The Robin Hood Trilogy

by Marsha Canham

  Eduard paused, set the iron rod aside, and shrugged as if he was arguing with himself. “Conversely, he may have outgrown those reservations and had Arthur executed despite any heavenly repercussions. He could have legitimized it in his mind—and in the eyes of the law, for that matter. Richard did declare John his successor and the barons of England did support the nomination. Arthur had sworn homage to him two years earlier, the first time he had tried and failed to establish his claim to the throne. As John’s vassal, then, attempting to lead a second uprising against the king was likened unto putting his own neck across the block. John had every right to put him to trial and execute him as a traitor. He did not have any such right where Eleanor was concerned, however, and to have executed her, then or now, would have caused every baron, knight, and commoner in the realm to rise against him. To kill a rebellious vassal is something the barons could justify; to kill beauty and innocence is something no man could condone.”

  Ariel glanced sidelong at FitzRandwulf, noting the tension in his jaw, the hard narrowing of his eyes as he stared into the fire. She had never seen the Breton princess, but she had heard her uncle speak in awe of Eleanor’s incomparable beauty. Hair as bright as polished silver, eyes as blue as pieces of the sky, skin so fair and white the weight of a feather might bruise it.

  Was it any wonder this scarred, enigmatic knight who had been birthed into pain and ugliness would have fallen so deeply in love with her? It was just as easy to understand how a woman who had spent most of her life shuffled between the courts of an aging dowager and a French effete would fall under the spell of a handsome, brooding beast like Eduard FitzRandwulf d’Amboise. Nor was it any wonder he kept the ring hidden beneath his tunic instead of flaunting it for the world to see. Even a hint of an amorous liaison between the royal house of Brittany and a knight errant born on the wrong side of the blanket would mean the utter ruin of one and the agonizing death of the other.

  Ariel stared down at her hands and saw they were trembling again.

  “I do not understand why you simply did not explain all of this to me at the outset,” she said quietly, meaning more than just the intended rescue of Eleanor. “It could have saved so much time and trouble.”

  “Your uncle thought it best this way. He was, I suppose, only trying to shield you, to spare you needless anxiety.”

  Ariel raised her head and actually managed a smile. “To keep me from interfering or getting in the way, you mean.”

  “To keep you safe,” Eduard insisted, turning to her. That was a mistake, for her eyes were soft and lustrous in the firelight, reflecting the glow like polished gemstones. Her hair floated around her face like a tarnished cloud, all red and gold and copper sparks. There were blotches on the whiteness of her throat where the stubble of his beard had chafed her, and a swollen tenderness about the mouth, the cause of which a man would have to be blind not to recognize. She looked half ravished and more desirable than it was safe to appear to a man who had already come perilously close to consigning his honour to the fires of hell.

  “Keeping you safe,” he continued softly, “is even more important now, and will necessitate a change in our plans.”

  Ariel looked startled. “A change? Why?”

  “To use you and the guise of a wedding cortege to gain access to Gorfe Castle? No.” He gave his head an adamant shake. “No. I did not like the scheme when it was first put forth and I like it even less now.”

  “Even if it is the only way to gain entry?”

  “It is not the only way. It was just the most convenient way at the time this whole charade came into being. In fact, I am more than half convinced to dispatch you to Wales on the first ship leaving port.”

  “No!” she cried, sitting straighter. “I mean … no. No, you cannot jeopardize my uncle’s position. By your own words, you said he might be charged with treason, and I … I would sooner marry Reginald de Braose than see any such thing come about. You say you have letters proving you are escorting me north to the Marches; it would seem then, and at least until we reach the Marches, my uncle’s plan is the safest and soundest. No one in all of Britain would dare challenge the seal of the Marshal of England.”

