Crown of the Realm (A White Knight Adventure Book 2) (13 page)

WHILE ALYS CAPÉT
demonstrated that she was more than a match for either of her brothers, day had segued into evening.

Accommodations were briskly provided, more food put out, a becoming gown found for
Aveline, and a conduct of safe passage written. As the night was young, the comtesse’s seven uninvited but most welcome guests were squired into the great hall, there to pass a pleasant evening and another more lavish meal. 

The hall was already being warmed by a gathering of highborn
gentlemen and ladies, gaily attired and conversing congenially. Wall sconces and candelabra left no dark corners as the guests of Château de Chaumont wandered from pillar to pillar.

Alys apologized for the absence of her older sister, Marie, the
comtesse of Champagne. “Since her husband the comte died, Marie stays in virtual seclusion at her palace in Troyes and spends most of her waking hours on her knees. Strange indeed, since in her youth, Marie claimed a few wicked graces. That is to say, in a most courtly manner befitting her station.”

The high table had been arranged at the far end of the hall. The sideboards and padded benches extended alongside adjacent walls. The white overcloths, ready laid with salt cellars of gold, pitchers of pewter, goblets of rock crystal, mazers of silver, an abundance of spoons,
and a few sharp knives and serving forks, presaged the feast to come.

“You know of course, my sister and I married brothers. The decision was made by our father when Marie and I were left motherless and I was but an infant. It was our fate and our duty. We accepted the arr
angement throughout our formative years. Love did not enter into the contracts. Still, each in our own way, we grew to have regard for Henry and Thibaud, Marie and I, if not true affection.” She cleared her throat. “Most days and a few scattered nights.”

Alys snapped her finger at one of the servers, who closely resembled the captain though a younger version and more obedient to his mother’s will. “My younger son Thibaud. I would introduce you, but as you can see, he is inconsequential as well as occupied.” Indeed he was,
delivering an oversized platter laden with roast pheasant. She smiled the smile of the wise and patted Aveline’s hand. “And how is my other dear sister, Alais? Still trying to consummate her marriage to my dear brother? It becomes tiresome keeping track of whose side one ought to take, if any, especially when we are one big happy family.”

A gracious hostess possessing a skill for assembling diverse personalities, the
comtesse of Blois made herself felt everywhere and constantly. Drake had the occasion, as he had at Nonancourt, to make the acquaintance of André of Champagne.

Having served as chaplain in
her sister Marie’s household, Alys was explaining, Andreas Capellanus, “as he likes to call himself though no one else does,” had since moved on to serve King Philippe in the royal chapel. “Andreas should have been the last person to write a tract on the art of courtly love. But write it, he did,” Alys said of the drably dressed man, “at the insistence of my sister and to the amazement of all who know and love him. Some think the entire exercise was one to meet a whimsical challenge with well-met sarcasm, isn’t that so Andreas?”

He nodded politely.

“Others claim him to be wholly serious. Still others insist he practiced all that he preached, which amuses the women but insults the men. Wherever lay the truth, his work has been copied and passed around and ceaselessly quoted, elevating the status of this otherwise unremarkable priest more than devoutness has ever done. Tell me, Andreas, is it true you wear the king’s seal to bed?”

“I never remove it from my person.”

“How it must get in the way of lovemaking.”

“If it pleases you to say so,
ma chère comtesse
.” He turned to Drake. “And may I say, I am most surprised to see you here, Sieur fitzAlan. The last we met, you had just attempted to assassinate your king.”

Drake glanced askance at Alys, who smiled placidly and said, “An unfortunate confusion.”

“Indeed. I shall have to explain that to the lady who caught the arrow bolt … when next I see her in Purgatory.”

“
Then you will have to inform her it was not my arrow,” Drake said.

“Whose then?”

“Tancrede d’Évreux.”

“The one with hair like rusty nails?”

“You’re thinking of André de Chauvigny, not to be mistaken for my squire standing beside him.” The chaplain vaguely followed Drake’s gesture. “Tancrede was the tall, gangly one.”

“Perhaps I do recall. And he is dead? How
fortunate for you, though very unfortunate for him.” He tilted his head in deep thought. “But if he is dead, who was the assassin at Chinon?” He focused on Drake, who merely shrugged a shoulder. “We have all heard the regrettable news about Richard, have we not, Comtesse?”

Alys smiled pleasantly. “A rumor only, and mean-spirited at that. Ah, here are my daughters—Isabelle, Alys
, and Marguerite—as lovely as spring flowers, and recently returned from serving Queen Isabelle, so cruelly taken from us.”

“That is not what I heard
,” Andreas said.

