Chapter 6
Simon studied the small, stone cottage where Sir Donald Chisholm was hiding his newest mistress.
The man was married with eight children.
Simon had to wonder why Donald had any need for a mistress unless the man’s poor, beleaguered wife was so worn out she could not accommodate the man any longer.
Not that he considered that a good excuse for adultery.
It also disgusted Simon to think of the money the man spent on this fleshly indulgence, money that would be better spent on his wife and children.
He rapped on the door. “Open in the king’s name!” he ordered, and nearly grinned at the image of the faithless Donald scrambling into his clothes as he tried to think of a reason why a king’s man was looking for him. Even the innocent felt a twinge of alarm when a king’s man came hunting for them.
The disheveled, half-dressed man who appeared in the doorway a few minutes later was so plain, so intensely ordinary, Simon was surprised the man could breed a child as lovely as Elen.
He almost felt sorry for the women in Donald’s life.
Simon doubted the man made up for his lack of looks with skill in the bedchamber.
A man who would toss away his own child and be unfaithful to a wife who gave him eight children would not be the sort who would care for his woman’s pleasure.
He was probably one of those fools who believed a woman felt none or could be happy just because the man in her bed found his.
“Shall we step inside, Sir Donald?” Simon asked, aware that the man recognized him by the way Donald grew a little pale. For once Simon felt no twinge of regret over that reaction to his presence.
Donald stumbled back a few steps as he nodded, staring at Simon in fear and horror.
His small eyes were so wide, Simon was sure they had to sting.
He looked around the cottage as he walked inside.
Sir Donald Chisholm obviously spent enough to keep his mistress comfortable but there was nothing lavish, unless one counted the wooden floors and the glass in the windows as extravagant.
Simon idly wondered if the man’s wife was allowed such things or if Sir Donald spent most of his funds on this little cottage for he knew the man was not particularly rich.
“How may I be of service, Sir Simon?” Donald asked as he shut the door and then slumped against it.
Yet again, Simon did not find it irritating to be looked at as if he were the devil himself come to steal the man’s soul. He decided there was obviously some good use to be made of his reputation.
“Do ye happen to ken a child named Reid Burns and another named Elen Burns?”
“I am... I did...”
“A simple aye or nay will be enough of an answer.”
“Aye. Weel, nay. I mean I ken them but have naught to do with them.”
“That was quite plain to see when I found them. The boy was naught but skin and bone. If he found any food after ye cast him and his sister into the street, he gave most of it to wee Elen. Both of them had not but rags to wear and nay even a thin blanket to sleep upon. And ye do ken who Elen is, dinnae ye? Your own wee daughter?”
“Who says she is my daughter? I ne’er claimed the brat and her mother was no sainted virgin, now was she.
” The courage Donald had gained from his sense of outrage faded rapidly beneath Simon’s cold stare.
“For sweet Mary’s sake, they are but two wee bastards.
How is their fate any of the king’s business? ”
“ ‘Tis nay the king’s business. ‘Tis mine. I have taken the two children into my home.”
“Ah, weel, good. Aye, verra good of ye. They will work hard for ye and nay be much trouble at all.”
The man deserved to be beaten into a stain upon the floor, Simon thought, but he slowly unclenched his fists.
“Ye, sir, are a swine. Ye toss out two bairns ere their mother is cold in the ground, caring naught for their grief or innocence. Ye ken weel all the horror a child alone can face. And why do ye do so? To have room for the woman who will replace their mother in your adulterous bed.” Simon idly wondered if that sounded a little too pious and then decided he did not care.
“Did ye e’en take the time to have the bed linen freshened ere ye put a new woman in the bed?
Reid may nay be of your blood, and I can only think that a blessing for him, but ye became responsible for him when ye took his mother into your bed.
And Elen is of your own blood thus ye are most certainly responsible for her and ye ken it. ”
“Do ye want me to take them back? Is that what this is about?”
“Nay, I wouldnae put them in your care again. I ken that the moment I wasnae looking ye would just toss them back out again. Nay, what I want from ye is money, a nice sum that can be set aside as Elen’s dowry and more for Reid so that he has some choice as to what he will become when he is grown.”