  “Despite what I may have said, I have strong doubts the king would charge your uncle with treason for attempting to make a better marriage for his niece. He would exact a heavy fine, no doubt—”

  “Or he would take my uncle’s five daughters away from Pembroke and hold them hostage in castles of his own choosing until such time as he could find the lowest, most vile grooms in the kingdom! Perhaps you could live with that, sir, but I could not. And yes, before you say it: I should have thought of them before now, but I was too busy thinking of myself. I have already admitted and will admit again to anyone who might care to hear it, that it was a foolish, childish, dangerous, thoughtless thing I have done, and if the plans for my own future happiness go awry, it will be no one’s fault but my own. My uncle’s future, however, and the future happiness of my aunt and my cousins … sweet Jesu and all the martyrs! You cannot be so cruel as to expect me to bear that upon my shoulders too? You cannot!”

  “What would you have me do?” he asked carefully, as wary of her temper as he was of a naked blade. “Take you with us when we storm the castle? Have you stand with bow and arrow in hand, guarding our backs while we scale the walls?”

  “It would not be the first time you have trusted my hand or my eye,” she reminded him.

  Eduard smiled faintly and felt such an overwhelming need to kiss her, that he did so. Lightly. Affectionately. And very deliberately on the smooth expanse of her brow.

  “This past sennight was child’s play compared to what will happen if we are successful in stealing Eleanor away from the king’s prison … assuming we are even successful enough to get close to her. Here, in Normandy, John’s Brabançons are too busy guarding their backs against the French and the Bretons, but in England, they will have nothing more important to do than to hunt us down. There will not be an inn or castle open to us for refuge, and even the deepest wilds of the forests may hold as many enemies as friends—men who hold only scorn for a knight travelling in any guise, be it pilgrim or Crusader.”

  “Yet you would carry the Princess Eleanor through these same dangers?” Ariel demanded. “Would the risks not be as great for her as for me—greater, even, since she would make a far more valuable hostage? Do you think her to be any better able to endure such hardships, or have you even given a thought as to how she would endure them? She is a princess, after all. You will not be able to simply toss her into squire’s clothing and sit her on a sway-backed nag. For that matter, she has probably never had to dress herself or tend herself in any way. Do you plan to take the place of her tiring women yourself? Or do you plan to entrust her to Sparrow or Sedrick or Henry to bathe and dress her?”

  Eduard’s hand was still resting in a crush of copper curls, but she seemed not to have noticed the hand or the kiss. Her gaze was locked on his, steady and unwavering, and he could feel the effects rousing his flesh again, making his fingers tingle with the memory of where they had been, what they had discovered. A man could get lost in those eyes, he mused. He could be swallowed whole and never know, until it was too late, that there was as much steel as silk in their depths.

  As to what he had discovered … it was odd, just as she was admitting she was spoiled and thoughtless, he was uncovering a part of her that was painfully innocent and uncertain. A part that wanted to hold and be held, to share something of herself instead of hoarding it all away until she became a creature like him, guarded and mistrustful, afraid of letting anyone know his nightmares.

  “We will find a woman to tend her,” he said slowly.

  “You have one now.”

  “No.”

  “You would rather hire some village slut with black teeth and lice? To tend the future queen of England? You must love her very much indeed.”

  He was not prepared for her sarcasm. Being too unnerved by the
emotions she had already stirred in his blood, he had no defense other than his anger to use against her.

  “I have pledged my life to saving hers.”

  “You have pledged your honour to safeguarding mine. Moreover, you gave me your most solemn oath not to abandon me again. I find it exceedingly curious how you can put so much store in one oath, but play so loose with another.”

  “I am hardly playing loose with you,” he said savagely, almost beneath his breath. “If I were, you would still be on the floor, with your skirts above your head and your body cleaved to mine.”

  Ariel’s breath stopped in her throat but she managed to start it again before turning too many shades of red. Yet she did not wither or recoil from his crudeness. She kept her gaze steady and her chin held high. “Once again you remind me of the noble distinction between bending an oath and breaking it. Have you used the same distinctions in the past … with Eleanor?”

