Crown of the Realm (A White Knight Adventure Book 2) (10 page)

Aveline broke
from his embrace. “I have never asked you for anything, nay, nor will I ever.”

“Will you stand with me before the church doors?”

She threw her hands to her ears.

“Will you accept one-third of my worldly goods?”

“No … no …”

“Will you bear my sons and my daughters
, too? Will you grow old with me? Will you be my wedded wife?”

“A thousand times no! Your king would annul such a marriage. Your father would disown you. And you would think of me only as th
e wench you once took pity on.”

“Then you don’t know me.”

“Oh, I know you, Drake fitzAlan, better than you know yourself.” He went to take her in his arms, but she stepped beyond the reach of the leg iron and was soon gone.

A FORTNIGHT AFTER
Drake fitzAlan shot his king in the back, he left Chinon in the custody of Randall of Clarendon, former deputy sheriff of Hampshire, now king’s marshal.

Officially he was to be taken forthwith to Nonancourt Castle, there to be loc
ked up with his co-conspirators and afterwards transported to England. Once in England, the once-faithful knights Drake fitzAlan, Guillaume de Fors, Baldwin de Béthune, and André de Chauvigny, faithful no more, and the squire Devon of Wheeling, unwittingly caught up in the intrigue but no less guilty, were to be shut up in Dover Castle Tower, there to await judgment by execution.

Unofficially Drake fitzAlan was setting out on a mission of deliverance.

The sunny skies promised frivolity and gaiety, but since dawn was just breaking, few witnessed a traitor’s departure. Predictably the king did not bid adieu to his would-be assassin.

The youngest brother of the king did, gleefully threatening sweet requital at the edge of an executioner’s sword, suitably accompanied by appropriate tortures beforehand and the quartering of his body afterwards. The condemned sensibly said nothing.

The king’s bastard brother observed the knight’s departure from a near distance but offered no comment, gloating or otherwise.

The queen’s chambermaid wisely made herself absent.

Thus the party of two rode out of Chinon. Drake fitzAlan was properly shackled apropos his status as assassin and traitor. Rand Clarendon carried on his person the king’s authority to transport the prisoner … and a key. One mile out of Chinon, the shackles slipped from Drake’s wrists. And soon, he and the marshal settled into an easy gait.

Toward dusk
, an echo assaulted them from the rear. Were it not for the hoofs of their horses clattering along the rutted trail and the din of dusk-born swallows, Drake and Rand would have heard the rider sooner. As it turned out, they had been aware of the trailing bloodhound for quite some time, and throughout the day, had taken evasive maneuvers and managed, they thought, to outpace the cur. The rider was not alone. Had he been, Drake would have never let him get this far.

Growing weary of the charade, t
hey dismounted, Drake taking one side of the track and Rand the other. After a count of thirty, the lead horseman trotted along. Heedless of the trap, he rode rather awkwardly around a fallen log, his seat bouncing unsteadily in the saddle and his command of the reins inept. The Breton chestnut, wide of girth but clean of leg, was much too powerful for the rider’s shapely but untrained limbs. He wore a felt cap that flopped with the irregular action of the horse, dark hose sheathed in passable boots, an oversized chainse, a faded brown tunic, and a leather belt wrapped twice around his narrow waist.

Drake didn’t have the heart but tugged
on the rope.

A bass voice yelled warning. Strung between opposing tree trunks, the woven hemp tautened. The Breton slapped against it, full in the chest. Rider and horse let out
blended shrieks. The horse reared but kept its legs. The horseman tottered from the saddle and landed brutally. Knocked senseless, he lay sprawled in a tangle.

Drake hopped gamely out from his hiding place and rolled the unfortunate victim into his arms. The cap fell off, revealing a fan of sable hair cascading from
a narrow brow and moist temples. Except for smudges of dirt and sweat, the close-pored cheeks had lost every bit of color. The front of his throat arched gracefully back from a heaving chest. His pouty chin thrust skyward. His delicate jaw opened slightly, revealing lips invitingly full, wholly incongruent for a boy. Drake swore. The rider’s eyes blinked open. He groaned miserably, gently cursed God in His heaven, and more vehemently damned the debased knight clasping him about the shoulders.

