The Champion. Suzanne Barclay

dare you question me? You will tell truly why you were here last night in defiance of my wishes.”

      She flinched. “I came last night to see how he fared.” She looked about the room. “What has happened? Why are you all…?” Her eyes widened. “Sir Simon, what do you here?”

      “You know him?” asked the prior.

      “Aye.” Her eyes softened, and she smiled tremulously.

      A queasy feeling stirred in Simon’s gut. His first instinct was to shield her from the rabid archdeacon. But there were dangerous currents here he did not understand. He did not want to be dragged down by them. “We met by chance last night.”

      One of the priests who’d been huddled in the far end of the room stepped forward. “He followed her when she left.”

      Followed her when she left. Simon started. She had been Thurstan’s last visitor?

      “So.” The archdeacon’s eyebrows rose, and his mouth curved into a malicious smile. “Are you accomplices?”

      “Accomplices…” Simon sputtered, aghast by the picture of Linnet forming in his mind. Was she the one he had heard profess her love for the bishop last night?

      “Accomplices?” Linnet asked. “In what, pray tell?”

      “In Bishop Thurstan’s death,” the archdeacon said bluntly.

      “He…he is dead?” Linnet swayed, her eyes rolling back.

      Instinct propelled Simon forward to scoop her up before she hit the floor. Cradling her in his arms as he had last night, he carried her to one of the high-backed chairs before the hearth. A vigorous fire crackled there, but the warmth did not penetrate the icy dread that had settled in Simon’s gut as he placed her in the chair and knelt beside it. “Linnet?” he murmured.

      Her lashed lifted. “Thurstan is dead?” The whispered query held a wealth of pain. She looked so small and defenseless.

      Simon was torn between the urge to comfort her and the need to demand she tell him what she was to Thurstan. Clearly cosseting her could only worsen their plight. Settling back on his heels, he nodded. “I have been told he is dead.”

      “He had been so sick for so long,” she murmured. “But I prayed he would recover. Especially now that you have returned. ‘Twas what I came to tell him this morn, that you were alive.”

      Did she know he was Thurstan’s son? A tremor of alarm iced Simon’s blood. Precarious as things were, he did not want her blurting it out. “Shh. Stay quiet.” He looked over his shoulder and saw the archdeacon lurking there. “She needs wine.”

      Crispin raised one skeptical brow. “I think this harlot has ensnared you, too, with her wanton wiles.”

      Too? Simon did not like the sounds of that at all. His skin crawled with apprehension. “We barely know each other.”

      “You are solicitous for a stranger.” The archdeacon tucked his hands into the sleeves of his robe, his expression watchful, vicious. Like a snake with a pair of cornered mice.

      Simon stood, enjoying the way he towered over Crispin. “Knights are ever chivalrous of women.”

      “A woman such as this one can enslave a man with a look.”

      Oh, Simon knew that firsthand. A few moments in her company last night, and he’d been smitten, had even fancied she might be the woman to equal the one in his dream.

      Crispin glanced at Linnet. “Did you tire of the bishop and murder him so you could have this young and comely knight?”

      “Murder?” Linnet’s face went whiter still.

      “He was killed. Struck down,” said Crispin.

      “We do not know that,” Brother Oliver said gently. “It may be he collapsed as he did last autumn and hit his head.”

      “You think I murdered him?” Linnet said slowly, as though trying to come to grips with it. “Nay, but he was my friend.”

      “Oh, I think you were more than a friend,” the archdeacon said silkily. “You were Bishop Thurstan’s mistress.”

      “Mistress?” Simon was struck with a ridiculous urge to wipe his mouth, to rub away the kiss they had shared.

      “It is not true,” Linnet whispered, expression anguished.

      Simon looked away, unable to bear the sight of her delicate features and beautiful eyes. Lying eyes. To think he had come close to seducing his father’s mistress.

      “Aye, she was his mistress.” Crispin’s lip curled with loathing. “But perhaps she fancied a younger protector.”

      “If so, it was not me,” Simon said stonily. “I only returned to Durleigh yesterday.”

      “Yet Brother Gerard saw you follow her from the palace.”

      Simon shrugged. “Coincidence. We were here at about the same time, and the Deangate is the quickest route into town.”

      “You appeared to wait till she left, then pursued her.” Brother Gerard had the sharp features of a ferret and the fawning, smug manner of a toady.

      Simon despised him on principle. “I lingered in the gardens a moment after leaving the bishop. Which I would not have done were I guilty of murder.” A reminder of his service to God could not go amiss, either. “The roses drew me, for I missed their sweet smell while on Crusade in the dry, desolate East.”

      The archdeacon’s scowl eased a bit.

      “Bishop Thurstan’s death is my fault,” whispered Brother Oliver. “If I had been with him when he was stricken, he would not have fallen and struck his head.”

      “Be at ease, Brother,” said the prior. “Whatever happened, it was God’s will.”

      Brother Oliver sighed and bent his head.

      Crispin nodded. “Thank you for reminding us of that, Brother Prior. Bishop Thurstan’s passing was indeed God’s will.”

      Simon released the breath he had been holding and silently gave thanks for the prior’s level head. “I may go, then?”

      “For the moment, but do not try to leave Durleigh till this matter is settled. And I would say the same to you, Mistress Linnet.” Crispin pinned her with a searing glance.

      “I have nothing to hide.” Her eyes were haunted, but she held her head up as she turned and walked regally from the room.

      The archdeacon stared after her, but his lean face was twisted with loathing. Simon almost pitied her, for she had incurred the enmity of the man who would, if only temporarily, wield much power m Durleigh. It was a fact he would do well to remember if he wanted to remain a free man.

      “Come, Brothers, we must go to the chapel and pray for the bishop’s soul.” Crispin gathered his robes in one hand and swept from the room, followed by the other priests.

      Prior Walter remained behind, as did two muscular men Simon had marked as soldiers. When the priests had gone, Walter posted the guards in the hallway, one at the bedchamber door, the other outside the withdrawing room, with orders to let none pass. Then he turned to Simon. “You must have been close to Bishop Thurstan if your first act in Durleigh was to visit him.”

      Simon hesitated, wondering what to make of this bald little prelate with his sharp eyes and even sharper wit. “We barely knew one another.” True enough. “But many of the men in the Black Rose took the cross in response to a penance levied by the bishop. I thought he should know a few of us had survived.”

      “A noble gesture.”

      “The archdeacon does not seem to think so.”

      “Aye, well.” Walter shrugged. “Crispin disapproved of everything Bishop Thurstan did and said.”