“Are you mad?” the wizard demanded, limping as he came back down t
he stairs. “Ten years of fighting, of searching, and now, with the prize all but within your reach, you think to surrender?” Simon made no effort to answer him; he had no answer to give, no explanation the dwarf could ever understand. He sat up on the cold, earthen floor, bowing his head to his hands.
“Never mind, warrior,” Orlando said, patting the vampire’s shoulder as if he might have been a grieving child as he passed. “Come, you must rest. You will have much work to do tonight.”
Isabel walked out into the courtyard, yawning in the early morning light. Kevin and Tom were coming down from the castle wall as she emerged, and Raymond’s cousin and Wat were headed up. Another group of men were coming from the stables, carrying shovels and picks, and Kevin and Tom went to join them.
“What are you doing?” she asked, going to meet them.
Kevin looked at her, surprised. “We’re going to bury those bodies, my lady. I thought we’d put them in the orchard, near the back where those trees have died out—”
“No.” Suddenly all she could think of was what Mother Bess had said. Much that is dead can still rise. She had tried again the night before to speak to the old woman, but she wouldn’t say any more, and in her mind, she thought Brautus must surely be right, that the tales she told were nonsense. But in her heart, she couldn’t be sure. “We must take them to the church,” she said to Kevin. “They must be buried in sacred ground.”
“The church is an hour’s ride away from here, my lady, and that on horseback,” Kevin said. “No one here will care to venture so far from the castle, not with a killer in the woods.” Several of the other men mumbled their agreement. “Not in daylight, anyway.”
“Not in daylight?” she echoed. “Kevin, that’s ridiculous. Daylight is safer—”
“Not without Sir Simon, I should have said,” he corrected. “If he thinks we should take these men to the church tonight, I think there are some who would go. But not now.”
“Not on my order, you mean,” she retorted. Once again, they all seemed to accept Simon’s right to rule here completely without question, stranger that he was and strange as his habits might be. Never mind that she had been their lady all her life, that she had spent the last ten years shut up behind these walls to keep them safe.
“It isn’t that, my lady,” one of the other men protested. “We want to oblige you, truly. But…” He looked around at the others for support.
“Sir Simon is a knight,” Kevin finished for him. “He can protect us. You cannot.”
“No,” she said coldly. “I suppose I cannot.” They all looked miserable, at least. “Then we will wait for Simon.”
Simon awoke at sunset to find the entire household in the castle courtyard. “What is this?” he asked Orlando, coming down the steps.
“Lady Isabel insists the dead men must be given proper Christian burial at the Chapel of Saint Joseph,” the wizard explained. “They expect you to lead them there.”
“You jest,” Simon answered. But in truth, that was exactly what it looked like. The wagon was hitched to its team, and the three bodies had been laid inside, covered over with blankets. A whole procession’s worth of men were waiting beside it, armed and obviously anxious. “I will talk to her.”
“I would wait a moment, if I were you,” Orlando advised. “She’s busy arguing with her captain.”
“Brautus, can’t you see I’m frightened?” Isabel was saying in the meantime. Brautus had come down, prepared to go with the others, but the very thought was more than she could bear. “If I had my absolute choice, we would drop those bodies in the lake, and no one would leave the castle. But that would be wrong. Someone has to take them to the church. But not everyone, and not you. I don’t mean to protect you by keeping you here; I mean for you to protect the household.” He made a disgusted little snort that made her want to hit him, but she took his hand instead. “I am the lady of Charmot, and I need you. Will you abandon me?”
If she had struck him, he couldn’t have looked more shocked. “Never,” he said, his jaw clenched tight. Shooting a final glower in Simon’s direction as he came toward them, he turned and went into the castle.
“Brautus!” she called after him, but he was gone.
Simon reached her side. “Shall I try to speak to him?”
“God’s faith, no,” she said with a bitter little smile. “He’d probably try to kill you.”
“I wouldn’t blame him.” Her eyes widened, and he smiled. “I would in his place. He has been the Black Knight for quite some time, I hear.”
“Yes,” she said, smiling back. “He has.”
“So what is this about going to the church?” he asked.
“Simon, we have to,” she said. “We have no idea how those men were killed or who two of them were; we owe them a Christian burial.” There was something more, he could tell. Something had convinced her that to bury these men at the church would protect them somehow, keep her castle safe from the evil that had killed them in the first place. Who was he to tell her otherwise?
“Very well,” he nodded. “But you are staying here.”
“Simon—”
“Lady Isabel.” He touched her chin, turning her face up to his. “I will comply with your wishes and see your will carried out. But I will not risk your safety to do it.”