by Tamara Leigh
“What of the barons’ men?”
“Few fatalities, though a good number were injured and have been taken to the village to be tended by its healer.”
She nodded. “Was it my brother who sent word?”
“Aye, he and Baron Verdun have surrounded the church, but…”
“What?”
“They dare not try to take it lest the Foucaults further harm or kill Baron de Arell.”
“How do they know he lives?”
Another glance at Ulric, who himself answered, “They torture my son.”
That nearly sending her to her knees, she dropped onto a bench to hear the rest.
“Each time an attempt is made to breach the church,” Ulric said, “Griffin is subjected to pain so great his shouts reveal he yet lives. Though in what state…” On a breath that echoed inside the mask, he murmured something that sounded like quiet, then directed Sir Mathieu to finish the tale. A tale erected on the lie that were the two remaining betrayers of Denis Foucault delivered to Simon Foucault, the Baron of Blackwood would be released.
“I do not believe it,” Quintin said. “Still your son will die, the only difference being you shall die alongside him.”
Ulric inclined his head. “And the priest, if he can be convinced to meet Foucault’s terms.”
“Father Crispin will not require convincing. Do you go—”
“Of course I go! And if the Lord goes with me, I shall find a way to ensure Foucault keeps his end of the bargain. If not…” He drew his gloved hand from his little dog’s chest to its head. “…Rhys will be fatherless and motherless and you, Lady Quintin, will be less one betrothed.”
Quintin tried to imagine the leprous old baron and ailing priest prevailing over Simon and Otto Foucault and thought it only possible providing the Lord did, indeed, go with them. Thus, she grasped for a means of increasing the chance of bettering the Foucaults. And found one. “Mayhap they would trade Griffin for me.”
Sir Mathieu made a sharp sound of dissent and Ulric said, “You?”
“Simon Foucault wished me for his son’s wife.”
The old baron snorted. “’Tis what Otto was led to believe, but methinks you were ever destined for the father. Regardless, ’tis too late. Now Simon is known to be Sir Francis Cartier, his plan to regain Kilbourne through marriage to you is trampled, all hope lost save that of taking his greatest enemies with him into death. Thus, even if ’tis true you would sacrifice yourself for my son—”
“I would.”
“—you are no longer of use to him.”
Thoughts whirling, she plucked at pieces, forced them together, and stood. “I am of great use to one who, for a quarter of a century, has lived for revenge and must now settle for far less than he believes his due.”
“Nay, my lady!” Sir Mathieu protested.
She ignored him. “Does Griffin die, I lose more than a betrothed. I lose my husband.”
The headboard creaked with the lurch of Ulric’s body. “What say you?”
“We wed in secret after Christmas. Were that revealed to Simon Foucault, he might grasp the opportunity to take from your son what he loves.” She pressed a hand to her abdomen. “And what he would love.”
“You are with child?” Ulric demanded.
Wishing she could see his face to know if there was something beyond disapproval there, she said, “I am not so blessed, and never shall I be, but Foucault does not know that.”
“You make no sense.”
“I cannot give your son more heirs, so you may rest well knowing never will one of my body threaten Rhys’s succession.”
The silence stretched so long she felt it in the roots of her hair. “How can you be certain you will bear no children?” Griffin’s father finally spoke.
She could reveal the injury done her by his youngest son, but there was no gain. “It matters not. What matters is I am precious to my husband. Thus, Simon Foucault will want me all the more if he believes that in stealing me away he also gains his enemy’s unborn child.”
“There is no good in this,” Sir Mathieu growled.
“Mayhap there is,” Ulric said.
“My lord, even if you cannot acknowledge it, you love your son, and the greatest love you could show him amidst the evil beneath which he suffers is to keep those dear to him safe. And that includes his wife.”
“Who will not be a wife if Griffin is taken from us,” she pressed. “More importantly, Rhys will no longer be a son.”
“I will not allow it!” Sir Mathieu said.
