by Jude Chapman
John turned his head aside and called for the guard.
“I beat you once, unarmed. I trust you’ll not chance further embarrassment.”
The prince warbled wretchedly. “You always attack below the belt, Drake, even as a child. I remember …”
“Ach, that damnable chess game you lost to me.”
“I didn’t lose.” John’s lips upended. “You cheated.”
“As usual, you have it backwards.”
“You’ve never thought well of me. Never.” He backed Drake to the wall, pointedly, and fit the edge of his honed blade beneath the jawbone. “Why is that? I never understood.”
Drake submissively threw his hands up. He had not yet begun to sweat, though his neck was developing a painful cramp. “Because you’ll stop at nothing to achieve your own selfish ends.”
John’s pale face looked like one of the many open books he was always pressing his nose against. “Again, he insults me!” Outrage and callousness pressed John’s sword more insistently against Drake’s throat.
“Careful with your play toy.”
He jerked his head aside and yelled louder this time. “Guard!”
“A play toy you know not how to use.”
“I used it once on you before. As I recall, all I must do is slice and draw.”
“Not strictly so.”
“Oh no?”
“You were so busy waving it about, confused about the various parts and manner of usage, I thought it time to give you a lesson. So I put my back to your blade to bolster your confidence.”
“Do bolster my confidence again.” He played with the weapon, sawing Drake’s jawline, flirting with an earlobe, depressing the point against his shoulder. “I have challenged you. Why do you not take up the challenge? Throw your neck into my sword. Richard shall rejoice that I have rid his kingdom of a troublesome knight. No doubt he’ll reward me with another castle.”
“Why stop at a castle? Why not another shire?”
“Why not ten?”
“Or twenty? One for every man and woman you’ve killed or had killed since your brother became king. Or does twenty fall short?”
The light eyes darkened with fury. “Why not the whole of Merrie England and all the God-damned inhabitants therein?”
“As to that, you can add another tick mark to your sword pommel. Tancrede d’Évreux is dead.”
“Even so?” he said as if he already knew.
“A well-placed dagger … or sword,” Drake said, casting his eyes on John’s weapon, “separated his head from his neck.”
“Whoever killed d’Évreux,” John surmised, “did so to keep him forever silent. Why would that be, I wonder? Perhaps because he’s the archer who let loose the killing arrow of yester night?”
“Yet you said nothing.”
“I wanted to see the drama play out.”
“Then do you think you can dispense with the sword, dear cousin? My arms grow weary.”
“They’ll grow wearier once they are in shackles.”
“You don’t deny you recruited Tancrede, then?”
“You are the assassin, Drake, no one else. You subverted d’Évreux as a diversion. Richard trusts you beyond reason. His one fatal flaw, remaining loyal to those who play him false.”
“You would know better than I.”
The comte’s left cheek ticced. The he released a one-note laugh, raised his sword two-fisted, and prepared for the downstroke.
Chapter 9
“PUT UP, MILORD!” Chauvigny decried. He was not alone. Sorely battered, Béthune and Fors bracketed the rubicund knight. “You will put up, milord,” André repeated, his voice insistent.
Even a prince of low means knows when the odds run against him. Though he aborted the downstroke, John refused to wholly back down. The sword returned to its former position, again pressing dangerously against a knight’s exposed neck.
“The Lady Jacotte,” Chauvigny said, “is most foully dead. In her own bed. Within snoring distance of her bedmates. Who heard and saw nothing.”
While keeping one heavy-lidded eye on Drake, John asked, “Poison?”
“’Twould appear so. Milord, there is more. D’Évreux had a rendezvous with her. He’s …”
“I know.” John nodded toward Drake. “This man did it.”
Chauvigny hesitated contradicting the comte of Mortaigne.
“André,” Drake hoarsely pleaded. The sword dug deeper. Blood flowed freely, seeping warm and ticklish.
His throat livid with the imprint of Drake’s boot, Baldwin flickered inimical eyes at him before turning toward the prince. “Then why did fitzAlan return? When he could have been halfway to freedom by now?”
