shouted, but the dog paid him no heed.
“Get away from him!” Dori screamed and swung the branch.
“Dori, no!”
The branch was jerked from her grasp by the man who must have found a burst of speed to have gained her side so swiftly. Dori spun in the slippery grass to face him, hardly noticing his plump, bewildered expression before her fist shot out and she punched the man in his bulbous nose.
Her attacker dropped the branch and his walking stick to bring both hands to his face with a wounded cry, his cages and traps sliding to the ground behind him as he staggered backward and nearly tripped on the things. Dori took the opportunity to reach down for the long, flexible-looking cane and, taking it in both hands, spun toward where she’d left Constantine Gerard at the mercy of the beast, ready to fight off the monster as best she could.
But Benningsgate’s lord was sitting up in the grass, the great hairy animal sprawled across his lap and Constantine’s arms wrapped around its neck. Perhaps he was trying to choke the animal to death, but he didn’t appear to be making much headway as the animal seemed quite content, its long, flopping tongue hanging out of the side of its mouth in a vulgar fashion as it leaned into the man’s chest.
And, actually, Constantine Gerard was looking at her with a rather confused expression.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“I-I—” she stammered and slightly lowered the weapon in her hands. “The dog was attacking you. I—”
“Glory, missus,” the man standing to her right mumbled through his hand. She turned her head in time to see him give a swiping pinch of his even more swollen nose before he raised his eyes to her. “I can understand you not fancyin’ dogs, but Erasmus wouldn’t harm you or your man. See? He only—”
Here the stranger held his bloodstained fingers forward and glanced at Constantine, wherefore his speech abruptly stopped.
Dori looked to Constantine and saw the dog craning its neck back, rubbing its matted-looking face against Constantine’s in what appeared to be a desperate attempt to lick the man from chin to hairline.
Constantine chuckled, and Dori realized that perhaps the grimace she’d witnessed when he’d been mauled by the dog had been a smile.
