Dark Deceptions

by Christi Caldwell

  “That is a lovely map,” she said quietly.

  Keller’s eyes were on the mid-marches. “It belonged to my grandfather,” he said. “When I was assigned to Pembroke Castle, my father gave it to me. It has been invaluable.”

  Chrystobel noted the lovely designs and clean lines. She also noted the de Poyer family crest – a big red shield with three birds of prey in yellow. She’d never seen it before.

  “My father has maps,” she said. “They were in his chamber and I packed them away.”

  Keller nodded. “I found them,” he said. “I went through his possessions before they were stored and took the maps. They are mingled with mine now. His maps of the interior of Wales are more detailed than mine.”

  Chrystobel’s gaze moved to the pile of maps and papers over on the writing desk against the wall. She could see her father’s smaller maps neatly stacked on the table with Keller’s bigger ones. Not wanting to further distract her husband with chatter, which was really just nervous chatter on her part, she remained silent, leaning against him as he continued to study the map.

  Too many sorrowful things were going through her head. She knew Keller was a knight and had fought many great battles. Perhaps, foolishly, she had hoped that would end when they married and they could live in peace for the rest of their lives. Aye, it had been a foolish thought, she knew.

  Sighing sadly, she moved away from Keller, wandering over to the end of the small feasting table where the missive from Shropshire lay partially opened. She wasn’t trying to be nosy, nor was she particularly curious about the missive, but she happened to look at it as she moved towards the end of the table. As her gaze moved over the letters, she noticed something suspicious about them. She’d seen letters like that before, many times, and she reached out, snatching the parchment and unrolling it completely. As she read the scribed characters, her eyes widened with both shock and dismay. Dear God… it couldn’t be!

  “Keller!” she gasped. “This… this missive!”

  Keller looked up sharply from his map at the sound of her voice. “What is it?”

  Chrystobel’s mouth popped open. She couldn’t help it. Horror flushed her veins as she held the missive out to Keller.

  “This is my brother’s writing!” she hissed. “Gryffyn wrote this!”

  Keller snatched the missive from her, peering at it. He could feel the woman’s terror and it bled over onto him. But, more than terror, his most predominant emotion at that moment was rage. Pure, unbridled rage.

  “Are you certain?” he demanded, aghast.

  Tears popped to Chrystobel’s eyes and she nodded furiously, so much so that her careful braid began to unravel. “Aye,” she said, her voice tight. “I would know his writing anywhere. I have seen it enough to know that Gryffyn wrote this missive!”

  Keller stared at her, seeing her complete sincerity. But he still had his doubts, futile doubts clawing at him in the face of something quite shocking. Could it really be true?

  “It is still possible for more than one man to have similar writing,” he said, having difficulty disputing her. “An educated man wrote this. I can tell from the words.”

  Chrystobel wiped at her eyes. “Gryffyn is educated,” she insisted. “My father made sure all of his children could read and write. God’s Blood, my sister can write in three languages and so can Gryffyn. Believe me when I tell you this is his writing. He is trying to mislead you!”

  After a moment, his focus moved back to the missive. The more he looked at it, the more disgusted and enraged he became. By the time the knights joined him in the small hall, he had been working on a steady simmer for at least a half of an hour.

  Woe betide the man who truly enraged Keller de Poyer.

  * * *

  “It bears the seal of Shropshire,” Keller told his knights. “I can only assume that d’Einen either stole a seal or had one made. Who’s to know how he came across it in the first place, but he evidently has. This is the last time this man will try to deceive me. If he truly believes I am stupid enough to fall for this, then he is in for a rude awakening. I will play his game but I will win it, once and for all.”

  Rhys was reading the missive as Keller spoke. The other knights were looking rather disgusted by the entire thing, enraged and frustrated as Keller was that Gryffyn d’Einen was going to such lengths to destroy him. As Keller fumed, Rhys glanced over at him.

