Page 85 of The Herald's Heart
“So you think the earl was capable of ordering the Roshams’s massacre?”
“Possibly. But Le Hourde could as easily have taken the initiative and decided to name the earl as the guilty party if the baron was ever accused. Larkin’s escape from the massacre was a complication, but as long as she laid no claim to her true identity, she posed no threat to either the earl or Le Hourde. When she sought aid at the abbey, I took that as God’s sign that I should help those souls betrothed to the earl and lend them aid to escape him.”
“The three women who disappeared on their way to Hawksedge for their weddings. You know where they are?”
“Aye. I helped them, just as I helped find you a new home when the earl cast you out.”
So that was why she’d always seemed familiar to him.
They walked in silence for a while. So much made sense now. But not everything. He needed to speak with Larkin, and he needed to understand what the anchoress—his true mother—had been trying to tell him.
“Mother Clement, thank you for telling me this. I must go now. I have much to discuss with Larkin.”
“There is one more thing I must confess to you.”
“’Tis not fit that you confess anything to me. Bare your soul to Father Timoras.”
“I have already done so. He suggested that as atonement for my sins, I take Margery’s place as anchoress.”
“Then I have no need to hear anything else of the past from you.”
She laid a hand on his arm. “Yes, you do. I helped Dame Margery murder the earl.”
“You!”
“I gathered the itchweed at her request and ignored the promptings of my conscience that told me she could only have one purpose for the weed.”
“So you did not know for certain that Dame Margery—my mother—planned to murder my father?”
“No, but I strongly suspected her purpose, and I could have prevented it by disposing of any candles she made that might have contained the itchweed oils. She would never know that I prevented her crime. But the earl would have lived to cause more harm, so I did nothing.”
“Why wait to confess until now? Larkin suffered much because of your silence.”
“Dame Margery was under my protection. I could not expose her, and I knew you would find the means to prove Lady Larkin innocent. Will you have me tried and hanged?”
Talon thought of the mistakes he’d made by not considering the impact of his actions on others, Larkin most of all. If he had any hope of forgiveness, of working together with Larkin to solve their problems as the abbess had suggested, he must be lenient now. The world would lose much if the abbess were hanged. “I will not interfere with you becoming an anchoress. But do so within the week. Do you not, I will be forced to see you hang. Good intentions aside, you took the law into your own hands. You should have left punishment of the earl and Le Hourde to the king’s law.”
She bowed her head then looked up at him. “Thank you. As for leaving punishment of nobles to the king’s law, I have never seen or heard of that happening. The earl was too well protected and proof too scarce. But think carefully on what you said about good intentions, and ask yourself what you intended for Lady Larkin when you swore your oath to God.”
Talon bid the abbess farewell and spent his journey home contemplating her words as well as his mother’s advice. Even he could see that he played the hypocrite, chastising the abbess for good intentions gone awry when that was exactly what he’d done. His intentions had been good when pledging his life to God, but he’d failed to consider how that vow would affect Larkin and any love they might share. The only way to remedy the situation was to seek her forgiveness and beg her to work with him to solve their problems. He must trust her completely by confessing his feelings and accepting her decisions with a willing heart.