“Aveline,” Drake said, “where did you learn such unladylike words
?”

Her breath still not having caught up with her, she said with difficulty, “
Since I am the daughter of an alewife, there is more where that came from!” Furious was the only way to describe the look on her chalk-white face.

Drake tenderly swept back a stray tendril of hair. “I ought to turn you over and thrash you like
most men thrash their women as a matter of habit.” He tapped her on the rump. “But then you won’t be able to ride, which, come to think,”—and here she slapped his arm in frustration—“you can’t claim even now.”

She wiped her nose using the back of a soiled hand. “With the right horse, I can.”

He shook his head. “I’m sending you back. Your escort will see you safe.”

“He will not.” The second rider jogged up to their position. He held up both hands to show
himself unarmed and tractable … within means. One eye, black as a jet bead, sparkled. The other, half shut, winked. “Not after all the trouble he’s gone through.”

Drake said, “Your hands have been full, I daresay.”

“Pah! Aveline Darcy? Never.” He received a scathing glare from the
demoiselle
. “If you must know, she started out alone. She won’t go back. I’ve tried. God knows, I’ve tried. The more blisters she grows on her hindquarters, the more stubborn she becomes. Like a mule, she is.”

“
As if I didn’t already know.”

The sore-bottomed daughter of an alewife
unraveled herself from the embrace of her white knight and stood up, tucking down her tunic and knotting the loose tendrils of her hair beneath her cap. “I’m going with you. That is, if you don’t wish me to tell the king’s brothers what you’re up to,” she said, looking down at him, her smile smug.

“You would, wouldn’t you?”
he said, joining her. He leaned forward and pecked her lips, smeared bloody from a savaged lip. She winced but endured a second kiss, this one more curative. Taking the reins from Randall, she remounted with a leg-up from Drake and dug her heels into the steed’s flanks. The horse responded swiftly, taking its rider down the well-worn trail.

When she realized no one was following her lead, she wheeled
the horse around and trotted back. Smiling broadly, Drake waited for her at the trailhead. Behind him, Rand and Mallory were setting up camp in a nearby clearing. Noting the preparations, she dismounted, handed the reins to her man as if to a lowly groom, and with a fetching hitch to her gait, went to join the others. Pausing, she looked over her shoulder, saw the lustful glint in his eyes, and narrowed her own. “The queen’s ladies are the snippiest, most high-handed creatures on earth.”

“With you to contend with, why
wouldn’t they be?” Arriving at her side, he took her in his arms, but after seeing the other men grin with glee, guided her behind a stand of trees where the boughs shrouded them in privacy, the ferns muted their voices, and the song of chirping birds muffled their words.

The
y tussled and snuggled and remarked on their mutual bruises and states of haleness before settling into each other’s arms as if an old married couple. “I think you ought to marry Matilda of Angoulême,” she said. “Oh, aye. Who has not heard of the match made in heaven? A lady of high nobility, they say. Handsome. Genial. Good breeding. And a hefty dowry.”

“I am told she has a wart on her chin.”

“In the dark, you won’t see it.”

“And that she’s ill-tempered.”

“Not unlike her intended.”

“
And fat.”

“All the
better to hold.”

“You can rest assured, dear
lady, never will I wed Matilda of Angoulême. There is only one woman for me.”

“All men are rogues and scoundrels.”

“But do all men kiss like this?”

When Drake made sweet love to Aveline, world and worries
disappeared. This moment was no different, however short-lived and even when his life was on the line, his king was in danger, and the mission before him was fraught with danger. Despite their impassioned kisses, the world eventually intruded. He pricked up his ears. She lifted her eyes. They parted.

Emerging from the thick woodland, an army of men advanced. Drake
foisted Aveline to his rear and unsheathed his sword. Weapons drawn, Clarendon and d’Amboise scrambled to the fore.

