Anita Mills (41 page)

Guy of Rivaux stepped forward, moving until he was but a few yards beyond the archers’ range. “If you look to Stephen, he goes to lay siege to Gloucester’s castle at Bristol!”

“You lie!”

“Treat with me and live, Reyner! Give her up, and I will let you depart in peace!”

“Nay!” He held the heavy chain above the wall. “Your life for hers, Guy! And you let me take you to Stephen, I will let her go!”

“I offer you safe passage and nothing more!”

“Then I’ll see your soul in hell! I’ll not be cheated again! I have but to wait for Stephen!”

“Jesu, but is he mad?” Richard muttered. “Stephen does not come.”

“Aye,” Giles answered grimly. “Bevis of Lyons says that yesterday he had no hopes of Stephen. His madness deludes him now.”

“To bring me down he would go with me, I think,” Guy murmured, looking away. “ ’Twas folly on my part to give her to Ivo.”

“You could not know what he was,” his son consoled him. “Even I did not know until Elizabeth came to Harlowe.”

“Still, a man does not lightly give his daughter, and I ought to have known.”

“It matters not now,” Giles cut in, his voice harsh. “Tonight we fire the pitch and retake my keep. To delay longer is folly.”

“Nay. We negotiate her release. If the fire does not work, if the siege machines have to be brought in, he has days to torture and kill my daughter.”

“Papa, I’d speak with you apart,” Richard said urgently.

“Your life for hers, Guy!” Reyner shouted again.

Guy shook his head. “He’ll kill her. Mayhap I ought—”

“There is too great a risk, and no warranty that he would not kill you both.”

“It can be taken quickly with enough men,” Giles declared grimly.

“ ’Tis stone,” Guy retorted. “The walls will not fall.”

“I can take it,” Giles repeated. “As long as we know where she is, as long as she remains on the wall, I can take it. There is enough timber shoring up the wall on the inside to turn Wycklow into a fire that will leave naught but the stones standing.”

“ ’Tis no border skirmish.”

“I know how to burn a keep.”

“Aye,” Guy acknowledged grimly. “ ’Tis why you are called Butcher, is it not?” As Giles flinched he added harshly, “Nay, I’d have my daughter live.”

“
Answer me, Guy! I give you her life for yours!” Reyner bellowed.

“Delay, Papa,” Richard urged low. “Ask to set up a parley for the morrow. Give Giles time to act. I’d speak with you now, Papa—alone.”

For a long moment Guy stared his son down, finding it incomprehensible that Richard, who’d struggled so long to be a man on his own, should defer to the Scots borderer. Finally, he nodded. “Aye,” he muttered curtly. “But speak your mind before the Butcher, for I’d give Eury my answer.”

“Reyner’s hatred of her is too great. He’ll not yield her even if you give him what he asks.”

“ ’Tis for me to decide! She is my daughter!”

“She is my wife!” Giles countered, his own temper rising. “Whether you like me or no, Elizabeth took me for husband, Rivaux! And ere she sickens or is harmed further, I mean to go after her!”

“Papa, he has the right to determine. She is his wife, and she bears his heir.”

“Then why ask me to come?” Guy demanded hotly. “What good am I to her here, if he means to risk her anyway?”

“There is that about Guy of Rivaux that makes men fearful,” Giles answered more calmly. “If not Reyner, then his men will not wish to face you. And,” he conceded, “I had not the men to attack alone.”

Guy’s eyes scanned the wall critically, looking for a weakness. “He’ll reach her ere we can, Butcher—I know not how it can be done.”

“Ere I am through with Reyner, he will think he is in Hell’s inferno.”

“Guy!” Reyner cupped his hands to his mouth. “Answer me!”

“Give us time—tell him you will write him, setting out your terms,” Giles suggested. “Tell him you will give him terms for parleying on the morrow.”

Seeing that his son nodded assent, Guy exhaled slowly, then faced the son-in-law he’d not wanted. “And you cost me my daughter, I’ll not forgive it,” he muttered. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he shouted back to Reyner, “I will send you an agreement that we may speak on when I have slept!” Turning his head slightly, he spoke again to Giles, “I know not what it serves, for he cannot read beyond his name.”

“It serves.”

“Come out now, Guy! Look to the witch you have spawned! Would you see her dead before you?”

