Lady of Lyonsbridge

by Ana Seymour

Then they waited, shifting nervously on their feet. The room was dim, lit by one small torch. Alyce’s discomfort grew as the time stretched out. If the guards hadn’t disappeared with their mounts, she’d be tempted to jump back on her horse and flee.

  “The bailiff be taking a long time to come,” Hugh said finally.

  “I suspect he’s a busy man,” Alyce said, trying to reassure herself as much as the two men. “This is a much more important castle than Sherborne.”

  “They saw we had no weapons,” Fredrick observed. “I can’t see how they would be suspicious.”

  Still no one came. Alyce’s feet began to feel pinched in Guelph’s stiff boots. She looked around the room, wondering if she should sit on one of the barrels that lined the wall. She had taken one step toward them when there was a flare of light behind her. Turning, she saw that two guards had entered the room, each carrying a blazing torch. Just behind them came a gray-haired man in a long, wine-colored tunic. “What is this story of gold from Sherborne?” the man asked imperiously.

  Fredrick’s voice cracked. “’Tis the tax, yer worship. For milady. The lady Alyce. ’Tis the tax for Prince John so she won’t have to marry the baron.” His words grew stronger the longer he spoke. By the time he finished, he sounded almost as imperious as the red-cloaked man. “And we’d ask yer worship to give us a paper with yer seal to show that it was safely delivered here.”

  The man took a couple steps toward Fredrick. “Who are you?” he asked.

  “I’m Fredrick,” he answered. He looked awkward as he gave an uncertain bow, but spoke firmly to add, “Fredrick of Sherborne Castle.”

  The man glanced at the other two visitors, but, to Alyce’s relief, seemed to take little notice of them. “Who sent you?” he asked Fredrick, his voice echoing off the stone walls.

  Fredrick didn’t flinch. “We come from the lady Alyce. To deliver her tax.”

  The man in red looked down at the chest. He motioned to a Dunstan guard who was standing just behind him. “Open it,” he said.

  The man scrambled to obey, but was evidently not quick enough for his master, since as soon as the chest lay open, the tall man lifted a booted foot and kicked the soldier to one side, sending him sprawling in the dust.

  There was a moment of silence as every eye in the room was trained on the mound of gold coins.

  “Where did the money come from?” the man in red asked Fredrick.

  He had no answer for this. Alyce sent up a silent prayer that he would have enough sense not to mention the Havilland knights.

  “I don’t know, yer worship…er…yer lordship.” The man had not introduced himself, so Fredrick was unsure of how to address him. “My orders was just to bring the gold and get proof of delivery for the lady Alyce.”

  Alyce was studying the tall man. He was wearing a heavy gold chain around his neck and a ring the size of an almond on his finger. This was no accountant or warden, she realized. This man was rich and likely noble. Some would call his features handsome, but the lines in his face were deeply etched, as though carved into a perpetual scowl.

  The lines twisted as he said with a cruel smile, “Well, Fredrick of Sherborne, mayhap if your friends here see your tongue ripped from your mouth, their memory will prove better than yours.”

  Fredrick swayed backward, his skin growing pale. The face of the man towering over him seemed to glow as he watched his victim cower.

  All at once Alyce knew without a doubt that the monster who was standing just a few feet away from her, tormenting her guard, was none other than Baron Dunstan himself.

  The fear in her stomach weighed like a ball of lead, but she wasn’t about to let her men be hurt because of her reckless behavior. She would have to step forward and reveal herself to Dunstan. The thought terrified her. Now that she had seen his face, she realized that it would be frightening to be the recipient of Baron Dunstan’s anger. But she was a noblewoman in liege to King Richard. She didn’t think even Dunstan would dare hurt her.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could get the words out, the baron gave an exclamation of disgust. “It’s too late at night to waste my time on fools,” he said. Speaking to the guards, he growled, “Throw them in the dungeon.” Then he whirled around, his scarlet robes billowing around him, and stalked from the room.

  Chapter Eight

  Thomas stood with his hands on his hips and stared at the shaken young man in front of him, dressed only in hose and a blanket. “What do they call you, lad?”

