The Champion

Conscious of how harried she must look, Linnet opened her mouth to explain, then noticed the maid loitering in the far doorway. Short and curvaceous, Tilly had sly brown eyes and a nose for gossip. Linnet’s apprentice, Aiken, fancied Tilly, but the maid had eyes only for the sheriff. It was rumored she’d been seen frequenting his small house near the market square.

“I am hungry is all,” Linnet said, biding her time.

“I see.” And Elinore likely did. Older than Linnet by a dozen years, she had inherited the inn from her father and now ran it with the help of her husband, Warin. Elinore’s tart tongue and keen head for business belied her kind heart. When Linnet’s father died the year before, Elinore had taken Linnet under her wing. She had offered comfort, support and advice when Thurstan’s intercession with the guild paved the way for Linnet to take over the apothecary. “Aiken has already been here to collect supper for your household, but you’d best stay here and eat. I have no doubt he and Drusa have gobbled down the lot.”

Linnet managed a smile. Both her apprentice and her elderly maidservant had prodigious appetites. “I appreciate your offer.” Heart in turmoil, she set her cloak down on the floor beside the door and waited while Elinore finished filling the bowls.

The tavern kitchen was small, but neat and efficiently run by the plump, pretty Elinore. A brick hearth tall enough to stand in filled the far end of the room. Inside it, a toothed rack supported two massive cauldrons for cooking. Before it sat the long plank worktable where the food was prepared, flanked by two chests, one for cooking implements, the other for spices. Shelves on the far wall held wooden bowls, horn spoons and platters for serving the broken meats, bread and cheese.

“Serve that quick before it gets cold,” Elinore admonished, shooing Tilly out the door. “Now…” She advanced on Linnet, blue eyes steely. “Whatever has happened? You look all afright. Your hair is half undone, your eyes wild as a harried fox’s.”

“Nothing.” Linnet’s lips trembled, and tears filled her eyes, making Elinore’s lined face blur.

“Come. Sit down.” Elinore wrapped an arm around her waist and led her to the bench beside the table.

Linnet sank down. “I—I fear the bishop is dying.”

“Dying.” Elinore crossed herself. “What is it now?”

Poison. But Linnet dared not voice her suspicions, even to her dearest friend. She did not want anyone to guess, as she had, that the bishop was killing himself out of grief. She, too, had mourned when Simon was reported dead. And Thurstan’s grief was all the sharper because he felt he’d failed Simon in life.

Six months had not dulled the anguish of Simon’s passing for her, though she had never been his, not really. She had admired him from afar for years, but had only gotten close to him once. The night before the Crusaders left Durleigh. That single, brief encounter had changed her life forever. She mourned him deeply. It seemed impossible that so bright and vibrant a soul as Simon’s had been snuffed out.

“The tonic you took the bishop last week did not help?”

Linnet shook her head, fighting back her tears. If she let them fall, she feared she’d never stop crying. For Thurstan. For Simon. And for another life, lost to her, too.

“He has not been well since last autumn when word came that the Crusaders had died.” Elinore patted her hand. “One and fifty is not such a great age, but when the heart weakens…”

Or when it ceases to hope. Linnet sighed. “I fear you are right, but it hurts so to see him in such pain and be unable to help.” There was no antidote for monkshood, but if she could find his supply and destroy it, perhaps she could save him.

“Your friendship has eased him and brought him joy.” Elinore frowned. “But it has sullied your reputation, my dear.”

“I do not care what others think of me.”

“Not now, but when he is gone,” Elinore said delicately, “those whose tongues were stayed by the bishop’s power may speak out against you.”

“Their words cannot harm me.”

“They might if they cost you custom or your place in the guild,” said practical Elinore. “And then there is the matter of Sheriff Hamel’s persistent interest in you.”

“Aye.” Linnet shivered. “Why can he not leave me alone? I have said time and again that I want nothing to do with him.”

“Silly girl, you know little of men if you ask that.”

Indeed. She had known only one man, and him so briefly.

“Men are hunters who revel in the chase. To Hamel you are a challenge. If he caught you, he might well abandon you the next day and never bother you again.”

Elinore’s words ripped open an old wound. Simon had taken Linnet’s innocence that warm spring night and looked straight through her the next morn when the Crusaders left Durleigh for the East. Nay, he had not done it out of meanness. Logically she knew darkness and drink had likely fogged his memory. After all, Simon had-been unaware of her existence, while she had mooned over him for some time. Fate had thrown them together for that brief, passionate interlude in the dark stables. Shame had driven her to creep off while he still slept. So it was her own fault if he did not know with whom he had lain that night.

“Well, I will not give in to Hamel,” Linnet said. Though Simon was gone, she could not sully the memory of their loving by giving herself to another. And then there was the other, the greater sin that weighed on her conscience. She had already betrayed Simon once by giving away his most precious gift.

“No woman should be forced to endure someone she dislikes. I am only saying that you must be prepared. If God does see fit to take our good bishop, Hamel may pursue you.”

“I fear it has begun already.” She told Elinore of the tall man who had trailed her from the cathedral.

“Well, that explains why you looked like a hunted thing when you bounded in the door. Let me give you a room here.” Elinore had made a similar offer when Linnet’s father died.

“I hate to leave Drusa and Aiken alone.”

“Bring them here. He can sleep here in the kitchen, and she can have a pallet in your room.”

“I do not know.” Linnet twisted her hands together. “To leave the shop and my spices unguarded does not seem wise.”

“It is just through the back lane,” Elinore said. “I can have one of our serving lads sleep there if it would ease you.”

“Thank you, Elinore, you are a dear friend to try to protect me, but, if worse comes to worse, I would not want you to fall afoul of Hamel on my account.”

A soft gasp warned they were no longer alone. Tilly stood in the doorway, her eyes alight with speculation.

“What mean you sneaking in here?” Elinore demanded.

Tilly sniffed. “I didn’t sneak, mistress. I’ve come after four more bowls of stew. For the sheriff and his men.”

“The sheriff is here?” Linnet cried.

“Aye. He said he likes the food—” Tilly smiled provocatively “—and the service.”

Linnet waited to hear no more, but rose and headed for the outside door with Elinore close on her heels.

“Stay. It’ll be safer here,” Elinore whispered.

“Nay.” Linnet grabbed up her bundle. “I had best get back to the shop.” She dashed out the door with Elinore’s warning to take care ringing in her ears.

Behind the Royal Oak was a modest-size stable and beside it, the privy. A narrow lane cut through the grassy backyard and disappeared into a thick hedge. The lane led clear

through to the back door of the apothecary. Here there were no lights to guide the way, but Linnet knew it well enough. She ran, the cloak clutched tight against her chest. Just as she cleared the hedge, she ran headlong into something warm and hard as rock.

She bounced off and flew backward, striking her head as she went down and driving the air from her lungs.

“Are you all right?” inquired a low male voice.

Linnet whimpered, more from fear than pain. She tried to move, but her limbs only twitched, and a gray mist obscured her vision.

“Easy.” Large hands gripped her shoulders, stilling her struggles. “Lie still till I make certain nothing is broken.”

The voice was hauntingly familiar.