Into the Dim (Into the Dim, #1)(55)

That did it. I quit searching and gave William my full attention. “I beg your pardon?”

Instead of answering, he took my elbow and turned me toward the dais. A group of churchmen chuckled as they emerged from a side door to seat themselves at the head table. A fat archbishop in blinding white and gold sat down next to one of the thrones. Lounging behind him in humble black was Thomas Becket.

“Becket,” William announced quietly, though there was no need. A chill had skittered across my skin when I saw him, features pinched as he scanned the room. “Becket is a priest, yes, but he has eyes and ears everywhere. For some reason, you’ve drawn his interest.”

As if he’d heard us above the clamor, Thomas Becket’s eyes stopped roving the crowd and fixed on me. His mouth made a small moue of surprise. I took an involuntary step back. Then trumpets blared from the back of the Great Hall, and Becket’s malevolent gaze dropped away.

I thanked William and scuffled back against the wall as feasters scrambled for spots at the long tables.

Henry Plantagenet—second of that name. King of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Count of Anjou, Brittany, Poitou. Duke of Normandy, Maine, Gascony, and Aquitaine, as the herald announced—was short, stocky, and bowlegged. A russet-haired fireplug of a man who Eleanor topped by half a head. They strolled arm in arm down the wide space between the tables, like graceful ships in the middle of a cheering storm.

The disheveled woman I’d seen idling in her nightclothes was gone, replaced by regal opulence. She stunned in cascades of jade silk embroidered with golden lions that emphasized her round belly. Candlelight sparked off the emeralds set into her gold coronet. Henry looked like a man ready to burst with pride.

As they came level with me, Henry placed a square freckled hand on his wife’s belly and crowed, “Another job well done for England, eh, boys?”

The crowd went nuts.

Phoebe wormed her way to my side. “No sign of Sarah yet. But there’re a lot of people here. It may take a while.”

She was still talking, but her words faded into nothing when I saw something that froze the breath in my lungs.

“Hope?” Phoebe said, “Did you hear me? I said I don’t know where Collum went. I think he’s up to something. He’s disappeared.”

Tomorrow, the course of England would change forever, when two of England’s greatest rulers were crowned in Westminster Abbey. A dynasty empire was being born before my eyes. None of that mattered, because I’d just caught a glimpse of someone on the far side of the room. A tall woman with athletic shoulders.

“Cripes,” Phoebe muttered. “I have to find him. I’ll kill him if he does something stupid.”

Mute, I grabbed for my friend’s sleeve to tell her what I’d just seen, but she’d already darted off. My hand fell slowly back to my side. My attention lasered in on one thing. The spindly pale-strawberry braid that hung limp down the woman’s broad back.





Chapter 26


SHE LET IT GROW OUT.

It was a frivolous thought. Mom had always kept her hair bobbed to shoulder length, claiming middle-aged women with long hair were trying too hard to hold on to something that was long gone. But here, where only nuns chopped their hair, she’d had little choice, apparently.

Go. What are you waiting for? My snarled thoughts trapped me in place.

When she turned, just enough for me to catch sight of her profile, my body leaned in her direction, until I was poised on my toes.

Move, I commanded my feet. She’s right there. Your mother, your supposedly dead mother, is right there. Why can’t you move?

I clenched my fists. Took a step.

“Not yet, child.” A gnarled claw, with cracked yellow nails, gripped my forearm. Its strength startled me. I hadn’t even seen her approach. How can someone so old move like that?

“Hold,” the ancient nun, Sister Hectare, whispered as she towed me back toward the wall.

As I started to protest, a man appeared at my mother’s side. His greasy bald head barely reaching the level of her chin. His pudgy fingers clutched her elbow.

“Lord Babcock is a venal man,” Sister Hectare’s rusty voice said. “Though that is only part of his charm. He’s also cruel and overproud. And he has the brains of a beheaded fowl, besides. You must not approach until he leaves her side.”

“Wait.” I blinked as it hit me. “That’s her husband?”

“Yes. Sarah de Carlyle, now wife of Lord Henry Babcock. In the war just past, Babcock fought on the wrong side. But our new king seeks peace with his barons. Even minor, idiotic ones. He restored Babcock’s lands but kept most of the family fortune—such as it was. Did your cousin come with a great dowry, perhaps?”

“No.” I still had no idea why this tiny woman was helping me.

“Hmm,” Sister Hectare mused. “She’s not young. Though young enough, I see. And somewhat comely. Still, Lord Babcock is not known to pick a wife merely because her face isn’t pox scarred. ’Tis odd. He does seem taken with her.”

“Yes, I see that.”

The little toad never took his hands off my mother. Not even when he snatched a chicken leg and began gnawing at it with little gray teeth. Juice glistened in his straggly beard. The bewilderment I’d felt turned to pity as I watched her husband’s pale, protuberant eyes narrow when another man greeted my mother.