Crown of the Realm (A White Knight Adventure Book 2)

by Jude Chapman

  Soon Drake was propped against the wall. His bowed head favoring the good eye, he ladled spoonful after spoonful of hot potage past swollen lips and sore jaw.

  Nearby, Rand likewise partook of a meal slightly more substantial. “The comte of Mortaigne would disapprove, of course, most violently and most deafeningly. But I am the king’s marshal, am I not? And the king’s marshal cannot go unfed. Further, the king’s marshal refuses to sup alone.” He chewed thoughtfully. “Your palfrey heals well, by the way. The arrow came out clean. There was little blood. Must have set your father back a pretty penny to procure the pair. Are they brothers, the Arabians? They look as alike as the two of you. I shouldn’t wonder they are brothers, bred of the same mare and stud. Perhaps one is slightly older than the other, but they don’t seem such. A handsome pair, as are you and Stephen.”

  The bowl was taken away. Drake remained where he was, stronger for the food.

  Rand again paced. “Why Drake, why? You worship Richard, you and Stephen, I know you do. What possessed you to go so far? A petty squabble over a troublesome marriage proposal? I don’t believe it.”

  Drake offered no comment, not that Rand expected one.

  “For payment then? If that were so, who would have reason enough and silver enough to turn you and Stephen against Richard? John? We all know John doesn’t have enough coin to piss in a pot. He laid all his bets last summer and has no more left for a decent wager. Moreover, if it were John, you would be the first to denounce him. Because of Jenna …”

  Jenna de Berneval, the daughter of Queen Eleanor’s erstwhile gaoler and Drake’s childhood sweetheart. Killed by a dagger to the heart.

  “As to Geoffrey, his fingertips itch at the very thought of an archbishop’s treasury awaiting him in York. Even if he could get to it, even if it contained a million pounds sterling, even if the Old King’s ring is a perfect fit, no man would recognize a bastard brother as monarch, not when there’s a legitimate brother at hand. Unless … after Richard dies … John were to meet with a convenient accident of his own? I suppose. Yet neither John nor Geoffrey has been tested on a battlefield, and it would take a general to hold onto the empire King Henry fashioned. Leaving Philippe. King killing king? ’Twould seem imprudent but not beyond reason.”

  Drake must have fallen asleep again. When he groggily opened his eyes, he lay on a pallet. A blanket, smelling strongly of horse, covered him. The aches and pains were, if anything, more pronounced. He stirred, groaned, and clinked. Across the way, Rand was leaning against the curved wall and staring down at him.

  “There’s no news on Richard’s state. He lives, but ….” He bent his head, exhausted. “What aren’t you telling me, Drake? Why aren’t you telling me?” He strained his head upright. His eyes were bloodshot with fatigue. “Why do you treat me like the enemy? I am not the enemy. Or maybe I am. Maybe you think I am. Or maybe you don’t know if I am.” He braced his chin in a cupped hand. “I’m told there were other attempts on the king’s life. They say you wanted to make it look as if Richard were the victim of an unfortunate accident. When that fell short, you paid off d’Évreux to shoot the errant arrow. After all else failed, you came out into the open.”

  He stood and paced, the fall of his boots ringing against the walls. “None of it … absolutely none of it makes sense. Suppose …,” he went on, thinking it out, “suppose Richard were to die. Who would gain by it? John, of course. After him, Geoffrey. King Philippe, possibly. The least to gain would be Drake fitzAlan, whose fortune lies best with Richard.” Another thought struck him. “Philippe singled you out for insult, I hear. It was then that Richard brought up the name of Matilda of Angoulême. I’m thinking ….”

  Stop thinking, Rand, stop thinking.

  “If a few ill-executed accidents fail to deliver the promise, why not force someone out of favor with the king to do the dirty deed. Someone like Drake fitzAlan, who has reason for reprisal plus a steady hand. But what to entice him with? Riches? Being an elder son and standing to inherit Itchendel, he has riches enough. And freedom to marry the woman of his choice. No king’s vassal has that choice. Which leaves …”—and here he paused—“blackmail of the worst sort ... against someone he loves … his brother … or his woman.”

