Charles quickly told him of the oak tree and the tunnel. "They must have confused our message and taken the wrong tunnel," the seneschal finished glumly. "Milady directed the Signes to use the first tunnel, but they split forces and half of them went to the second one. I do not understand how they knew about it."
"Quite simply." Alexandre's tone was flat. "Liliane went back alone to the tree and changed the message."
The confusion abruptly left Charles's eyes. "That I do not believe. She would never betray you."
Alexandre laughed harshly. "Why not?"
"She loves you," Charles replied simply.
"While she dallies with you." Alexandre grimaced. "She has made dolts of us all. If she manages as well with her uncle and cousin, she may yet survive to gull Philip and rule France."
Charles went pale. "Milady is still within the castle?" .
"Like a maggot burrowed into a dead dog."
"Milord, they will kill her!"
Pain lanced through Alexandre's grim expression. "Aye, 'tis likely. For once, she has bitten off more than she can chew. Traitors have a fatal talent for venturing too far."
Charles's face hardened. "I tell you she is no traitor, milord. She did leave the castle after we visited the tree." Seeing Alexandre's sardonic expression, he added, "And being pregnant, she could not have taken her old route by the tower passage and moat. I tell you, if she is no traitor, the real one will make his claim for reward from Count Jacques. Her life will not be worth a fig—"
"But for barter," Alexandre finished quietly. Thoughtfully, he looked back in the direction of Castle de Brueil.
Charles watched him for a long moment, "You mean to have her back even if it costs you your life. You mean to punish her."
Alexandre slowly turned with cold menace. "You agree she is mine to punish, my hot-eyed Lochinvar?"
Chilled, Charles chose his next words with care. "I confess I love your wife, milord. Had she returned that love, I could not in honor have remained at Castle de Brueil. As it was, milady had no thought for me. Her eyes were full of you—her heart full of you. All her strivings were for you. Kill me now, milord, if you crave revenge, but I beg you, take great care in judging your lady, lest you destroy the last thing that you hold dear. Retrieve her only to vent your hatred, and you will commit a heinous crime against one who meant you well."
So this is the test, Alexandre thought; Liliane's last demand upon my trust. Do I still love her enough to risk the last shreds of my honor and pride for her, knowing that she will doubtless trample them.? And yet, Charles is right; however evil Liliane may be, she deserves to be judged by a dispassionate law rather than the vengeance of a thwarted lover. He moved toward the destrier.
Charles followed him quickly. "You will try to save milady, then?"
"I will not see her die by Louis's garrotte," retorted Alexandre. "I will not promise her the same protection from the king's justice." He swung himself up on the destrier. "Follow me to Avignon, and hold your tongue before the king, or he will demand Liliane's head on a pike!"
* * *
Alone in the tower room, Liliane shivered in her cloak. When the smirking guards had escorted her to Jacques to explain how Alexandre had contrived his escape, she had pretended dumbfounded ignorance. She had been asleep, only to find Alexandre free and threatening to strangle her with his chains. After he had forced her through the tower passage, she had flung herself off the stolen mare in order to escape. She had to convince Jacques that she wanted only to get away from Alexandre. The real truth, which grated her fine horsewoman's soul, was that she had fallen off the rearing nag.
With apparent calmness, Jacques had listened to her story, then had her taken to her room. How much her uncle had believed of her tale, Liliane did not know, although the manacles and gag must have helped. She greatly disliked the way Louis stared at her while she was being questioned. Like the guards, he knew that she was naked beneath her cloak. Dirt from her fall had streaked her face, and her hair was tangled about her shoulders. Although she coolly kept her dignity, she sensed that Louis was no longer put off by her rank and manner. Louis now had something in his head that gave her chills—a growing malevolent lust.
The door burst open. With two guards at his back, Louis filled the opening. "You are wanted, milady," he purred, "in the dungeon.''
Outside her door waited the traitor, Fremier, with an apologetic smile. Fremier was now as safe as if he had settled on the moon, and she was as doomed as if she had fallen off it.