  “Are we completely sure this was written by d’Einen?” he asked. “No disrespect intended towards your wife, but I have seen Shropshire’s seal and this is it. What if this truly came from Shropshire and the handwriting is from someone else who scribes similarly to Lady de Poyer’s brother?”

  Keller wasn’t offended. In fact, he nodded his head in agreement to everything Rhys was saying. “I have thought on that myself,” he said. “My wife is convinced it is her brother’s writing and given that we’ve been attacked twice now by Welsh rebels, with no true knowledge of how the rebels always seemed to know our every movement, my suspicion has been that Gryffyn d’Einen has been behind it all along watching everything we do. This missive, if indeed written by him, would only confirm that suspicion. The man is trying to destroy me.”

  Rhys drew in a long, slow breath. “I cannot disagree with you,” he said. “But unless we have someone who comes to us and confirms that he saw d’Einen write this missive, we must go on the assumption that it indeed came from Shropshire and that Shropshire is calling for aid. We cannot refuse the call.”

  Keller sighed heavily. “I am aware of that,” he said. “But let us assume it is not from Shropshire and that d’Einen indeed sent it. For what purpose? The only logical assumption is that he is trying to get me out of Nether, but why? To attack my army on the road?”

  Behind him, William shook his head firmly. “Nay, Keller,” he said. “I had dealings with d’Einen, lest you forget. I saw the man in action. It would be my guess that he is trying to remove you from Nether altogether. With you away, the castle will be vulnerable to a rebel attack. He is trying to get you out.”

  Keller looked at William, pondering his statement. With another heavy sigh, he turned away from his knights and began pacing. The knuckle-popping started again, in earnest, as it usually did when he was frustrated. It was his habit of choice. Carefully, he considered the situation.

  “So he is trying to remove me,” he muttered, more to himself than to the others. “He wants to remove me so he can claim Nether and, more importantly, claim his sisters. He knows I would not take the women with me on a battle march, so I can only assume he wants to get at them.”

  “He will kill them, Keller,” William said quietly. “You know this to be true.”

  Keller nodded, his gaze lingering on William. “I cannot go the rest of my life fighting off my wife’s brother,” he said. “Eventually, I may fail and the results could be devastating. He would reclaim both Nether and my wife, and this I could not stand for. It would therefore stand to reason that I must eliminate him. I have been spending all of my time on the defensive. Mayhap it is time to go on the offensive and eliminate the man once and for all.”

  William and Gart, who was standing next to William, nodded in agreement. “He means to destroy you,” Gart insisted. “You must destroy him first.”

  Keller knew that. He paused a moment, staring up at the ceiling as he thought over the situation carefully. He had the finest knights in all of England on his side. It was time he used them to his advantage.

  “Very well,” he decided, finally turning to look at the group. “If d’Einen wants me out of Nether, then mayhap I shall go. At least, to his eyes, I shall be taking my army to Shropshire, but in reality, I will be here at Nether, waiting for him to make his move.”

  “A trap?” William cocked an eyebrow. “An excellent idea. What did you have in mind?”

  Keller scratched his head in thought. “How many men do I have here at Nether?”

  “Five hundred and fifty,” William replied.

  Kell
er absorbed that number. “I have to send more than just a few men out in response to the Shropshire missive,” he said. “If the Welsh are watching, and you know they will be, they will be suspicious if I only send out one hundred men. It has to be more than that to make a good show of things.”

  “Agreed,” Rhys said from behind him, still holding the missive. “Send the Ashby-Kidd brothers out with two hundred and fifty men, and dress some of those men up as knights so that any observers will count more than two knights. The rest of us will remain here, lying in wait for d’Einen and his men to make their move.”