  “Guelph, sir.”

  “Tell me again, slowly, Guelph. You say the lady Alyce went into Dunstan Castle? You saw her go inside?”

  The guard nodded, clutching the blanket around him. He stood just outside the doorway of the priest’s residence, where he’d timidly knocked moments before.

  Thomas spoke through clenched teeth. “By the saints, I swear I’m going to wring her lovely neck, if Dunstan hasn’t already done me the service.”

  “They wasn’t planning to see the baron or anything, sir. They was just planning to leave the money. ’Twould be safer for us to do it, milady said, to not risk the baron recognizing any of ye.”

  “How long have they been in there?” he asked, struggling to keep the panic he felt out of his voice.

  “I reckon ’twas near sundown, sir. We thought we’d be on the road back to Sherborne long before now. When they didn’t come out after so long, I thought I’d better come to ye.”

  “The first sensible thing you’ve done,” Thomas snapped, some of his anger escaping. “How could you let her go in there—you and your friends?”

  Guelph stared at the ground. “I’m truly sorry, yer lordship, but at Sherborne when Lady Alyce says something, well, then, that’s what we do. There’s not a man of us wouldn’t give our life for her.”

  Thomas let out a long stream of air. “Let’s just hope that no lives have to be given this night, Guelph.”

  “The baron Dunstan wouldn’t hurt her ladyship once he knows who she is, would he?”

  “Philip of Dunstan would put his own mother to the stake if the mood struck him.” The guard, who couldn’t have been much more than fifteen years old, looked as if he was about to cry. “Go see if you can find yourself some clothes, Guelph, while I decide what we’re to do about this,” Thomas added.

  “If ye’re planning to go to the castle, I want to go with ye,” the guard said. “I’m good with the bow.”

  Thomas nodded absently, his mind whirring with plans. “You can’t go anywhere half-naked, boy. Get yourself dressed.”

  Guelph nodded vigorously, then trotted off in the direction of the church.

  Dunstan’s guards had put them in a dank, dark room that smelled of stale body odors and human terror. All the way across the bailey and down the tiny stairway to the place, Alyce had debated whether she should reveal herself. Surely even Philip of Dunstan would not dare throw a noble-woman into a place like this.

  But then she’d remember his face as he’d kicked his own guard, the gleam in his eye when he had talked of ripping out Fredrick’s tongue. Who knew what such a monster would do? Perhaps it would go worse for them all if he discovered that she had come herself, in disguise, with the gold that would relieve her from marrying him.

  “Don’t tell him, milady,” Fredrick had urged. “The man’s evil. I could see it in his eyes.”

  “I think you’re right, Fredrick,” she agreed. “But we’ve got to do something. By tomorrow he might have decided to kill us or to leave us here until our bones rot.”

  She quickly decided that it was probably fortunate that the hole they were in was dark. It was easier to stay here without being able to see what else shared their cell. It was entirely possible that they actually would find bones of other unfortunate souls who had been thrown into this place, never to be seen again. But the blackness was, fortunately, complete. The only proof that their accommodations were not empty was the scratching of tiny creatures scurrying around the stone walls.

/>   Hugh observed calmly, “Rottin’ wouldn’t take long in a place like this.”

  “Oh, my friends,” Alyce exclaimed. “It’s my fault you are here. I thought I was helping, but it was foolhardy of me to try it. Now Thomas won’t even know what’s happened to us.”

  “Aye, he’ll know,” Hugh said. “I reckon Guelph will already have told him.”

  Alyce closed her eyes, though the blackness was the same, closed or open. Thomas would be furious with her, and with just cause. She’d risked her own life and the lives of her men to satisfy her own curiosity.

  “I swear by St. Anne that when we get out of this mess, I’m going to go home to Sherborne and spend all day with Lettie making tapestries,” she said.

  She couldn’t see Fredrick’s face, but she could hear the smile in his voice as he replied, “Now that would be a sight to see, milady.”

  None of the three had sat down. The floor was dirt and felt slightly mushy. Alyce sighed. They wouldn’t be able to keep standing the entire night.

