Short breaks every few miles to rest the horses were spent in silence, Eva looking directly at Jamie. Whenever he returned her look, she’d give an indifferent sniff or one of her nonchalant little shrugs and turn away. But Jamie always spent an extra moment looking, in part because in the sunlight she was a startling display of unintended, curving sensuality.
She also had bollocks. Unfortunately, he was going to have to break them.
He slowed the group to a walk and pushed back the mail coif on his head. A small breeze ruffled the damp hair stuck to the back of his neck, for it was a warm spring day, and the sun beat down hard on men in mail.
He nodded to Ry, beckoning him forward to ride alongside him. The ropes to Eva’s horse stretched out behind them like those to a barge, comely, dangerous cargo.
“I thought I detected a visitor as well,” murmured Ry when Jamie shared his thoughts. “What do you make of it?”
“I do not know. Why would you track us?”
Ry paused. “You mean if I were seeking Peter of London?”
“If you were seeking anything, for what reason would you track us? Were you a bandit and you’d foolishly selected us as your target, you would simply hit us and hit hard. We’ve passed enough copses to host a score of attacks. Yet, nothing. Alternately, should you be seeking Peter of London, you would not be following us at all.”
Ry looked over. “And if you were after Eva?”
Jamie rested his hand on his thigh. “My thoughts exactly.”
Ry nodded. “How do you think she plays in?”
“In the way that seeking Father Peter plays in.”
“That is a wide net, Jamie. Upon a time, Peter of London meant high Church business, messy power struggles with the king, and illuminations on rather a grand scale.”
Jamie nodded. Peter of London had been a well-known, well-respected object of royal irritation. Intelligent, self-styled, gifted, and far too subtle in thought to bend to John, even early on, when the promises were good and the follow-through not yet so befouled. The king disliked Peter of London almost as greatly as he did Archbishop Langton. Jamie’s father had admired them both. Peter had fled ten years ago and had been in self-imposed exile—some said hiding—ever since.
Now, suddenly, the archbishop had called for his old friend to assist in the negotiations between the rebels and the king. Why?
More to the point, why had the rebels, who had as much interest as the king in reaching some unarmed agreement—which was to say, none at all—suggested bringing Peter of London over in the first place?
But suggest they had, weeks ago, just before they had renounced their fealty. That act had tarnished the goodwill of their request to a great degree, but then, surprise, surprise, the king had seconded the request.
It was the only thing the king and the rebels had agreed on in the past three years. Yes, by all means, bring over Peter of London. Aye, aye, aye.
It was an agreeable, collaborative, sensible solution and thus reeked of subterfuge and duplicity.
Jamie rubbed the back of his head. “There is more here than meets the eye, Ry. More than contracts and illuminations. And in some unfathomable way, it involves Eva.”
Neither of them had so much as tipped his head in her direction. Their voices were pitched so low that Jamie strained to hear Ry, riding directly at his side. Nonetheless, he felt Eva’s attention home in on him, hover against his armor like fireglow.
“And therefore, whoever is following us.”
Ry nodded. “What do we want to do about him?
Jamie glanced over. “Flush him.”
Ry nodded again.
They needed nothing but simple words to communicate elaborate plans. They’d been through too much together, relied on each other too heavily, knew each other’s mind and responses too deeply, to require more. Sometimes they did not need to speak at all, which was occasionally unnerving to whoever was in the room—or on a battlefield—with them.
“Now?” Ry asked.
Jamie shook his head. “Let us see what Eva does. Follow my lead, and once we have him”—he looked over slowly—“leave me alone with her.”
Ry had been nodding in agreement, but he looked over sharply at that. “Do not, Jamie. She’s defenseless.”
He snorted. “Before you lament her frail state overly much, recall she almost dislocated my knee earlier and was prickled with daggers. We do not have a ward in our keeping, Ry. We have an enemy combatant.”
It was much easier to have enemy combatants in one’s keeping than a soul requiring care. Jamie could not even manage a squire. There’d only been two, both failed attempts at human relations. He’d quickly set them up with other lords, less self-ruinous men, better able to give them both a future and a present. A squire, hell, Jamie could not even manage a dog. Not anymore. Not after London—
“What we have is a woman who weighs less than my saddle.” Ry’s voice drew him back from the streets of London, all those years ago.
Jamie tightened his leg against Dickon’s side and the horse turned smoothly. He met Ry’s gaze with a hard one of his own.
“What we have is a woman valuable enough to be stalked by a companion when their quarry is far on ahead. I shall discover what I must, how I must, Ry. As I ever have done. I cannot be cried off now. Kingdoms ride on the consequences.”
A messenger stumbled into the great hall of the mighty Baynard Castle in London.
Robert fitzWalter, lord of Dunmow and Baynard Castle, leader of the rebel forces, glanced up in irritation, then gazed back out the slitted window he’d been looking through, brooding, for half an hour.
All around, his compatriots continued their drunken binge, celebrating their triumphant coup of the great City. FitzWalter had every reason to join them, for they’d just completed the coup no one could have forseen; his rebel army had just taken London.
London was his.
