Dream of Me/Believe in Me

is scarcely an hour to supper. She will appear.”
    “Thank you, my lord,” Edvard said hastily. He took Aelfgyth's elbow and turned to go, but she was having none of it.
    “But that is just it, my lord,” Aelfgyth insisted. “The Lady Krysta would never go off somewhere when supper is being prepared, and this the last evening before Lord Dragon leaves. She would be in the kitchens or dressing. Certainly she would not be far from either place, yet I cannot find her.”
    She looked from one man to the other, the fast-rising steward she was soon to marry and the powerful lord in whose service they both were pledged. Her own audacity amazed her yet she remembered the many kindnesses of the Lady Krysta and resolved to stand her ground.
    “I am telling you,” Aelfgyth said on a note of desperation, “something is wrong.”
    Edvard hesitated, and Hawk looked closely at the young woman. He had never paid her much mind but he knew she had a gentle nature and now he saw that she was also intelligent.
    The girl had merit, and therefore, just possibly, so did what she said.
    “All right,” he said slowly. “Where exactly have you searched?”
    Again, Aelfgyth rattled off the list of everywhere she had been in the past hour. When she was done, Hawk nodded. “You realize you may have simply been missing her if she moved from place to place?”
    “That is possible,” Aelfgyth conceded, “yet I told them in the kitchens to send word to me if she appeared and none has come. It makes no sense that she would not go there.”
    Hawk had to concede this. He was beginning seriously to wonder where Krysta had gotten off to but he was still far from alarmed. Hawkforte was extremely well protected. The Danes might be able to infiltrate spies from time to time but they could do nothing more than look.
    Still, accidents could happen. At the thought that one might have happened to Krysta, his easy mood vanished.
    His wife could not be found. The reason was most likely benign and she would emerge safe and sound, surprised to have been the object of concern. Three hours, Aelfgyth had said, and an hour of that spent searching for her. It was enough.
    “Summon the servants,” he said. “Question anyone who talked with her today. Find out if she said anything about going anywhere.”
    “As you wish, lord,” the steward said. He too looked concerned now. “Where may I report to you?”
    “I'll be on the walls talking with the watch. I want to know where she went and who she was with.”
    As Edvard and Aelfgyth hurried to obey, Hawk strode across the yard and took the nearest steps two at a time to the top of the walls. He found the lieutenant in charge of the watch and questioned him closely. Almost immediately, several other men were summoned and among them they tried to recall if they had seen the Lady Krysta during the day. The problem was that they were charged, sensibly enough, with keeping watch on whoever might be approaching Hawkforte, not on those already within it. Looking outward rather than inward, they saw relatively little of what went on inside the stronghold. Yet there were inevitably times when their attention shifted.
    “I was just coming on duty, lord,” said a young man-at-arms. He was a bit nervous, called as he was to report directly to the Hawk, but he knew of what he spoke. “As I crossed the yard, I noticed the Lady Krysta take leave of her maid, who went on down to the town in the direction of her mother's house. Lady Krysta herself went toward the chapel.”
    “Did you see her go in there?” Hawk asked.
    The young man shook his head. “No, lord, I reported for duty then.”
    Hawk nodded, satisfied that he had the best informationhe was going to get. “Send several men out to see if they can locate that fellow Thorgold, and also, if possible, the woman called Raven.”
    As the lieutenant barked orders, Hawk left the walls and walked quickly to the chapel. He found it empty save for Father Elbert. The priest looked startled to see him but recovered quickly and adopted his usual expression of vague disapproval.
    “You wished something, lord?”
    Reminded of how much he disliked the man, and how of late he had thought frequently of replacing him, Hawk spoke sharply. “Have you seen the Lady Krysta?”
    The priest raised an eyebrow. “Here, lord? No, I have not. I see her very rarely.”
    “She came this way in late afternoon.”
    “I was not here then.”
    “Who was?”
    Father Elbert