We didn’t mention the sore topic of her sex, though I knew he must be disappointed. Poor barons, poor England, poor Alix, who was discovered to be a fraud.
Lucky Leith.
In the weeks that followed, I was absorbed with my new babe. Enchantment, however, quickly gave way to reality. Leith was healthy, quick in her development, and quite pretty in the Scottish manner. Enoch’s “babby” had red-gold curls, very red fat cheeks with dimples that came and went, and startling blue eyes with long dark lashes. Everyone commented on her beauty. Her temperament was a different matter. She had definite likes and dislikes and expressed herself with loud screams. Though she had no teeth, she bit down hard with her gums. She scowled as often as she laughed. Everyone in the household was wary of her except Enoch. He doted on his faultless daughter.
Though I assumed that the barons had been told of her disastrous gender, I had no response except from Lord Eustace. The great lord of Alnwick sent a blunt message to the effect that since mothers determined gender, it was my fault. On the other hand, I had not deliberately had a girl child nor had I wanted a child by Enoch at all. Therefore, I returned to my former opinion of Lord Eustace.
As if to compensate, Lord Robert fitzWalter sent a knight with a basket of pasties and a missive saying daughters were a great solace to fathers as they grew older. He might better have said to mothers, but I was pleased nonetheless. Meantime, Leith’s wet nurse became resigned to Enoch’s interference.
“’Tis because she’s his ferst bairn,” Dame Queenhild observed. “Wait till ’tis the ninth.”
There would be no second, let alone a ninth. The mother of Enoch’s next child would be Lady Fiona. Let her have the son to be England’s prince, I thought grimly. At least she wouldn’t take this babe from me and become the queen mother.
Leith’s birth raised a problem concerning my annulment, for I could foresee a battle with Enoch about who would take her. In ordinary cases, which mine certainly was not, the father owned all children, but Leith had been trumpeted as King Richard’s child. I put off thinking about it just yet.
As time passed, I defended her prickly nature (which seemed to improve as she gained fat) and took pride in her obvious quickness of mind. Thorketil built a cradleboard on which we hung her in the Great Hall when we assembled. All the Scots made much of her from a distance, though they stroked the other babies hanging on the wall, for our summer planting had come to fruition. Leith scowled when awake, though she didn’t scream.
Then to my astonishment, Lord Robert fitzWalter rode into our couryard to see her, all the way from Oxford.
“You came just to see Leith?” I blurted.
“Of course!” He dandled her on his shoulder, where she promptly vomited, whereupon he gave her back to me.
“A delicious girl,” he opined, as Gruoth rubbed a small white trickle from his shoulder. He slapped Enoch’s back. “Enjoy her, Enoch. They grow so fast.”
Enoch was flattered at the attention from such a great man—though he hardly needed the advice.
As I watched Gruoth rub, now with water, I slowly realized that Lord Robert had not come to see Leith at all. Indeed, he’d been a game sport to dandle her at her age (and especially with her disposition, though he couldn’t know that). But if not Leith, why? His shadowed eyes had purpose. When he changed the subject from babies to politics, I paid close heed. He spoke redundantly about the de Braose case, which had roused public outrage against the king, especially since the king refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing.
This was not his subject. I waited.
“Where is the king now?” I asked. “Still in Rouen?” It was not the fighting season, so there seemed no real reason for him to be in England.
I thought Lord Robert wouldn’t answer.
“No, he lost Normandy to France.”
Enoch and I were too shocked to speak. Lord Robert told us about battles and castles in Normandy.
“Be the king in London Town nu?” Enoch asked.
“How does the French King Philip treat his Jews?” I asked at the same time.
It was Lord Robert’s turn to be surprised. “I have no idea.” He turned to Enoch. “No, Dover. I’m told he’s amassing a fleet to invade Normandy in the spring, or perhaps the summer.”
We were silent. I was thinking of Bonel and the commune. Once, when I’d visited a witches’ coven in Paris, I’d heard that King Philip was generous to the Jews. Was this still true?
“So you’re no longer disturbed at the king’s licentiousness? Or domestic issues?” I asked.