They had taken it with nary an arrowbolt fired. That was unfortunate, of course, the lack of fighting, but when the citizens opened the gates, one could hardly mow them down.
She burned now, of course, in pockets, as the men looted the Jewish ghettos. Soldiers must be paid. Plunder was easy. The Jews were the easiest yet and had the additional benefit of homes that could provide stone for the retrenchment of the City walls. Which was not to say they weren’t also making use of raided monastery coffers. FitzWalter was impartial when it came to such things. This fight was hardly over.
Armies small and large were already marching, streaming like steely tributaries toward the City. The heirs of great estates were riding to fitzWalter’s standard, while their fathers held the castles and kept peace with the king. The country was ripping apart like cloth along the bias. Everyone was maneuvering for position. No one knew how far this would go or where it would end.
FitzWalter looked down at the parchment in his calloused hand. On its rough surface were line after line of dark ink scrawling, detailing the charter of liberties the rebels were demanding of the king.
This time, King John would sign.
He would have no choice. The crown jewel in his array of city-stones, London, had just fallen to a rap on her gates.
All the charter wanted was John’s signature and royal seal. Then it would go out to all four corners of the realm, heralded at village squares and town fairs and the castles of his greatest magnates: the barons’ charter, Magna Carta, signed and stamped by the royal We.
FitzWalter scowled at it as the messenger ran down the stairs.
“They have the priest,” he shouted as he reached the dais table. Everyone stared as he dropped to his knees, sucking in breaths, hand on his chest.
Robert fitzWalter let a slow grin lift his bearded cheeks. He turned to the earl of Essex, his cocommander. “Mouldin has brought me my priest.”
A hum of excited voices broke around him, approval, anticipation. The messenger’s gasped words were distinct from the murmuring.
“Nay, my lord. He has not brought the
priest. He sends a message instead.”
FitzWalter’s grin froze. He got to his feet, as if readying himself in advance for the blow to come. “What message?”
“A . . . ransom offer.”
The room fell silent. The sounds of horses and shouting men outside floated through the window of the castle walls, but inside, everyone was staring at fitzWalter.
“How much?” he said in a low, humming voice. “How much does he want?”
The messenger swallowed. “That is dependent, my lord.”
FitzWalter curled his fingers around the edge of the table rather than the man’s neck. Squeezing tight, he leaned forward, his words slow and deliberate. “Upon what?”
The messenger looked truly sick. “On how much the others bid.”
FitzWalter gave a harsh bark of laughter and kicked his chair back. It squealed like an animal, then toppled off the dais with a crash. “That clever, dead man.”
He stalked behind the trestle table. Men moved away, in case that got tossed next. “I will not pay. I will see him pricked with a hundred arrows in his fat arse before I surrender to him one more penny. I commissioned him. I paid him—”
He swung to the messenger. “Against whom am I bidding?”
“The king.”
Fury welled up in him, thick viscous gobs of it, up his spine into his throat. “But of course. Deal you in snakes, you shall get the venom.”
He turned to the far wall and stared out the window. He must go carefully here. This entire move, this taking of the City, had been predicated upon the successful retrieval of Peter of London, and was to be the last in a line of toppling royal dominoes.
FitzWalter had set the thing in motion by suggesting they invite the priest to England to assist in the parley. Once he arrived, Mouldin was to bring him in. Then, the prize: the missing heirs of England.
Everoot, d’Endshire.
Everoot was by far the greater estate, the greater risk, but both were mighty chinks in John’s baronial armor. It was too many great Houses to be in absentia. And in these times of strife and civil unrest, the rumors were taking shape again. No one spoke of them above a whisper, but whisper they did, as if a scent had been carried on the breeze to the nostrils of the great and mighty: find the missing heirs.
Rumors swirled as to what had happened to those great lords all those years ago, but most agreed the king’s temper had seen them done in.
Now the heirs were running loose in the world somewhere. Dead as well?
Mayhap. Mayhap not.
Father Peter would know.
FitzWalter knew he was closer than he’d ever been before. There could be no missteps now. First seize the priest.
Then the crown.
He plunged his hands into the nearby cistern and flung a handful of cold water over his face. Droplets stuck to his beard when he straightened.
“So be it. But I will not send an emissary. I will go to Gracious Hill and extract the poison myself. Then I will march Peter of London out on the field at Runnymede and kick the legs out from under John’s throne. Essex has the City in my absence. Tell no one I am gone.”
He started for the door. The members of his personal guard leaped to their feet. The messenger held up a hand.
“My lord, I was told to inform you: Jamie has been spotted. Hunting the priest.”
FitzWalter stopped short. He half turned. “Jamie Lost?”
“Aye, my lord.”
He stared for a moment, then threw his head back and gave a loud, coarse laugh. “Of course. Ever has Jamie been my own personal plague. Send for Chance,” he ordered as he turned again for the door. “Should Jamie show up, Chance can . . . inquire if he has reconsidered his loyalties. Again.”
He strode out of the room.
The race was on. Whoever brought the heirs into his fold first would release the waterfall. The news would rush like a river through England and sweep up the undecided nobles. It would ripple through their pledged knights and the fat merchants who ran their rich fair towns like a dam undone.