“Why, to silence Tancrede and the demoiselle, of course.”
André finally had something to say. “Except it was Drake who suggested we look for Tancrede. Together.”
“A ruse.” Not once taking eyes off his prisoner, John re-balanced his feet.
His nose swollen twice its size, Fors prudently approached Drake and gave him a baleful glance as he drew the dragon sword from its scabbard. “Clean,” he noted.
“Easily wiped clean after the fact. Now if it please you, put this man in chains and deposit him in the tower before he hurts himself with my sword. As he did once before.”
“John, John,” Drake said jovially, though the sword pinched with every word. “Why accuse me when there are so many others from which to choose? Why not your brother, the archbishop of York?”
“Geoff doesn’t have the guts to—”
“Or Chauvigny there?”
“Me? Why me?”
“Or Béthune? Or Fors, even? Hah! I have it now! Why didn’t I think of it before? The king of France. He has more at stake than any. And how inconvenient of his queen to die, yesterday of all days.”
“Philippe is no more guilty of regicide than—”
“King Richard himself?”
“The comte’s arm was growing tired. The sword dug deeper.
You saw,” John said to the others. “You all saw. Philippe saved my brother the king from this man and his brother. Speaking of which, where is Stephen?” He peered closer. “Perhaps you are Stephen. I never can get the two of you straight. Come to think, I can. Stephen doesn’t have the effrontery of his older brother. Ergo, you’re Drake, and Stephen is … where?” The sword made its point. “I ask again. Or could he be in bed with my good sister-to-be?”
“Not when she’s skulking about the castle like a wraith.”
“And now he accuses France’s sister.” Again the sword pressed its advantage. “Richard insulted you. We all heard. Did we not Chauvigny? Reason enough for reprisal.”
“But you want to be king,” said Drake, his head rising ever higher against the wall at his back.
The sword left his neck. “There! That proves it! He’s raving, I tell you!” John sought support from the others. “He’s trying to throw suspicion away from himself.”
The knights exchanged bewildered looks. Béthune seemed to be taking John’s side, probably because he was wearing clothes borrowed or purloined from a Dreux villager. To Fors, it hardly mattered who was telling the truth. Dead on his feet, he only wanted the nearest bed and something icy to put on his nose. And Chauvigny ….
André glanced at Drake before shrugging. “I am no friend of fitzAlan’s. Tonight, none of us are. But this is not the way to decide it, mon seigneur, with a sword to his neck. It reeks of calumny.”
“By God’s eyes, it doesn’t! It reeks of justice.”
For the sake of ending the standoff, the knights were ready to back the king’s brother. Stepping forward, they took places on either side of the prince. “Sieur fitzAlan,” Chauvigny said, “our regrets.”
The king’s guard arrived in rush of footsteps and a clanging of weapons. The moment passed. The dynamics changed. Chances of escape had dwindled from one against four to one against a dozen. The odds, Drake surmised, still held hope, but the chances were slim.
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“Captain d’Amboise,” John said. “You’re acquainted with this knave, the most gallant, the most brave, the most traitorous Sirrah fitzAlan?”
Mallory d’Amboise stepped forward and regarded Drake with a single malevolent eye, black as a jet bead, the other eye scarred and only half open. “I served his father for many a year, milord.”
“He is guilty of regicide, or nearly so. You may take him and his accomplices to the tower. They are traitors, every one.”
“Milord,” Baldwin squawked, “we were prepared to obey you.”
“In God’s name you weren't! You intended to disarm me and let this villain go free!”
“I swear to you …”
“Enough! Why do you tarry, Captain?”
Knowing well the reputation of the three knights irrespective of the fourth, whom the old chevalier had watched grow to manhood while a steadfast member of the Itchendel Castle guard, d’Amboise hesitated.
“Sieur d’Amboise,” John said. “Whose man are you? Whom do you serve to the exclusion of all others, notwithstanding vows you might have made in Canterbury Cathedral based on sentimentality rather than considered judgment.”
