Taming The Beast. Heather Grothaus

knife-thin nostrils flared. “Oh, I do doubt he would resort to that. My lord.” Harliss turned her crone’s face to Friar Cope as he puffed to a stop between she and Roderick. “Have you told him, Friar?”

      “Yes, he has,” Roderick snapped.

      “No,” Friar Cope wheezed. “Roderick—”

      “So there are others about,” Hugh said merrily as he entered the doorway, his voice rather loud for the large, quiet space. “They aren’t transients, are they? I do so crave a hearty meal and Leo is—my God! This hall is a disgrace! No matter—I will go fetch my own mount and we shall have a pagan feast upon the floor.”

      Hugh had unbound Leo from his back and re-seated the toddler astride one hip. Harliss looked at the pair of them as if they were beggars, although Hugh’s clothing was as rich as Cherbon’s hall had at one time looked, and Leo wore a gown of silk and wool embroidered with gold thread, and tiny leather slippers upon his feet. He looked like a small prince.

      The costume was the last gift Aurelia had given him. Roderick had watched her fashion it with her own hands.

      “Wod-wick!” Leo shouted, and held his arms toward Roderick.

      “He can’t take you now, Wart. But do get down and have a run about,” Hugh declared, and set the toddler on his feet. Leo immediately ran to Roderick despite Hugh’s words, tripping as his feet became tangled in the dead vines, but catching himself with Roderick’s long cloak, burying his face behind Roderick’s knees.

      Roderick struggled not to let his leg buckle under the slight but horrendously painful pressure of the boy’s head.

      “Cherbon is yours,” Friar Cope continued, as if Hugh had not interrupted them. “But there is a condition to the inheritance, Roderick.”

      Hugh turned a frown to Roderick. “What kind of shit is this, Rick? A condition? Ridiculous. You know these two, I suppose?”

      Roderick nodded, and the knot in his stomach threatened to snap. Of course there was a condition. Even from the grave, Magnus was intent on making certain his son was miserable.

      “Cherbon’s Friar, Cope,” Roderick said through clenched teeth. “And my old nurse, Harliss. Where the other residents of the keep are, I know not.”

      “Ah, at last I meet Harliss the Heartless,” Hugh said with more than a bit of frost in his tone. “I have heard much of your charity.”

      “I save my charity for those in need,” Harliss sneered. “It is wasted on prideful, disobedient little boys.”

      Roderick pinned the old friar with his glare. “What condition?”

      “Ah, well,” the friar stammered, “in order to claim Cherbon, you must marry.”

      “Is that all?” Roderick said, the knot loosening.

      “Ah, the lady must be of good family,” Cope muttered, searching the folds of his robes. “I have the directive here, somewhere….”

      “It matters not. Does the king know of this?”

      “Of course, my so—my lord,” Friar Cope corrected himself. “Magnus ordered a copy sent to him shortly after you departed for the Holy Land.” The round man crossed himself. “But, my lord—”

      Harliss spoke again. “Act not as though you didn’t know he was ill, Roderick,” she accused. “You abandoned your own father when you knew he would surely die!”

      Roderick stepped toward her. “Whether you believe that I had no knowledge of his illness is of no consequence to me. But I am surely glad that he is dead. Magnus goaded and shamed me until I consented to make that damned pilgrimage.” Roderick pulled back his hair from the side of his face, fully revealing the wicked scars that tangled over his skin, then snapped back his cloak, displaying his walking stick. “See you the treasures I reaped for my holy duty?” He thought he saw a glint of satisfaction in Harliss’s soulless eyes. “And if you address me by my Christian name again, Nurse, I will have you whipped.”

      The old nurse’s throat convulsed, as if she choked down her fury like vomit. “My apologies, my lord, if I overstepped my place.” It was not at all sincere.

      Behind him, Leo began to whine softly.

      “Now,” Roderick snapped, “where have the rest of the servants gone to?”

      “There are yet a score at Cherbon,” Harliss offered grudgingly. “They are in the chambers above—the only ones left much untouched by the pillaging.”

      “Roust them, lest I find them first. And the rest?”

      Harliss’s lips thinned to the point that they disappeared into her face. “Scattered to the villages—worthless muck.”

      “With much of Cherbon’s possessions, I see. Fetch them today,” Roderick commanded. “Immediately. Any who owes service to the castle and does not come at my word—by the morn—I will double their families’ fines. Permanently.”

      Friar Cope gasped, but Roderick ignored it. “Should you fail me in this task, I will have you stripped naked and set beyond Cherbon’s walls. By the morrow’s eve, the bailey grounds, the lord’s private rooms—my rooms”—he emphasized—“and chambers for Sir Hugh and Leo shall be cleaned and returned to a state fit for residence, or I will see each and every servant punished equally.”

      “Of course, my lord,” Harliss fumed, but she did not move.

      “What are you waiting for, woman?” Roderick demanded. “Go!”

      “I was but going to ask, my lord,” Harliss nearly whispered in her rage, “if you would have me attend”—her cold eyes went to the floor near Roderick’s cloak—“your noble friend’s child. I am Cherbon’s nurse.”

      “He is not Sir Hugh’s boy,” Roderick supplied.

      “The orphan then,” Harliss said, exasperation tingeing her words.

      “Leo is my son,” Roderick growled. “And your claws shall not come within a meter of him, or I will have them mounted on yon wall. You are now a kitchen maid. Now, for the last time, be gone.”

      “Poof!” Hugh had the inappropriateness to shout. “Ha!”

      Harliss left the hall with a crackle of vines.

      “You have changed, Roderick,” Friar Cope said quietly, sadly.

      “Good day to you, Friar,” Roderick said, and reached around to grab up Leo by one arm. His horse had wandered farther down the hall, and was now lapping at the tabletop, where it had succeeded in overturning the friar’s jug.

      “Before I go,” the man said, and handed Roderick a rolled piece of parchment. “The decree. My lord, in order for you to keep Cherbon—”

      “Yes, Cope, you’ve already said I must marry.”

      “Before your thirtieth birthday, my lord. If you do not, Lord Alan of Tornfield, your cousin, will inherit.”

      Roderick stared at the friar for several moments, thinking of his scars, his lameness, his hatred of everything that was Cherbon. He crushed the decree in his fist, wishing it was Magnus Cherbon’s neck.

      “Get to your useless chapel, Friar Traitor,” Roderick said slowly, carefully.

      “Roderick, I was no accomplice in this, you must believe—”

      “And if you value your life, tread not in this hall again without my express summons.”

      Friar Cope bowed and fled without another word.

      “Welcome home, Rick,” Hugh said on a great sigh. “Would that we had stayed in Constantinople.”

      “No,” Roderick said, quietly at first, as he looked around the ruined hall, one hand still clenched