Baron of Blackwood

by Tamara Leigh

  The mercenary’s eyebrows rose above brown eyes that gave Griffin pause. “As told, wedding gifts, the destrier and palfrey given by King Edward, the brigands given by me.”

  “Brigands,” Thomasin breathed, the dread in her voice pulling Griffin back from the edge of something toward which his thoughts had moved.

  “They attacked as we crossed from the barony of Godsmere into Emberly,” the mercenary continued, “and paid with as much pain as could be carved from their flesh ere they forswore this world.” He chuckled. “A worthy excuse for being late to your wedding. Eh, Verdun?”

  “Where were you attacked?” Thomasin’s husband asked.

  “Near a small, heavily wooded lake.”

  “The lake that lies at the center of the three baronies?” Verdun said, also turning over the possibility it was where Thomasin’s friend, Aude, had tried to murder Lady Elianor.

  “I think that is the one.” Cartier shrugged and stepped toward the horses that had halted twenty feet distant. “Come see.”

  Verdun looked to his wide-eyed bride. “Remain with your father.”

  As Griffin drew her near his side, she asked, “Do you think they are the brigands who…?”

  Her attackers. He narrowed his gaze on the horses who stood restless beneath their gruesome burden. “I almost wish it were not those knaves, for I would myself bring them to ground.” As for Cartier, Griffin silently added, were I my father, I would kill the miscreant for bloodying my daughter’s wedding day. In the next instant, he said sharply, “Do not look!”

  But she held her gaze to the spectacle, watching the king’s man lift the heads of each of the brigands to show their faces to Verdun.

  “They are known to you?” Cartier asked.

  “I recently encountered them working ill upon Emberly and sent them running,” Verdun said.

  Two of Thomasin’s three attackers, then.

  “How disappointing they eluded you.” Cartier clicked his tongue. “But that makes my wedding gift all the sweeter—at least, for me.”

  “My thanks to you and the king.” Verdun’s voice was tight with control.

  Wearing a hideous smile courtesy of the puckered skin of his burned lower face, Cartier moved it from the Baron of Emberly to Thomasin. “I speak for King Edward in saying we are pleased to have made this day more memorable for you and your bride.”

  Verdun nodded stiffly.

  “The Verduns, ever in control,” Griffin rasped, then corrected, “rather, the men.” None could gainsay Constance Verdun had lost control in cuckolding Bayard Boursier with her lover, Serle.

  Griffin’s thoughts having stumbled over his brother, he pulled them back. A fortnight past, one of his patrolling men had sighted a traveler who resembled the younger De Arell. But before he could verify that one’s identity, the patrol had spotted riders in the distance and set off after them—surely brigands, though that also went unverified, the riders evading their pursuers.

  So had Serle returned to Blackwood? If so, why did he not show himself at Mathe?

  “You have searched these men to determine whence they came?” Verdun’s voice returned Griffin to the present.

  “Thoroughly and gave them chances aplenty to spill their secrets ere we spilled their innards,” Cartier said. “But they proved uncooperative.”

  “Thus, you have naught to give me but silent bodies.”

  “Far more than you had ere I gifted them.”

  “Indeed.” Thomasin’s husband waved two of his men forward and gave the horses into their care. “Sir Francis,” he said as the animals were led away, “if not that you are too occupied with the king’s business to tarry, I would invite you and your men to partake of the wedding feast. But I am certain King Edward would rather you further his interests than mine. Thus, I bid you Godspeed.”

  Cartier laughed. “Surely you can be less obvious with your dislike of the king’s man, Verdun.”

  “Surely I cannot.”

  The mercenary clapped Verdun on the back, causing the baron to exude something that told he was nearing the end of his control.

  “We are much the same,” Cartier said. “Thus, for the sake of our kinship, I leave you and your wife to celebrate the alliance of your families.” Then he called to Thomasin, “Dear lady, mount that mare with caution. A palfrey she may be, but she is spirited.”

