In the Shadow of Midnight

by Marsha Canham

  “In the solar, perhaps,” he suggested magnanimously, waving to Brevant to lead the way up to Ariel’s apartments. The door was flung wide and he strode across the threshold of the small anteroom like Caesar striding over the seventh hill of Rome.

  “Such diligence,” he mused, casting an acerbic eye around the obviously dark and vacant chamber. “Where could he be, do you suppose?”

  “Perhaps he was called away,” Henry offered lamely. “Or—”

  “Or perhaps he had more pressing matters to attend to?”

  Gisbourne was watching both Ariel and Henry, like a cat waiting to pounce. So intent were all three not to be the first to falter under another’s stare, they did not see the door to the inner chamber open quietly beside them.

  Eduard FitzRandwulf was suddenly upon them, halted by the same look of surprise that jolted the others in the room.

  “My lords,” he said, his hand falling instantly to the hilt of his sword. “Is something amiss?”

  “Where have you been?” Gisbourne demanded, craning his neck to see past the knight’s broad shoulders. “What have you been doing?”

  Eduard’s eyes narrowed. “I assumed the Lady Ariel would appreciate a fire in her chamber, and since none of the castle servants appeared to hold the same considerations, I tended it myself.” He paused and addressed Henry as any indignant vassal might. “My lord, I can assure you no one has ventured near these rooms without my knowledge.”

  “I have every confidence this is so,” Henry said, his smile not quite as jaunty as normal. “And now that we are returned, you may avail yourself of the bountiful repast Lord Gisbourne has so graciously provided.”

  “I have already supped, my lord,” he said brusquely. “I would better spend the time in the stables ensuring the horses are readied to continue our journey.”

  “Continue?” Gisbourne frowned. “But you have only just arrived.”

  “We have been in Corfe three days now,” Henry said. “Which has put us three days behind in travel. My sister’s groom will be stalking the ramparts of Radnor like a hound in heat. And then there is the king himself, who will not be overly pleased to hear his orders have been delayed by a broken arm. He was most adamant the wedding should take place before month’s end.”

  “He is not known to go into rages at the sight of a pretty face. More’s the like, he would fly into a rage with me if I were to send you away in such miserable weather, under such haphazard conditions, and without benefit of a proper escort.”

  Henry paused, debating some inner point with himself before he took the governor’s arm and led him far enough away from the others to muffle the context of what he was about to confide in his ear. Gisbourne at first looked annoyed, then startled. He stared at Henry, whose flush of anger was not entirely put upon, then at Ariel—or, more specifically, Ariel’s belly. This time, when they bowed their heads together again, it was Gisbourne who did most of the talking, and Gisbourne who drew Henry further aside until they were out the door and on the landing. Eduard took Ariel by the arm and steered her gently, but firmly, toward the inner bedchamber. Robin was right behind her, showing a maturity that startled her as he drew a sword and made ready to shield her with his own body if necessary.

  Thankfully, it did not prove necessary, for after more muted conversation, only Henry and Eduard joined them in the chamber, with Henry delivering Gisbourne’s kind regards for a good night’s sleep.

  “He is gone?” she whispered. When Henry nodded assent, she felt the relief flood her entire body. “And will he let us leave without conditions?”

  Henry nodded again and Ariel slumped against the wall. “God in heaven, I thought sure he was going to insist we remain until the king arrived. What did you tell him to change his mind?”

  “I told him the king would not be too pleased to see you here, since the two of you had seen quite enough of each other already. So much so, in fact, you needed a husband right away. Thus the haste. Thus the furtiveness.”

  Ariel’s mouth dropped open. “You told him I was carrying the king’s bastard?”

  “It was the best I could think of on the moment,” Henry protested. “And not something he would find difficult to believe, especially since he said he found you to be testy and irritable company through supper.”

  Ariel spluttered, swore, spluttered again, and looked to Eduard for some support, but he was not even paying attention. He was standing in front of the hearth, one hand propped against the stone, his face bathed in the flickering glow from the fire. It was only then she remembered where he had been and who he had seen.

  “Were you able to find where the princess is being held? Were you able to speak to her?”

  Eduard did not take his eyes away from the flames. “I saw her. I spoke to her.”

  “And?” Henry demanded. “Have you discovered some clever means of removing her from this pesthole?”

  “I have discovered … she does not want to be removed. She … has expressed a heartfelt desire to stay.”

  “To stay?” Henry gasped. “Here? In Corfe?”

  Eduard seemed to require a few moments to steel himself before turning and meeting Henry’s astonished stare. “She claims the king has promised no further harm will befall her … and she claims she has no reason to doubt him.”

  “And you believe her?”

  “I believe … she does not want to run the risk of having us all stay here with her, in cells adjoining her own.”

  Henry took a moment for deliberation himself. He would not be the first to admit to a keen liking for the Wolf’s cub, or the first to eagerly present himself as a friend to the cool, distant knight. Notwithstanding this, he was genuinely firm in his respect for FitzRandwulf’s loyalties and convictions. He could see the man smashing tables and blackening eyes over an accusation of cowardice; he could see him spitting in the face of any man who dared question his concerns over his own personal safety. He could not see Eduard FitzRandwulf d’Amboise, the man, the knight, the silver-eyed warrior so calmly reporting the princess’s suggestion of a hasty retreat unless something else had happened. Something so terrible, so horrible, so frightening as to render even his considerable capacity for rage, impotent.