Lord Robert bared his teeth. “Always, milady, always. For it’s been rumored that the reason the king lost Normandy was that he played in bed with his new wife until the late afternoon while his knights waited in the courtyard. Thus he lost Normandy a castle at a time.” He paused. “It is also said that she was a child of eight years when they wed.”
I smiled at Enoch. “No doubt he raped her.”
Enoch turned deep red.
Lord Robert took me seriously. “Oh no, I think not. Queen Isabella is said to be a perfect bedmate for the king.” He paused. “The important news is that he wants to take back Normandy.”
“That takes ships,” Enoch observed.
“And money. And men,” Lord Robert agreed. “Mark me! Retaking Normandy will become his entire purpose as king. And he will want us—his barons—to take it for him.”
“Boot . . .”
“But . . .”
“Indeed, you understand my point. We signed fealty at his coronation, which meant a willingness to fight for England, to defend England. Not to fight abroad, however, not to invade. No Englishman wants to die on foreign soil.”
“Is Normandy foreign?” I asked. “Isn’t it part of England?”
Lord Robert sighed. “You touch a vexing legal point. Most of the gentry come from Normandy or have estates there, many would say their roots.”
This news was the real purpose of his visit, though Enoch had the same questions that I did. Were English barons sailors? Surely this would be a sea battle.
Enoch turned to me. “Ich war tryin’ to tell ye, Alix, qhuan Leith cum, that day in the labyrinth, that King John be determined to tak Normandy back. He wants English barons to do the job ond they’ve refused.”
“So you’ve already been approached.”
Our eyes locked.
Lord Robert cleared his throat. “Enoch is not the only one to refuse, Lady Alix. No English baron will fight in Normandy!”
“Are you saying that they’re English, not Norman?”
“Good girl, you spare me explanation.” He glanced at Enoch. “You’re a fortunate man, Enoch.”
“Aye,” Enoch agreed without enthusiasm. Lord Robert then repeated himself several times in different manners as if we were deaf or dense. He finally ended. “Many barons, even some of our Brothers, are originally from Normandy, and at the moment their problem is whether to pay King John or King Philip the scutage; France demands payment, of course. Others claim that Normandy isn’t our native land, England is.”
“Did they change their minds because of the French victory?”
His voice became intimate. “The late King Henry II spent hardly any time here, Richard even less. Think, my dear, you were there. After Jerusalem, King Richard stayed to fight the French, who have always claimed Normandy. As a result, many Englishmen stopped thinking of him as an English king.” He paused. “I’m told Richard couldn’t even speak English.” It was a question.
He was right, but I said naught.
Enoch rescued me. “The king wull release us fram service yif we pay scutage. He con use that money to hire mercenaries.”
“He needs English manpower, even with foreign help. Before he takes Normandy, you see, he plans to attack the Low Countries.”
“Flanders?” I cried. “He wants to fight the Vikings?”
“It seems madness, I grant you. Why should we pay good money to indulge him?”
Abruptly, I
rose to leave, then sat again. This man was angry, and not about domestic issues.
“I refuse to pay a tyrant,” he said softly. “Remember, he murdered my daughter.”
So it was still domestic issues. Our scheme had failed—what did he have in mind?
“He tried to kill Alix’s babe quhan she war in Fontevrault,” Enoch added grimly. “My little Leith.”
For a moment, I didn’t know what he meant. Then I realized he referred to my time in Fontevrault Wood when I’d carried Theo.
Lord Robert rose abruptly, as if he, too, was offended by the lie.
“Well, I’ve accomplished my purpose.” But he still stood at his bench. “Except, my Lord Enoch, a few more words in private?”
His “casual” request sounded ominous.
I lifted Leith off the wall at once and walked up the steps to my closet. Yet my head was spinning. What did Lord Robert want? What was the real purpose of his visit? Certainly not Leith! Then I heard rustlings and men’s voices below.
I peered into the darkness. How strange, at least a dozen men beat their arms against the snow in our courtyard. Even stranger, my peasant girl from La Rochelle burned in their midst. Lord Robert’s patrician French rose—then another voice I knew well, Lord Eustace de Vesci’s! Now I was truly frightened—why had he stayed outside in the cold? Why was the peasant girl burning?