  He shot forward. “Where is Stephen, Drake? Where is Aveline? Or should I say, in whose custody are they?”

  Rand got the response he wanted: a sharp turn of Drake’s head, a silent pleading. He was already unlocking the manacles and calling for the guard. They rushed in, swords drawn. “Fetch d’Amboise!” The men dithered. “You heard me. Now!”

  Drake’s voice was husky. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “But I do. I know perfectly well what I’m doing.”

  He had already released the ankle shackles. Drake reached for the marshal’s arm. “Don’t do this. I beg of you.”

  “If they are not already dead, they soon will be. No amount of self-destruction will bring them … or you … deliverance.”

  “There’s a chance.”

  “Remote. Which you’ve known from the start, haven’t you? May God curse you to Hell, Drake fitzAlan, for what you’ve done. For I won’t.”

  Chapter 13

  SUPPORTED BY RAND and Mallory, Drake ran bleary eyes over satin gowns and gem-laced throats in the queen’s over-warm but luxurious apartment. His unexpected arrival and ghastly appearance frightened the ladies-in-waiting, and why not, since he must look every bit a traitor and assassin.

  Eleanor entered the antechamber. A chambermaid, hands clutched, trailed in her wake. The unflappable queen swept forward and slapped Drake across the cheek. The ladies-in-waiting recoiled. The chambermaid pressed hands over her mouth and smothered a sob. And Drake, rocked by the unexpected assault, slowly brought his bruised face back around and stared silently at his great-aunt.

  “You!” she shouted at Mallory. “You bring this scoundrel into my presence?”

  “Milady,” d’Amboise sputtered. “If you will hear us out.”

  The queen’s demeanor changed from fire to ice. “Ah, but of course. You needn’t say another word, Captain. Or you, Marshal. I understand completely.” She fixed the knight with a malevolent glare. “This candidate for the dung heap must be coddled and corn-fed. Thus restored to rosy-cheeked fitness, he can receive the rightful punishment due him according to law and custom.” She sighed as if this were a niggling matter. “Very well. Come with me.” She was already moving toward the portal through which the men had so recently entered. “We shall arrange apt accommodations where he can be made fit for his execution day.” She glanced back at her chambermaid. “Ma demoiselle. You shall accompany me.”

  The chambermaid made a polite curtsy. Upon rising, her eyes fastened on the prisoner.

  Drake opened a single fatigued eye and noted how the lady was fashionably gowned in a pleasing russet bliaut. Although the gown was not as shiny or bejeweled as the ones afforded the queen’s ladies, it adorned the wearer with elegant simplicity. The sight of such genteel beauty caused the corners of his swollen lips to curl.

  Alais Capét pushed to the fore. “Milady,” she said, “as capable as your chambermaid must be, as the king’s betrothed it is my place to assist you in this delicate matter.” The sister of the king of France had already reached the open portal.

  “Alais, my dear daughter. Stay. And if the king’s surgeon should ask after me or my son John should inquire about my whereabouts, tell them both I shall return shortly.” Reaching out her hand, she said, “Ma demoiselle, if you please, I need your strength,” though it was abundantly clear that the mute chambermaid had need of the queen’s arm rather than the reverse.

  A cresset lamp gripped in her steely clutch, Eleanor led the entourage into the gallery. The sudden draft churned the flame. D’Amboise and Clarendon, propping their lame prisoner between them, ushered him through the archway. And the prisoner, the last to deny that he was a candidate for the dung heap, held his sight as tautly on the chambermaid’s bac
k as Eleanor’s hand clawed her arm. The captain and the marshal wisely held their tongues.

  Following the corridor for a short distance, Eleanor brought them before a secured door, and there, casting a furtive eye, unlocked it with a key drawn from her sleeve. In a rustling of skirts and footsteps, she escorted everyone inside. The chamber, little more than a storeroom, was filled with broken furniture and cobwebs. When the queen swung around, her face was lit hauntingly by the flickering lamp in her hand.

  The king’s marshal said, “Milady. The reason we brought fitzAlan to your attention was not to have him fattened for the hangman’s rope.”

  “The executioner’s sword, then? Come, gentlemen, it must be one or the other. Or perhaps both? With appropriate tortures in between?”

