Brevant drew to a halt outside the largest tower—the King’s Tower, he informed them, rising fully a hundred feet into the murky sky. The keep was surrounded by a dry moat, crossed by means of a footbridge wide enough to walk but three or four abreast. Long, mucky streaks of offal spilled from the bottom of dung sluices and clung to the mortar like slimy icicles. Ariel had not thought the stench could get any worse, but here it made her eyes water and caused a lump to rise up the back of her throat.
A balding toad of a man shuffled out onto the footbridge to greet them. A hunchback, he grinned over teeth as slimy as the walls and bade them welcome. A flurry of stable boys appeared to hold the reins of the horses and the toad assured Lord Henry they would be well fed and groomed for the duration of their stay. Lord Dafydd was helped out of the litter, groaning in genuine agony over the stench of the seneschal’s breath as he was offered more assurances of expert medical attention.
Gallworm, as the seneschal was addressed by Brevant, was ordered to escort their honoured guests to the great hall, where the governor was waiting to greet them. The hunchback bobbed and nodded, crabbing backward with a shuffling gait, beckoning the others to follow.
Henry took Ariel’s arm and gave it a squeeze for courage, then followed Brevant’s lead across the footbridge, careful to place their steps where the captain’s weight proved the warped and pitted boards could best bear the strain. Entrance to the tower itself was gained through climbing a steep flight of covered stairs. The paved platform at the top was perhaps ten paces square and fell directly under the eyes of a dozen sentries posed on catwalks above. Three doors opened off this platform, the one on the left led to the adjoining towers and barracks, the one on the right to the cookhouse and laundry. The middle was the largest and opened onto a second stone platform that overlooked the great hall.
Half—nay, a third the size of either Amboise or Pembroke, the audience chamber was smoke-filled and poorly lit, stinking of mouldy rushes and unwashed bodies. Descending onto the floor was like walking down the ridges of a spine into a whale’s belly, with the arched beams closing like ribs overhead and a narrow, rectangular shape that made the walls seem to crowd in on both sides.
At the far end was a raised dais, and on it, a single high-backed chair, large enough and ornate enough in carvings and design to resemble a throne. Seated there, clad in his capacious black robes of authority, was the governor of Corfe Castle, Guy of Gisbourne. Thin and ferretlike in appearance, he sat perfectly still as his guests approached; only his eyes flicked from one face to the next, from one cut of tunic to the next, satisfied to see his own finery would not suffer by comparison. His hands, with every one of his ten fingers bejeweled with rings, rested on the broad arms of the chair. One foot was stretched slightly forward of the other, the sharply pointed, exquisitely tooled leather of his shoe extending from beneath the hem of his robe. He wore a plaited sallet on his head, black with gold fancywork, crowning hair that was long and smooth and ended in a perfect curl just above the collar. His face was as narrow and pointed as his shoes, with a long hooked nose and eyes that were so slitted against the effects of the smoke and gloom, they could have been any colour from brown to black to palest blue.
“Ah. Lord Henry and Lady Ariel de Clare, I presume? What a pleasant and unexpected surprise to learn you were in the vicinity. But why did you not come instantly to the castle instead of taking up lodgings in that squalid little inn? I confess, I am somewhat puzzled … and offended … that you did not.”
“The slight was not deliberate, I assure you,” said Henry. “In truth, we had expected to spend no more than a single night in the village, as haste is our most pressing concern. But then our man was taken by a fever and—” He shrugged and smiled dismissively. “Such go the way of all good intentions, I suppose.”
The hooded eyes slid past Henry’s shoulder to where Lord Dafydd stood between Sedrick and Eduard. “We have an excellent physician here at Corfe. If your men would care to follow Captain Brevant, I am sure his wounds can be tended at once.”
“My thanks,” Henry said. “The fever has broken and the arm appears to have set without mortification, but I am sure he could benefit greatly from a leeching, if your man has the facilities …?”