“That the queen did not die in childbirth? Then we must inform the king, and quickly.”

“That it was a mean-spirited rumor.”

Distracted with sniffing and preening her pretty spring flowers, she finally brought herself to say, “All the same, that is the case. So says Richard’s marshal
there—Randall de Clarendon—who accompanied my cousin here.”

Andreas squinted into the distance. “I have been too long at my writing. I do not recognize the
gentil-homme
.”

“
Newly installed. You must stay with times, my dear Andreas. Moreover, I don’t believe an assassin or group of assassins would be wandering around the countryside seeking the attention of a dead king’s sister, do you?”

“You have put me in my place,
ma douce comtesse
,” he said, and bowed.

Standing nearby, a man who could only have the occupation of a chevalier
—being sandy-haired, bearded, and massively built—had been tuning his ear to the conversation. “Whether of good heart or bad, kings should not be made targets by anyone other than their brothers.”

“Ah, Guillaume
,” Alys said. “How very astute of you. And have you met my cousin?”

“Your cousin! Now that does come as a surprise.” He broke away from his companions and bowed. A scar ran through his beard from outer eye to upper lip. “We met at Nonancourt, if you remember. But not your beautiful bride, if she is indeed your bride and not your
—?”

“
That will do, Guillaume. Aveline Darcy has the fragile sensibilities of all women, but if you cross her, she will assuredly take you to task.”

“So I’ve heard. You daren’t pat poor Louis on the stomach
without his entrails seeping through the cracks.” The knight took Aveline’s hand and bent to deliver a kiss.

Alys said to Drake, “You may or may not know that my brother Richard holds a personal grudge against Guillaume
, above all because he had the temerity of capturing the fortress of Châteauroux for my brother Philippe. And had the double temerity of thwarting Richard from recapturing it. But also because Des Barres ungallantly broke a promise of parole.”

“Only on account of Richard plunging his sword into my destrier when he was unable to win fairly.”

“As to who should hold the grudge longer, I am unsure, but I am certain it will endure beyond my patience.”

“The point,” Barres said, smiling affably, “is taken. And since the custody of Châteauroux has been decided in favor of André de Chauvigny there, him taking to wife
its fair and rightful owner, Richard and I have declared a truce.”

He released Aveline’s hand and took
Alys’s, kissing it in turn. “Until the next time,” the comtesse said, her countenance remarkably placid.

AFTER A LATE SUPPER
and light entertainment to close the day, Alys invited Aveline to share her bed. “Two rewards for the price of one,” the comtesse said. “The comte
won’t dare disturb our slumber and your reputation will remain intact.” Drake bowed to her wisdom, delivering chaste kisses, two for the comtesse and two for the daughter of an alewife.

Settling near
the hearthfire, Drake raised a goblet to his lips at regular intervals. The sable rug spread beneath him somewhat softened the hardness of the oaken floor and the sourness of his mood. Others like him, lacking private chambers and comfortable beds, or preferring to tarry until the wee hours, lazed about in similar fashion, sharing conviviality and drink. Chauvigny, Béthune, and Fors repaired to a corner and took up a game of dice. Rand curled up on a pallet, a woolen blanket gathered about his shoulders. Balanced over his heels, Devon hovered not far from his master.

“You survived incarceration, Devon of Wheeling. And with three such seasoned knights. I hope they didn’t take advantage of your inexperience.”

Chauvigny called out from across the hall. “Of course we did!”

“They taught me many things,” Devon said, his trusting eyes flying between André and Drake. “Such as how to
find my way under a lass’s skirts, how to cheat at dice, and how to get drunk without swooning.”

“The basics,” Béthune threw back.

Devon chuckled into his cup while Louis de Blois painfully lowered himself onto a nearby stool. His face awash with the flames of the hearth, he leaned into the heat, occasionally looking asquint at Drake. For a long while the three lads sat in respectful silence. A wordless truce evolved.

Intruding on their growing torpor, Guillaume des Barres kicked away a sleeping dog and sat among them on the rush-strewn floor. As he lifted a goblet to his lips, his eyes stared into the soporific
flames. When he finally used it, his voice was lethargic with wine and fatigue. “What do you propose to do now?”

Rousing himself from near-sleep, Drake shifted onto his side.

“Now that you’ve been absolved of shooting a stray arrow or two, it behooves you to point a finger, which seems to be twisting in an easterly direction.” His eyebrows raised on a slant. “If you did not know already, I will inform you. The king of France does not encourage regicide. Even if he did, what would he have to gain?”

“An English king he can more easily kick out of Normandy. Like you just did that hound.”

