Sword of Justice (White Knight Series) (23 page)

“It was the foremost question on my lips, Milady.”

Drake was not shown into a formal chamber of reception but rather the queen’s living quarters. A sweet-scented oil permeated the royal antechamber. The walls were paneled with polished maple, the floors tiled with imported marble, the windows fitted with glass, and the quarters furnished with silk hangings, carpets from the Levant, satin cushions, and embroidered tapestries. A collection of possessions surrounded her, possessions garnered and treasured over the years of her reigns, first as queen of France and then, after the annulment of her first marriage on grounds of consanguinity, queen of England. In a twist of fate, or more likely careful design, Eleanor was distantly related by blood to both her husbands, all three having descended from King Robert the Pious of France.

“Your brother Stephen knows how to wear clothes as they ought to be worn, even after travelling dusty roads for days. Sad to say, you don’t.”

“I regret appearing crude to the queen.”

“Not crude, my dear boy. Endearing. In need of guidance.” She withdrew her hand and motioned toward a nearby stool. “You may sit.”

Assisted by Eleanor’s maid Amaria, the queen’s personal seamstress had been showing her mistress an exquisite scarlet cape made of ells and ells of silk edged with sable and squirrel. A matching gown similarly trimmed completed the ensemble. Returning her attention to the dress she would undoubtedly wear for her son’s coronation, Eleanor perfunctorily approved both items with some slight alterations. Amaria and the seamstress departed on a whisper. The door closed behind them, leaving Drake alone with the queen and the princess Alais.

Her sky-blue eyes penetrating him to the core. “She was a beautiful lady, your mother. You take after her more and more, you and Stephen. A tall woman. Graceful. Pious.”

“I don’t remember her. Stephen does. Says he does.”

“
Oui
, she was that kind of woman, Philippia of Aquitaine. A woman to remember. You have come for the festivities?”

“I have.”

“I promise you will not be disappointed. My son the king has left the coronation in my hands. And you well know how I can entertain, sparing no expense.”

“I have had the pleasure.”

Drake’s earliest memories of the celebrated queen were of her incarceration. After King Henry took up with the fair Rosamund; after he dangled annulment before his queen; and after Eleanor joined forces with her three living sons against the king, the lady was fortified behind the impregnable walls of several castles. Nearby Sarum and Winchester Castles were among her prisons, but there were others. She was moved like so much forgotten baggage, always under guard and under suspicion, cruelly separated from gentile society, and allowed only the briefest visits from her sons, who had briefly joined with her in mutiny against their father the king and failed miserably. In recent years, Old King Henry allowed the door of his queen’s cage to be opened on occasion, and Eleanor readily took advantage of those short flights of freedom, surrounding herself with the courtly gestures of old.

Even while regarding Drake with a motherly pride, she was remembering those days when she was shut up like a canary in a cage. Indeed, how could she ever forget her removal from all those things she held dear, the comforts of castles and privilege, and the profane separation of a mother from her sons? “Do you trust he will make a good king, your liege lord?”

During those few times when Drake was brought before her, she demonstrated unceasing loyalty to her favored son Richard. Now that he was to be crowned king of England, she had achieved the crowning achievement of a lifetime fraught with hard-fought battles and deprivations. Her question appealed for either fawning sanction or a weighed response. Knowing Eleanor, she preferred the weighed response.

“He
may
make a great king, Milady. If he remembers he is king and not knight.”

“Ah,
oui
. He thinks himself immortal. He believes illness cannot harm him, arrows pierce other men’s flesh, and Death knows not his name. You and I, we know better. We shall make it our mission—shall we not?—to teach him the difference between
chevalier
and
roi
.” She arranged the skirts of her purple damask as if posing for a statue. “And how is your brother?”

“In good health, the last I heard.”

“And your father?”

“Losing his temper daily.”

She smiled. “You would do well to learn everything you can from him. Your father may be Saxon, loyal to his heritage and his country, but he knows how to manipulate we conquering Normans as well as the next. Itchendel attests to that. He’s done well. You don’t know how well. You were born to your rank. William fitzAlan was not. A head for administration, bravery on the battlefield, political acumen … the lord of Itchendel possesses all these attributes … but he accomplished in one stroke what other means would have taken years to effect. He married your mother.”

“The daughter of your brother.”

“The daughter of my bastard brother Joscelin, whom I loved well. Know this if nothing else. He did not win your mother’s hand by guile. He earned it through loyalty and service to his king.”

Enlightened by the revelation, Drake glanced up. “Not so unlike me and Stephen.”

“Though a man cannot serve his king hanging from a gibbet, now can he?” Her smile was charming yet laced with mockery. “How, if I may be so blunt,
is
your neck?”

“So far, un-stretched.”

An eyebrow lifted as the queen sought Alais’ opinion. “I did not know my grandnephew was so skilled with a sword, did you Alais?”

His heart skipped a beat. “Milady is well-informed.”

“Milady must be well-informed since she is the eyes and the ears of her son.” She waited for him to speak.

Drake chose his words wisely, but they were tinged with some humor the queen would appreciate. “I can only say that I wish I were so skilled with a sword.”

Eleanor was pleased with his response. “In which case, you are not guilty of the foul acts of which you are accused.” 

“Not a one, Milady.”

“Still, I am concerned. By the looks of your contusions, some aged, others wholly new, it appears you have been put upon more than once.”

“It hurts only when I smile.”

“Then you must take it upon yourself not to smile.” She could not help but smile herself, nor could Drake, even though it did hurt. “And do you regard these attacks upon your person as isolated approaches?”

“They are all connected. Except …”

“
Oui
,
mon cher
.”

“I have not yet put together the pattern.”

“But you think …?”