“If I allow it, so shall you,” the old baron snarled.
The knight looked between them. “My lord, your son is no longer a youth whose life must be directed. He is well-proved a man, one who would forbid his wife to be exchanged for him.”
Quintin stepped nearer. “Baron de Arell, you know what I propose is for the best. For Rhys. For Blackwood. For your people.”
“Quiet!” He backhanded the air, and the little dog barked as if in agreement.
He would relent. Had to. For all that was dear to him—and that she was not. “Do you meet Simon Foucault’s terms,” she ignored his command, “you and the priest will die with your son. Three deaths when only one life need be risked—that of one who has a greater chance of surviving Simon Foucault.”
Ulric considered her, then shifted Diot onto his lap and said, “You truly believe you can better him and his son, Quintin Boursier?”
“I am Quintin de Arell,” she reminded him, “and, certes, they will be less prepared for a woman to thwart them.”
“My lord,” Sir Mathieu returned to the conversation, “whether in life or death, never will your son forgive you should harm befall his lady.”
The old baron stroked the little dog’s back, with regret said, “You are right, Mathieu, and so we give Simon what he demands and see if we can free Griffin.”
“Nay!” Quintin cried.
“Sir Mathieu, go to Father Crispin and tell him I have a boon to ask of him.”
“You would sentence a Holy man to death?” she demanded.
“I but strive to meet Foucault’s terms. ’Tis for Father Crispin to decide if he joins me. And since he has been having long conversations with death the same as I, methinks he will decide well.” He returned his gaze to the knight. “Also summon the physician. My son will have need of him.”
Sir Mathieu strode to the door and paused to peer at Quintin.
But she was not leaving, and he loudly closed the door behind him.
The silence that followed was heavy, but finally Ulric said, “I am not altogether bothered you continue to trespass upon my hospitality, but if you think to turn my decision, you spill my time with yours.”
“Not if you would better your grandson’s chance of having his father’s guidance as he grows into a man.”
He sighed, patted the little dog who lifted its head and looked from her to the door and back. “Sir Mathieu gives good counsel, Lady Quintin. Ever I have aspired to order my son’s life, and too often I have done harm. Thus, I will not risk taking from him again one for whom he has more a care than he ought to.”
“Not even for Rhys?”
“Though I am not in the habit of trusting God to right the ills in my life, in this I give over to Him. As must you.”
Grudgingly acknowledging he left no window open for argument, she said, “Since the brigands have been mostly defeated and your escort to the church will be sufficient to keep any who escaped from setting upon you, I would accompany you.”
He gave a sharp laugh. “I am familiar enough with you treacherous Boursiers to know that, given a chance, you will do as you wish. Thus, as I would bear the blame should ill befall you, you will remain here with Rhys. And if this day he loses his father alongside his grandfather, you will ensure he receives proper training to become a man worthy of lording Blackwood—preferably at Wulfen Castle.”
That place where her father had trained and been awarded the coveted Wulfrith
dagger she had brought with her to Mathe, the keen edge of which Simon and Otto Foucault were worthy as Griffin had never been.
“Promise me, Quintin de Arell,” he said, and her heart leapt to hear him give his name to her, “you will do whatever is necessary to see the son of the man for whom you say you would sacrifice yourself become a warrior worthy of lording Blackwood.”
Whether she succeeded or failed at accompanying him, the promise would be fulfilled. “My word I give.”
“And Diot. Do I not return to Mathe, he is to be given to my granddaughter.”
“My word I give,” she repeated.
“Then my blessing I give your marriage.”
Emotion gripped her. “I thank you.”
“And I you—that you loved my son.”
She barely caught those last, whispered words, but she knew she had not misheard, that he spoke as if Griffin were already lost. “Baron de Arell—”
“Go!” He flicked a hand toward the door.
“’Tis possible—”
“Leave me!”
Arturo at her side, she crossed to the door and looked back. “I agree ’tis best Rhys knows naught of this, but should not Thomasin be told her father’s life is in danger?”