  His words taunted, and in them Griffin perceived a threat. “The tales told of Sir Francis Cartier are not exaggerated,” he said as the king’s man strode from the bailey. “Indeed, they may be too kind. There is something black in that mercenary’s breast.”

  Eyes on her husband’s advance, Thomasin did not comment.

  Verdun’s gaze momentarily fell to his wife’s father, and there Griffin saw the roiling within and, at a corner of his mouth, a spasming that revealed its depth. Fortunately for the baron, Griffin’s instincts told him Thomasin’s husband was honorable enough he would not visit his anger and frustration on one who was not responsible for them. Still, Griffin was glad Sir Otto would remain at Castle Kelling to keep watch over her, just as Ulric had suggested.

  Now to see if Magnus Verdun could maintain control when he learned he would have to prove he could be entirely entrusted with the daughter of Griffin de Arell.

  The next morn, as those of the barony of Blackwood rode beneath a gray sky threatening to make their return to Castle Mathe a wet one, Griffin tried to be comforted that he did not leave his daughter without recourse should his instincts about her husband prove wrong.

  As predicted, Magnus Verdun had not liked that Sir Otto would remain at Castle Kelling. Indeed, so greatly had he been offended that Griffin and he might have come to swords had Thomasin not stepped between them.

  Displaying a calm and depth of maturity that had surprised Griffin as much as on the day past when Cartier had taunted her, she had entreated the two warriors to accept each other’s respective role—Griffin as her father, Magnus as her husband.

  Thus, Verdun had grudgingly consented to allow Sir Otto to remain. For a time.

  Tasked with keeping watch over her—of greatest concern once she began to steal away from Kelling to acquaint herself with Emberly’s common folk and provide for those in need—Sir Otto would ensure no ill befell her as Griffin was fairly sure the knight would have done had he been the one to watch over her the day of her attack in the wood.

  Aye, if anyone could keep her safe from the Foucault supporters, it was Sir Otto.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Barony of Blackwood

  Spring’s End, 1334

  The first to fall was unintentional, the tidings delivered to the old baron causing him to snatch hold of the hanging to keep his frail legs beneath him. But the second and third hangings partitioning his apartment were willfully wrenched from their ceiling hooks as he lurched from one to the next.

  “A Foucault!” he raised his voice as near a shout as his ravaged throat allowed. “An accursed, puking, half-faced, God-forsaken Foucault!”

  As Griffin looked upon his father’s leprous face, revealed when the shawl draping his head slid to the floor, he acknowledged Magnus Verdun was not the only one to exercise great control over his emotions.

  Ulric’s reaction over the news from Castle Kelling could not be half as great as that which prowled beneath Griffin’s skin, panting and growling as it searched for a way out. But he would not become his father, even under circumstances that gave him good cause to turn his thoughts to the merciless taking of life—circumstances that proved if Ulric de Arell was not capable of love as Griffin had long believed, something had shifted in him that allowed him to become so attached to another he would likely kill were he able to crawl out of his incapacitated body.

  The old baron stumbled to the next hanging, but as he clawed at it, a whine sounded from the bed beneath which Diot had scrambled when his master’s raging threatened to trample him.

  Ulric dropped to his knees, fell to his hands, and called, “Diot, I did not me
an to frighten you.” He patted the floor. “Come. Come.”

  The dog crawled forward, revealing its front legs and nose, and that was all.

  Griffin retrieved the shawl and returned to his father.

  Ulric jerked his face aside. “The mask,” he croaked. “Beside the bed. And a stick. In the wardrobe.”

  Griffin secured the first but was slower to gain the second from the immense upright chest whose contents were heretofore unknown to him, though he had suspected it was where his father hid the walking sticks Thomasin fashioned for him.

  Thomasin… He closed his eyes and gave thanks the tidings delivered this day told she lived, as did her husband. That was not to have been. Had the one who was to have kept the Lady of Emberly safe succeeded in a quest far different from that with which he had been tasked, all that remained of Magnus and Thomasin Verdun would be burned corpses.