The knight’s disfiguring scar puckered. “
Oui
, but if anything happened to your king, my king would lose his most interesting chess partner.”

“John is nearly as much fun to play with as Richard.”

The knight’s brown gaze was direct. “You’ve had occasion to play?”

Drake peered over the rim of his chalice. “Since childhood days. Come to think, John is too easy to beat. Any victory would hold little meaning.”

“Everyone knows him to be hot-headed and unpredictable.”

“He also cheats. And lies.”

The knight speculatively cocked his head. “Geoffrey then?”

“Ah, now Geoffrey ….” Drake sipped his wine and savored the taste before swallowing. “Geoffrey is even more graceless than John.”

“Therefore more dangerous. By my count, one candidate remains.”

“If I’m not mistaken, we have exhausted the field.”

“One,” Barres reiterated.

“And if I were to put a name to the man?”

Barres split wide his wheaten beard. “Ah. Seems you and I think alike.”

Drake emptied his goblet.

“If you know,” Barres challenged Drake, “why not go after him?”

“Only one reason,” Drake said. “Perhaps two.”

“That you have no proof?”

“That is one.”

“And your brother will be killed before you can liberate him.
Oui.
I know. He has been taken hostage.” His eyes traveled to Louis and held. “Stephen fitzAlan may already be dead.” 

“I have thought of that,” Drake said.

“In that case, it may be wise to go after your man in any event.”

“And if he is your king?”

The knight shrugged. “The game begins anew.” Clambering to his feet, Barres saluted and went to find a pallet.

Drake let his sight wander to his cousin. “You have nothing to say, Louis of Blois?”

“Such as offering an apology?” he said, without looking directly at Drake.

“I will die an old man waiting for one.” Drake had a cure for aloofness. In prelude, a grin rose on lips licked moist. “Ah,” he said languorously, “to take the hillocks of desire into two hands and squeeze them as one squeezes ripe oranges, tasting of the fruit and swallowing the sour with the sweet until the sun rises on the opposite horizon from the moon, between which the sword, honed sharp, stands straight, true
, invincible … and afterwards … satisfied.”

The heir of Blois turned the cryptic phrases over in his mind. Shaking his head, he remitted himself to the sable rug and sprawled onto his side, becoming at once a mirror image of his cousin. His goblet, only half-empty, lay at
his slack hand. The gleam in his heavy-lidded eyes was a direct challenge.

Drake took it. “It would seem you have never before come face to face with your divided birthright.”

His eyes shifted.

“You have already paid h
omage to your uncle, the king of France?”

“I have.”

“And your other uncle?”

“—Is a stranger.” Louis skimmed his eyes toward the hearthfire just as a log snapped and disintegrated into burning cinders. “They are sworn enemies.”

“Are they?”

“How often have they placed themselves on opposite sides of swords crossed at mid-blade?”

“True,” said Drake. “But they have also drunk together and laughed together and played chess together. And adjudged each other allies, and more than that, brothers.” Drake ran his finger round the rim of his empty goblet. “The battles they wage every now and again are but games.”

“Games where other men pay with their lives.”

“Games, nonetheless.”

Louis harrumphed and slammed a fist to his chin, his stubborn eyes taking in the dying embers.

Drake said, “Your eyes are like hers, you know.” Louis blinked. “Queen Eleanor,
votre grande-mère
.”

“And if they are?”

Louis had a way of drawing his brows together much like Stephen did and, Drake supposed, much like he himself did. Shrugging, he said, “Only that you have more in common with the profligate side of your family than you know.”

A fresh pitcher delivered by Devon brought Louis’ defenses down more, and soon Drake and he were exchanging other riddles suggestive of that most beguiling entity in
all the world: womanly flesh. After they had exhausted their poetic imaginings, satisfying their humors but not their loins, Drake spoke reverently of his lord, entertaining Louis with some of the more outrageous stories of the rash and ruthless duke of Aquitaine. Such as the time when Richard routed his own father from Le Mans, the town of his birth, and sent him running like a dog with his tail tucked between his hind legs.

“Of course,” Drake said, “Richard was sorry for it. His father died soon
thereafter, of a fistula in the lower bowels. It seems King Henry thought his son a pain in the arse, and I, for one, would have to agree with him.” Drake glanced up, grinning, and met the equally grinning face of his cousin.

* * *

As Drake gathered
the reins of his Arabian, the comtesse of Blois said, “Drake,
cher,
are you sure about this?”

They had assembled in the gatehouse, a scene of confrontation the day before
but a place of conciliation this day.

Drake flourished a blithe hand. “I can cover more ground alone.”

