Read Online The Last Knight by Hilari Bell - Free Book Online Page B

unwed in her twenties. It’s terrible when the Gift dies out of a line, as I should know—if my mother hadn’t been the Giftless daughter of another Giftless daughter, I might be Sir Michael’s equal instead of…well, what I am.
    But inability to provide an heir for a man’s land is the ultimate curse among noblewomen. Even a commoner can put off his wife for it, if it’s proved the fault is in her and not him. Lady Ceciel could have been thrown out of her fancy keep with nothing but the dowry she’d brought to the marriage—motive enough for murder, and yet…
    Sir Michael had seen it too. “Yet you say Sir Herbert refused to put her off?”
    “Year after year.” Sir Bertram nodded. “Despite all my admonitions. I never understood it. And now he can’t explain.”
    I listened to Sir Michael repeat his promise that he would bring Lady Ceciel back to justice. Though how he intended to go about it I couldn’t think; she could be anywhere by now.
    The mourning party reached the grave and lowered the corpse. Two of the carriers wore black capes that marked them as the dead man’s sons, but the widow was young enough to be their sister—their younger sister. I could see why the old man had been tempted into a second marriage, for she’d a fine figure under all that black. I couldn’t make out much of her face, though. She kept patting a lacy handkerchief against her bone-dry eyes. Her gaze was appreciatively fixed on the back of one of the corpse carriers, now wielding a shovel. His doublet was short, his britches were tight, and he was not, thankfully, one of the stepsons—though he might have been one of their friends.
    I smiled and wished the hussy luck. She’d probably earned it, and judging by the ages of her husband’s sons, nature had done her work instead of poison.
    My attention came back to the conversation at hand when Sir Michael asked how he could find Mistress Agnes, the herbalist. The old man gave directions willingly—she lived just over the border of the next baron’s fief, half a day’s ride west.
    I waited, in proper squirely silence, until we were riding away from Sir Bertram’s keep before I spoke. “You’re not, you can’t be, thinking of going there next?”
    “Why not? Lady Ceciel’s family are the most likely to know where she might be.”
    “And the least likely to tell you! What under two moons makes you think her own family is going to give her up?”
    “I don’t say they’d reveal her hiding place, but they sound like honest folk, and they may speak of her nature and habits. If we learn these things, we may guess where she might have flown. Besides, Mistress Agnes is the one who found Sir Herbert had been poisoned, and I wish to learn more of this.”
    I listened to this naive speech with growing irritation. Why should I have to instruct this noble fool in facts any city street urchin knows by the time he’s weaned? Because I’d been fool enough to get caught, that’s why. And until a chance to seize my freedom came along, I was stuck with him.
    “Sir, no one is going to tell the man who wants to hang their sister anything . They’re not going to like you, no matter how nice you are. Sir Bertram was hard enough to face.” (Though I would remember how Sir Michael’s honest contrition had disarmed him, if I ever got myself caught again.) “These people are going to hate you. Unless…”
    “Unless what?”
    “Well, if you told them Lord Dorian sent you to investigate because he has doubts about her guilt, then they might be willing to talk.”
    Sir Michael hesitated for all of three seconds before declaring, “No, that would be dishonorable.”
    “But it might succeed! Which might help us find Lady Ceciel, which would get you out of trouble with the law—not to mention your father.”
    Sir Michael sighed. “My father would be the first to say I shouldn’t lie. In fact, that’s the only thing I ever did…Never mind. Truth always serves best in the long