Gisbourne smiled. “I assure you, we have the finest facilities for prolonging … or expediting life. Now please—” He clapped his jeweled hands and called forth a pair of varlets waiting nearby with chairs. “Come and sit by the brazier where it is warmer and tell me all the news of your uncle, William the Marshal. God abide me, I met the man not two summers ago when he came to oversee some communication or other with the two Scottish brats the king had trusted to our care. In truth, they were not so much trouble as they seemed in the beginning. Once I tossed their bagpipes and the skirted fiend who played them over the walls … they were reconciled quite nicely to their habitats. Gallworm! Fetch ale and wine for our guests.”
Gallworm relayed the order to a wench who hastened forward with the refreshments. Having been dismissed already, Eduard and Sedrick showed no reluctance in following Brevant out of the great hall. FitzRandwulf paused before he exited the room, aware of eyes burning into the back of his neck and when he looked back, he was not surprised to see Ariel staring after him. She was standing on the dais, waiting while the varlet fussed with her chair, and was caught in a spill of hazed light that streamed down from the single window overhead. Swathed in lustrous green velvet, with the gold barbettes trapping the fire of her hair, she looked as regal as any queen who might have stood there. As regal as any queen accusing one of her avowed champions of abandoning her.
Eduard ducked through the low doorway behind Sedrick and Dafydd. Brevant was leading them down a long stone corridor that connected the great hall to the barracks. The passage was confining in width and height, forcing the tallest to walk stooped over.
“The physic has been told to look beneath the bandages on your man’s arm,” Brevant warned under his breath. “If the bones are not genuinely broken, they had better be before the linens are unbound.”
“He will find what he is looking for,” Eduard said. “The question now is, will we?”
Brevant deigned not to acknowledge or answer the question until the barracks had been left behind along with Sedrick and Dafydd. They did not return to the great hall at once, but took a more circuitous route by way of the tower rooms where Henry and Ariel would be housed for the night.
“I suggested to Lord Gisbourne, what with the marshal’s niece probably being accustomed to somewhat different ser vices than what our castle sluts are skilled at supplying, some other arrangements might be made.”
Eduard glanced sharply at Brevant. “He has given permission for Marienne to serve Lady de Clare?”
“She will be summoned before supper to draw the lady a bath and tend her needs. I suggest you be there yourself to say what you have to say while you have the chance.” The captain turned and the plates of his armour winked with reflected candlelight. “I would also warn you that if the wrong ear picks up a whisper, I will be the one chaining your ankles and wrists to the rack—and I will do it, by Christ’s cross, with an extra twist of thanks for all the trouble you have given me.”
Chapter 18
Marienne stood on the threshold of Ariel de Glare’s chambers, her slender body trembling so badly the buckets she was carrying sloshed water over the lip and down the sides of her skirt.
Gisbourne had kept Ariel and Henry in the great hall until well past dusk and when Ariel had finally been escorted to her apartment, she found Eduard was already there, waiting.
There were two rooms set aside for Ariel’s use and privacy, occupying the upper floor of the Queen’s Tower. Neither were very large, with one barely more than an anteroom holding the garderobe and a pallet for a page or maid. The inner room contained the bed, a chest for clothes, an iron candle stand, and because it was the upper level, a small hearth with a crib for burning logs. Henry’s rooms were identical in siz
e and shape, located down a twist of stone stairs. There were no windows, as such, on either level, only deep, narrow vents cut high on the walls, and in Ariel’s room, a cat’s climb to the roof.
Only a couple of minutes passed, with Ariel too busy recounting Gisbourne’s more obnoxious qualities—he liked to pick lice from his scalp and beard and crunch the shells between his teeth—before they heard the soft knocking on the outer doors. Robin, who had remained vigilant by Ariel’s side throughout the afternoon, opened the door and stood there like a fool, gaping at Marienne as if she had grown three eyes and a pair of horns.
“Marienne?” he said on a breath. “Is it you?” The smile that came slowly, disbelievingly to the young maid’s lips (in truth, she had lost hold of her wits for a long, startled moment as well) grew inconceivably wider and brighter as she looked up into Robin’s face. She blushed and lowered her lashes quickly, then raised them again, staring into his face as if she could have devoured him whole. “Aye, Lord Robert,” she whispered. “’Tis me.”
“You look … well,” he said awkwardly, flushing to the roots of his hair.
