“How do you see it ending?”
FitzWalter took a step forward. “You could join me yet. I can give you land, Jamie. I know Softsword has balked on that. He has the acumen of a goat.” FitzWalter lowered his hand slightly. “John has no chance anymore, Jamie. You know that. When the heirs are exposed, everything will be tainted. Everything. And, Jamie, I am telling you, all we need is a taint. The whiff of something odious enough to sway the countryside. There are enough people who wish it tainted. John cannot stand against it.
“The king’s son is seven years old. I could run him over with my pony cart. But the daughter?” fitzWalter said, stepping closer. “She is a princess, and in these ravaged times, it only takes a man with ambition and an army to wed her and claim England as his. He’d have to be willing to fight for it. Which hardly qualifies as an obstacle.”
“You have someone in mind,” Jamie said coldly.
“Several.”
“She is not for sale.”
FitzWalter stilled. “Jamie. You and the king’s daughter?” He barked in laughter, then met Jamie’s eye. “If you want her, mayhap you could be the one. Nothing is decided. I can still use you, raise you up.” He took a step closer, his voice lower. “Something in you wants greatness, Jamie. I can give it to you.”
“Something in you wants to die,” Jamie retorted, pushing the overturned table out of the way with his boot.
FitzWalter raised his sword, grinning as blood ran down into his beard from a split lip. “You’re making a mistake. We can end this war right now.”
“You revel in war,” Jamie said coldly.
“It serves me not to rule scorched earth,” fitzWalter said in a low tone. “If you join with me, if we have the daughter, the king will go away. Ignobly away, but away.”
“Never,” said Jamie. “Never again.”
FitzWalter’s coaxing smile turned to a sneer. “You think you are too good for me? You’re a goddamned mercenary.”
“You’re a goddamned traitor.”
“This is as good as it gets for the likes of you, Lost. You cannot think the king will let you have her. His daughter? To a common soldier? If you want her, Jamie, I am the way.”
FitzWalter took another step forward, his hand up in a placating gesture. Then, swift as a whip, he snapped his hand down over Jamie’s hand and hilt, gripping tight. Jamie ripped his arm up, but fitzWalter’s hold stiffened. Their faces were inches apart, their arms trembling from the pressure.
“Change your mind before I have to kill you, Lost,” he hissed.
“Everoot,” Jamie corrected, and ripped the sword free with a mighty jerk. “And I have ne’er been lost.”
FitzWalter went stumbling backward, his sword flying. It skittered across the floor, out of reach. His face was confused and shocked as he backed up. Then it cleared into comprehension. “God’s bones, I see it now. You are Everoot.”
Jamie advanced, forcing fitzWalter back until he tripped and fell. Then he stepped forward and put his sword tip to Fitz’s throat. There was no rush of satisfaction, no elation at besting this old enemy. There was only the desire to be done.
“Why?” FitzWalter’s voice dropped into a hoarse sound. “I could have made you great. Why did you not tell me who you were? Why did you betray me?”
Jamie chose his words slowly, methodically. “Because John is anointed and you are not. Because he is the king and you are not. Because, upon a time, all you had to do was present a single man, one decent man, and I would have supported you to the end days. But you could not do even so much as that.”
“I will now,” he said, grabbing Jamie’s wrist in a weak fist. “I will take counsel with you. We already have London, and the French king sails for England—”
“So England shall heel for Philip now?”
“But if you think otherwise, I shall listen. We shall all listen. Come, Jamie. Reconsider. It can all be yours. Everoot, all her lands, her castles. They stretch from Scotland to Wales.”
“I will claim Everoot neither for king nor for rebelmen. If there are no other choices, it shall go unclaimed.”
FitzWalter seemed to snarl. His hand tightened on Jamie’s wrist. “Then you had best slay me now, Lost, for I am surely going to kill you.”
Jamie leaned in close and made a flat-palmed swipe against his own throat. “I am full to here of killing,” he said harshly. “I am awash in blood. I am sick to death of it.”
“I am not.”
