Catherine Coulter by The Valcourt Heiress

Author:The Valcourt Heiress
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Crusades, 1270, Fiction, Knights and Knighthood, Fantasy, Historical, General, Eighth
ISBN: 9780515150063
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Published: 2010-10-05T05:00:00+00:00

27

WAREHAM CASTLE

Garron found her in the small solar beside the lord’s chamber. There was a single window, the deer hide pulled back to let in the sun. There’d been no glass window in this room for the Black Demon to shatter.

He watched her carefully remove a pot from atop a fire and carry it to a small table. He watched her carefully stir as she read her herbal. She didn’t look up at him. “Good morning, Garron. I cannot stop stirring or the herbs will do something bad, exactly what I don’t know. I feel so very ignorant. What if I make a mistake and kill someone?”

He waved that away as he came closer. “What is it?”

“It is an infusion for Miggins’s cough.”

“It stings my eyes.”

She nodded, still stirring, studying the brew. “It is aniseed and sundew. It is the aniseed that stings your eyes. The thyme smells tart. I have never made this recipe before. I am being very careful with all my measurements, but it is difficult, Garron. I hope it will help her and not burn her throat out.”

As she stirred, Merry’s heart beat slow hard strokes. At his continued silence, she said finally, still not looking at him, “It has been a day and a half since you returned, a day and a half since you have spoken to me of anything other than improvements on Wareham. Have you decided what to do?”

“You said your mother sold you to Jason of Brennan. I gather your father, Lord Timothy, is dead?”

She nodded. “About the same time your own brother died.”

“Why did your mother have to sell you if Valcourt is so very wealthy?”

“There is no cache of ready silver, since Valcourt’s wealth lies in its lands and farms and towns. When I was a babe, she left me and my father and took her family’s silver with her. She requires a great deal of silver for Meizerling Abbey. She must have determined that selling me to Jason of Brennan was the best way to get it. She acted quickly, found a man she could buy before the king could even be told of my father’s death and bestow Valcourt on one of his favorites. Or perhaps she had been planning this a long time and Jason of Brennan stepped through her door.”

“You said Meizerling Abbey. I have heard of it.”

“My mother’s name is Lady Helen, or most properly, I suppose, Abbess Helen of Meizerling.”

“I have also heard talk of your mother, how she has made Meizerling a learning center where men may come and study.” He’d also heard a story about a monk who had visited Meizerling and fled in the night, telling how he came upon the abbess kneeling in front of a strange statue that sat tall and skinny in the middle of a black circle, and she was chanting strange words to it. The monk claimed the Devil had appeared, framed by billowing black smoke. That story alone could scare the lice off a cow.

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