  Keller nodded thoughtfully to that suggestion. He liked it, but he had more to add. “If d’Einen is trying to remove me from Nether, then it is because he wants to clear the way for an easy conquest,” he said, scheming as he went along. “Being that he has lived here most of his life, he knows the fortress better than most. He knows that Nether is nearly unbreachable because of the Gorge of the Dead that surrounds her walls. There is no place for a man to get a foothold to mount the walls, which makes the gatehouse the most vulnerable point of entry.”

  “The gatehouse is nearly impenetrable,” Gart said. “All we have to do is burn the wooden bridge that spans from the gatehouse across the Gorge of the Dead, and then there is no way to reach the gatehouse.”

  Keller turned to look at Gart. “But there is that passageway that leads from the kitchens down to the gorge,” he reminded him. “You were supposed to block it off. Did you?”

  Gart nodded. “I took barrels from the stores and clogged the passageway,” he said. “It is blocked off by all manner of heavy obstacles now. It would be virtually impossible to get through.”

  Keller’s dark eyes glimmered. “Remove them,” he said quietly.

  Gart’s brow furrowed. “But why?”

  A flicker of a smile crossed Keller’s lips. “I can only assume d’Einen plans to use that passageway,” he said. “Let him. Let him come up those narrow stairs where I will be waiting at the top to take his head off. If I want to destroy the man, then I have to make it easy for him to come to me.”

  Gart understood then. “Of course,” he agreed with approval. “That passageway is only big enough for one man at a time to enter. Let them all come.”

  Keller was feeling extremely confident with his plan. It wasn’t the fact that Gryffyn was trying to kill him. Men had been trying to kill him for years, so that didn’t bother him in the least. What bothered him was that Gryffyn seemed determined to get to Chrystobel and Izlyn. Any man who would target women was a vile man indeed, but Keller already knew that. More than that, he had been correct when he said he couldn’t live with the threat of d’Einen hanging over his head for the rest of his life, and neither could his wife. At some point, Keller was going to have to take a stand, and the stand would come now. He was finished playing games.

  It was time to win, once and for all.

  Chapter Twenty

  The rains had returned with a vengeance.

  Two days after the Shropshire missive was received, the army intending to ride to the aid of Hen Domen was gathered in the bailey in the early morning hours in the midst of a horrible rain storm. All of the knights were in the bailey, outfitting the army, including four soldiers who were now dressed as knights. Keller had brought out four chargers from Gryffyn’s collection, mounting the soldiers on the expensive beasts to create more of an illusion of knightly power. As the rain poured and the thunder rolled, two hundred and fifty men were made ready for the ruse that would hopefully bring Gryffyn d’Einen into the jaws of defeat.

  In case there were any rebel eyes inside the castle, which was always a possibility, Keller and the knights dressed as soldiers, all except for Gart, who refused to be brought to that lowly level. He dressed in a padded tunic, leather breeches and boots, and wore a woolen cap over his head to conceal his bald skull. His big concession to their charade was not to wear his armor, which made him feel positively naked and contributed to his nasty mood. Consequently, there was a lot of bellowing going on as the army assembled.

  Chrystobel and Izlyn were awake, dressed in their warmest as they watched the activities from the keep entry. Rain pounded on the stone in front of them and overhead, where a corbel at the top of the door arch stood out far enough to provide some shelter from the rain. Chrystobel was clad in a heavy dark blue cloak, made from wool and oiled, so it acted like a water repellant. It was the best thing she had for days such as this. Izlyn was also clad in an oiled cloak of pale green that had once belonged to their mother.

  Both ladies knew exactly what was going on. Keller had been honest with them about the plans for circumventing the forged missive, but still, they were nervous, fearful that somehow the plan wouldn’t work and, somehow, they would find themselves at the mercy of Gryffyn. Chrystobel knew her brother would kill her if given the chance, but Izlyn wasn’t quite so informed. They had been careful to keep such talk away from her. Still, her fear was quite healthy. Anything involving her brother terrified her.