  Verily, I could kill too, Griffin silently admitted. Beyond the necessity of defending family, people, and land, and with only sufficient thought to determine where best to sink his blade, in this moment he could deal a mortal wound to the one who claimed he was Foucault on one side and Agatha of Mawbry on the other.

  “For what do you tarry?” Ulric demanded.

  Retrieving a branch pared of its small limbs and rubbed smooth, one of many that stood like sentinel trees in barren winter, Griffin caught sight of his hand reflected in the mirror hidden behind the walking sticks. And pitied his sire for the ghastly wound leprosy had also dealt his vanity.

  He returned to his father, who fit the mask before climbing his hands up the stick to regain his feet.

  “Diot,” he called once he was stable.

  The dog crept out, rumbled at Griffin, and darted beneath his master’s long tunic.

  Ulric turned his wooden face to his son. “Otto must die. You will see to it?”

  Certes, Griffin had desire aplenty, made all the greater by the knowledge he had long harbored the murderous traitor at Castle Mathe—more, that he had entrusted Thomasin to him, never suspecting him capable of such duplicity. Of murder!

  Self-loathing skinning another piece off his warrior’s pride, Griffin said, “’Tis not for me to do. Otto is the Verduns’ prisoner.” Blessedly, rather than their executioner, the knight having planned to set their bedchamber afire to eliminate the Verduns and their claim upon Emberly. But he had failed, just as the attempt to murder Lady Elianor at Christmas had failed.

  “It is not for you to do?” Ulric snapped. “He tried to kill your daughter! Had he succeeded, his attempt to take back the baronies and make them one again could have seen Rhys dead.”

  Griffin knew that. Enough was revealed in the missive to acknowledge a war was not newly arrived at their gates. For years, it had lived and breathed amongst them. It might even extend as far back to when the three families were each awarded a piece of Kilbourne and jealousy—regrettably, Ulric de Arell being the greatest offender—birthed the feud.

  “And it still might see your son murdered!” Leaning heavily on the stick, the old baron crossed to the bed and lowered to the mattress edge. “I care not that Otto—that misbegotten, pus-filled scab—confirmed his father’s death. Methinks it quite possible Simon Foucault lives.”

  As Griffin had concluded. Though it was long known Baron Denis Foucault’s heir had died in France shortly after his father’s lands were forfeited, and while Otto had lingered over killing the Verduns he had confirmed the death of the one who had sown him on Agatha, Simon’s misbegotten son had claimed he took orders from another. And who might that be but his sire?

  Hopefully, Otto’s imprisonment at Castle Kelling would yield answers that would allow the three families to escape the web spun around them—a web that, it was told, included Thomasin’s mother.

  Griffin lowered his lids. Such a struggle it had been to forgive Alice for deserting their daughter, and he had not entirely, though he had known his father—and he—bore much of the responsibility for making her life so hard she had made that choice. But now to learn the man for whom Alice had left Thomasin had aided Sir Otto…

  “Did you hear me, Griffin?”

  “Be assured, just as I am aware Simon Foucault may live, I know Rhys is in as much danger as Thomasin was as a child.”

  Through the mask’s eye holes, Griffin saw his father blink. “You have not told all!”

  Deciding not to waste breath on reminding Ulric his outburst had interrupted full disclosure of the missive’s contents, Griffin said. “I speak of Alice, the woman I loved, whom you sent from Blackwood with Thomasin in her belly.”

  His father snorted. “She was a girl. You were a boy. And you but thought yourself in love. ’Twas best for all I sent her away.”

  “And yet, as learned this day, she returned.”

  Ulric jerked. “What say you?”

  “Alice returned, but not to Blackwood—to Emberly.”

  “For what?”

  “She took a lover, unaware he was a Foucault supporter sent to murder her and Thomasin. Apparently, he was so besotted with her, he instead convinced her to abandon her daughter and follow him to Castle Kelling where he took work as a man-at-arms to keep watch over the Verduns.”

  “Then Thomasin has been reunited with that—” Ulric caught back the foul thing he wished to name Alice. “Your daughter has been reunited with the woman who abandoned her?”

