Page 16 of The Scot

Chapter 8

Cold, wet, and interminably restless after training, Terric made his way toward the keep. Instead of turning toward the Northeast Tower and main hall, something caught his attention.

She was lost.

“My lady?”

About to comment as he might have had Isobel been standing before him, something in her expression stopped him.

Scared.

Lady Roysa was scared, and he liked it not.

“I want to show you something,” he said carefully.

Though she continued to watch him, Idalia’s sister said nothing as they continued past the mostly empty inner ward toward the stables. After greeting the marshal, Terric led her straight through to the middle tower.

Opening a small door, Terric stepped inside.

“A storeroom?” she guessed.

A good supposition. Crates and wooden boxes lined the cold, stone-walled chamber.

“Aye.”

Terric sat on a rope-handled chest. Roysa did the same.

“It was my mother’s private chamber once. She was raised here.”

This time, he could tell he’d truly surprised her. He tried to remember not all women who wore the finest silks were conniving liars.

“So far from the hall?”

Terric pointed to the wall, waiting for Roysa to see it.

“A . . . is that a secret passageway?”

He smiled, thinking of the few times he’d been through that door. “Aye. The only one in the castle, that we know of. Which was why my mother stayed here while in residence.”

His hands balled into fists.

“King Henry once took Dromsley for his half-brother. My grandmother was devastated. This had been her home. Built by her grandfather.”

Why am I telling her this?

“The dispute raged for years. Lord Longespée never set foot inside this castle, never met the people here, but the king had given it to him all the same.”

“Aye.”

“He always had an excuse not to visit the land. First it was an illness. Then his presence was needed at court. All knew he simply had no patience to grant the people an audience or support them in any way, but it mattered naught. The lordship remained Longespée’s, through Henry, and although he didn’t care to visit the tenants, he had no problem levying scutage from them.”

“My father never did care for him. The king, I mean. Or his protégé.”

Perhaps both daughters agreed. The fact warmed him toward her, if just slightly.

“It was a difficult time for everyone, not only my family, but also the people of Dromsley. When my grandfather finally did wrestle control of the earldom back, an unusual ruling against the king himself, he worried Longespée, or even Henry, might resort to other methods to regain control, even if it was in defiance of the courts.”

“And so he built that passageway as an escape.”