  As the rain pounded and the thunder rumbled in the pewter sky above, Izlyn broke away from her sister and headed down the entry stairs. Puzzled, Chrystobel called after her sister but the young girl ignored her as she headed around the side of the keep. Curious, Chrystobel followed, dodging mud puddles and rain as it poured off of the keep, until she found her sister back in her flower garden which, by now, was more of a muddy soup with dormant plants sticking out of it. There were, however, a few sprigs of green that still had blossoms on them, now limp with rain, and Izlyn pulled at one of the last purple thistles, tearing it free of the plant.

  Chrystobel continued to follow her sister as the girl returned to the bailey where the army was nearly formed. The knights were yelling and a quartermaster’s wagon was being moved into place. Men were soaked, and unhappy, but there wasn’t much that could be done about it. Izlyn headed straight for the army, peering at the men she came across. It was clear that she was looking for someone and as she stood there, looking rather lost, George came through a row of men and nearly ran into her.

  As Chrystobel watched, Izlyn’s face lit up and she smiled brightly at George, who smiled in return. He had genuinely become fond of the girl over the past few weeks, as they had spent a good deal of time together chasing rabbits or trying to fish from the small, overgrown pond near the garden. When George smiled at her, Izlyn extended the thistle to him, giving him the bud, and he took it graciously. He even tucked it into his armor in the folds near his neck. Then he patted her on the cheek and turned away, heading to the front of the column where his charger was.

  Izlyn watched him go, an aura of happiness and longing on her face. Chrystobel had seen the exchange, as sweet as it was, but she called her sister over to her once George walked away because she didn’t want to see her sister get trampled with the men still moving about. Izlyn scooted over to her and they headed back towards the keep, where it was dry, until a shout caught their attention.

  It was Gart, heading towards them from the gathering of soldiers. He was completely soaked through, rain dripping off of his face as he approached. His attention was focused on Izlyn.

  “Lady de Poyer,” he glanced at Chrystobel, greeting her, but his focus quickly returned to Izlyn. “What’s this I hear? You have given George a posy and not me? My lady, I am sincerely crushed. I thought you liked me best of all.”

  Izlyn grinned broadly and flushed furiously. She was much better with her speech these days but still not completely comfortable. She struggled to bring forth her reply.

  “He… is going,” she said haltingly. “You will… will stay here.”

  Gart’s eyebrows lifted as he was horribly offended. “Is that all?” he demanded, although there was no force behind it. “You give him a flower because he is leaving? I will not stand for it. I will go fight him right now for your affections. I will not allow George to be your favorite.”

  Izlyn was giggling, as was Chrystobel. It was so wonderful to see her sister ha
ppy, with affection and attention lavished upon her by knights who understood how terrible her life had once been. They seemed determined to make up for every horror Gryffyn had ever inflicted upon her, which made Chrystobel feel a good deal of respect and admiration for these men. They were near and dear to her heart, men of honor and compassion, and she would defend them to the death. She came to realize some time ago that she was more loyal to her English husband and his English knights than she was to the Welsh people. She’d only known pain and suffering from the Welsh. With the English, she’d only known joy, as had Izlyn. It wasn’t difficult to be loyal to them.

  As Gart postured and threatened to fight George, Izlyn put up a hand and grasped his wrist. “N-nay,” she said, sounding firm. “You… cannot fight George. I… I will be angry with you.”

  Gart stopped in the middle of his rage and looked at her, his expression conveying the best dramatics of a broken heart. Then, he turned away from her, wiping his eyes as if weeping. As he headed back towards the army, he kept turning around to see if she was watching him. When he saw that she was, he would resume wiping his eyes. Chrystobel sighed heavily and looked at her sister.

  “You had better go give the man his own posy before he embarrasses himself with his sobbing,” she said, pointing to the garden. “Go along and find Gart a flower so he will not feel so bad.”

  Izlyn nodded and turned in the direction of the garden, but paused a moment to grasp her sister’s fingers in order to get her attention.

  “I am marrying George now,” she said haltingly.