Know this, Drake fitzAlan. Though I serve John, I am your man.
Remembering the moment when Drake could have run his sword of justice through the king’s brother but chose to turn aside, Mallory nodded toward the young knight but said to John, “You, mon seigneur, and you alone.”
“Then do your duty.”
In what proved to be an effortless task, the sentries briskly disarmed those nearest—Chauvigny, Béthune, and Fors—and secured them in shackles …
“By the bye,” John said casually to Drake. “We have already taken your squire into custody. You shall see him soon.”
… and failed to take heed of the fourth much more dangerous knight, whom they presumed the comte had well in hand.
They couldn’t have been more wrong. A sword clattered heavily to the floor. Feet shifted in the rushes. A dagger appeared. Drake swung around the disarmed comte de Mortaigne and put the blade to the front of his quivering throat. Rescue was instantly thwarted with the heavy-handed tip of a dragon sword thrust violently forward.
Holding up his iron-fettered hands, Chauvigny, shouted, “Release us, you knaves!”
Mallory d’Amboise shifted his vision between three benign knights versus one formidable one, and took a tentative step toward the formidable one.
“Stand off should you wish to be heroes,” Drake shouted.” Or advance, should you wish to be executioners. Well? Which is it to be?”
And d’Amboise, helpless to either prevent or assist, looked at the three-foot blade pointed at his heart and said, “Go, Drake!” His words rang with authority.
Using the dagger like a bridle at the comte’s throat, he kept the sentries at a respectful distance. John would have spoken if Drake had allowed. He would have swallowed bile if Drake had allowed. Even in the face of losing every bit of pride and self-respect, he would have swooned to the filthy rushes if Drake had allowed. Instead he found himself being led backwards by the razor-sharp edge of the dagger.
Drake maneuvered the prince beyond the wide portal separating gatehouse from courtyard, and seeing escape close at hand, projected his voice to the rafters and crowed. Intimidated by the young knight’s apparent lunacy, Mallory’s men looked to their captain for guidance. In their hesitance, Drake flung John away, swung shut the massive double doors against onslaught, and quickly secured the draw bar. The pounding of fists reverberated, but the doors held fast.
Drake spun around and faced his adversary. “As I was saying, a very pretty costume, but unsuitable for fighting.” Pitching John against the wall and whipping the jewel-encrusted belt out from around his waist, Drake continued equably, “But wholly suitable for lovemaking. The feisty Jacotte, perhaps?”
John howled as Drake bound the leather strapping around his wrists. “You dare lay a finger on me? And worse, accuse me of murdering a lady?”
Drake tumbled him to the ground, and removing a bridle from a hook, lashed the comte’s feet together. “Once a rabid dog has tasted blood, it wants another taste. Were it not for your short stature, you might have made a passable knight. As it is, you’ll make a bad king. And it is my duty to prevent such a wretched fate from coming to pass.”
“Philippe was right. You are a contemptible whoreson.”
Drake gathered up the reins of Béthune’s steed. “I should have killed you when I had the chance. I’d be dead, but then again, so would you.”
“You will pay for this. As God is my witness, I will make you pay.”
Drake opened the sally port and mounted Béthune’s bay palfrey. “It would seem you have no luck, John, when it comes to overpowering an unarmed knight.”
And Drake was off, urging the horse through the door and escaping across the drawbridge into the early light of dawn.
Chapter 10
ON THE CALAIS ROAD, the early-morning fog turned crisp white, blanketing ash and linden to near invisibility.
As if awakening from a dream, Drake became aware of beating hoofs, pounding rhythmically on the forest floor. They weren’t in a great hurry, yet they seemed to be trailing him. When Drake sped up, they sped up. When he tarried, they tarried. One horse neighed. Moments later, a second answered. Then his own steed wagged his head and whinnied. The warning came too late.
They were upon him—two knights—their faces concealed by great helms, the lines of their advance intersecting, their robust mounts straining at the bit. Armored in hauberk, mailed greaves, and good leather boots, they unsheathed swords and leveled the blades, snow-white against the fog-stirred backdrop. On the same trill of steel, Drake brandished his own weapon. They were unimpressed.