  “Are we in the middle of the room, do you think?” she asked.

  She could hear the sound of Hugh walking, then running his hands over the stone. “There’s a wall here, milady. And here. Aye, I reckon ye’re in the middle.” His foot hit some debris in the dark. “And I’d advise ye to stay right there,” he added.

  Slowly she sank to the ground, feeling with her hands to be sure she was not sitting on anything more undesirable than mud. “Maybe if you two sit down beside me and we lean up against each other,” she said, “we can manage to get a little sleep.”

  “Hugh and me, leaning right up against ye, milady?” Fredrick sounded shocked. “Why, it wouldn’t be decent.”

  “I’m afraid I never learned the proper etiquette for dungeons, Fredrick. So let’s just let practicality rule the day. Come on now, we’ll sit back to back.”

  In a moment she could feel the two men seating themselves behind her. She reached back and felt two strong shoulders. “This will work,” she said. “Lean back and try not to think too much. Let’s see who will be the first to fall asleep.”

  Her words were meant to be comforting. She had no illusions that she would be able to fall asleep under such conditions. But out on the road the night before, she’d slept poorly, and the events of the past two days had left her exhausted. As she felt the regular breathing of Hugh and Fredrick against her back, she closed her eyes and drifted to sleep.

  It was taking entirely too long, Thomas thought again, swallowing down the bitter taste of fear in his throat. By the time the priest had fetched their inside man from the castle, it was nearly midnight. Thomas was pacing the floor of the priest’s cramped quarters. Kenton had had to restrain him more than once from charging over to Dunstan Castle and demanding entrance all by himself.

  “If Dunstan has discovered her disguise, God knows what he’s doing to her,” he’d told his lieutenant, tormented by the thought.

  “Your Alyce is a clever girl, Thomas. We’ll hope she knew enough not to let them see who she was.”

  “She’s not my Alyce,” Thomas grumbled. But he continued to pace and slap his hand nervously against his thigh, as though wishing he were at that moment drawing a sword to skewer Philip of Dunstan.

  The supporter of Richard who had been working at Dunstan Castle was a tall, thin knight named Fantierre. Originally from Paris, he had become an early follower of the idealistic young king. When Richard had decided to embark on his Crusade, leaving the country to the mercy of his brother, Fantierre had accepted the dangerous assignment of staying on in England as one of Richard’s undercover men, watching out for the interests of the true king.

  “Your lady is very foolish,” Fantierre told Thomas when he finally arrived at the church. “Dunstan could easily have killed the three of them without asking further questions.”

  “She’s not my lady,” Thomas corrected. “But, aye, if they come to no more harm than a few hours in the dungeon, they are lucky. In fact,” he added grimly, “it just might do her some good.”

  Fantierre ignored Thomas’s disclaimer. With a Gallic twinkle in his black eyes, he said, “Ah, young love. It can be pure torment, can it not?”

  Thomas didn’t have time to argue the point. If Fantierre was right, it appeared that Alyce had as yet come to no harm, but as soon as it was daybreak, there would again be the chance that her masquerade would be discovered. Then she would be at Dunstan’s mercy.

  In the darkest hours of early morning, Fantierre led them to a spot where they could scale the castle wall.

  “No one expects trouble at Dunstan,” Fantierre told them. “The garrison is small and, except for two guards at the gate, generally sleeps through the night.”

  Seasoned soldiers, Thomas’s men moved without a sound over the wall and through the quiet castle grounds.

  “This is too easy,” Kenton said exultantly.

  The crude plan they’d devised had assigned Kenton and Harry the Stout to find the money chest. According to Fantierre, the gold hadn’t yet been moved into the castle. Kenton signaled silently to Thomas that he would be about his task. Thomas nodded agreement, then he and the other men followed Fantierre across the bailey and down the stairs to the dungeon.

  Once again, there appeared to be no guards anywhere.

  “Kenton was right,” Thomas whispered. “It’s almost too easy.”

  Fantierre cautioned, “The door will be locked. We might not be able to avoid making a noise in opening it, which could draw attention.”