  It was Eduard’s turn to redden and he did so magnificently, glowing from throat to hairline, and even to the lobes of his ears. His hand fell from her shoulder and gripped her wrist, so tightly she feared the bones would snap in two.

  Strangely enough, Ariel felt only envy. It was foolish and reckless to feel anything at all, but it was there, still hot between her thighs, still pounding against her rib cage. She should have known something like this would happen. She had been too free with her airs, scorning one suitor after another on the skimpiest of excuses, finding fault with all who were less than perfect in her eyes.

  Here was a man … scarred, flawed, of anything but noble bloodlines, far from her wildest interpretation of perfect … and she could not even entice him to want her, much less take her.

  “You must love her very much indeed,” she repeated, softly this time, the statement muted by dispassion, prompted by despair.

  The terrible burning anger in his eyes dissipated, and the bite of his fingers eased around her flesh. There would, she suspected, be another visible blemish on her flesh come morning, but she did not care to point this out to him. She did not care about anything other than salvaging what was left of her dignity.

  “It seems,” she whispered, “we were better suited as adversaries.”

  Eduard released her wrist completely and found himself alone on the bench, staring up at the proud, beautiful face of Ariel de Clare.

  “You have not won the argument to keep me away from Corfe, however,” she added. “You will need me, FitzRandwulf, and you will not find me so easy to slough aside.”

  Having nothing more to say, and naught but a few threads of courage holding herself together, Ariel dropped a faintly mocking curtsy and bid him a polite good night. Eduard stood and watched her climb the stairs to the chambers above. When she was gone, he moved stiffly around to the side of the table and reached for his tankard, but at the last instant, swept it and the flagon onto the floor in a spray of flying ale and clattering pewter. Ariel’s cup would have followed if his eye and then his hand had not strayed to something lying on the floor by his foot. It was the scrap of linen he had torn from her hair, and, as he bent to retrieve it, the firelight glinted off several long, shiny strands trapped in the cloth.

  He ran the fiery filaments through his fingers and glanced again at the top of the stairs.

  She was stubborn, proud, haughty, courageous … and she had called him on his own bluff. Was a vow made to one person worth more than a vow made to another? Was a promise made against the spell of a supple pair of lips worth less than a promise given in youthful fervor?

  Were his obligations to Eleanor worth more than the responsibility he felt for Ariel de Clare?

  Ariel had asked him if he loved Eleanor … how could any man not? She was sweet, gentle, kind, loving. She was pure and noble, innocent and compassionate, loyal to her last drop of blood. He had watched her grow from a pretty unspoiled child to a ravishingly beautiful woman possessing none of the traits or pretensions of someone who could put their own reflection to shame.

  Had Ariel asked him if he lusted after Eleanor of Brittany, his answer might have surprised her, for Eleanor was like a sister to him and their love was a result of the purest kind of friendship. When the Wolf had rescued them both from Blood-moor Keep all those years ago, Eleanor had been the one to sit by Eduard’s side and hold his hand through the feverish days and nights spent recovering from the wounds he had earned at the Dragon’s hands. Physically, his thigh had been slashed open from hip to knee and crudely cauterized on a torturer’s rack; mentally, he had endured thirteen years of hell at the beck and call of a man who hated him and a dam—Nicolaa de la Haye—whose tongue could be sharper and more painful than any knife or lash. Eleanor had heard his worst nightmares and had wept with him while he shuddered and sweated through the aftermath. She had not betrayed him by word or deed to anyone, not even his father or his stepmother, who were so proud of the boldness and courage he displayed in the daylight, but who had remained ignorant to this day of the weeping, terrified coward he became at night.

