"True enough. My lord will search for her to the very gates of hell if necessary." Alice eyed the mist. "I can only hope that when he finds her, he will also find peace."
Joan gave her a gentle, knowing look. "None of us can find true peace in the past, Alice. We must all search for it in the present."
Alice tightened her grasp on her mother's handbook. "You are very wise, madam."
Joan smiled wistfully. " 'Tis a lesson I had to learn the hard way, just as everyone must do."
For the first time Alice wondered what had led Joan to enter the religious life. Someday she would inquire, she told herself. Not today, of course. It was too soon for such intimacies. But there would be ample opportunity for such conversations in the future. Something told her that her growing friendship with the prioress would be important to both of them. In spite of the bleak day, Alice felt a genuine warmth flower inside her. Her future was here at Scarcliffe. It would be a good life.
"Good day, madam." Alice started toward the gate.
"Good day, my lady."
Alice lifted a hand in farewell and walked through the stone gates.
The fog had grown so thick that she could barely make out the wagon ruts in the street. She knew the mist must have seriously frustrated Hugh's search. She also knew that he would not readily abandon his quest. He would comb Scarcliffe and the surrounding lands with the relentless determination that was so much a part of him.
She could not blame him, Alice thought. He was, after all, hunting for the person who had, in all likelihood, murdered his parents. Alice knew that so far as Hugh was concerned, the fact that Katherine had apparently tried to poison him also paled into insignificance compared to her crimes of thirty years earlier.
Katherine had taken both mother and father from him. She had deprived him of the lands that should have been his rightful inheritance. She had consigned him to the care of an embittered old man who had viewed him as little more than an instrument of vengeance.
Alice shuddered to think what would have happened to Hugh had fate not led him to the household of Erasmus of Thornewood. Someday, she told herself, she would very much like to thank that shadowy figure who had single-handedly kept Hugh from being consumed by the fierce storms that forged so much of his nature.
Alice could not blame Hugh for his determination to find his quarry, but now that she was alone again, her sense of unease returned. There was something that did not feel right about the situation. Too many things remained unexplained. Too many questions were still unanswered.
Why murder the monk?
She pondered the question for the hundredth time that day as she went past the last of the village cottages. The fog had silenced everything. The men were not at work in the fields. The women were not in their gardens. The children were warming themselves by the hearth fires. Alice had the road to Scarcliffe Keep to herself.
The monk. Somehow there had to be a link between Calvert and the poisoning of Hugh's parents.
A dark, hooded figure materialized out of the fog directly in Alice's path. She froze. Fear washed over her in a thundering wave.
"About time you showed up." The man reached out to seize her. "We was beginning to wonder if you intended to dawdle in the convent until Vespers."
Alice opened her mouth to scream but it was too late. A rough hand was instantly clamped over her mouth.
She dropped her mother's book and kicked out frantically. Her legs tangled in the folds of her gown but she managed to strike her attacker's shin with the toe of her soft boot.
"Damn you," the man muttered. "I knew this wouldn't be so easy. Not a word out o' ye." He jerked the hood of her cloak lower over her face, effectively blinding her.
Alice struggled fiercely in his grasp. She flailed blindly, seeking a target, any target, as her assailant hoisted her off her feet. Then she heard muffled footfalls on the road and knew that the man who held her prisoner was not alone.
"Don't let her yell, Fulton, whatever ye do," the other man snarled. "We're not far from the village. Someone will surely hear her if she gets to screeching."
Alice redoubled her efforts to yell for help. She managed to sink her teeth into Fulton's palm.
"Damnation." Fulton gasped. "The vixen bit me."
"Stop her mouth with some cloth."
Alice fought back in wild panic as a length of foul cloth was drawn taut across her mouth and tied behind her head.
"Be quick about it, Fulton. We must get off this road. If Sir Hugh and his men blunder into us in this fog, we'll be dead before we know what happened."
"Sir Hugh would not dare touch us so long as we hold his wife prisoner," Fulton protested. But there was an anxious ring of uncertainty in his voice.
"I would not count on surviving such a meeting, if I were you," the other man muttered.
"But Sir Eduard says that Hugh the Relentless is uncommonly fond of his new bride."
Sir Eduard. Alice was so startled that she went still for a moment. Were these men speaking of Eduard of Lockton? Impossible. Eduard would not risk Hugh's wrath in this fashion. Hugh himself had been arrogantly certain of his own dominance over the unpleasant Eduard.
"Sir Hugh may be fond of the wench," the other man said, "but Erasmus of Thornewood did not cause the words Bringer of Storms to be inscribed on the dark knight's sword for naught. Hurry. We must move quickly or all is lost."
Alice knew that she had walked straight into a trap.
Alice blinked several times when the hood was finally pulled back from her face. She saw at once that she was inside one of the caves of Scarcliffe. Torch light cast unnerving shadows on the damp stone walls. Water dripped somewhere in the distance.
Fulton untied the cloth that had stopped her mouth. Alice grimaced and wiped her lips with the sleeve of her cloak.
Katherine walked slowly out of the darkness to stand in front of her. The healer's face was lined with a timeless melancholy. Her eyes were somber shrouds on her soul.
"You will not believe this, but I regret all that has happened, Lady Alice. 'Twas inevitable, I suppose. I warned you once that the sins of the past produced bitter herbs."
" 'Tis not the past that produced the poison, Katherine. It was you. Your latest effort failed, you know. You will not get another opportunity. Even now Sir Hugh is searching these lands. Sooner or later he will find you."
Eduard of Lockton loomed in the passageway. In the light of the torch, his features were akin to those of an evil troll. His small, cunning eyes gleamed with malevolence. "He has already searched the outer cavern. Little good it did him. But, then, he did not know where to look, did he, Katherine?"
Katherine did not turn her head toward him. Her gaze remained fixed on Alice as if she willed her to understand. "Eduard is my cousin, Lady Alice."
"Your cousin?" Alice stared at Eduard, "I do not comprehend this."
"That much is obvious." Eduard's yellow teeth flashed in his beard. "But you will, madam. Rest assured, you soon will comprehend all. And so will that bastard husband of yours just before I cut him down with my blade."
Alice was sickened by the sour anger that seemed to radiate from Eduard. "Why do you hate my husband so?"
"Because his birth ruined everything. Everything." Eduard motioned irritably to Fulton and the other man. They both stepped back into the shadows of a dark passageway. Eduard moved closer to Alice. "Katherine was supposed to marry Matthew of Rivenhall, you see. I myself negotiated the betrothal."
"My parents died when I was but thirteen years," Katherine whispered. "Eduard was my only male relative. My fate was in his hands."
"She had a large dowry bequeathed to her from her mother's people and I had plans for her," Eduard growled. "Matthew of Rivenhall was heir to several manors. His family wanted Katherine's dowry. They were willing to trade one of their manors for her. It was a fine match."