* * *
Alexandre found Philip a half day's ride from Avignon. The royal retinue had raised tents in a sprawling meadow beneath a monastery-topped crag. A holiday air hung over the camp; the fighting was over for at least a month or two, and jongleurs, entertainers and peddlers had come out from Avignon to draw the men to the fringes of the camp where gambols and wares had been set up. As he and Charles pushed through the crowd, Alexandre spotted Philip's green-capped head tall among the spectators of a tightrope walker who had strung his rope high between two pines. He put out a hand to bar Charles's way. "Stay out of sight. I had best handle Philip alone. He is likely to ask many an awkward question about Liliane's part in this mess."
"What are you going to tell him?"
"For now?" Alexandre smiled grimly. "That I think her as innocent as the driven snow. I can always change my mind once we have gotten her back."
Philip hailed Alexandre heartily when he noticed him coming through the guards, who touched their helmets offhandedly and turned back to watch the tightrope walker. "So, mon ami, you are scarce two months at home and already restless for the court. May we hope that your lovely lady wife has accompanied you?"
Alexandre bowed deeply, then kissed Philip's hand. "Milady has not come to Avignon, sire," he said quietly. "May I beg a moment of privacy?"
Philip's green eyes glinted with alert interest. "Of course. Only haste from Castle de Brueil could make you so dusty." He immediately headed for his pavilion, his reluctant guards in tow. Once inside the royal tent, he pulled the flap closed. When he and Alexandre were alone, Philip took up a flagon. "Brandywine? You look parched."
"Thank you, sire, but my business presses."
Philip studied him. "What's the matter, Alex? Has your lady taken to a troubadour?"
"Her uncle has taken Castle de Brueil. Liliane is a prisoner within the castle."
Philip's brows rose with surprise. "Really? A prisoner? I heard that Lady Liliane was on the best of terms with the baron . . . particularly at his tourney."
"Gossip is fond of painting Liliane black. I am convinced she is loyal, sire."
"You would be—you are daft about her."
"Does that displease you, sire?" Alexandre returned swiftly.
"If it softens your head," retorted Philip with equal quickness. "Just what do you expect me to do about your mussed nest?"
"Nothing, my liege, that you feel is not due me by my past service to the crown. In that time, I have never asked anything of you."
"Ah, sly, sly, but blunt. You demand six years' payment at a moment's notice."
"Eight years, Your Majesty," Alexandre mildly corrected. "I was seventeen when I entered your service."
"Ah, yes. Now here we are less than a decade later. I may shortly rival Charlemagne, while you have lost your single, puny fief to a woman's smile."
Alexandre's blue eyes became icy. "If Your Majesty counts my worth in insults, I will trouble you no more. With your leave ..."
As Alexandre turned swiftly to go, Philip caught his shoulder. "Come, come, do not be peevish with the man who can make or break you. Go off in a tiff and you may find the way back to me a rocky one." His tone softened, became caressing. "Tell me, what do you want of-me?"
"I want Liliane—more, I want Liliane and Castle de Brueil."
Philip cocked his head as if considering. "That's a pickle. I want the Aquitaine. I am going to need all my army and more to take it, and the time is now ripe. If I go cavorting
off to play games at Castle de Brueil, the time for taking the Aquitaine may turn rotten. Mind you, I would like to help . . .
"But prefer Liliane dead."
"Come now, personal preferences do not enter into it. If I take Castle de Brueil for you and get your lady back, you will never be happy going on the road again with me, will you? And if I find that she has had more than a finger in her family's plots to take the castle in the first place, I am bound to try her. I really doubt if you will forgive me for hanging her, even if she is guilty. If I temporarily solve your problem, I make a permanent one for myself. Frankly, ami, I believe that you are better off unattached."
"Is that your final word?"
"Oh, it is most assuredly, if regrettably, final."
"Then the next time you go on the road, do not expect to see my dust trailing you. I will not fight you, sire, but in future, I will also not fight your wars."
"The end of our friendship, eh?"