And there were other lords—aye, lords, not knights. This was a meeting of the Brotherhood. After a long argument in which voices occasionally rose, the knights and lords remounted their steeds and rode silently across the moat bridge.
I slipped down the stairs to catch Enoch when he returned.
He pulled me into the snowfall outside.
“They want I shuld murther the king,” he whispered.
Kill King John? Enoch?
I forgot John’s character utterly and thought only of Enoch. Forget our muddled history—he was a good man, and he was going to die!
“Come to my closet!” I whispered.
We huddled on the edge of my mat beside a snoring Leith. Wolfbane growled, then went back to sleep. Warmth from the fire below rose even as our conversation chilled. The actual assassins of planning and purpose were Lord Robert and Lord Eustace; Enoch was their means, though they would take responsibility. Their infant perdu, I thought, remembering the Crusade. They’d made their plan: they had it on good faith that King Llywelyn of Wales planned to attack England here in the north, which would deflect King John from his Normandy or Low Countries ambitions; John would be riding north on Dere Street sometime during the early summer to meet the Welsh, and Enoch would shoot an arrow into his heart as he passed Dunsmere Lane.
I was appalled and said so. “This is a plan to get you killed, Enoch! John is guarded—and he’ll have his entire army with him! They’ll slay you at once!”
“They’ll ne’er see me! I’ll be hid!” Enoch spoke as if not believing his own words. “Lord Robert ond Lord Eustace ha’e a plan.”
“What plan?”
“They’ll tal me soon.” He sighed. “It do same odd aboot Wales, since the Welsh king be wed to the English king’s bastard dochter. Boot they swear it be true. Quhan King John rides north to meet him, I’ll slay him daid.”
“Whereupon the king’s guards will slay you dead and Wales will attack with no opposition! And why do the barons call themselves the assassins when you will do the actual killing?”
“They made the plan. They’ll tak the blame.”
Their plan was woodly. Lord Robert and Lord Eustace would station themselves on Dere Street about a mile south of Enoch; after the deed, they would wait for him to join them, whereupon all three men would ride to the very same ridge I’d used after my shipwreck and dash to a boat waiting to transport them to Normandy. This flight was how they would “tak the blame.”
“The king’s men canna follow us to Normandy—ye heard Lord Robert explain why.”
“Enoch, are you so bedazzled by your Brothers that you can’t see the flaws? To begin, how can you be certain that John will march north? Everyone remarks how he changes his movements without warning—Lord Robert himself admitted that the king shifts purpose for no reason. And look at how he descended on Lord Eustace!”
“Aye, boot Lord Robert ond Lord Eustace ha’e spies wi’ the king, o’ course. That’s hu they knaw that the king o’ Wales be gang to attack King John here in the north; King Llywelyn hisself ha’e sayed so.”
I knew naught of the Welsh king’s steadiness of purpose, but I certainly knew that John was easily distracted.
“Has John asked his barons to fight Wales?”
He became uneasy. “He ha’e hired mercenaries fer the job.”
Mercenaries who would kill Enoch with no conscience whatsoever. During my time with King Richard, I’d learned the rudiments of warfare with hired killers.
“By fleeing to Normandy, Laird Robert and Eustace be admittin’ guilt.”
“Are you going to Normandy as well?”
“Aye.”
How passing strange; I’d fought to leave Normandy for Enoch and England, and now he would be in Normandy.
“So you’ll be admitting guilt as well.”
“Nocht as much as they do.”
“Why not, Enoch? You have reason to kill the king, which he’ll remember if he lives. Do you think John has forgotten Fontevrault Wood?” He didn’t answer. “Have you considered Leith? In the unlikely event that you do get away and that John still lives, she and I will receive the full thrust of royal wrath. Do you want her destroyed?”
“Ye spoke o’ some peasant girl and burning, by quich Ich tought ye meant to kill the king.”
“You’re right. But not sloppily, not this way. You’re going to die for no reason! If you insist, let me do it, Enoch. I can shoot an arrow, and I don’t matter.”
