The Last Arrow RH3 (19 page)

"I miss her too. Not a day goes by when I do not wish she was here with us."

Alaric's arms hung helplessly by his sides, then slowly lifted and returned the squeeze. "Hush, child. Hush. I know you do. I also know Gil would not have wanted to see the two of us weeping like jaybirds every time someone men-tions her name. She regretted nothing. Neither should we. Now come, let us get out of the rain before it truly comes down."

Brenna leaned back and swiped a hand across her eyes to dry them. "If there is nothing wrong at Blois, why are you here? You must have left after dark and ridden half blind through the forest."

"My men have already thanked me profusely for the experience. Several of them will want clean braies before we make the return flight."

"Not tonight, surely?"

"I left without your brother knowing it and should return before he is aware of my absence." "Why?"

He sighed as if he had said too much already and resumed walking toward the keep. "I need to talk to your father."

"Shall I run ahead and tell him you are here?"

He shook his head. "Littlejohn has already done so. You could, however, see if there is any food or ale available for my men. I also used the excuse of a mare in foal to leave the supper table early and some of their bellies have been protesting since we crossed the river."

He said it offhandedly enough Brenna did not look up at once. When she did, he reached over just as casually to remove the long, silky tuft of grass she had inadvertently caught in the laces of her cotte. He said nothing more and they walked the rest of the way in silence, with their heads bent to protect them from the downpour and Brenna's cheeks burning furiously, wondering how it was that so few things escaped Lord Alaric's attention, however distracted he might be.

They parted company on the landing outside the great hall, but not for long. Varlets were wakened and dispatched to fetch food and drink, and with the thought that her father would likely be calling for similar refreshments for Lord Alaric, she filled a board with bread and cheese, and filched a flagon of wine from one of the servers.

Her parents' apartments occupied the whole of the east tower, with her father's audience chamber on the lower floor.

An obviously masculine room, it was dominated by a huge oak table surrounded by many chairs, set before a vast canvas on which was painted a map of England and the Continent.

There were no guards in the corridor or outside the arched double doors. One of them, in fact, had been left slightly ajar, and it was a good thing too, for there were no candles lit in the wall sconces and only a weak strip of light

escaped to spangle the stone floor and guide her way along the passage. She heard voices as she approached, and as she came nearer the brightening crack of light, her footsteps slowed, then stopped altogether. She had only a partial view of the room, which included the table and hearth, but she could see and hear that her father and Lord Alaric were not alone. Robin, Dag, and Richard were seated at the table looking rumpled and sleep-creased. Sparrow was snapping crossly at Will to light more candles, and Jean de Brevant was standing behind the Wolfs chair, his arms folded over his massive chest, his craggy face belligerent and unreadable as ever.

Dag had obviously been the last one to answer what must have been a hastily delivered summons, for he was still scraping his chair close to the table as Alaric FitzAthelstan took something out of a pouch and placed it in Lord Randwulf's hand. Brenna set the tray carefully on the floor and moved close enough to the door to fill the opening with a large violet eye. Only then could she see what they were all staring at, what had brought a sudden, stifling silence to the room.

It was a ring. A man's ring wrought in gold, the face of it carved in the image of a dragon rampant, the scaled jaws gaping wide and the forked tongue poised to spit flame. A single bloodred ruby marked the eye, and where it lay in her father's palm, the gem seemed to catch fire in the candlelight, making the golden beast come alive.

The Wolf stared at the ring for a long moment before looking up at the face of his friend and closest ally. "Where did you get this?" he asked hoarsely. "It was delivered to Blois this afternoon by a monk. He was very nearly on his last breath, frightened half out of his wits, and adamant about speaking to no one but Eduard." "I presume you convinced him otherwise?" Alaric nodded. "His loyalty was commendable and his tongue was stubborn, but he gave me the message. It comes from Marienne and says only: 'They have taken Lord Henry.'"

Almost a full minute passed, then everyone seemed to speak at once.

"Surely there was more to the message than that?"

"Who has taken Lord Henry?"

"Is Marienne all right? Is she hurt or in danger?"