"I would have died for you once," Alexandre replied quietly. "Is it more foolish to die for a woman's empty smile than a king's?"
Philip's eyes narrowed. "A woman will rarely kill you for insulting her; a king may be less tolerant."
"Do what you like with me, my liege. I expected your answer before I came. To lose one's dearest friend, love and home in the space of a few days is hard. To lose one's life ... " Alexandre shrugged and tossed Philip his dirk. "Do it now. Finish the job."
Philip tested the blade thoughtfully, then tossed the dirk back. "As I have lost only a friend, I can afford to be generous. In eight years, I have learned that I will never find your blade in my back, Alex. You really have no skill for disloyalty and deceit; so it is time that you left politics. Au revoir. If I would wish you ill, I might wish that you retrieve your love."
Alexandre slid the blade back into his belt. "As we will not meet again, sire, I will say adieu. If I were to wish you ill, I would wish that you obtain your love and have all France to rule. "Tis a load to humble any man."
Philip smiled faintly. "There is the difference between us—I am not a man, but a king. You must be the man for both of us."
For a long moment, they looked at each other with sharp regret and remembered affection. Then Philip clasped Alexandre's shoulder. "Win your headstrong Amazon back. As you are of no use to me, she may as well have you. Live in peace with her if you can; that is my gift to you, whether it prove paltry or splendid. If fortune smiles, you will regain your castle and grow old among your children and green fields. I shall not call you to war again."
A crooked grin crossed Alexandre's lips. "May I have that in writing?"
Philip laughed. "Begone with you or I shall carve the vow on your backside."
When Alexandre started to unfasten his braies, Philip shook his head. "Well enough, you snail have your petty bit of parchment with my fattest seal. Satisfied?"
"If your Royal Justice will leave Liliane to me."
"Reluctantly. A good beating now and again would do wonders for her temperament."
* * *
Charles was waiting on the edge of the camp, his eyes alight with admiration of Philip's finely equipped military escort. Catching sight of Alexandre coming toward him, his interest in the escort abruptly waned. "The king refused?"
"Predictably." Alexandre's air was tense, his hands quick as he untethered the destrier.
Charles scowled. "The gratitude of kings is notorious, but I had thought him your true friend." With mounting anger, Charles caught the reins of his own destrier. "What does the damned bastard expect us to do? Ram down the doors of Castle de Brueil with our bare heads?"
"Do not curse Philip, Charles; he had his reasons." Alexandre mounted. "And we are not going to do anything. You are headed to Jacques's demesne."
"Where are you headed?" Charles inquired suspiciously.
"To Castle de Brueil to parley with Jacques."
"Pariey? Alone? He will have your head off and mounted over the gate by cockcrow!"
"I hope not. I need to keep my head at least until tomorrow."
Charles climbed into the saddle and gave his master a weary look. "Pray, tell me, does God arrive at high noon to bury Jacques and his vermin under a tidal wave?"
"Quite the opposite. By noon, I want you, His humble servant, to start a small fire." Briefly, he told Charles his plan.
Charles let out a long and expressive sigh. "That's ripe. We are to retake Castle de Brueil with naught but mad, unmitigated gall." He touched his cap. "Milord, we who are about to die, salute you."
* * *
Curled up in the driest corner of the dungeon, Liliane waited. After solicitously sending her a shift, Jacques had gone to bed and calmly left her to suffer all the torments of anticipation. She wished she had a rope or a weapon to commit suicide. A quick death was much preferable to what Louis must be plannning.
Scuffles of rats in the murky darkness echoed the stealthy panic that prowled the edges of her mind. She was utterly alone, except for the child within her; the child that must cruelly die without once glimpsing the faces that would have loved him, without experiencing the world that awaited him with its sometime sweetness. My little one, she cried silently, is there no way to tell you how much you were wanted? With what hope your father and I waited for your first cry?
Your father ... my husband ... my love. How alone must he be this night? If God be merciful, let Alexandre love again and someday put the terrible memories of loss behind him. Let him hate me if he must, but remember our child with kindness. . . .
