The crop of barley she’d been inspecting barely moved under the hot summer sun, but it wasn’t the bright light that made her eyes burn. She swallowed hard, trying to keep at bay the knot of grief that would not release its grip. Her beloved father was dead and she doubted the pain of his loss would ever leave. She’d held him in her arms and watched him slip away from her, hour by hour, minute by minute, until his hands had gone limp in hers. If that wasn’t enough she’d now been summonsed back to her own castle, by the High Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk no less. His name sent a frisson of fear through her body. There had been no word from her father’s liege lord, and now the sheriff had arrived, unannounced. It did not bode well. She urged her horse to the top of the ridge that overlooked the fertile river valley in which her castle lay, and reined him in sharply. Below her dozens of strangers swarmed around the castle bailey, disrupting the usual ebb and flow of people going about their business.