The leader of the band, big-boned, broad-muscled
, and marked with a scar along the underside of his chin, folded empty hands over the pommel of his saddle. “Drake fitzAlan?” he said levelly, his dark eyes sparkling in the gloom of twilight. “I’ll have you know me and my men chased you and your brother over field and forest that black night at Nonancourt, though half the time we didn’t know where in Hell we were, a tribute to your shrewdness.”

Twisting around, he
spoke to his men. “The bastards …” Belatedly recognizing the presence of a lady no matter how attired, he amended his speech. “Begging your pardon,
ma demoiselle
. The fitzAlans ran us in circles, did they not? We snapped off our own tails but not theirs.” The soldiers at his back groused, ready to attack at their captain’s command.

“
You
are
Drake and not Stephen?” A shock of raven hair fell like a wing over his brow. “When you escaped from Nonancourt, John ranted loud enough to be heard in Dover and made grandiose plans to sail for Merrie England. Now I hear how you singlehandedly invaded Chinon Castle to make a second attack on the king, this time with your own arrow and not d’Évreux’s.” His head slanted on a curious tilt. “
Oui
, word travels fast in Normandy, faster than the north wind. The more I learn about Drake fitzAlan, the more I suspect he is akin to the proverbial cat, as now, when you seem to have escaped the king’s clutches yet again.”

Rand Clarendon drew a parchment from his
pouch. “He is still in the king’s custody, being transported back to Nonancourt.”

“To join his fellow
conspirators in the tower?” The chieftain reached down for the parchment but did not put his eyes to it.

“And thence to Dover.”

“For a speedy execution?” He returned the writ to the king’s marshal. “I’m not surprised to see the captain of Mortaigne’s guard with the prisoner, but I do not know you.”

“Randall of Clarendon, the king’s marshal.”

“Are you now? Since when?”

“A sennight past.”

“And does the king’s marshal grant the king’s prisoners swords in place of shackles?”

R
eading the glint in the chieftain’s eyes for what it was, Drake sheathed his sword. “You may stand down, gentlemen. Unless you wish to eviscerate the king’s favorite troubadour, Bertran de Born who, if I read him rightly, means us no harm.”

“Does he not?” The troubadour sat back, the saddle crack
ling to the shift of his weight. “For you see, unlike most troubadours, I do not drone on about the art of courtly love. Rather, I shock my listeners with blood and gore, which makes me quite the more dangerous than your average singer of songs.” His hand swept across the strength of his army. “Behold.”

At a gesture, his men sheathed their swords in unison.

“But I beg to differ,” the troubadour went on, removing his gloves. “Being a burr at his backside, Richard would hardly miss me.
Oyez
! Does this mean I condone regicide? Hardly. But first we must ascertain who is the assassin and who, the scapegrace. And I do mean scapegrace and not scapegoat.”

Throwing a leg over his saddle, he descended to the woodland floor and reached for Aveline’s hand. “We meet again,
demoiselle
.”

She granted him a brash curtsey and commented to her gallant knight, “
Sieur de Born escorted the queen’s chamber to Chinon.”

“That he did.” Born slapped Drake on the back. “Except at the time, I did not know I was transporting the mystery woman of Dreux.”

“I AM WHAT
some call a landed
seigneur
, though woefully lacking in land. And a loyal vassal of Richard’s, except when he insults me, which is most of the time.”

In the hastening dark, Bertran de Born saw to the security of the encampment’s perimeter, the comfort of the horses
, and the spirit of his men. He was a master who controlled by wit rather than whip. When antics became too boisterous, he resorted to song, his voice soaring lofty and accomplished. He employed words meant to instill pride and courage, words written by the knight himself in the quiet hours when his men slept.

The k
ing’s knight and troubadour traveled hard but traveled well. He shared his stores as he shared his song. Munificently he passed out the freshest loaves of maslin bread, the sweetest tastes of Anjou wine, and the choicest cuts of roast piglet, the beast struck down shortly after making camp.

Duties discharged and his sword set aside, he sat a respectful distance from Drake’s small party
while stirring the campfire with a stick. “During my untold years with Richard,” he addressed Aveline, “I was forced many a time to put up with the infamous Plantagenêt temperament. FitzAlan here knows some of what I speak. Not all, as he and his brother were barely out of swaddling when they began their service. Was it three or four years past since you and Stephen joined Richard?”