  When they didn’t answer, she waved the sputtering lamp and gestured toward a connecting door. Squeezing past the stunned men, she brought with her as before her chambermaid. Drake, his arms spread-eagle about the broad shoulders of his wardens, boldly sniffed the fragrances emanating from both women. Eleanor cast a cautionary glare in his direction before unlocking the door of egress and throwing it open into an adjoining chamber. Beyond, the glow of innumerable wall sconces flooded the enclosure.

  She turned to face them. “Then why, gentlemen? Why have you brought him to me? To display the damage of his harsh punishment? From what I observe, there is more yet to do.” Following the keen reactions of the king’s marshal and the comte’s captain, she said, “No? You wish to refrain from these torturous pleasures? More’s the pity.”

  “Milady?” Mallory d’Amboise had finally found his voice.

  Her voice gentled. “Or perhaps you have come on a noble mission. You have come to tell me that Drake fitzAlan is but a pawn in a deadly game of duplicity.”

  “We have come to tell you,” said Rand, “that Stephen fitzAlan is being held hostage.”

  A resonant voice said, “We know.”

  The shadowed outline of a majestic profile filled the portal.

  “Milord,” said Mallory, crossing himself. “You live.”

  “Did you expect anything less?” Richard locked his eyes on Drake. “I almost gave up on you.”

  “But how …?” Mallory began.

  “Three shirts of mail and a bladder of pig’s blood convinced everyone. Even, as it turned out, me. That is, until I awoke and saw that I was alive and breathing.” He reached out and pulled Drake against his breast. They embraced as father and son, no less affectionately, though only twelve years separated them. “I have a sore shoulder and a bruise the size of Ireland, but otherwise I am hale, even if I’m supposed to be at death’s door.”

  “I take it, milord,” Randall of Clarendon said, “Drake fitzAlan is not a nefarious assassin.”

  “Ah, but he is. Have you forgotten the swine, nobly sacrificed for the king, the common good, and the cook pot?”

  “No, milord. For as long as I live, never let me forget the royal swine of Chinon.” His eyes glancing off Drake fitzAlan, the king’s marshal threw a gallant arm across his chest, made a low bow, and fell back.

  Hopping on one leg, Drake turned toward the queen’s prim chambermaid. She approached bravely at first, but wavering in her resolve, darted her eyes toward the king. Unlike the statuesque girl, Drake had no sense of propriety. Awkwardly closing the gap, he tumbled into her embrace and kissed her ardently on the lips. “I thought you were dead,” he said. “I feared you had been—”

  “I’m all right. I’m not hurt. He heard them. Stephen. Just before they came upon us. Told me to run. Covered me with tree branches. Warned me not to move no matter what I saw or heard. He scared off the palfreys as a diversion. But ….” She bit her lip and sobbed. “After that, everything happened fast. Five or six of them. He put up a valiant fight, but the … they overpowered him. Beat him. Trussed him up. Threw him over one of their horses. They tried to find me … wanted me as a prize … salivated over the thought. ‘FitzAlan’ they said—meaning you—would lose on three accounts … his brother, his woman, and his king. I … I stifled my cries. They found his palfrey but not yours. They didn’t tarry long after that. I heard Stephen groan. And then they were gone. Night fell. I found a better hiding place in case they came back. At daybreak, I started for Nonancourt but stayed off the path. It took two long days. I sobbed all the way. Your ring ….” She tugged it from her thumb and slid it onto his hand. “The queen recognized your ring. Oh Drake … dear, dear Drake … being associated with you is a perilous calling.”

  He stilled Aveline’s quivering lips with another kiss. When he beheld the king’s astonished face and the queen’s mirthful one, Drake recalled his wits. Releasing his prize, he stood aside and balanced himself on a gimpy leg.

  “Has our monkish knight been deprived of the fairer sex for so long that he attacks the queen’s chambermaid as if she were a strumpet?”

  “Richard!” admonished Eleanor, and then more equably, “Richard. I don’t believe you have made the acquaintance of Aveline Darcy, though you well know that if it weren’t for her account, your rogue knight may well have succeeded in his appointed task.”