“Nay, I will write of my terms! I’d have your mark against treachery! I’d have your promise for all to see that she is not harmed further!”

Above them Reyner chortled to Elizabeth. “I
knew
he valued you more than his life! Did you hear him? Tomorrow I leave this hole, Elizabeth! Tomorrow I take him to Stephen, and the world will know him for Belesme’s bastard.” He’d relaxed his hold on the chain, letting her move slightly. She stood, heedless of her nakedness, to call out, “Nay, Papa, but he would keep us both!”

“You witch!” He jerked savagely, pulling her back, and in full view of the men below he hit her. “I’ll kill you yet!”

Behind Guy, Giles of Moray uttered a long, furious oath, finishing with, “By the Blessed Virgin and all the saints, I’ll take him—I swear it. I swear it.”

“Send me your message that I may answer it!” Reyner shouted.

“I’d have your seal that she will be safe! I’d have the lord of Dunashie take it to Stephen!”

“Aye!”

Guy looked to Giles. “I know not what you mean to write, but I hope it appeases him.”

“If it keeps her until the night, ’twill be enough.” Turning on his heel, Giles walked back to the tent Richard had brought.

“I hope, Richard, that the Butcher knows what he is about.”

Elizabeth looked at the parchment Reyner held beneath her nose and tried not to betray anything. “ ‘My lord of Eury,’ ” she read aloud, “ ‘it grieves me sorely that you would offer harm to one you have honored as a daughter in your house.’ ”

When she paused Reyner snorted contemptuously, then ordered, “Go on—go on. I’d hear the rest.”

“ ‘If you would settle any dispute between us, I pray you will bring it before Stephen, that he may rule, for despite all that is said of him, he is inclined to fairness in matters save Henry’s daughter.’ ” She looked up and caught Reyner’s scowl before she went on. “ ‘I am ready to stand before him, but only if Elizabeth is released into the hands of Giles of Moray, her lawful husband, that she may be removed safely from Wycklow. I would that you would meet us unarmed and beyond archers’ range when the sun is risen that the manner of her delivery unto his hands be agreed.’ ”

“ ’Tis all he says?” he demanded.

“Nay.”

“He is a fool! Guy of Rivaux is a fool—d’ye hear me? A fool! He would appear before Stephen a traitor, a forsworn traitor with no claim to what he holds! His honor will slay him yet!”

“Nay, the fool is Stephen, for he will let my father take his oath again and be grateful that Guy of Rivaux comes to him.”

It was the wrong thing to say to him. He cast about for the means to beat her, and saw naught but the chain. Lifting it, he struck her across her back. “Worthless witch! Read the rest!”

“I hope he takes your hide for this, Reyner—I hope you die slowly.”

“I said to read!”

“All else he says is that he would have you come unmailed and unhelmed, and he will do the same. If you agree, he would have your mark on this ere it is returned to him.”

“ ’Tis all?”

“Aye,” she lied.

“God’s blood, but I’d not thought it this easy.” His sudden burst of anger forgotten, he rubbed his hands together in anticipation of success. “You have proven of worth to me after all is done, Elizabeth. What you did not bring me through Ivo, I will yet gain. Guy cheated me, and now I will have it all—Rivaux, the Condes, Harlowe—there will be none but Gloucester to rival me in what I hold.” He looked at the parchment again. “Where would he have my mark?”

“Below—above his seal.”

“Fetch the silly priest to discover if he has a quill and ink!” he shouted into the courtyard below.

She leaned back, resting her head against the cold stone, and tried not to think of another night on the wall. They would attack, and she must not sleep, the letter had said. And if she were pushed over the side there would be someone waiting by the ditch, ready to pull her from the water. She looked above to the sky, measuring the sun against the horizon. She had hours to wait.

The priest brought what passed for a quill, its point sadly blunted, and a small pot of seldom-used ink. Reyner handed them to her.

“Sweet Mary, but can you not make your own mark?” she asked.

“Aye, but I’d sign more than that.”

“The quill is worthless—’twill not hold the ink. And the ink is too thick.”

For once, he did not strike her. Still in good spirits, he demanded of the priest his small knife, then made a fair point with it. Laying the knife aside, he spat into the ink several times to thin it.

“There.”

“What would you have me write?”