“Then I suppose I will see you in Hell.” He cracked Fitz’s head against the ground with a thud, his eyes rolling back in his head. Jamie stared down at him. Something had just ended. Something dirty and half done was now . . . done.
Ry had his boot on Cig’s shoulder, giving a final yank to the rope that bound him to his mate, his feet to his neck. He dropped the rope and Jamie strode over and clapped him on the shoulder.
“My thanks,” Jamie said roughly.
Angus had finally taken Mouldin down. Dead, an inglorious end to an ignominious life, but even Mouldin had someone to mourn him: Magda. Who knew where Peter of London was.
Roger stood above another soldier, who was flat on his back and . . . Eva crouched beside him, her little knife tipping against a vein in his throat.
“Ah, but you see, it could be an accident,” she was saying in a friendly voice. “I have it just so, against a very important part of you. The tip slips, just so, and that is as good as intent.”
Jamie stepped up behind her and touched her on her back. She got to her feet and backed away. Roger’s eyes were fixed on his prey, and Jamie reached out and slowly pushed on Roger’s hilt, moving the blade away from the man’s neck.
“You did fine, Roger. We don’t kill them unless we have to. Get good with ropes.” Jamie gripped his shoulder. “Once again, you’ve my thanks.”
“And you’ve my sword, sir.”
Eva stood near the door, in the shadows, as was her wont. Jamie strode to her while Ry and Angus hauled the man to his feet. He spun her, pulling her into his chest.
“Why did you come?” he demanded, burying his face in her neck.
“I have spent my life hiding in shadows, Jamie. Occasionally, one must step out. Particularly when one’s loved ones are in danger.”
He lifted his head. “What did you think you could do to help?”
She put her hands on his arms. “I have not been entirely honest with you.”
He gave a small laugh. “I have been educated about who you are.”
“I ought to have told you. It changes nothing for me,” she said swiftly, then looked away. “But perhaps, for y—”
He cupped her jaw, trapping strands of her hair under his gauntleted hands and pulled her up to her toes, close to his face. “I will get you out of here,” he whispered. “We will go to your cottage. And as you do not wish it, I swear that John will never find you. I vow on my life.”
She nodded, her eyes bright and wet. “Let us hope it will not come to that. We shall retrieve mon père, and go be irretrievable.”
He kissed her one last time and turned to the others.
“Let’s go get him.”
Fifty-six
Eva found him.
“He’ll be with Magda,” Jamie said as they hurried out into the bright spring day. The sky was screaming blue, the sun blinding. Even the cobbles seemed reflective.
Fairgoers moved everywhere, making crowds in front of shops. Criers were out, announcing new wine and ale, selling pasties. Animals were being herded through the chaos, goats and ewes and a pony, heading for the horse market outside the gates. Children and dogs ran in and out of the bright skirts and booted legs of adults out for a day at the fair. There was noise and light and brightness. It felt like another world.
Jamie kept Eva and Roger in front of him, Ry at his side. Angus tromped behind, a sort of one-man rearguard. They moved as swiftly as they could, dodging people and animals, as Jamie explained, “Mouldin said, ‘She will never tell you.’ He meant Magda.�
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“I am certain he did,” Eva agreed. “But Father Peter is with the doctor.”
Jamie looked down at her sharply. “Magda and the physic are on opposite ends of the town. We must choose right. Why do you say the doctor?”
“Because Magda is a caretaker.”
“And so she’d have kept the priest with her.”
Eva shook her head and pointed to the street that lead to Jakob Doctor’s. “That is not what caretakers do, Jamie. They make sure the vulnerable ones are with whoever can take care of them best. Father will be with the best physic in the west country. I am certain.” She met his eye. “It is what I would have done.”
Jamie grabbed her hand. “Ry, you and Roger go get the horses. Angus, come with me. We’re going to Jakob Doctor’s.”
EVEN as they drew near, they could see it had been wrecked. The front door was flung open. Inside, tables were knocked over, glass phials and cups shattered, sprayed all across the floor. Unguents and various liquids dripped down the edges of the wood tables. An odor of spoilage and floral filled the air, an acrid, cloying scent. Papers ruffled in the faint morning breeze. All was silent.