  Thomas shrugged. “We have no choice. We’ve got to get them out—whatever it takes.”

  But here again they were lucky. The door was held closed with nothing more than a thick slab of wood. While that made it impossible to open from inside, from without the process was simple.

  Fantierre slipped the bar out of the brace himself, then turned to Thomas. “Will you do the honors, Brand?” he asked. “Your fair lady awaits.”

  Thomas gave the Frenchman a quick smile, then stepped up to push open the thick door. Behind him, one of his men carried a small torch, which barely illuminated the horrible little room they’d just opened.

  The stench was the first thing that hit Thomas. Lord, to think of Alyce in such a place. Then he saw her, huddled on the floor with the two Sherborne men, looking pitiful and small. His heart cracked. All the angry words that he’d been rehearsing fled. He ran to her and lifted her in his arms, holding her tightly against his chest.

  Her arms went around him and he felt her breast heave with a silent sob as she gasped, “Thomas.”

  “Are you all right? You’re not hurt?”

  “Nay, but I’m so sorry, Thomas. I never thought—”

  “Hush,” he said, cradling her another moment before he set her on her feet. “Not now. We’ll talk later, but first we all need to get out of here.”

  He turned her toward the door, where Fantierre was watching them with a roguish smile. “The lovers united,” he said.

  Thomas shook his head in exasperation. “Alyce, this romantic gentleman is Fantierre. He led us in here to you.”

  Alyce gave the French knight a grateful smile and he responded with an elegant half bow. But there was no time for social niceties. Moving quickly and silently, they made their way back up the narrow stairs to the bailey.

  Kenton and Harry stood at the top of the stairs, great grins on their faces. Harry held the treasure chest.

  “Good work!” Thomas said softly as the entire group made its way back across the castle yard.

  “Slick as peeling a plum,” Kenton said. He boosted himself up on the wall and then turned to help Alyce. As Thomas lifted her up by her feet, Kenton pulled her up beside him. “Old Dunstan will be spitting fire when he discovers his prisoners are gone and the money as well.”

  “Quiet,” Thomas ordered from down below, but the warning came too late. Out of the gloom of the night a guard appeared behind them on the wall. Kenton whirled around to face the man.

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sp; In an instant, Thomas had jumped up beside his lieutenant, and before the guard had time to cry out, he drew back his arm and smashed him in the face with the heavy iron hilt of his hunting knife.

  Alyce watched in horror as the man sank to the ground, blood gushing from the socket of his eye. For a moment, she stood frozen.

  “Come on,” Thomas said. “Others may have heard.”

  Her gaze was still on the fallen man. His entire left check was caved inward. She felt as if she were going to be sick. Then Thomas seized her by the shoulders and she was being half pushed, half carried over the wall.

  “Hurry,” he urged when they reached the ground. With him holding one of her arms and Kenton the other, they ran across the dry moat and through a grove of trees. Thomas’s men had retrieved the Sherborne horses and all the mounts were waiting on the other side. Silently, they mounted and rode back to the church.

  The final encounter with the guard had dimmed some of their enthusiasm, but Kenton still sounded triumphant as they dismounted and took stock to be sure that everyone was accounted for. “Mission accomplished, men. Well done,” he said.

  Fantierre’s expression was less victorious. “I just hope Dunstan doesn’t try to seek revenge on Sherborne for this night’s work.”

  Thomas nodded soberly in agreement.

  “He might say that I’m obligated to marry him after all,” Alyce suggested. “Since he didn’t end up with the money.”

  Thomas shook his head. “At the very least, it will delay the matter. You just sit tight at Sherborne and send word to Prince John that you have three witnesses to testify that the money was delivered safely into Dunstan’s hands. If they’ve lost track of it since then, it’s their fault, not yours.”

  Fantierre looked remorseful. “It would have been better if I’d been able to get away this afternoon to take charge of things, as we’d planned.”

  “There’s no point in recriminations,” Thomas said. “The deed’s done. And all we really needed was to buy Lady Alyce a little time. Soon King Richard will be back and none of John’s scheming will make any difference.”