  “She has not. A year after Alice arrived at Emberly, she died.”

  “Ha! Forgive me if I do not mourn her.”

  The concealed Diot growled, evidencing he felt the surge of Griffin’s anger.

  “What of the man-at-arms?” Ulric asked.

  Griffin did not answer until he was sufficiently calmed to pry his fingers out of his palms. “It was with his aid Sir Otto nearly fulfilled the task given him.”

  “I would see him dead as well.”

  “Then you will be pleased to know it was with his final breaths he revealed to Thomasin what became of her mother.”

  “Beyond pleased. So what now, Griffin?”

  “I fulfill the king’s decree.”

  “And wed the Boursier woman.”

  A second time, Griffin reflected. “Best I claim the prize ere another tries to steal her away.”

  “Prize?”

  “Something else I have yet to share.”

  “Then share!”

  “Sir Otto boasted Lady Quintin is the prize in all this and that he, her cousin, was to wed her.” As Griffin had done several times since reading those lines, he sifted through instances of the knight in Quintin’s presence. He had seen the way Otto looked at her and had not liked it, but he had understood—at least, until Boursier’s marriage to Lady Elianor had advanced the likelihood Quintin would become a De Arell. But even then, the knight’s lingering gaze had been no more offensive than the regard of Griffin’s other men.

  “Foucault blood strengthened by Foucault blood,” Ulric said.

  “Aye. Thus, it occurs that the leader of the Foucault uprising is one who holds great favor with the king such that, with the elimination of our families, ’tis possible he will gain the baronies as a whole, putting Kilbourne back together through marriage to Lady Quintin.” Ironically, it was the same strategy Griffin had entertained—that had the king decided against Boursier and Verdun, the De Arells might be awarded the forfeited lands, their claim strengthened by Griffin taking to wife one thought to be the only hope for the survival of the Foucault line.

  “You do not believe Sir Otto is the leader.” Ulric said with the same certainty Griffin felt.

  “He is too young to have set this in motion, and he admitted to taking orders from another. But though he was convinced he would be the one to gain the prize, I think him but a pawn. Were he legitimate-born, it would not occur, but he was birthed by Agatha of Mawbry.”

  Ulric grunted. “Then Denis Foucault’s whelp does live—that arrogant, bootless maggot is the one plaguing our families.”

  Many times with the unwittin
g aid of Ulric de Arell, Griffin once more kept thought from his tongue. “Aye, I believe Simon lives.”

  “And you think he is the one who seeks the prize.”

  “I am fair certain. However, he does not do it in the name of Simon Foucault. He has become another. Someone who would be permitted to wed his niece with none aware he violates the laws of consanguinity in the most perverse way.”

  “You know who it might be?”

  “There is one I suspect.” Griffin stepped nearer his father. “Tell me, would you recognize Denis Foucault’s son?”

  “When last I saw him, he was aged a score of years and some. But though he would be fifty or more now, I believe I would know him. Even if age has much lined and sagged his face, it was distinctive, and more so his eyes—Foucault brown, we called them. His father and sister, Lady Maeve, had them. And I would guess his niece as well.”

  “Brown, ringed by gold,” Griffin said, memory setting Quintin’s lovely face before him.

  “Aye, most unusual. This one you suspect has such eyes?”

  Letting Quintin’s face drift away, replacing it with one who would approve of his daughter dying by fire, he said, “Certes, they are brown. Unfortunately, I did not draw near enough to determine if gold is at their outer reaches. And brown is a common color.”

  “What of Sir Otto’s eyes?”

  “Brown. But again, I have not looked near enough to say they are touched by gold.”

  “Otto is a Foucault,” Ulric said firmly. “Now if he can be made to talk.”

  Griffin nodded. “Regardless, if the Foucault threat is to end, we must set a trap.”

  “We?” There was something childishly hopeful in that single utterance.

  “Aye, Father. We.”

  Barony of Godsmere

  The prize.

  It made her quake with anger and shiver with fear.

  The prize.

  It tossed the contents of her stomach and tightened her throat in anticipation of bile.