No one was in sight. This was odd. People gathered to stand like children at a puppet show simply to watch a miller break apart a beaver dam. They would surely be standing about this scene.
Unless they knew something. Something that would keep them away.
“Jamie,” Eva whispered. “Hurry.”
Jamie slid his sword out, holding his hand out, keeping her back. He directed Angus to stand watch, then stepped inside and listened. As eerie as it was, as silent and gravelike in the bright spring morning, the place had no feeling of impending danger or poised attack.
He gestured Eva inside.
She went at once to the stairs and, gesturing her intent silently, went up, silent as a cat. He turned for the back room and swung open the door.
Jakob Doctor. Sitting on a bed beside . . . Peter of London.
Jamie lowered his sword. Jakob turned slowly, his shoulders moving with his head, as if his neck had stiffened overnight and would not swivel smoothly.
“I thought you would return” was all he said.
“What happened?”
Jakob glanced at Father Peter. “He asked for you.” He touched Peter of London’s shoulder as Jamie came forward. Peter’s eyes flickered open.
Jamie knelt beside the bed. “It has been a long time, old friend.”
Father Peter smiled faintly. “Ah, Jamie. You have come.”
Jamie took the pale, elderly hand and squeezed lightly. “I would have come the moment I heard your name, Father, but you should know this: John sent me for you.”
Peter of London painfully lifted a hand and moved it to rest on Jamie’s arm. “I know. I have ne’er faulted you for serving faithfully, Jamie.”
Jamie shook his head. “’Twas not always faithfully done.”
“’Tis now, and that is all that matters.”
“Who did this to you?” Jamie looked at Peter’s face, taken aback by the violence. The bedsheets were stained red.
“The king.”
Jamie recoiled. “Cig did this?”
“A woman.”
“What?”
Peter met his eyes. “She was blond.” Chance. Oh, the deadly irony. Chance, a hidden agent for the king.
Peter waved his hand. “This is hardly the issue now, Jamie. The time has come. I have your father’s things for you.” He reached for a small bag at his side, a little larger than the usual packet that hung around travelers’ necks containing traveling papers, safe conducts, maps, letters of introduction, and even coin if one was foolish. But what Peter of London, old confidant and friend of his father’s, handed over now were the heirlooms of Everoot.
His father’s thick signet ring with the famed Everoot seal, a twice-blooming rose roped around in thick cords of gold and silver, a glowing green gem right in the center like a dragon’s eye. The small, tricolor key. An Everoot surcoat, carefully folded. And last, a small gold locket, and inside a lock of hair. His mother’s.
Father Peter watched Jamie sift through the offerings. “I offer my profound apologies for taking so long. I should have brought these to you many years ago.”
“I do not think I would have accepted them before now.”
“There are sketches as well, Jamie, and documentation.” Peter nodded to the bag. “Look inside.”
The air seemed to grow thinner as Jamie reached in. He took out several pieces of parchment, scrolled and tied. He unlaced them and rolled them open.
First to hit him was the image of him and his father, the strong towers of Everoot in the background. Then another, of Jamie as a child of six, in the forest, whittling wood.
Yes. He recalled that day. Father Peter, a much younger man, had been visiting his friend, the earl of Everoot. That was the day Papa had given him a little knife. The day he’d taken Jamie down to the vaults, to the room of treasures.
Next was the scene he’d been seeing in his mind for the past twenty years: his father’s murder. King John, striking down his father, a few great men leaping forward on the grimy cobbled streets, trying to hold back the king.
“I was there.” Father Peter’s voice seemed to come in from a great distance. “I was with the king that day, when your father returned with news that King Richard was not dead, as John had been claiming.”
Jamie nodded silently. What was there to say? He’d been there too, and run.
“I tried to find you,” Peter said quietly, but it felt like a shout. “I could not.”
“You were not intended to,” he replied thickly.
Peter nodded toward the drawing. “John knows I sketched that, and knows its danger. It will serve you well, should you need it. Everyone in that drawing is a witness.”