“Nay. Like you, she would risk herself to save him. And me.”
He was right. Aching for how slight the one who had been a formidable warrior appeared on his bed, she opened the door and stepped into the corridor. And swallowed surprise at finding someone awaited her there.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“Ask me anything, De Arell. You have questions, and I am bored enough to while away the time until next you or your would-be saviors give me the pleasure of making you scream.”
T and R, Griffin silently named the letters cut into his back. Only two. Unless Simon could be incited to finish the word and start on his captive’s chest, the rope would not be loosened to turn Griffin.
Seeking to end this before the terms of his release were met, Griffin had taunted Simon for what seemed hours as the light of day gave unto the light of dusk seeping through the shutter’s seams.
First, he had disparaged the Foucaults’ traitorous bent, wondering aloud if it was passed from Denis to Simon to Otto by way of blood or merely example. Next, he had mused over further evidence of their traitorous ways, citing the two brigands who had served their leader well only to be gutted and their corpses presented as gruesome wedding gifts to Thomasin and Magnus.
He had congratulated Simon on the traitorous son he had produced, one worthy of the family name, as evidenced by Otto putting an attempt to ravish Thomasin ahead of his father’s plan to restore Kilbourne.
He had mocked Otto’s failure to enact Simon’s plan for Thomasin and Magnus to be burned alive in retaliation for Thomasin’s sympathetic response to the agony Sir Francis Cartier had suffered in the fire that ruined his countenance—the attempt to give her personal experience with that agony having aided in revealing his identity.
But for all of Griffin’s taunting, Simon found too much satisfaction in digging into the shoulder wound that had first yielded the pained shout he required.
If only I had done as Otto advised, Griffin wished. Had I screamed when he cut me.
The back of a hand against Griffin’s mouth returned him to the present. “Ask me, De Arell!”
Mouth moistened by the blood of a split lip, Griffin narrowly opened his eyes—the left by choice, the right by the constraint of swelling. So pained. So weary. But not as much as he would have Simon believe in the event the miscreant could be incited to finish branding his captive a traitor.
With a good effort made to appear a great effort, he raised his gaze up the man who stood before him with legs wide. “My father told you were as much a lover of gentility as beauty.” Though his throat ached for moisture, he allowed bloody spittle to stretch from his lower lip toward the floor. “Though I know the years can be cruel to those who work the land, for what did you choose one such as Agatha of Mawbry to make a child upon?”
The hands at Simon’s sides moved toward fists, but he eased them into deceptively benign hooks. “Aude was her given name.”
As only Thomasin had known her, it seemed.
“One of several children made on common women by the lord I served in France.” He laughed. “Such high regard she had of herself, believing she was equal to her legitimate sister, whom she served as a maid until that one…” He clicked his tongue. “…died.”
“Aude killed her?”
“That does occur. Aude was of a jealous nature and her sister had an eye for a particular knight with whom she, herself, was besotted.” He shrugged. “Very possible.”
“Then seeing a kindred spirit in the vile person of Aude, you took her as your lover.”
Not insult enough, he lamented when Simon dropped to his haunches to peer past the hair fallen over Griffin’s brow. “Though she had a lovely figure that made her desirable from the backside, Simon Foucault was never more than tempted.”
Griffin knew he was being led deeper into the story to alleviate the miscreant’s wait to see if Ulric and Father Crispin would be delivered, but he continued to play the game in the morbid hope of pushing Simon to order Otto to resume cutting on their captive. “You speak of yourself as if you were not present, implying you did not father so unworthy a son.”
Simon sighed. “Certes, he is of these loins.”
“Then?” Griffin croaked, and when he coughed hard, found some satisfaction in flecking his captor’s boots with bloody spit.
“As told, Simon Foucault was never more than tempted. Thus, Aude was the seducer when he was…well, no longer himself.”
