Callie’s heart froze at the words as disbelief tore through her. It was quickly followed by rage and indignation.
How dare they!
“Have you told his lordship?” she asked the young maid.
“Nay. He scares me too much.”
Callie patted her on the arm in gratitude. “Thank you, Aelfa. I’ll tell him myself.”
When she reached the door, Aelfa’s voice stopped her. “Milady, have you thought about that should they kill him, you won’t have to marry him?”
The thought had never entered her mind. And even now that it had, her choice was clear.
She couldn’t stand by and see a man slaughtered. Especially one she owed so much to. Regardless of what others thought, she knew the heart of the black knight and it wasn’t so dark or forbidding.
Without another word, she left the room in search of Lord Sin.
Five
Sin stood in the center of Henry’s throne room, waiting for the king’s return. Why he bothered, he couldn’t imagine.
Henry had made his decision clear. Sin was to find the Scots’ rebel leader and kill him.
There was nothing unusual about the order. He’d murdered more than once at Henry’s command. It was what made him an anathema to the court. An abomination to the pope.
It was also what had saved his life as a boy.
He’d only been ten-and-four when he’d taken his first life. Never would he forget that moment. Scared and shaking, he had followed his orders and gone into the man’s room at a local inn. The man had been nothing more than a poor pilgrim who had come to Outremer to pray. The Old Man of the Mountain had ordered the pilgrim slain and Sin knew that had he failed, they would have taken him out and...
He shook his head to banish the memory.
Sin didn’t like to remember the past. There were no happy memories of childhood or of anything else.
All he remembered was the wanting.
Yearning for a mother’s kindness. A father’s gentle hand. What he had gotten was innumerable insults and beatings. Torture at times so cruel and severe that he wondered how he had managed to survive it with his mind and body intact. Then again, maybe his mind wasn’t so sound after all. Surely no one could survive what he had and be left normal.
Day by day, sometimes even hour by hour, he had suffered through and emerged so strong that no one could touch him now.
He was granite. And he fully intended to stay that way.
Sin cocked his head as he heard a sound. It was the soft whispering of leather against stone. So slight, most men would not have heard it all, but for a man whose lack of vigilance had cost him dearly in his youth, that sound was mammoth.
From the shadows he saw a man emerge with a dagger. In an instant, he knew the man who attacked him. Though why it surprised him, he had no idea. Roger’s enmity toward him was nothing new.
Sin rolled his eyes as the fool rushed him with the dagger raised. “Roger, this is a mistake.”
Before the knight could comment, two more attacked.
Sin sighed disgustedly. They knew he was unarmed. No one was allowed through the main entrance of the throne room bearing arms. Not that it mattered.
He caught Roger with his foot and kicked him back. The knight went sprawling.
The next man he knew not at all. It didn’t matter. Sin hit the ground in a roll and knocked him off balance, then twisted the sword from his grasp.
Sin heard the rasping swoosh of Roger tossing a dagger toward his back and the door opening. Instinctively, he dropped to the floor. The dagger whizzed past and embedded itself into the chest of the man he had been about to fight. The man gasped as he sank to his knees.
The man he’d disarmed ran out the open door while Sin turned to see Callie standing there in shock.