  Eleanor’s childhood had been only slightly less of an ordeal. Her father had died when she was two and her mother had regarded her as a nuisance getting in the way of her succession of lovers and her royal ambitions for Arthur. Constantly passed between her grandmother’s castle at Mirebeau and the French court in Paris, Eleanor had been raised in two worlds but belonged in neither. When she came of age to be of interest to her mother’s lust for power, she was put out on display like a sad little doll, pawed and bid upon by potentates, princelings, and fat Flemish dukes. Three times she had been betrothed and three times discarded for a better political prospect. Each time she had wept her fears and frustrations out in Eduard’s arms … along with her relief.

  There were only two people in Eleanor’s world who knew her first and only love had always been for the Church. Eduard was one, her brother Arthur had been the other. Her mother, even her beloved grandmother, would have scoffed at the mere idea of an Angevin princess becoming a Bride of Christ; they became brides of political alliances and profitable unions instead.

  Arthur had promised when he became king he would free Eleanor to follow her heart’s desire. With her brother’s death, Eduard was alone in knowing Eleanor of Brittany was no threat to the throne of England. She would not seek it, nor would she ever accept it if the crown and sceptre were handed to her at Westminster. Certainly not at the cost of a bloody civil war.

  Eduard had held his silence at Amboise because he saw no point in giving William the Marshal any reason not to free her. He had agreed to using the marshal’s niece as a shield because at the time, he could have cared less whom he had to use or whose life he had to place at risk in order to win Eleanor’s freedom.

  Now, suddenly, it was not so easy. Now he found himself caring very much what happened to Ariel de Clare. It did not change anything between them. It could not, for she was still betrothed to a prince of Wales and he was still bound by his honour to deliver her to her groom. But it did mean he could not afford to make any more mistakes. He had made a large one here tonight, allowing his lust to override his logic.

  It was a mistake that could not be repeated.

  It could not … for all their sakes.

  CORFE CASTLE, PURBECK

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  If there was a bleaker, more sinister castle in all of King John’s realm, a mortal man could not have envisioned it. Viewed from outside the sheer escarpment walls, the castle seemed always to be in darkness, for there were no windows, no lights in any chambers of any towers that rose above the height of the battlements. It sat in a solid, dark mass on the skyline above the village of Corfe—itself a small and sulky compilation of cottages that clung to either side of the single roadway as if they were poised for a hasty retreat.

  There was a church in the village, and an inn. There was no fairground, however, and naught but a brief widening in the road to call the main square. Fierce winds constantly buffeted the steep hill on which the castle stood and the
resultant low howl, which grew louder at nightfall, sent most of the village inhabitants scurrying off the street before dusk and kept them huddled by their fires until dawn.

  Nighttime at Corfe was a time for whispers and clanking chains. It was the time for bloodied, shuffling feet and wagon wheels stumbling over cobbles, creaking for lack of grease and nerve. Few brave souls crept to their windows to see who the king’s ire had put into chains. It was healthier not to know, or to see the faces and perhaps be haunted by the lingering images of wide, vacant eyes.

  One such foolhardy lout had been wakened out of a fitful sleep on an early autumn night, and had counted on the stubs of his fingers three rattling cartloads of prisoners. The fourth had won enough of his curiosity to send him crabbing to the door and to open it a crack for spying. He had been in time to see the fifth loaded cart teeter past with its cargo of half-starved, filthy knights, bound in chains, garbed in the rags and shredded remnants of their former Breton finery.

  Whispers the next day told him the poor sullens he had seen were the twenty-four knights captured at Mirebeau with the brave, if misguided, Prince Arthur. They had been sent to Corfe Castle wearing the same chains that had been bolted onto them at their capture, there to await the king’s pleasure. Over the course of the next fortnight it became obvious, by the shrouded, emaciated bodies carried down to the churchyard for burial, it had been his pleasure to starve them to death. Not one bite of food had they been given. Not one drop of water. The eve the last one perished, the winds swept up from hell, moaning and swirling around the towers the whole night long, the evil spirits so loud and so gorged on rotted flesh, a guard was driven mad by the sound and flung himself off the castle ramparts.