Griffin considered the pastorela Thomasin had learned from that woman, the song of a nobleman’s pursuit of a half-caste shepherdess who spurned his advances. If Simon spoke true, in his case it was the nobleman who had done the spurning. For a time.
Griffin shifted on the kneeler and did not hold back the groan roused by his fiery shoulder, throbbing back, and aching knees. “’Twas not until you became Sir Francis Cartier you let her into your bed.”
“Once I looked like this and had not a full purse to pay for better than Aude, there were few women willing to comfort me upon the sheets. Too, since Aude saved my life, it seemed only right I repay her.” He jerked his head at where Otto sat on a front pew—elbows on knees and dagger loosely grasped between them. “And that happened.”
There was such disgust in Simon’s voice Griffin wondered if Otto was thinking not of the next cut to Griffin, but of the one to whom he wished he were man enough to retaliate.
“Aye,” Simon breathed past his burned smile, “he hates me, even more than I loathed my father, but he fears me more. And rightfully so.” Meaning if Griffin harbored hope of Otto’s aid, he should abandon it.
“Then you are a worse father than Denis Foucault. That is much to be proud of, Simon.”
Muscles at the man’s mouth and eyes spasmed, but he was not moved to further torture. “Ask me another question. You know the one.”
Sweat rolled down Griffin’s nose, curved beneath it, and slid its saltiness over his lips. Too little to swallow, he said, “How did Aude save your life?”
“There is the tale!” Simon looked to his son. “He wishes to know of your mother’s great love for your father.”
Otto lifted his head only enough to meet Simon’s gaze, then shifted his regard to Griffin.
“He pouts,” Simon grumbled, then continued, “You heard I died in France days ere I was to depart for England to take back the lands awarded to your three families?”
“That was the tidings delivered us—that you were lost in a skirmish defending your lord.”
“Nearly true. The attack moved from the wood to the town outside the walls of my lord’s castle. I was ordered to gather the straggling townsfolk and get them inside the walls ere the drawbridge rose, only to find myself shut out with them. I hid us in a stable, but the fools could not keep quiet
, and we were discovered and the building set afire.”
He swallowed noisily, and though Griffin did not wish to feel the other man’s pain, he did.
Simon coughed as if to clear the memory of smoke from his lungs. “It was Aude who pulled me from the fire and stole me away. She tended me for months, and each time I tried to be done with this foul life, she dragged me back with acrid draughts that made me heave and stinking salves that barely quieted my screams. But you know what kept me alive? That which Aude overheard my lord tell his captain of the guard that delivered her to the town in time to pull me from the burning stables. That which made me dream of vengeance upon those who had stolen all from me. ”
“Tell,” Griffin said.
He shoved his face nearer his captive’s. “Either you do not know what my lord ordered, or you hide that knowledge well.”
“I know not.”
Simon tilted his head. “You know the Bible story of David and Bathsheba?”
Griffin raised his eyebrows.
“Recall that after David impregnated Bathsheba, he attempted to conceal his sin by ordering his general to place her husband in the front lines of the battle where he would more likely die, and so he did die.” Simon’s smile turned more hideous. “What Aude overheard condemned me to play Bathsheba’s husband to your father’s David.”
Inwardly, Griffin recoiled, but he kept denial from his tongue.
“I sense genuine surprise,” Simon drawled, “and yet you do not gainsay me. Because you know ’tis possible, aye?”
Had Ulric persuaded Simon’s lord to place his household knight in danger in the hope Denis Foucault’s heir would not return to England to attempt to regain Kilbourne?
Griffin tried to find a fit for his father and concluded it was possible Ulric had been capable of such. But what made it unbelievable was that the newly titled Baron of Blackwood had not possessed sufficient influence or funds to cause another lord to condemn a loyal vassal to death.
“Nay,” he said, “’tis a lie to which you have clung—one spun of Aude’s imagination.”
Simon’s eyes widened, and his hand shot up, but he stopped it and bit, “Why would she lie?”