He yet carried the missive from Jenna, which he meant to deliver posthaste to the queen’s youngest son. Up until now, he had been on a trail of subterfuge leading to a moneylender, a secretive merchants’ alliance, the sweet-smelling proprietress of pleasure house, a mercenary knight, and the Winchester Treasury. The mutilated corpses of three lads were in their graves and the well-being of three others in mortal danger. Then there was the fair lass who sent a missive through the hands of her fiancé’s brother. All paths were converging at a single crossroads, and at its center was the seat of the crown.

Drake daren’t voice his suspicions. And so he shrugged.

The queen glanced in Alais’ direction. A brown braid snaking over her shoulder, the girl gazed modestly downward. “You know our dear Alais has been promised to Richard in marriage. You know the pledge was made many years ago. You know vicious rumors were put about attaching Alais’ name to my beloved Henry. Yet she is constant by my side. I love her as one of my own daughters. Indeed, she is the offspring of my first husband, Louis. Dear Louis. We produced only daughters, and so Henry Plantagenêt was my amorous consolation and his children—our children—my reward. Hence, my dear king and husband knew where to strike when retaliation was his. He robbed me of my sons and claimed them for his own.”

Tears came to her eyes, trembling to her body, and remorse to her heart, which she clutched with a bony hand.

“My punishment was almost too much to bear. But what choice did I have except to endure each day with the grace of a queen and wait for my day of vindication? God saw to it that Henry’s pride was justly punished, first by taking away our eldest son William as a child. Then by cutting down our younger son Geoffrey. And finally by taking away his namesake. His suffering, though, was my suffering, too. We made these sons together and watched helplessly as they left us one by one. When you lose a child ….”

She could not speak further, and so she blinked back salty tears.

With her face returned once more to serenity she said, “When at last my king allowed his queen the company of our surviving sons, I tried to make amends for those lost years, particularly when it came to John, a child of six when his father ripped him from a mother’s devotion.” Leaning forward, she placed her chin at the crux of two fists and held Drake’s eyes. “I see pain behind your eyes.”

He hesitated before acknowledging the truth of her observation.

“Many trials and tribulations can happen in one’s lifetime. Yet we bear them as we must. We do not begrudge the past and look forward to what the next day will bring. Whatever occurs, Drake fitzAlan, I know your heart will be forever on the side of your king.”

“I have so pledged.” He touched hand to heart.

“That is all I ask. We shall inform the king of your—that is, Stephen’s—arrival, and thus allow your game of deceit and trickery to play out. And now let us eat and drink and talk of merry subjects.”

She signaled Alais, who came forward and offered an arm.

“And how is Geneviève de Berneval holding up? Does she still wish to wed a notorious felon and outlaw?”

“She does. But her parents may have something to say about it.”

“Her parents will not stand in your way. The fitzAlan name is a proud name. Jenna is destined to become lady of Itchendel, as you will become lord. Richard might have preferred pairing you with a more notable lady, but Jenna is a lovely child, versed in the ways of court. She will make you an exceptional wife.”

Once Drake would have believed the queen’s words as gospel. Now he was not so certain.

Chapter 21
                  
 

LONDON WAS IN
A CELEBRATORY
mood. Thousands of visitors come for the coronation had poured into town. Streets had been cleaned and spread with fresh straw. Half-timber houses were whitewashed anew and festooned with tapestries and flowers. Thatched roofs were spruced with clean rushes. Taverns, inns, and alehouses were well-stocked with food, drink, and conviviality. Shops were doing a brisk trade. Every day was market day. The festivities for the crowning of a new king were various and constant. Men, women, and children roamed the streets and alleyways, jovial and carefree. On this, the eve of the coronation, the celebrating was destined to last until daybreak, when it would begin afresh.

Drake sat alone in a noisy tavern on Watling Street, having neither the heart nor the stomach to lose himself in liquor and gaiety. He rummaged under his tunic and found Jenna’s letter. The seal had been broken, not by him but by the jostle of a seventy-mile ride. The note scorched his fingertips. He started to untie the strands as he had done many times before, but stopped himself as he had done each one of those times.

Not long after midnight, Drake stepped outside. Seeing that London was a town built for catching fire,
couvre-feu
was strictly enforced. The only illumination came from a few open windows or the rare torch toted by a servant for his master. Dangerous gangs regularly prowled the byways and alleyways after dark, but this night the streets teemed with revelers unwilling to call an end to the day. Making his way down Eastcheap, Drake cautiously glanced to his rear.

A robed monk, his head bent to the cobbled pavement, followed ten paces back, shiny leather boots kicking billowing skirts. Drake stepped up his pace. The monk adjusted his. Drake took a side street leading back toward Watling. The monk followed.

Rambling among merrymakers who reeled on unsteady feet, Drake made his way down to the Thames quayside. Cook fires lit up the river and set the sky aglow. From a shop, he bought a leg of roasted chicken dripping in a spicy sauce. From a wine merchant, he purchased spirits to wash down the chicken. Strolling along the wharf, he watched crates and baskets of goods being loaded onto one of three ships docked portside.

The monk sauntered past the spot Drake had occupied moments before. He halted briefly before pressing on. Slipping out from his hiding place, Drake smoothly swept a dagger around the front of the monk’s neck.

“Crist’s blood, Drake, you could kill me with that thing.”

Though the voice was familiar, Drake chose not to tempt fate. He convinced the monk, pointedly, to turn around. Not about to tempt fate himself, the monk obeyed the unspoken command, hands raised and unarmed. Drake used the dagger to push back the monk’s hood. The dark hair, mangy and in need of trimming, was unfamiliar. But the high forehead and hawklike face were more familiar to him than his own features, as was the long nose, down to the slight bump at center. The clear seawater eyes told him the stalker was harmless. Drake withdrew the dagger. “You’re supposed to be in Chinon posing as me.”