“And now they obey me,” retorted Alain softly. Ai, Lord and Lady! He was furious, and yet the anger lay muted, red-hot coals banked by ash. Geoffrey had concealed his plans all this time. Had Lavastine suspected? No doubt he had. That was why he had wanted Geoffrey to appear at his deathbed, to swear an oath; Geoffrey hadn’t come.
“But if it was witchcraft all along, then you could have witched the hounds as well. You have no other proof that he sired you. I’ll call every soul in this county forward to swear to what they saw, or didn’t see, eighteen years ago when that servingwoman was brought to bed with the child she claimed was his bastard. Any woman can lie. Or you could have lied, hearing the story, and pretended you were what you are not. God Above!” Geoffrey turned to Duchess Yolande, as though pleading to her. “How can we trust the testimony of these hounds? They’re creatures of the Enemy. Everyone knows that these very hounds killed my cousin’s wife and infant daughter, ripped them to pieces.”
Tallia whimpered and shrank against Yolande, whose eyes had widened with appreciative interest. “If this is true,” said Yolande, “then how could Lavastine tolerate such beasts in his train afterward?”
“She lied to him,” said Alain hoarsely. “The child wasn’t sired by Lavastine but by another man.”
“So he said,” replied Geoffrey. “So he said to cover his own guilt. No one spoke of it, no one accused him, because they feared him.”
This was too much. “His own people trusted him because he was a good lord to them and looked after his own!”
“Who will look after them now?” Geoffrey turned again to Duchess Yolande. “The hounds are a curse, not a gift. But the curse was laid on my great-uncle Charles Lavastine, not on my own grandfather. The curse passed from the elder Charles to the younger Charles and then to Lavastine, who was swayed by sorcery and duped by this boy. But my line is free of the curse, and my daughter is healthy. She was named by Lavastine as his heir on the day she was born. She is the rightful heir to this county, not this—this—” He did not look at Alain, merely gestured toward him as toward an animal about to be led to the slaughter. “This common-born boy who defames all of us by pretending to be of noble birth.”
Fear lunged.
“Peace!” cried Alain, but the damage was done. Fear bowled Geoffrey over, knocked him flat, and would have torn off his face if Alain hadn’t leaped forward to grab his collar and yank him back.