“You look … a welcome sight, forsooth. I had given up hope of ever seeing the face of a … a friend again.”
Her dark brown eyes were attracted by movement over Robin’s shoulder, and she saw Eduard FitzRandwulf standing by the hearth. Her fingers lost their grip on the jute handles of the buckets and both crashed to the floor. With a cry of unselfconscious joy, she ran across the room and threw herself into the dark knight’s arms. The mature, resolute facade she had been determined to maintain these past months for her princess’s sake, crumpled into a child’s sobs as she buried her face against his shoulder and clung to him for all she was worth.
Ariel was helpless to do much more than stand in the shadows and watch. She thought to signal Robin to close and bolt the door, but one look at his face, straining not to crack and fold in on itself, betrayed how close his own emotions were to the surface. She moved on silent feet and lifted the buckets herself, setting them down again inside the door before she closed it and stood with her back pressed against the banded oak.
“My lord, my lord,” Marienne sobbed. “I confess we were still afraid it was not you.”
“It is me,” Eduard assured her gently. He smoothed a hand over her hair and tilted her head enough to press a kiss on her forehead, wiping a thumb across her cheek in a futile attempt to staunch the flow of tears. “Did you honestly doubt I would come?”
“N-not I,” Marienne declared. “I never doubted it for a moment. I just never thought you would come here. H-how did you …?”
Eduard shook his head. “It is of no consequence how we came, only that we have come, and that we have come to take you and Eleanor away from this place.”
“Would that it were possible,” she said in a whisper.
“Anything is possible if the heart is willing,” Eduard insisted. “Now, what is this tripe the captain tells me? What is this nonsense I am told that the princess does not want to escape this place?”
“Oh … my lord—” Marienne sniffed and wiped her cheeks, then dragged her sleeve across the wetness streaming from her nose. “It is true. She has sent me here tonight to beg you to leave Corfe, leave England before the king’s men catch wind of your presence here. You would be a grand prize to offer as hostage against my lord La Seyne Sur Mer’s actions. A grand revenge for the king to hold you ransom.”
“Think you either I or my father care one wit for the king’s men or for the king’s petty retributions against us? It is Eleanor whose safety must come before all else. Eleanor whose future must be protected against those who would harm her.”
Marienne swallowed hard. “She is … convinced her uncle will keep his word and merely banish her. She is convinced his guilt over … over her poor brother Arthur will protect her from farther harm.”
Eduard frowned. “He must have twisted her mind if she believes this. I cannot fathom how she would, after all that has happened.”
“After all that has happened,” Marienne said softly, “her beliefs are all she has left.”
“She has me. And I will not allow her to remain an hour longer in her uncle’s web than is necessary. I have come to take her away from here, and by God, I will take her away, willing or not.”
“My lord … she loves you very much; surely you must know this.”
Eduard’s face remained taut and Ariel’s drained to a paler shade of gray as she bowed her head and stared at her twined fingers.
“Just as I know you love her,” Marienne continued. “She asks you … nay, begs you … because of this love, to heed her pleas and do nothing more to endanger yourself.”
“And she expects me to obey? To simply ride away and leave her in this damp-ridden, pestilent prison governed by drunks and lechers? What happens when John’s guilt over Arthur’s death fades—if, indeed, it ever affected him? What is to stop him from ordering a more permanent means of ending any further threats to his throne, for as certain as the day is long, Eleanor remains a threat to him. A threat he will not bear reminding of too many times.”
“My lady is no longer a threat to King John,” Marienne insisted softly. “He has already taken measures to ensure she can never be a threat to him again.”
“Measures? What measures? Even if he intends to make her swear fealty to him in front of every baron in the kingdom, there will come a time when he breaks into a cold sweat and wonders if there were any rebel lords he missed.”
“She is no longer a threat to the crown he wears,” Marienne said again, a little more desperately this time. “She is no longer a threat to his rule over England, Normandy, or Brittany. The only threat that exists is against her life if you attempt to take her away from this place, for she will surely die, if not by the king’s hand, then by her own.”
“By her own?” Eduard sucked in a harsh breath. “What manner of horror has the king promised to make her contemplate such a thing?”