  Richard slanted a circumspect eye on the queen’s shy chambermaid. After a moment of consideration, he gallantly reached for her hand, and lifting it to his lips, delicately left a kiss on her silken skin. Glancing in Drake’s direction, he commented to the daughter of an alewife, “Your man looks as though he is about to fall among the apples.”

  The king had spoken in her native tongue but she answered in his. “C’est certain, mon seigneur.”

  Whereupon the chambermaid’s man proved both of them utterly correct.

  Chapter 14

  THE ARGUING BEGAN well before Drake fully roused in the exquisite bedding of the king’s prerogative.

  Feeling a strange floating feeling, he was certain he had gone to Heaven. Death, he decided, wasn’t as bad as he had always feared. Celestial voices murmured in the background. A comforting hand covered his brow. A damp cloth smelling of lavender followed. Someone lifted his head and pressed a goblet to his lips. He drank. The voices increased in volume.

  He dared to open his eyes, and stared up at a purple canopy interwoven with heaven’s constellations. Wall sconces radiated light through diaphanous hangings. Six layers of goose-feathered mattresses eased his many bruises. A counterpane lined with sable and padded with goose down covered him to the chin. Four posts carved with lion paws soared above. Embroidered purple drapes bordered with ospreys fluttered while a fireplace licked flames of heat against surrounding walls.

  Drake had studied all these details with a slit eye before anyone realized he had awakened.

  Aveline was the first to take note. Richard had spread his broad hand over his forehead, there for comfort, but also to prevent him from bolting, which had crossed his mind. Having no strength to rise or shift position or raise his voice, and feeling dizzy with the heat, the prate of voices, and the jolting shift from tower to king’s bed, Drake wished more than anything to be left in peace. But Rand, Mallory, Eleanor, and Richard were loudly deciding his options, as if there were any.

  “You’re mad!” His complaint yielded shocked silence. “And you forget. I am guilty of high treason. I meant to kill you, milord. And would have gladly, even if regrettably. I put my brother’s life ahead of my king’s, and failed miserably on two counts. To kill the king, begging milord’s pardon. And to free my brother, begging his. Consign me to Hell. I am ready.”

  The broad, callused hand was still there, poised over his head. “Shall we summon the priest, then, to hear your final confession while I whet the sword of justice and gather witnesses?”

  “You make light of my treachery.”

  “I should say not. You are a worthless assassin and an inadequate brother. Better to rid the kingdom of the likes of Drake fitzAlan.”

  Drake listened to the stillness. “Why do you wait? Send for your brother the archbishop. He will only be too glad to escort me to the pearly gates. Call
your witnesses. And don’t forget to include John.” When the orders didn’t come, he searched out Richard’s bemused expression. And it came to him why Eleanor had brought him here, and further, why Richard had ensconced himself behind locked doors amid royal luxuries while the court was kept at bay, even so far as to exclude surgeons to tend his wound and priests to hear his last confession. “Dear God. You pretended to be at death’s door.”

  “I did.”

  “How long? How long has it been since I—?” He looked toward Rand.

  “Four days,” said the marshal.

  “Four days of Hell. Four days of wondering who would live and who would die … my king or my brother. And four days of waiting for my execution.”

  “Now he complains,” Richard said. “Which is it to be? Do you rejoice that the king survives? Or do you wish to shoot another arrow at his back?”

  “You jest.”

  “I do.”

  “How much longer did you intend to let me rot?”

  “For as long as it took. But now I discover that my new marshal is more sagacious than I heretofore gave him credit. And that my brother’s captain remains loyal to the heir of Itchendel.”

  The king’s marshal said. “My apologies, milord.”

  “Mine also,” said Mortaigne’s captain.

  “Accepted, both.”

  “Forgive me, milord, but since I am a poor excuse for an assassin, the king can play dead for only so long before his kingdom descends into anarchy. John and Geoffrey began fighting each other for the throne as soon as the king was carried off to his deathbed. God alone knows what four days of scheming can reap.”

  From her stately perch on a nearby chair, Eleanor asked, “And who, pray tell, is winning? Geoffrey, is it? Or John? Of course we know. Why do you think we did what we did? For your sake? Or for Stephen’s? I think not.”