did this to him,” Morwenna said.
“But it looks as if there was quite a struggle. I’d hoped we would find someone with bruises and scars he couldn’t explain, but we haven’t. There was a farmer who’d been nearly trampled by his horse, a huntsman who’d fallen from a ridge while chasing a wounded stag, two boys who’d gotten into a fistfight, and that was it. Whoever did this to the man we found either has hidden his injuries well, had received none, or has disappeared. We also looked for someone who had ended up with an extra horse, assuming that our guest was riding. But you know that finding a stolen steed is a difficult thing to trace, animals being traded and sold all the time.”
“Mayhap we’re making too much of this,” Morwenna said. She was seated near the fire and staring past the sheriff’s legs to the flames. “A man was found beaten and left for dead. ’Tis a crime, yes, but one we can’t solve without the victim’s word. We’ve acted as if our own keep was threatened, but could this not have been a simple highway robbery?”
“Then why not take the ring? ’Tis valuable gold for melting down.”
“Maybe someone or something scared the attacker off before he could snatch it.”
“Or if this man we’ve got here was the attacker, his victim was somehow able to escape with his horse and leave him behind.” The sheriff clucked his tongue and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “What does the physician say?”
“He now expects him to live.”
“Good.” Payne adjusted his hat upon his head and his eyes glittered with a hardness that Morwenna had never before witnessed. “Then when he awakens, we’ll see what he has to say.”
“If it be the truth.”
Payne’s mouth twisted cruelly. “What are the chances of that?”
Twilight had descended upon the keep, and the Redeemer slipped silently through the corridors. Moving stealthily, he hastened down the staircase to what had once been the archive chamber. Thirty years past, after a particularly nasty bout of thievery, the room had been changed into a storage chamber, where seldom used items had been left to collect dust and become vermin-riddled and forgotten. Few even remembered that the room existed.
Listening for footsteps and hearing none, he slid a rusted key into the lock. With a low, resonant creak the door swung open. Stale air greeted him as he held his torch aloft and then quickly closed and locked the door behind him. Quietly he walked unerringly to the small grate on the floor, reached between the rusted bars, and found a latch that he unhinged. Straightening, he walked to the back of the chamber and pushed against a notched stone. Immediately the back wall moved on noiseless hinges, opening to a yawning dark staircase and a web of narrow corridors that had been built into the old keep during its construction.
His shoulders brushed against the walls on both sides as he slid into the corridor, where the air was dry and lifeless. He heard the scratch of tiny claws as rats and other unseen vermin scrambled out of his path. Yet he smiled. No one knew of these ancient, hidden hallways, and those who did believed them to be a myth. Only he knew how to access them and use them to his advantage.
He came to a V in the narrow passage and turned unerringly to the right, climbing ever upward, the soft leather soles of his shoes making no sound over the accelerated rate of his own breathing, the pumping of his heart. For in a few minutes he would be in his viewing chamber near he ceiling of the keep, where hidden he would be able to look down on her.
Morwenna.
Lady of the keep.
Sensually innocent.
His groin tightened at the thought of her, of watching her, and a dryness settled in the back of his throat. Unseen, in weeks and months past, he’d viewed her slipping out of her tunic and chemise. He had spied upon her as she’d settled into a scented tub, the round, rosy nipples of her breasts visible beneath the dark water.
“But it looks as if there was quite a struggle. I’d hoped we would find someone with bruises and scars he couldn’t explain, but we haven’t. There was a farmer who’d been nearly trampled by his horse, a huntsman who’d fallen from a ridge while chasing a wounded stag, two boys who’d gotten into a fistfight, and that was it. Whoever did this to the man we found either has hidden his injuries well, had received none, or has disappeared. We also looked for someone who had ended up with an extra horse, assuming that our guest was riding. But you know that finding a stolen steed is a difficult thing to trace, animals being traded and sold all the time.”
“Mayhap we’re making too much of this,” Morwenna said. She was seated near the fire and staring past the sheriff’s legs to the flames. “A man was found beaten and left for dead. ’Tis a crime, yes, but one we can’t solve without the victim’s word. We’ve acted as if our own keep was threatened, but could this not have been a simple highway robbery?”
“Then why not take the ring? ’Tis valuable gold for melting down.”
“Maybe someone or something scared the attacker off before he could snatch it.”
“Or if this man we’ve got here was the attacker, his victim was somehow able to escape with his horse and leave him behind.” The sheriff clucked his tongue and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “What does the physician say?”
“He now expects him to live.”
“Good.” Payne adjusted his hat upon his head and his eyes glittered with a hardness that Morwenna had never before witnessed. “Then when he awakens, we’ll see what he has to say.”
“If it be the truth.”
Payne’s mouth twisted cruelly. “What are the chances of that?”
Twilight had descended upon the keep, and the Redeemer slipped silently through the corridors. Moving stealthily, he hastened down the staircase to what had once been the archive chamber. Thirty years past, after a particularly nasty bout of thievery, the room had been changed into a storage chamber, where seldom used items had been left to collect dust and become vermin-riddled and forgotten. Few even remembered that the room existed.
Listening for footsteps and hearing none, he slid a rusted key into the lock. With a low, resonant creak the door swung open. Stale air greeted him as he held his torch aloft and then quickly closed and locked the door behind him. Quietly he walked unerringly to the small grate on the floor, reached between the rusted bars, and found a latch that he unhinged. Straightening, he walked to the back of the chamber and pushed against a notched stone. Immediately the back wall moved on noiseless hinges, opening to a yawning dark staircase and a web of narrow corridors that had been built into the old keep during its construction.
His shoulders brushed against the walls on both sides as he slid into the corridor, where the air was dry and lifeless. He heard the scratch of tiny claws as rats and other unseen vermin scrambled out of his path. Yet he smiled. No one knew of these ancient, hidden hallways, and those who did believed them to be a myth. Only he knew how to access them and use them to his advantage.
He came to a V in the narrow passage and turned unerringly to the right, climbing ever upward, the soft leather soles of his shoes making no sound over the accelerated rate of his own breathing, the pumping of his heart. For in a few minutes he would be in his viewing chamber near he ceiling of the keep, where hidden he would be able to look down on her.
Morwenna.
Lady of the keep.
Sensually innocent.
His groin tightened at the thought of her, of watching her, and a dryness settled in the back of his throat. Unseen, in weeks and months past, he’d viewed her slipping out of her tunic and chemise. He had spied upon her as she’d settled into a scented tub, the round, rosy nipples of her breasts visible beneath the dark water.
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