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She began immediately estimating the number of villagers per wattle-and-daub hut, calculating how much fatter and richer they would be if her scheme was successful. They might even become prosperous. She wished she had her abacus to hand. It was so much easier to tally numbers with the device.
It was so much easier to tally numbers than to calculate the goodness of building an alliance with a man who thought it wise to starve the people who fed him.
The horses’ legs moved through low-lying evening mists as they passed under the portcullis into the outer bailey. The air was cool. Sunset flamed in fiery red sweeps across the horizon. Through the glaring haze, all she could discern was the single spike of the castle’s tower and the offal dripping down the keep walls from the privy chutes.
As they passed under the gate, shouts rose from one of the dilapidated huts, followed by the sound of fists hitting flesh.
Well. First impressions can be deceiving, she reminded herself, nose pinched firmly in her veil, and she was determined to have this be successful. Get the contracts, build the flock, and she would be able to sustain herself. Never to rely on anyone else’s inabilities again.
“A vision of my lord’s justice, my lady,” announced the knight at her side.
She pulled her mind from its reverie and glanced up to behold a gallows. It took a moment to comprehend what she was seeing: a dog dangling from the end of a rope.
Her mouth dropped open. “My lord wreaks justice on dogs?” she whispered in horror, and crossed herself.
The soldier looked at her in confusion. “Lord Rardove stands yonder.” He pointed to a broad-shouldered, blond-haired giant of a knight who stood gleaming in the setting golden light.
Wrenching her horrified gaze away, Senna looked to the condemned man standing beside him. His head was up, his face expressionless, next in line for the noose. She stared into his eyes and knew, with utter certainty, he was innocent of any crime.
Turning back to her prospective business partner’s glittering eyes, Senna saw he knew it, too.
Her hand shot into the air. She pushed herself up in her stirrups, about to call out. The soldier at her side smacked her arm back down.
“Do not,” he snapped, “interrupt.”
A shiver of coldness unfurled inside her body, a thin banner of fear. She lifted her chin as they clopped dully across the cobbles and under the gate to the crumbling inner bailey. She barely noticed being helped out of the saddle and propelled toward the mossy round tower.
“Rardove Keep, my lady,” said the knight as he escorted her up the covered stairwell.
“Yes, I see,” she murmured as he ushered her over the threshold into a small antechamber. A maid hurried up. It was dim inside, damp and echoing. Cold. A long, shadowed corridor stretched away into the distance. There might be anything at the end. Kitchens. More stairs. A dragon.
Swallowing thickly, Senna fumbled with the brooch fastening her cloak.
“Welcome to Rardove Keep, my lady.”
She jerked her head back up at the sound of the voice.
“I am John Pentony, Lord Rardove’s seneschal.”
Shoving back the hood of her cape, she peered through the dim light to find the speaker. Tall, thin, and gaunt, he was a ghostly, balding figure with almost lidless eyes, moving toward her.
She tried to step forward, but her feet were root
ed to the ground, her tongue to the roof of her mouth. He pierced her with an unreadable gaze, then a smile creaked over his face, like a hinge unused to the movement. The maid blinked, her fingers frozen in a nervous twist before her waist. The jagged smile stayed on the seneschal’s face and for half a minute they all stood, staring in silence.
Then his cold eyes marked a slow slice downward to the maid. She half curtsied and slipped between him and the doorframe. “I’ll see to your rooms, mistress,” she whispered.
The steward’s eyes were washed of emotion as he turned back. “We are pleased you have arrived.”
“Yes, I—I thank you.” She flicked her gaze around the now empty hall. “We?”
The steward paused. “Your arrival was earlier than expected.”
“Oh, well, not so early as to miss…” She faltered. “To miss what I saw at the gallows.”
Empty, ashen eyes appraised her, level and flintlike. “They were Irish rebels, my lady.”
“The dog?” she queried sharply, against her much better judgment. “The dog was an Irish rebel? He looked more Welsh to me.”