Dawn could not be far away now, although she had no way of reckoning time in this windowless pit. Bordered by the moat, the dungeon seeped and stank. All sound was magnified, all life banished, but for the miserable prisoners snoring and coughing in the dark.
When she had first been shoved into her cell, the trapped castellans had mocked her, eventually becoming too steeped in their own misery to pay her further attention. She was fortunate to be in a separate cell; had Louis put her in with the captured castellans, her end would have been shortly and brutally met. She could only think that Louis must have something nastier in mind.
Liliane had little longer to wait in suspense. Minutes later, the key to her cell scraped in the rusty lock. With a chilling soul, she heard Louis swear under his breath, then smash off the lock with the hilt of his sword. The surrounding snores stopped as if with a single, intaken breath. "Where are you, dammit?" hissed Louis. "Answer me, bitch!"
She shrank against the wall, then heard a scratch of flint. A tiny light flared and lit Louis's heavy face. To her surprise, he looked uneasy. "Come here," he growled. When she did not move, he caught her wrist. "Don't play your games with me, bitch. I'm not the fool you think. You cheated me of your pretty lord's hide in Acre, then let him escape from us last dawn, but you'll pay for your little schemes. I warned Jacques that he was an ass to give you so free a hand."
"Oh?" Liliane tossed back. "Did you call him ass just so? Or were you afraid of him and sniveling as usual?" Let him kill me quickly, she thought desperately. Let me make him mad enough to strike me down without thinking.
He slapped her sharply, stinging her cheek. When his hand descended again, she instinctively shielded her face. His hand stopped an inch away from her mouth and shifted to her throat. He jerked her forward and shook her sharply. "Games again, wench? Oh, no, you won't get out of what I'm going to do to you. 'Twas not your lying note in the oak, but Premier's. Premier's!" he shouted and rattled her again. "You cheated us all along by protecting your damned Alexandre and thought you were clever. I tell you that you're stupid, stupid!"
"If I am so stupid, why is Alexandre free to go to Philip?" she spat. "Philip will have your heads for attacking him!"
A look of fear seized Louis's blunt features, but his eyes still simmered with hatred. "Philip's in Paris. Much can happen on the road between Paris and Provence. Whatever conies, you will not live to see it!''
"You are no match for Philip, Louis. He expects an amb
ush. He has run better than you out of the best part of France." She watched his eyes. "You cannot hold both Castle de Brueil and Castle de Signe, Louis. You have not enough men to stand off Philip. You have diverted his ambitions in the Aquitaine, and he will pry you out of both castles and flay you for treason."
"Why should he leave the Aquitaine at all?" snapped Louis. "Why should he bloody well bother with this puny fief? If he's off on one of his forays, he won't give Alexandre the time of day."
"Keep telling yourself that, Louis, until the time the royal executioner splits your smelly skin."
"Still sure of yourself, aren't you?" he hissed. "Still too good for a man with the same blood as you. Don't like the way I smell?" He caught her by the hair and ground his mouth over her. When she tried to jerk away, disgusted, he dragged her close again. "You will be well used to the smell of me by the time I'm finished with you."
When he started to push her down, a crash of chains rattled the cell grate. Another jangling smash sounded farther away, then another and another as the listening prisoners, realizing now that Liliane was no traitor, vented their contempt of her abuser. The crash of chains became deafening.
"Keep it up," Louis shouted fiercely, "and I'll rape your lady bitch and cut out her brat to throw to the dogs!"
Silence fell. "Now," breathed Louis, jerking Liliane's averted face toward him again, "let's waste no more time ..." When she clawed him, he hit her again, this time so brutally that she felt herself about to lose consciousness, felt him tearing at her cloak. . . .
Abruptly a rectangle of light sheared across Louis's back, illuminating his startled, angry face. "What the hell?"
"Milord," said Antoine Premier, holding aloft a torch, "you are wanted upon the west battlement."
"I'll be along. Get out!"
A Flame Run Wild Page 43