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 blood red 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.’”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
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 we shared?”
“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 c
orner 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.”
“Safety 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 scepticism. “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 Wolfs 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 take 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 Secund’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.”
“All this,” Richard said grimly, “assuming they still think her to be innocent, virtuous, and beautiful.”
“She is all those things and more,” Robin insisted, his face flooding with resentment. “She is brave and loyal and spirited. Circumstances may have forced her to live the life of an exile, but by God, she is still the Pearl of Brittany, rightful Queen of England!”
Richard raised his hands in a gesture of apology. “I only meant—”
“I know what you meant. You meant that if the barons knew how her uncle had disfigured her, how he had scorched out her eyes to prevent her from ever being a real threat to his throne, they would no more consider making her queen than they would a leper.”
“As I recall, it was all you could do at the time to keep Eduard from returning the favor,” Alaric said grimly. “Small comfort to know Lackland often wakens screaming at night, clawing at his eyes, swearing someone has stabbed them with red-hot pokers.”
“The only comfort would come if I had the pokers in my hand and his eyes at my feet. But we waste time contemplating the fanciful. The message comes to us already three weeks old. If we leave within the hour, it cannot be too soon.”
“It is always too soon if you act in haste,” Will cautioned. “We have named only two who could have been responsible for Henry’s capture; there is a third to consider before we polish our armour and ride off in search of dragons to slay.”
The Wolf looked dubious. “An errant huntsman out for the reward? I would credit Henry with more sense than to allow such a thing to happen.”
“I was not thinking of a huntsman.”
Lord Randwulf frowned and exchanged a glance with Alaric, who was no less forewarned of what his son was about to say. “Go on.”
“I am loath to put forth the notion, my lord, but what if the earl marshal himself is behind it? It could be he was worried the outlaws were becoming too bold in the forests and would eventually draw the eye of the king. Or it could be he began to worry Henry might seek out Robert FitzWalter of his own accord and join forces against Lackland. In the last communication Dafydd ap Iowerth brought us, the earl sounded angry enough. And he has already vowed to all who would think of rising against the king that he will stand in defense of the throne, his sword in hand, though he be the only one against ten thousand.”
“The old bastard,” said Lord Randwulf, not altogether unkindly. “He is well into his eighth decade—must he always stand with his back against the wall?”
The gentle sarcasm won a few smiles from around the table, for William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, was undisputedly the greatest soldier, the most honoured knight and respected statesman alive. He had served three kings—Henry II, Richard, and John—and had participated in every major battle and war since earning his spurs over sixty years ago. He was a true legend in the jousting fields, having won over four hundred single-combat matches, a feat few knights could boast of matching by half.
Lord Randwulf was one of those few. He and the Marshal had been friends and friendly rivals for the past forty years.
“I sincerely did not think his tolerance for Softsword’s greed would last this long.”
“It is not his love for the king speaking with such eloquent passion,” Alaric said. “It is his love of honor. He gave his oath to protect the throne—”
“With no thought to whose arse might straddle it,” Sparrow injected on a huff of breath.
“It was William Marshal, more than anyone else,” Alaric reminded them, barely acknowledging the interruption, “who swayed the barons in favor of John over Arthur of Brittany all those years ago. To allow those same barons to usurp the king now, regardless of their justifications, regardless if he agrees or disagrees the tyranny must end, would require the breaking of every oath he
holds sacred, the casting aside of every shred of honor he ever possessed. This he will not do, and the other barons respect him for it even though they sit and curse his integrity.”
“Yes, but would that integrity extend to include killing his own nephew?”
“I believe it would,” Alaric answered softly. “With tears streaming down his face, to be sure, but I believe he would order Henry’s death if it was necessary to safeguard the throne.”
“Before or after he determined the whereabouts of Eleanor of Brittany?”
“He has always been adamant up to now about remaining in ignorance believing, I warrant, that if he did not know where the princess was, he would not have to acknowledge his part in saving her from the executioner’s blade eleven years ago. He may need the information now, however,” Alaric added quietly, “if only to produce her in front of the world and show why she may never be considered for the role of queen.”
“He would not do that!” Robin cried, shocked by the very notion. “He could not!”
“Then tell me what he would do,” Alaric countered smoothly. “What would he do to remove the potential threat of a legitimate claimant to the throne—kill her?”
Robin cursed under his breath, and it was the Wolf who answered.
“No. Not if he could not stand by and allow it to happen when he came here himself and appealed to Eduard to steal her out of the king’s prison.”
Alaric agreed with a nod. “He would not kill her, but he might do something that would prompt Eduard to go to her rescue again, knowing that this time she would have no choice but to come home to Brittany.”
“He would remove her protector,” Richard put forth.
“Just so.”
“Our little Pearl,” Sparrow grumbled, pacing back and forth in front of the hearth. “Think you she would have played the pawn enough already. I am with Robin. We can leave ere this hour is over, put wings to the horses’ feet and be on a ship in under three days time. Fly to Nottingham. Skewer Gisbourne through the heart. Rescue the Pearl and bring her back home where she belongs.” He snapped his pudgy fingers in a gesture of finality. “A fortnight for our trouble, no more.”
The Robin Hood Trilogy Page 101