"Three weeks! Did he swim across the Channel?"

"Where have they taken him?"

"Was it Gisbourne?"

As suddenly as the floodtide rose, it ebbed away again to a tense silence with everyone looking to Alaric for answers.

"You heard the entire message," he said calmly. " 'They have taken Lord Henry.' No mention of who or how or where. No mention if he is alive or dead, if it was Gisbourne or the king's men, or a simple peasant who discovered who he was and sought to collect the reward on his head."

Robin pushed angrily to his feet. "Regardless who took him, Marienne sent the ring. She would not have been able to do so had the lady not ordered it herself, and she would part with the dragon ring only if she thought more than just her own life was in mortal peril."

Outside in the corridor, Brenna's eyes widened almost beyond the limits of her lashes. The dragon ring! She had heard stories about it but never seen it. Around it, she knew, had evolved the history of her family—fabulous tales of a mighty battle between a Dragon Lord and a Black Wolf; of a daring rescue from the bleak donjons of Corfe Castle; of a valiant knight resigned to obscurity, who had forsworn his birthright to offer himself as protector to a lost princess...

Her father's voice pulled her gaze back into the room. "Does Eduard know?"

"I thought it best not to tell him yet, not when he is just beginning to mend. Knowing him, he would swim across the Channel if he had to, if he thought she needed him."

The Wolf nodded grimly. "You did the right thing, as always. Does anyone else at Blois know?"

"Lady Ariel. It was necessary to enlist her help to loosen the monk's tongue, for he was convinced eternal hell-fire awaited him if he failed to follow his instructions absolutely."

Sparrow put a hand to the hilt of his knife. "This gray-cloak—think you he knows more than he is willing to tell?"

Alaric shook his head. "He was honestly terrified and vastly relieved to be free of his burden."

Sparrow's mouth twisted and his fingers curled in disappointment.

"Where is he now?" the Wolf asked.

"In a warm bed, with a full belly and a cask of wine. Lady Ariel has promised to keep him drunk and safely locked away until I return and can send him out of harm's way. In the meantime—"

"In the meantime," the Wolf said, "we must try to make sense of the message ourselves. Obviously, Lord Henry has been taken prisoner, but by whom?"

"Gisbourne?" Richard suggested. "It would be the logical answer. He seems determined to rid the forests around Nottingham of outlaws; Henry might well have been taken by accident."

"Nottingham," Dag agreed, "is surely one of the king's most loyal strongholds and, as you say, Lord Henry has been playing with fire to be keeping such bold company as these outlaws of Sherwood."

"If the Eunuch had him," Sparrow chirped, "his toes would be well crimped and his head spiked on the castle gates.

Moreover, we would have heard Gisbourne's boastings by now."

"How so?"

The woodsprite glared at Richard, who had offered up the offending question. "Did the vaunted brain-biter have the smallest notion Lord Henry de Clare was within a thousand miles of his forest? And if so, would he not have razed that same forest to the ground long before now to flush him out?"

"Puck is right," Alaric said. "If the Sheriff of Nottingham knew he had Henry de Clare in his donjons, we would have heard before now."

"I should have killed him when I had the chance," Robin muttered.

"You will hear no argument from me," the seneschal retorted, folding his arms imperiously over his chest. "Heed the lesson for the future, my Bold Blade: show a viper a mort of compassion and back it will come to prick you in the arse."

Robin slammed his fist on the table, ignoring Sparrow and staring at his father. "Did I not beg you two months ago to give me leave to go to England and bring the princess and Marienne home?"

"Eleanor is happy at Kirklees; she has finally found peace there, with God. I doubt you could have persuaded her to leave."

"And Marienne?" Robin's face flushed and his fist clenched on the table. "Eduard was not the only one to make a solemn vow that night outside the abbey. He was not the only one who left a part of his heart behind, though I dare swear you believe his loyalty to the princess ranks far higher and is far more noble than the love I hold for a simple maid."

"I know how close you were to Marienne," the Wolf began, but Robin's anger cut him short.