“Drake fitzAlan?” one of them said, his voice muffled by the helmet.
He didn’t respond to his name. Instead he smiled. The odds were in his favor.
“Is that a yes?”
Digging his heels into the palfrey, Drake answered with a war cry. Streaking past both horsemen, he galloped off, nothing to stop him. Except for the third knight who joined the ambuscade.
The bay reared. His hindquarters compressed. His forelegs pawed the upturned sky. Drake scooped up the reins, and as man and beast came prancing back to earth, dug in his spurs and gave the palfrey its head. The bay sprang forward at its rider’s bidding … on a different track, a narrower trail, a riskier escape route.
And then, the fourth knight showed himself. And the fifth. And finally the sixth.
* * *
On the third sunrise, when the tawny owl began its familiar to-whit, to-whoo, the knights slowed their pace.
Drake was exceedingly frustrated. Rough hemp securely bound him. A cloth blinded him. A gag silenced him. A great helm disguised him from casual passersby. The knights had searched for and found all the hiding places and confiscated every knife, even the one in his boot. On the exhausting journey to follow, Drake did not have the remotest chance of escape. No reason was offered for his capture. Miles of backtracking, circling, splitting apart, and reuniting loped past. The knights were well-disciplined. They rarely stopped for sleep or repast, and then only briefly.
On the last leg of the journey, a river crossing took the party splashing over shoals. A steep climb brought them to a gatehouse. When Drake was made to dismount, his legs gave way. Powerful hands, one under each armpit, remedied his incapacity. He was ushered into a courtyard and thence through a portal that delivered him into a chilly château and thence to a great hall. The echo of confident footsteps advanced. The removal of the helm brought relief from the suffocating confinement. The blindfold, still in place, yielded only the distant dance of torchlight. A man studied him. Smelling of ambergris, his hand danced close to his face.
The gag was dragged away. He had to work up a spit. “Who are you? What do you want?”
A thump between the shoulder blades was his curt reply.
The knights esco
rted Drake above stairs to the solar. Upon entering the vast chamber, he sensed the heat of the hearthfire to his right, smelled candle wax to his left, sniffed the musty odors of musty drapery and cushions, and heard the shrill whistle of a caged bird. He sensed even more. Dismay. Fear. A fleeting thought. An unsettling presence. All of it emanating from a single source. There, to his right.
The knights waited. They had an unyielding grip of his arms, already numbed by effective coercion. The nobleman paced, impatient. At a silent gesture, Drake was manhandled to a chair and drummed down. Before him, someone’s feet shifted on the bare floor as if resisting forceful persuasion. He heard the man breathe with effort and grunt from frustration. Drake was expected to react … to speak. The nobleman’s pacing stopped. The flat of a steely palm caught Drake violently across the cheekbone. He righted his face and spit up to where the nobleman was standing. A sleeve facilely wiped the sputum away. Then his fist did its methodical work. When Drake raised his head, gasping for air, he stared blankly at his invisible enemy.
“Say it. Say his name. You know he is there, waiting to hear you speak.”
He shifted blinded eyes to the other man, struggling silently and violently beyond the veil. With a single shake of his head, Drake refused.
“If you don’t say it, I will cut off a finger. His.”
He vainly tried to shrug off the locking fists. A sword rang lethally from its scabbard. The wait dragged on. There was nothing else for it. He licked his lips and tentatively said, “Stephen?”
“Drake!” Stephen yelled out.
Greek fire consumed twin souls. Drake shot out of the chair and tried to reach his brother. Using his weight, his elbows, his legs, he exploded with an unpredictability meant to create upheaval. Create upheaval he did, connecting more than once. Across the unreachable barrier, Stephen foisted an equally mettlesome fight. Pottery crashed. A chair and then a table toppled. A body thudded to the floor. A defeated grunt followed. Captive inside his cage, the bird squawked and flapped its wings.