Next was a document. A writ of some sort. No. Scrawled words on a page. Signatures. A record of his baptism.
“These cannot be pleasant for you,” Peter said gravely. “But they will be proof, my lord.”
Jamie looked up sharply. “Do not call me that.”
“I am calling you that. You must claim what is yours.”
Jamie sat back on his heels. “No.”
Peter looked at him sharply. “You must. You must claim Everoot.”
“No, curé. I will not. I am leaving. I go with Eva, if she will have me. I am done.”
“You do not have that luxury, Jamie of Everoot. You cannot decline.”
“Watch me.”
Peter’s gaze grew stern. “Everoot is not a gift, Jamie. ’Tis an obligation.”
Jamie gave a faint smile. “Now you sound like a proper churchman.” He looked down at his father’s surcoat in his hands, let it drop into the bag, and sat back on his heels. “Is this why you came back?”
Peter raised his eyebrows, and Jamie touched the bag. “For this?”
“Yes, that,” Peter replied crankily. “That, and the thing I have spent the last year of my life in pursuit of. The one thing that may rescue this land from incessant warfare. The charter.” His regard of Jamie grew harder and more intent, which, coming from a man well into his sixth decade, was quite hard and intent indeed. “A charter you are going to help bring to fruition, Jamie, when you claim Everoot.”
He shook his head. “You have been too long among books and monks, priest. A piece of paper will not stop either the rebels or the king. It will never hold.”
Peter’s eyes fairly snapped fire. “Either you are very stupid, or you think I am.” Jamie laughed. “Of course it will not hold on its own,” Peter said firmly. “’Tis parchment. But neither can a castle wall do much good if it is unmanned. It takes men to make it hold. It will take men, powerful, influential men, to make this charter hold. Men with the internal resources to see it through. Men with castles and vassals and money. Men with courage.”
Their eyes met and held.
“I am not that man, curé,” Jamie said quietly. “I am sorry to disappoint.
I am nothing like my father.”
Peter dropped back on the pillows with a grunt of disgust. “You are like him in your complete and utter stubbornness. If only your mother were here.”
“If only,” Jamie echoed, getting to his feet.
“You and Eva shall make a fine pair,” he added bitterly. “She is as hard-headed as you.”
“You are both very stubborn men,” said a quiet voice from the doorway. “But I am glad to see you and your very hard head.”
Jamie felt Peter’s heaviness lighten. “Ah, Jamie, you brought me Eva. That was well done,” he said quietly, then turned his head to the door.
She came into the room, her gaze touching on everything, Jamie sitting at the bedside, the faint red smear on one side of the linen sheets tucked in around the priest.
Then she was hugging him, talking softly, saying nothing of the sheets or that he was dying, for Eva was wise enough not to waste time on the things that could not be changed. Jamie sat back and watched them a moment, these old friends, Eva tucking and fussing and chatting, Peter waving her off, shaking his head.
“Stay with Jamie, now, Eva,” Peter said after a few minutes, his eyes closing.
She stood beside the bed, her fingertips resting lightly on the sheet above his chest. “But of course.”
“And Roger?” he asked, his voice fainter even than a moment ago.
Eva didn’t reply. Jamie looked up and saw her face was fixed as rigidly as iron, her jaw tight, her eyes staring, as little shivers trembled her head all the way down to the ends of her hair.
“Is safe,” Jamie answered for her. “And brave. He will be a boon to whomever he serves. You and Eva raised him well.”
Father Peter’s lips pursed slightly, his eyes still closed. “’Twas all the hardheaded woman’s doing. I said he was a lost thing. She insisted no and brought him back.”
Eva’s emotions spilled over in two tears, down her face. But she smiled and said, “I sketched a picture for someone last night. Of his mother. He said it was well-done.”
Father Peter patted her hand once, faintly. “All you do is well-done, Eva. I am proud.”
He was quiet after that. Jamie stood beside Eva, his hand on her shoulder, and they waited in silence. It didn’t take long for Peter to die.
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