Marienne lowered her chin until it rested on her chest. “I am sworn to say only what I have said to you thus far, my lord. I am sworn to say it and to exact a promise, sealed on the holiest of vows, that you will pursue this thing no farther.”
Eduard offered a short, remonstrative laugh. “God on high should not test my patience with any more vows! How can she expect such a thing from me without my knowing the reasons behind it?”
“Her love is the reason behind it. And if your love for her is one tenth … one hundredth as strong as her love for you, it would be enough.”
Eduard shook his head. It was beyond his comprehension to accept defeat so easily and Marienne recognized the gesture for what it was. But there was nothing more she could say or do to explain, or even to ease the torment of her Eleanor’s decision, not without breaking a most solemn vow of her own.
“Perhaps … I should go away and come back later, when you have had time to think on my lady’s request.”
Eduard did not answer. He gave no sign of any intent to do so, and Marienne turned away, her shoulders slumped under the weight of more misery than she could bear. Robin was standing where she had left him and she tried to smile again, but the threat of more tears was too bright in her eyes.
“Marienne … you must let Eduard help,” he stammered. “You must convince the princess to let him help.”
The sweet, heart-shaped face lifted to his. At fourteen she was more than capable of turning heads—Robert d’Amboise’s had been most thoroughly swivelled since the first moment he had met her. A smile was enough to tie his tongue in knots, and a tear … A tear was enough to wrench his heart into his throat and nearly smother him.
“You have already helped more than you can ever know,” she said. “Just the fact that you came for her, that there is still something good and fair and noble left to rise out of the sorrow and heartbreak … well …”
Robin was too devastated to reply and Marienne looked at Ariel for the first time.
“Forg
ive me, my lady. I was to assist you with your bath, and here we have talked the time away instead.”
Ariel shook her head. “Think nothing of it; the time was better spent.”
Marienne offered a small curtsy and was reaching for the latch of the door when she stopped and glanced back. “Be very careful of Lord Gisbourne. He plays the role of amiable host well enough, but he is cut of the same mold as his liege and master, who loses his charm to madness with a swiftness that can take your breath—and your freedom—away. Even our bold captain treads lightly around the governor’s moods.”
“I thank you for the warning,” Ariel said, answering for them all.
Marienne cast a final glance at Robin and Eduard, then left. No sooner had the door eased shut behind her, however, than Eduard was moving toward it, his face set and grim, his hands taking an instinctive inventory of the knives, daggers, and sword comprising his personal arsenal.
“Where are you going?” Ariel asked. “What are you planning to do?”
“I am going to follow Marienne back to the tower and I am planning to find a way to talk to Eleanor myself, if I have to fight my way past every blasted guard in this castle.”
“Eduard—no!” Ariel gasped, grabbing at his arm. “If you are caught—!”
“Leave go of me, woman,” he snarled, yanking his arm free. “It may be all I can do to find the right cell in the right tower, and if that proves true, then so be it. But I must do something. Surely you can see … I must do something!”
Ariel saw. She saw the rage and anguish in his eyes, put there by the challenge issued against the strength of his love for Eleanor of Brittany. There was nothing she could say or do to ease it; nothing she could do to fight it, and she stepped aside, clearing his path to the door.
“Be careful,” she whispered.
But he was gone.
Eduard nearly missed the first junction; would have if he had not heard a faint sniffle echo along a dimly lit passageway. They were in the labyrinth of tunnels carved beneath the keeps and towers to join each building to the next. It was almost pitch dark, with torches kept alight and smoking blackly at each exit to mark a flight of steps upward. He had to watch where he placed his feet so as not to scrape a heel on a loose bit of earth, and he kept his hand on the hilt of his sword to guard against the tip of the blade striking stone. Once he had to stop and flatten himself into a niche in the wall as two guards laughed their way through an archway and up a flight of stairs. One of them saw Marienne and shouted an invitation for her to join him in his bed later, but she ignored him and kept walking, and the two guards moved on, discussing what they might like to do with her should her nose ever come down from the ceiling.
In the Shadow of Midnight Page 31