“Six,” Drake said, lifting one of Born’s silver goblets to his mouth.

“So it was. Seven years ago, I joined Young Henry against his brother. Against my liege lord, you understand. Against the inestimable, the fierce, the handsome, the short-tempered duke of Aquitaine, not to mention his father, the king. When the debacle ended, Richard reluctantly took me back into the fold. He should have been grateful for what I did. If not for me and my Aquitaine allies, his brother would not have gone down the wayward path and met his untimely death. And Richard, alas, would not now be king.”

Leaning forward, he sliced off a pork loin. “Then I did the unthinkable. I tried to displace my older brother and take the family castle by force. Richard evicted me, the bastard. That time I did the forgiving, if not crawling on hands and knees.”

Born’s eyes prowled the fire circle. “From the devil the Plantagenêts sprang, and to the devil they will go.”

“You’re headed back to Chinon?” d’Amboise asked on a belch.

Born nodded. “Richard leaves for a last reconnaissance of Aquitaine. He has some castle-mending to do. Also bishops to name. Seneschals to secure. Charters for a religious house or two. A visit to his only begotten son, bastard though he is. A hanging in Bigorre of some nameless noble who takes joy in plundering innocent pilgrims. A second meeting, I gather, with the kings of Navarre and Aragón. Richard will need swords to contain the Aquitaine during his absence. Spanish swords. The best kind there are when Norman swords are drawing blood elsewhere.”

Drake leaned back on his elbows. “Then you’ll be going on crusade with Richard?”

“I can’t afford to. I’ll keep the home fires burning, figuratively rather than literally.” His smile was barbarous. “You don’t fancy marrying the heiress of Angoulême? I hear she is a rare beauty and virtuous besides. Then there are her uncles Ademar and Aimery, who ought to make your life Hell.
If
you should survive the wedding night.” His laughter surpassed that of his men.

Drake looked toward Aveline. Her eyes, golden from the campfire, stared beyond the pyre.

When the piglet was reduced to charred bone, Born brought out a lute that had seen many wars. He tuned the instrument, stretching the catgut to a precise and pleasing tone. His voice had a grainy quality yet was melodious from a lifetime of practice. The song began pleasantly enough, exalting the joyful time of spring when flowers come into bloom and birds chirp gaily, but abruptly changed tone with images of war and of men bleeding and dying on those same blossom-laden fields.

The last note brought mordant chortles. Gazing at his silent instrument, Bertran said to Aveline, “I know your man.”

She slid her eyes sideways.

“FitzAlan is loyal to
Richard, that much is certain. Therefore, he is neither assassin nor traitor, which is why I didn’t hang him as soon as I laid eyes on him.” He shrugged as if the facts were trivial. “Clearly there are forces working against him. The king’s brother, most likely.”

“But which one?”

Born broke into genuine laughter. “She’s an uncommon lady, is the mystery woman of Dreux.”

“That she is,” Drake agreed.

Climbing wearily to his feet, Born said, “A long day greets us come morning. Captain d’Amboise, you’re welcome to join us. You wouldn’t want your lord to miss you for one day longer than necessary.”

“There’s truth in that,
monsieur
.”

As the seasoned knight tramped off to his bed beneath the stars, Drake washed weary eyes over Aveline. Despite flames licking her face, the chill of a spring night gripped the daughter of an alewife. Drake
wrapped his tunic about her shoulders and held her close while she idly plucked the strings of Born’s lute. Discordant notes rang out. “Do not try to make me respectable, Drake fitzAlan. I have chosen my lot in life.”

Two days and a hundred miles later, king’s assassin and king’s marshal entered Nonancourt Castle at vespers. As he had once before, Drake fitzAlan gained access to the castle precincts in the guise of a king’s man. Covering
his distinctive sun-kissed hair with a helm, wearing the red-and-gold surcote of the king’s guard, bearing a supercilious manner and a noticeable limp, presenting the king’s writ with a flourish of his ringed hand, and keeping at his side the newly appointed king’s marshal, he passed unrecognized and unchallenged.