“That’s not the reason.” Standing staunchly next to her Breton, Aveline said, “He’s going to carry out what he failed to do at Chinon. Aren’t you?” And when he didn’t protest. “Aren’t you!”

“I can’t abandon my brother.”

“I can’t let you do it.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“No … but
they
can.”

The challenge was one that a king’s marshal and three king’s knights could not easily ignore. Their hands drifted to the pommels of their swords and twitched.

Stepping away from the dappled gray, Drake deliberately released his dragon sword, metal scratching and sunlight caressing its honed blade. “I may not be able to cut down all of you, but I can cut down at least one. And will. Who wants to be the first? Chauvigny? Béthune? Anyone? Come, there must be at least one dead hero amongst you.”

“I fear,
mon cher
,” said the comtesse, “even if you take this lonely path, Stephen will not be restored to you. Surely there must be another way.”

“Dear
cousin, what do you suggest? Storm the Cité Palace and hold a dagger to your other brother’s throat until he confesses his sin? Search all of France’s dungeons whilst Stephen is moved from one to another? Become a recluse, and for the price of a
sou
, spin out fortunes, praying that one of them one day will be my own?”

She was at a loss for words
. Tears glazed her eyes, and for the first time, Drake saw the years of living she had endured, years that took a toll. Her husband and her son stood supportively near her but did not speak.

“Drake …”

He spun on a heel. “Spare me the force of your logic, Rand. Logic has been abandoned, though not by me.”

“You forget … the
routiers
… they know where to find Stephen.”

“Ah, but where to find the
routiers
. For I promise you, they no longer serve Mercadier.” He swept his eyes from man to man, his comrades-in-arms, knights who had come with him this far but could go no farther. The long trail was for Drake to travel alone. “Tell me how I may save my brother without sacrificing my king, or save my king without sacrificing my brother. No one? Then get out of my way or face the sharpness of my blade. And afterwards, hold a requiem mass for Stephen and Drake fitzAlan, who served their king well.”

As one, king’s marshal and king’s knights stood down, their sword arms returning benignly to their sides.

“Is there not a man among you?” Aveline, dressed in a boy’s costume though unlikely to be mistaken for one, spun to each in turn. “No?” Advancing on Devon, she took him by surprise. When next the squire reached for his side, his scabbard was empty and Aveline was brandishing his cumbersome sword. Sidestepping, she gamely placed herself between her man and his palfrey. “I won’t witness your beheading, Drake fitzAlan! I mean it!”

Drake lowered the point of his sword. “I can easily take you.”

“Then do it!”

His blade came up, lightning swift, and sent Devon’s sword skittering
across the straw. Aveline clutched her benumbed wrist. Drake sheathed his sword and advanced. She backed away, angling toward the Breton. He reached out and ripped the reins from her hands. She yelped from the burning scrape. He grasped her, forceful enough to imprint bruises on her arms. The fine tresses of her hair swirled about her head, but she refused to cry out, or to cry. Instead, she thrust her moon face upward, anger swallowing the defiant eyes, hatred sealing the hardened mouth, loathing lining the rigid brow. He tangled her unkempt hair into his twisting fingers and dragged her head back. Lowering his mouth close to hers, he lingered and inhaled her essence. Sweeping her into his arms, he flung her into the saddle of her Breton. And then whipping the binding thong from his hair, cruelly tied her flailing hands to each other and to the pommel.

“You’re a brute, Drake fitzAlan!
I will never forgive you!”

“You won’t have to, for I will be in Hell.” Turning he said, “Marshal Clarendon, if you will kindly deliver the
demoiselle
Darcy to the queen at Chinon.”

Rand scooped up the Breton’s reins. “She won’t like it.”

“But I will. Sieur de Chauvigny! You have leave to return to your bride of the red château and bed her ’til the cock crows, afterwards to bed her until the noon hour, and if you have strength left, bed her until evensong. Consider that an order.”

André cocked an eyebrow. “And may God have mercy on my soul.”

“Sieur de Fors. Since you will soon have a bride to call your own, you may as well preserve your strength for the wedding night.”

Guillaume bowed his amusement.

“Sieur de Béthune. Because you lack an heiress, you have my permission to amuse yourself as best you see fit.”

Baldwin bowed to Drake’s wisdom. “I will do my best.”

“But I warn you all, do not show yourselves until Richard’s return.”

Drake
approached the comtesse, took her hand into his, and bent to kiss it. After mounting the Arabian, he wheeled the steed around. “Don’t let the Lady Aveline get the better of you, Rand.” As if to memorize her every feature, he allowed his eyes to caress the obstinate lips, the cherry cheekbones, and the throbbing throat.