"How close I was? Do you think it was just a child's love

"No, of course not, but—

"It was never a child's love. I knew the instant I set eyes upon her I would love her until I drew my last breath." His voice turned ragged with emotion. "Nothing has happened to change that. I read her letters and I can see her sweet face as she writes them. I read them a second time and I can hear her voice; a third and I can hear her love, her hopes that she has not been forsaken by everyone in this world."

"You did not forsake her," said a soft voice from the shadows behind Littlejohn. It was Lady Servanne sitting quietly and stiffly in the farthest corner of the room, her face bleached gray, her lips compressed into a thin line to keep them from trembling at the sight of her son's pain.

"I left her there," Robin said flatly. "I left her with promises and pledges, locked behind the cloistered stone walls of an abbey while I"—he snorted with self-contempt—"I played at becoming a champion of chivalry."

"She admires you all the more, and loves you all the more for the man you have become and the fame you have achieved."

"At what cost?" He looked helplessly at his mother. "Marienne has sacrificed eleven years of her own happiness and freedom that she might watch my success from a distance."

"It was her choice."

"No." He shook his head. "It was not her choice. It was the princess's choice to enter the convent and serve God. It was Marienne's duty to remain by her lady's side, forced on her by circumstances she could not control."

"No more than you could have controlled the circumstances that bade you come back home to Amboise, out of the king's reach."

"Safely out of the king's reach, you mean."

"You were but thirteen years old!"

"Barely a fully year older than Marienne, yet she stayed."

"What could you have done to protect her? You could scarcely lift the weight of a sword. Do you think the king would have given up his search so soon had he suspected the firstborn son of the Black Wolf was living under his nose? No, Robin. No, my love. You would have put Marienne—and Eleanor—in the gravest danger, and well you know it."

Robin's lips quivered even as he clamped them tight against the logic of his mother's arguments.

"Nonetheless, they are both in danger now," he managed tautly. "And no one is going to stop me from going this time." He paused and his eyes blazed once around the room. "No one."

"No one is planning on stopping you," Alaric said calmly. "We are only seeking to avoid plunging you headlong into what could well be a trap."

"A trap!" Robin's eyebrows lifted with skepticism. "You said yourself the ring and the message were meant for Eduard's ears only."

"Good St. Cyril save me." Sparrow snorted. "Does a fisherman throw his net hoping to catch only one fish? Mores the more, how many nets have been thrown over the past eleven years, in the hopes of catching any one of the Wolf's brood with their eyes closed and their backs turned? Eduard may have been the one to hold the knife to Gisbourne's gullet, but it was you, Master Carver, who aimed the blade lower and lopped off his manly pride."

"All right." The Wolf spread his hands to bring order to the discussion again. "Apart from Gisbourne, who else would rake an interest in the good friar?"

"Robert FitzWalter," said Will. "He is the leader of the rebelling barons. If he suspected Henry could lead them to the princess, and if he thought it would give them a legitimate claimant to the throne of England, he would kill Lackland himself and place the crown on her head."

"Is FitzWalter not already negotiating with King Philip to make Prince Louis regent in the viper's stead?" Richard asked.

"At this point," Alaric explained, "he has merely agreed in principle there is a possible link to the throne through Louis's marriage to Henry II's grandniece Blanche. It is neither as strong nor as popular a choice as would be a direct blood link through Eleanor of Brittany. After all, she does have a more legitimate claim to the throne than her uncle, John Plantagenet. Upon Arthur's death, she should have been next in line to inherit the crown." "The English would never have accepted another queen after Bloody Matilda," Dag said. "Eleven years ago, perhaps not. But in the interim, the nobles have endured over a decade of John's greed and corruption. They have watched their lands stripped, their wealth taxed to fill his treasury. They have had their daughters sold into unwholesome marriages and their sons imprisoned to insure their loyalty. Give them a queen now, the granddaughter of Henry Plantagenet and Eleanor of Aquitaine, a woman renowned for her innocence, virtue, and beauty, and they would not only accept her, they would raise an army behind her and carry her all the way to London on their knees."