Brought presently within the turret chamber where the prisoners had been held under close guard for a long month, Drake oversaw his supposed accomplices locked in chains by the brisk Nonancourt turnkeys
at the best of the authoritative Randall of Clarendon. The auburn-haired Chauvigny, the swarthy Béthune, and the dun-colored Fors were shocked into mute mistrust. Devon, his hair flaming brighter than usual, was the only one to smile, which Drake corrected with an incisive remark. Three astonished knights and one subdued squire were conducted to the gatehouse, clanking like galley slaves, while their warden hobbled several paces behind. Saddled horses waited. They were, one and all, mounted.

Not until they traveled some five miles west
, broached the woodland shores of the River Eure, and arrived at a stand of chestnut trees did the traitors of Nonancourt Tower clamor for explanation.

Drake held up a key, which silenced them. While knights and squire released themselves from their chains, their rescuer said, “You are still, one and all, prisoners of the king, as am I
, and under the custody of the king’s marshal Randall de Clarendon. Unless, that is, we can prove ourselves innocent of treason.”

“And how are we to do that?” asked Baldwin.

“By unmasking the king’s true assassin.”

André said, “You so avow he isn’t yourself?”

“On the contrary. He is. I tried to assassinate Richard at Chinon by shooting an arrow into his chest. But alas, he survived, woe unto us all.”

Baldwin said,
“We heard about that. We didn’t believe it.”

“’
Tis true.”

“They say you stormed the castle, an army of one,” Fors said. “They say you aimed for the heart. They say God in his mercy intervened.”

“Three shirts of mail intervened.”

André urged his steed abreast Drake. “Then Richard was expecting you?”

“He was.”

“And d’Évreux? He was in league with you after all?”

“Whoever used d’Évreux used me. The difference being, d’Évreux knew the man he served, which is why he was killed. I, on the other hand, do not, which is why I live, though Richard’s largess has much to do with my continued longevity.”

“
Mon Dieu
,” invoked Chauvigny.

“—Cannot help.” Playing with the reins of his Arabian, Drake surveyed the knights. “You did not, any of
you, have prior knowledge of Tancrede d’Évreux’s misdeeds? Or know if he conspired with any man or men, other than the feisty Jacotte? Or heard him boast of riches, power, or glory to come?”

To a man, the knights disavowed every implication.

“Are you in collusion with the comte of Mortaigne?”

“We are not,” André said adamantly.

“Or the archbishop of York? Even to hear your confession, or he yours?”

To a one, they shook their heads.

“Or King Philippe? Or any of his minions? Guillaume des Barres, for example, who was quick to accuse me.”

“You know the answer to that, Drake,” said André.

“I do, but I need to hear it from your lips.”

To a man, they denied every involvement.

“May God take you if you have lied to me,” said Drake. “Because if He doesn’t, I will.”

“And yourself, Drake fitzAlan?” asked Baldwin. “We have
n’t heard a disavowal come from your lips.”

“No, but you shall hear this
. The knight known as Stephen fitzAlan is being held hostage at the behest of one or all or none of those heretofore named men as surety against the successful assassination of King Richard … by me.”

“God’s cock,” said Chauvigny.

“And unless we find Stephen, free him, and unmask his kidnappers as traitors, it will behoove me to complete my mission. Or die trying.”

The force of his statement brought respectful silence.

André de Chauvigny said, “Then we are with you. Where do we start looking?”

Drake cast his eyes on the darkening verdant landscape. “Here. Where I was abducted by a half-dozen knights.”

“English or Norman?” Baldwin asked.

“French,” Drake answered.

“God’s cock,” intoned Fors.

Drake sent forth a trilling whistle. As Aveline came out of hiding, bringing along her steed, he said, “May I present my squire-in-training.”

“But she’s a woman,” Devon said.

“Really?” he said, looking her up and down. “I hadn’t particularly noticed.”

To which every man laughed.