“Say I will meet him as he has said, but at the first sign of treachery, I have ordered that you be hanged from here. Aye, and I would have you sign it with ‘Reyner, Count to Eury and Rivaux, Earl of Harlowe, and Lord of the Condes.’ ”

“Harlowe and the Condes come through my mother,” she reminded him coldly.

For a moment his face darkened ominously, then it cleared. “Count to Eury and Rivaux then. Later, when Stephen cannot deny me, I will ask for Harlowe.”

Her pen scratched across the bottom of the page briefly before she held it up for his inspection. He studied the words covetously, unable to read that she’d written “Reyner, fool that he is, suspects nothing. I would that you made all haste, for ’tis cold come night.”

It was not until he’d left her alone on the wall that she spied the knife where he’d set it down on the ledge. She placed it on the stone beneath her and edged her body over it. If he came back she would tell him it had fallen into the moat. And if he thought to drown her when Giles attacked she would not go easily. It probably was not a big enough blade to kill him, but she would scar him for the rest of his miserable life.

And when night came she would work it against the hated collar. Her gaze dropped to the encampment beyond, seeking and finding Giles. He’d come for her, even though he had not enough men to face Reyner, and he’d held the Count of Eury for her brother and her father. A lump formed in her throat and tears stung her eyes as she looked at him, and her heart was full of what she felt for him. He’d risked all for her, leaving his patrimony to the uncertain mercy of King David, sending his levies where they were owed, taking the only side he believed would let him keep her. And he’d been betrayed by a liege unworthy of his service.

It had cost him to send to her father and she knew it, for Guy of Rivaux, slow though he was to anger, was a terrible, awesome force when he did give vent to his temper. And her sire had been angry—angry enough to cause Giles to go to Stephen. She prayed fervently that her letters and Richard’s words had mollified him. Even now, as they stood looking back at her, she could not see what passed between them. Was it anger still? If she were there, she’d tell her father that Giles was far worthier of her than she of him, that he’d given her what Ivo had not, for he’d loved her.

And then she was afraid. What if she did not live to speak to any of them again? What if she did not live to lie in her husband’s embrace again? She leaned forward again, covering her body with her hair, and her hand crept beneath the silken mass to touch her belly. Her child was there: a babe that bore the blood of Nantes, Harlowe, Varanville, and Dunashie. And Belesme. Nay, she could not be afraid—not with such a one within her. She would survive for that babe, she would give her lord a son born of his pride.

She looked out over the ledge once more, willing Giles to look up at her, and when he did she smiled. She didn’t know if he could see that, but it didn’t matter. When she saw him next she would tell him she loved him.

The sun waned slowly, while those in the camp gave no sign of what they planned. From above it appeared that they merely waited for the morrow. That the huge tub disappeared into the tent was scarce noted, for it was to be expected that Count Guy would wish a bath. Behind the camp the siege machines sat unattended.

Inside, that tub proved to be a pitch vat, and those who’d appeared to be body servants outside scurried about mixing naptha, sulfur, and pitch to make the Greek fire that could not be doused by water. Some filled wooden casks with the mixture, while others soaked rags for arrows in it. Despite the heat the flap was kept closed to contain the smell as much as possible, while outside they gave the appearance of clearing the woods to make a bigger camp. The green wood burned, sending clouds of smoke into the air, masking the odor. Hob, surveying the work, allowed as it was God’s will that they win, for the wind carried the escaping fumes the other way.

It was not until nearly dusk that it began to rain steadily, and Giles feared Reyner would relent and take Elizabeth from the wall. Instead the Count of Eury made great show of giving her a blanket again, shouting that he would have Guy see that she lived.

The wait was a long one, and nerves were strained, tempers taut, as Giles outlined what he expected from everyone. At first Guy still had been reluctant to give over the ordering of the attack to the borderer, but Giles had prevailed by pointing out that he better than any knew his own castle. And it was with a growing respect that Elizabeth’s father heard his meticulous plans, the execution of which would require a carefully timed effort and not a little good fortune.

Bevis of Lyons, still eager for Rivaux’s notice, listened as it was determined that Hob would climb inside through the garderobe discharge, an unwelcome duty that fell to him because of his small size. As scaling hooks were given to the toothless one in preparation for entry into the privy, Bevis suddenly volunteered to go with him, saying that it would take more than one to subdue any sentry who should discover them. It was with no small degree of suspicion that his offer was accepted.