A Knight and White Satin. Jackie Ivie

is it? The worm. Why dinna’ my great late husband, Payton Dunn-Fadden, gift me with a steward of immense stature and a good sword arm? Why did he leave a spineless meal-sop of a man? I’ll tell you why. Because he had nae regard for me. Which is why I returned it.”

      Lady Evelyn made the sign of the cross about her, leaving off her needle for the motion.

      “Now what?” Dallis asked, crossly.

      “Leroy Dunn-Fadden lived up to the duties entrusted to him. He dinna’ plead, and he was nae meal-sop.”

      “Then, where is he?”

      “Kilchurning has a rule, Dallis. He lives by it…and he’ll die by it. Anyone who serves a purpose is put to that purpose. He has the more comely of your wenches serving…well, they’re serving. They then spend all day recovering from their service.”

      “Recovering?”

      “’Tis a decided chore to service that many men. At night.”

      Dallis knew she was blushing. Thanks to Payton, she knew what such service meant now.

      “Kilchurning’s put the strongest men to shoring up the castle defense, others are put to squiring for his knights and caring for the horses. Anyone who spoke up and claimed a skill, he put to work. He doesn’t na’ have the sense to check. You already ken he doesn’t have an eye or nose for who can cook and who canna’. Anyone else…is put to the sword.”

      “And…Leroy?” Dallis’s heart sank on the name.

      “He dinna’ claim to cook. He claimed to be your guard.”

      “Oh dear God.” Dallis went to her knees on the floor. She still felt the cold stone through the heavy voluminous velvet of her skirt and the three layers of linen she’d used for warmth beneath it. That was why she was shivering. It wasn’t reaction to what she’d just been told. It wasn’t!

      “How many did he put to the sword?” she asked.

      Lady Evelyn shrugged. “I dinna’ ken for certain. I dinna’ think you interested.”

      “Of course I’m interested! They’re my…people! My…clan. What there is of it. Damn him!” If she got loose, she’d find him and—

      “If we were in the gate tower, you’d na’ have to ask. You could simply look out from your balcony and count the heads he’s skewered and put out on poles as a warning.”

      Dallis swallowed. Quickly and rapidly. She shook her head before covering her face with her palms. Nothing was working. Her belly was churning the warning.

      “He dinna’ get enough of them, though. I do know that much.”

      “How…do you ken?” The question was hesitant, unlike her normal assertive way of speaking. She’d worry over that later.

      “’Tis what he says,” her aunt answered.

      “So, now he talks to you?” Dallis raised her head from her hands and looked over at her aunt. The woman was bobbing her head and nearly smiling. She’d worry over that later, as well.

      “Everyone talks amongst themselves while I’m about. They think me dense.” The woman shrugged. “I let them.”

      Dallis opened her mouth to reply and shut it. Opened it again. Shut it again. And stared.

      “I’m a frail, elderly spinster. What harm can I possibly do?” she asked.

      Dallis’s lips twitched.

      “Aside from which, I am not a Dunn-Fadden. I’m Caruth. Should the Kilchurning still wish an alliance…? Well. I’ll be clan.”

      “An alliance?”

      “Who is going to stop him? You? I think na’. ’Tis you he’s wishing the alliance with.”

      “God damn the man!”

      “’Tis unlucky to damn others, Dallis. And we’re going to need as much luck as the others.”

      “What others? Who in this farce is lucky?”

      “The Dunn-Fadden clan outside in their own crofts when you decided to open the gate and invite their enemy in. They were lucky.”

      “I had to open the gates! You were there. You saw it. One more shove and he’d have busted through! A surrendered castle is sometimes spared. A castle that is taken gets razed…and all within suffer. I did it to spare us!”

      “That is your fault as well. I told you. Did you listen? We knew the wood was weak and the bolt rotted clean through. That’s what happens when the elements leak from split stone above it. That’s what the Dunn-Fadden heir sent funds to fix. I doona’ think it was for buying his death. Perhaps you should have listened to my warnings. We would na’ be here having these words.”

      Dallis blew out a sigh and ruffled the loose hair at her forehead. “If Kilchurning had to send me a companion for this past fortnight and ten, why did it have to be you? Is he hoping to wear me down with your words of guilt?”

      “I am your companion.”

      “Only through the vagaries of fate,” Dallis grumbled.

      “Nae. Through the untimely demise of my betrothed. Had he lived—?”

      “You’d have seen him to an early grave with your words, instead of the ague that took him. That’s what would have happened.”

      That was contemptible, and she knew it. Dallis watched her aunt’s shoulders dip ever so slightly. The woman was a spinster with a sharp tongue. Worse, she was probably right with her words. That’s what smarted the most.

      “Forgive me, Aunt Evelyn. My tongue betrays me. I over-spoke on that.”

      “Bide your time, Dallis. ’Tis what everyone else is doing.”

      “For what?”

      The woman shrugged again, turned back to locate her needle and then started sewing again. “You should join me, you know.”

      “At sewing? My castle is overrun with vermin and you suggest sewing to cure it?”

      “Makes the wait seem more tolerable.”

      “What are we waiting for?”

      Dallis’s knees were getting cold from staying on the floor and the fire could use another log on it before too long. She was looking at that when her aunt answered.

      “You.”

      “Me? If he’s waiting for me to swear fealty, he’s going to die of auld age first! I’ll never pledge my troth to that man!” She was on her feet and getting warmer with the emotion behind the words. The fire could still use another split log. Dallis busied herself at that, poking the ashen remains of a log until the embers glowed red again, and then adding one from the stack that the servant kept replenished, when he wasn’t bringing her noxious smelling meals. Which reminded her as her belly rumbled. She was hungry now.

      The past days had all been crazed with the same odd illness. First, to heaving all morn until she shook with the spasms, then to ravenous hunger. There was no explanation for such illness and she wasn’t telling anyone of it! She’d been keeping it hidden for over a fortnight now. It was just more bad luck that Aunt Evelyn had witnessed it today.

      “Would you be carin’ for a bit of gruel now, Dallis lass?”

      “Depends on what I have to do for it,” she grumbled, settling the log into place with the tongs and then replacing them. The hearth needed sweeping, but it was glowing warm. Dallis swiveled on it, putting her back to the warmth.

      “I’ll tell them it’s for me. I’m the one has sworn fealty. I’ll have to answer to your father should we meet again in this lifetime. ’Tis me who bears the brunt of clan censure. Na’ you. All you have to worry over is Dunn-Fadden.”

      “Why?