“That lad is no blood of mine! I shouldnae have to pay anything for his comfort. He is naught but his mother’s get and, e’en though she said she was a widow, he was probably just a bastard.”
“When ye took his mother as your mistress ye accepted responsibility for her child. She also bore ye a child who is Reid’s sister, and that, too, makes ye responsible.
” When Donald began to stutter out another protest, Simon grasped the man by the shoulder hard enough to make the man gasp and go pale.
“And I have decided that ye are responsible. Do ye wish to object to my decision in this?”
Donald was as great a coward as Simon had thought he would be and quickly agreed to all Simon demanded of him.
It disappointed Simon a little that he would have no opportunity to beat the money out of the man.
Any man who could toss two small children out into the dangerous streets, one of them his own child, deserved to be soundly beaten, but Simon knew it was best if he restrained the urge.
It would not do for him to get a reputation as a brute.
People might be afraid of him but they did not yet fear him because he would cause them physical pain in any way and he preferred to keep that so.
As Simon waited for the man to gather up what money he could, he decided he could not allow the man to get away with such callous treatment of children without suffering some retribution, however.
The moment Donald handed him the money he had found, nervously swearing to get the rest as soon as he could, Simon punched him in the face. Donald stumbled back against the wall and slid down it until he was sitting on the floor. Holding his bleeding nose, Donald stared up at Simon in stunned fear.
Simon crouched down to stare at the man, making no attempt to hide his anger and contempt.
“Ye deserve to be beaten within an inch of your miserable life for what ye did to those children and the way ye dishonor your wife, but I have lost the taste for it. There is no satisfaction to be found in beating on a coward. And, heed me weel, dinnae try to cheat those bairns of the last of the money ye just promised to give them. If ye do, I will swallow my distaste for beating such a whining, wee bastard, and leave ye unable to breed any more bairns. I suspicion your wife would thank me for it, too.”
Pleased with the terror he could see in Donald’s eyes, Simon left.
Elen would have a dowry and Reid would have choices in life, he thought as he walked toward his home, and he was satisfied.
He knew the Armstrongs and the Murrays would care for the children, as would he if the need arose, but the money would help no matter where the children lived or with whom.
“Ah, weel met, Sir Simon. Might I speak with ye for a moment?”
The sight of a smiling Sir Walter Hepbourn stepping up to him soured Simon’s mood, but he stopped and bowed faintly in greeting. “How can I be of service to ye, sir?”
“I but wondered if ye have had any word on the whereabouts of Ilsabeth?” Walter asked.
“If I had it would be the king’s business, Sir Walter.”
“ ‘Tis mine as weel, is it not? I was the mon who was to wed her and the one made a fool of by her treachery. Her actions could have blackened the good name of Hepbourn. And, from all I have heard, the king’s soldiers havenae gathered up a single one of those traitorous Armstrongs. I humbly beg your pardon if ye feel I am intruding on such matters, but I begin to grow, weel, uncertain.”
The tone behind that apology held no humility at all, but Simon’s attention was caught by Hepbourn’s last words.
You begin to grow afraid, thought Simon.
Things were not going as planned for the man and fear was beginning to trickle through Hepbourn’s veins.
Simon wondered if the one at the head of this plot was making his displeasure known.
He hoped that leader did not punish failure with a knife across the throat as Hepbourn could yet be of use.
It would also be too quick a death for the man who had used Ilsabeth and put her life in danger, he decided.
“There is no need to worry, Sir Walter,” Simon said. “We will soon find the traitors. I work diligently to do so as do my men. Now, if ye will be so kind as to pardon me, I must be on my way. Good eve to ye, sir.”
Simon caught a brief glimpse of fury on Sir Walter’s face before the man bobbed a swift and shallow bow and walked away.
Did Hepbourn truly think it would be so easy to get information from him?
The man’s arrogance was astonishing. Simon did not understand how a woman like Ilsabeth could have even considered marrying the fool.