“I wull cum back fram Normandy—quhan it blaws over.”
“I should be the one!”
“Except ye canna place the arrow lak me.”
“Then teach me.”
He rose. “Good nicht, Alix.”
For the first time since Leith had been born, I clung to his arm. “Don’t do it, Enoch.”
“Eustace ond Robert wull be wi’ me,” he said stubbornly.
The following morning, he sat before the fire with his bow on his lap and made new arrows. Thorketil checked his points for him. By the end of the week, the snow had melted sufficiently so he could go outside. He placed turnips atop snow mounds and aimed again and again. When snow started to fall, he came inside; the snow melted, and he practiced once more. The Scots watched. They seemed to know his purpose, though I’m certain he confided in no one.
“Don’t do it!” I implored. “Teach me—John will blame me anyway.”
“He willna blame anyone quhan he be dead.”
But his guards would.
In late snowstorms, Enoch shot blossoms off our geroldinga apple tree. When the grass turned bright green and budding leaves were everywhere, Lord Robert arrived with two of his knights.
Despite Enoch’s stern orders to stay home, Leith and I followed the men to Dere Street, where they arranged a blind. I knelt behind a bush to watch. Lord Robert knew we were with Enoch, but he barely glanced in my direction; he was serious.
Enoch, still on horseback, aimed an arrow from behind a prickly barberry bush. Lord Robert, pretending to be King John, rode into plain view in front of Enoch. Lord Robert’s knights watched from the shrubbery.
“Hu do ye knaw that the king willna be surrounded by guards?” To that extent, Enoch heeded my warning.
“Oh, he will!” Lord Robert replied. “You should have one fast aim, nonetheless. But only one.”
They then rehearsed in earnest: four knights flanked a horse carrying a straw bale (King John), which made Enoch’s aim more difficult. On the sixth try, he shot through the bale’s “heart.”
“Good shot.”
Lord Robert broke a branch of the barberry where Enoch had stood.
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“What happens after he shoots?” I asked innocently.
“He’s to join Lord Eustace and me.” Lord Robert was dismissive, almost surly.
“You wave your arm southward,” I insisted. “Won’t the king’s army be stretched for many miles to the south?”
“Don’t be concerned, my dear, this is man’s work.”
Betraying Enoch was man’s work?
I smiled with “feminine” deference. “I suppose I’m still under the influence of King Richard when it comes to military matters; I have opinions.”
His glance sharpened. “Such as?”
“King Richard would have conceded that you might escape—and you might not—but that Enoch is doomed. That you planned it that way.”
Our eyes held. “Enoch will go with us to Normandy.”
I stopped being “feminine.” “You are sacrificing Enoch! No matter whether he hits or misses the king, he’s dead!”
Lord Robert rode close and spoke through his teeth. “I didn’t know you loved him so much.”
My face heated. “He’s Leith’s father.”
“Is he?” His smile broadened. “You have myriad fathers for your children, sometimes for the selfsame child!”
“Methinks you speak from a ‘masculine’ view, which means that men father many children.”
His voice became buttery again. “In any case, I’m not going to let this sweet babe become fatherless. I have Enoch’s sailing all arranged, my dear, I promise you.”
I would have felt more secure if Eustace de Vesci were not part of the plan.
And I knew from my peasant girl that I should be the assassin. Yet why? What did it matter who killed King John? Many of us had good reasons; potentially, many more would join our sorry number. The important thing was that he should be removed.
Two weeks later, Lord Robert’s knights, Sir Jrome and Sir Gilbert, came without Lord Robert to escort Enoch to his site once more. To everyone’s discomfiture, I followed them. Spring growth now completely obscured the opening on the verge, even the barberry bush. Enoch was pleased, but the knights slashed at limbs to carve out a clear place for him to kneel. I went onto Dere Street to look up; he should wear green. When he fell to one knee and raised his bow, I decided that it, too, should be green. Lord Gilbert thrust me roughly aside as he rode by in the person of King John. Though he had his same dark blond hair and blue eyes as the king, he was taller, which skewed the purpose.
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