Without the crucial support of these middling barons and their knights and merchants, the rebellion would fail.
But then, so would a kingship.
Thirteen
Eva felt as if she were riding through the middle of one of Father Peter’s sketches. The trees all wore billowing green caps and stood proudly in their dark brown tunics as they marched up and down the hills of England.
Less showy but more sweet, tiny pricking flowers hurried to the edge of the track. The hedgerows hosted a profusion of flowering vines and exuberant birds, flitting their wings and chirping. Whenever the land opened up, herds of red poppies raced down the hills like ponies, all exuberance and flicking tails.
England was a most comely land. Eva had forgotten.
But then, she’d wanted to forget. She’d scrubbed at her memories with such vigor that after ten years, well, one could hardly expect little yellow flowers to survive such a cleansing.
Except they had.
She’d sketched them in a painting once. Gog had noticed. Somehow, even he recalled the little yellow flowers from when he was five, before they had fled.
It was not a comfortable knowledge, that England and its sweet flowers had stayed in both their minds.
Many other memories were pouring back now as well, including this road and its poor condition. She remembered it well; a few more miles ought to bring them near to where she and Roger had lived for a few desperate months, all those years ago.
A few scattered hamlets could be seen here and there, far-off smoke rising from their clusters, but the remote, rutted road itself was desolate and empty. For the ruts alone, no one would suspect a group of soldiers fleeing with a priestly hostage to travel this way.
But they had. When the hard and rocky ground gave the smallest clue of this fact, Jamie had followed behind. He was a consummate woodsman.
Unfortunately, Gog was less good.
His ten years of skulking in woods and the edges of towns in no way measured against the hunting skills of these two seasoned knights. There were only the two of them, but Eva felt surrounded by castle walls. An approach could come from the unprotected sides, Eva supposed gloomily, but if Gog were so foolish as to try—and he was not whatsoever foolish—he wouldn’t make it so far as a yard. He’d be struck down before he made it out of the eaves.
She tried to listen for signs of him, following in the wood, but if he was doing it properly, she wouldn’t notice him at all.
Jamie might, though.
“Might I have my hands unleashed?” she inquired when they next slowed the horses.
Jamie, who’d been taking the aft, came forward beside her. His gleaming chestnut horse snorted at hers, but Jamie nudged him closer yet.
“My arms ache.” She shifted them to demonstrate. “My shoulders.”
His gaze slid away to the wood beyond. He tipped his chin up and opened his mouth slightly, his body rock-still as he scanned the trees and the shadows beneath. She realized what he was doing: tasting the air. Seeing, hearing, smelling, using every sense to assess his proximate world, alive to any hint of a trap, an attack, a possible route of escape. He was like a wild creature.
He was magnificent.
This made Eva angry. She did not so much like magnificence. It was too often found in things such as castles and cathedrals, things of hard stone one could dash oneself against trying to get out of. Or into.
That such magnificence could come in the form of a stony person too, well, it simply beggared her for words.
His pewter-blue gaze slid back to her. “No.” He turned away.
She opened her mouth to protest, then snapped it shut as he reined away, clucking to encourage her horse to follow. Her horse was lashed to his, so it hardly mattered, all this clucking and encouraging. They would all go his way in the end.
She eyed the broad expanse of his self-approving back. Yes, indeed, this was a back that approved of itself. Every easy sway
of his shoulders showed it to be. Such powerful men crafted the hard truths of the hard, cold world, and she was heartfully tired of it.
“You must be very proud of yourself,” she announced.
He showed no response for a moment, then shifted and looked over his shoulder, eyebrow cocked in query.
“Riding about on your very large horse, with your hard armor and your oh-so-intimidating sword.”
He watched her a moment, then tipped his face up, as if catching an agreeable scent. Was he smiling? He looked back down. Yes, he was smiling, a very little bit.
“Tell me, Eva, have I intimidated you with my . . . sword?”
Shocking, the orb of heat that scorched her insides at his low-pitched innuendo, up from her belly to her cheeks and back down again. And flung out behind it, like the tail of a comet, came the searing memory: she’d dreamt of him last night. Repeatedly.
Hot, restless dreams, of slow-moving hands, of a hard-packed thigh pushing between hers, of his hands on her shoulders pulling her down to him . . .
Hot, hotter, hottest; his eyes on her just now, that little knowing smile.
She sniffed. “You are a very bad man.”
Something hard flashed in his eye. “That I am, Eva.” He reined in, bringing his glinting armor and hot body right up beside her, the length of his thigh bumping hers.
Then he whispered, “Who is Gog?”
Her body went cold. Just slightly, as it does the moment the air decides, Yes, now I shall snow. No more of this driving rain; let us try the snow. And the temperature drops, and the delicate branch tips get fat with ice, and everyone hurries into their homes. Those without huddle with the ice-fat branches and scowl at their icefat toes.
She looked at him coldly. It was not difficult to do; coldness emanated from both disdain and fear. How fortunate for her. “You are not only a bad man but a confusing one as well. What is this you ask? A ‘frog’?”
Again, nothing, for the longest time. Blue eyes intent on you were not a restful thing, she decided.
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