  There were ways, Henry knew, of utterly demoralizing and smashing the spirit of captives, making them come to regard their captors as saviors.

  “Has the king … done something to her mind?” Henry asked gently.

  Naked pain filled the daunting gray eyes, like blood filling an open wound. “If you are asking if he has done something to guarantee she is no longer a threat to his claim on the throne … the answer is yes. Moreover, he has also ensured she is no longer a consideration to anyone’s plans to incite a civil war in her name. If John were to choke on his own guilt, or fall on his own sword a dozen times, and if all other claimants as far removed as a tenth or twentieth bastard cousin suddenly fell ill and died of St. Anthony’s Fire … Eleanor of Brittany would not be the chosen candidate for queen.”

  “Why?” Ariel blurted on a soft gasp. “What has the king done?”

  Eduard turned back to the fire without answering. His shoulders hunched forward as he lifted his other arm and braced it against the wall, allowing him to hang his head between. There was tension in his jaw, and tension in the veins that rose and throbbed like blue snakes in his throat. Tension enough to cause beads of sweat to form across his brow and temples and to glisten where they ran in a thin trickle down the side of his face.

  Ariel’s throat went dry. Without knowing why or how she bade them do so, her feet carried her slowly toward the fireside. He did not look up, although he must have been aware of her presence beside him. Nor did he acknowledge the pale, slender hand that reached out and touched his arm.

  “Eduard …? How can we help if we do not know what has happened?”

  He bowed his head and squeezed his eyes tightly shut. Henry tried to get his sister’s attention from across the room, but she ignored him. She ignored everything
and everyone as she realized, with a shock of incredulity, that the wetness dripping from Eduard’s chin was not all caused by sweat.

  She had never seen a grown man cry. Had certainly never imagined she would live to see evidence of such weakness in Eduard FitzRandwulf.

  Her own eyes blurred behind a stinging hot liquid and she moved her hand closer to his. “Eduard …? Can you not trust us?”

  The long, dark sweep of his lashes remained closed and Ariel could see there were two emotions waging war within him—unmeasurable anguish and boundless fury. The one was causing the uncharacteristic flow of tears; the other had caused him to smash his fists into something hard enough and repeatedly enough to open the flesh on some of his knuckles to the bone.

  “My God,” she gasped, touching one ravaged hand with the tip of her fingers. “Eduard … what has happened?”

  The heavy fringe of lashes lifted slowly.

  “He has blinded her,” Eduard whispered raggedly. “He has had her eyes put out like those of a common beggar.”

  Ariel’s shock was complete. Behind her, she could hear Henry’s half-formed exclamation and Robin’s stunned cry, but the best she could manage, locked in the deathlike grip of Eduard’s eyes, was the slow, hot release of her breath.

  “He … the king … has blinded her?”

  “He had her eyes plucked out and the lids seared shut,” Eduard said harshly, “knowing full well the barons of England, regardless how loyal and sympathetic they might be to her plight, regardless how desperately they might search for a claimant to challenge his power … they would never put a blind, mutilated queen on the throne.”

  “My God,” Henry muttered. “We should have suspected something was amiss. He could not have her killed without raising a hue and cry, but by the same token, he could not have let her live as a threat. Is she … otherwise well?”

  FitzRandwulf sucked a deep, shaky breath into his lungs and straightened, taking Ariel’s hand into his own without thinking. “She is thinner, as is to be expected. And sadder. But her concerns are for our safety, not her own, showing her courage and spirit are still as strong and true as ever. She is also adamant about not returning to Brittany. She would prefer death by the king’s hand—or her own—before she would suffer the pity of her people or put them in the position of having to shun her.”

  “Then … is this to be the end of it?” Ariel asked. “Are we just to leave her here to rot in the king’s prison?”

  Eduard stared down into Ariel’s face, but it was Eleanor he saw standing before him, her beautiful, ravaged features tilted upward, her voice laden with the tears she was no longer able to shed.

  “There is no other way, Eduard. You must leave me here. You must forget me. You must all forget me and leave me to God’s will.”

  “God’s will,” Eduard rasped, crushing Ariel’s hand in his, “will not be done in this place. Not while I have a breath in my body.”

  “You will need more than breath, my lord,” said a gruff, grating voice from the doorway. “You will need guts and heart and more courage than I was able to gather.”

  Eduard dropped Ariel’s hand and reached for his sword, but Henry and Robin were both closer and quicker, their blades slashing through the air in streaks of gleaming steel.

  Jean de Brevant stood in the doorway, his massive shoulders almost touching both jambs, his head bent to avoid the lintel. He made no move toward his own sword, raising his hands deliberately away from his sides to prove he had no such intent.

  “What the devil are you doing here?” Henry demanded. “Have you come to gloat?”

  Brevant took a half-step inside the room, wanting only to straighten the crook in his neck, but Robin misread the action and moved in front of him, his sword raised to bar the captain’s path.

  The gesture earned only a scowl. “I came because I knew, by the look on the Scarred One’s face, he had been to the tower.”

  “You knew?” Henry spat. “You must also have known what he would find. Why did you not tell us? Why did you not forewarn us?”

  “Would you have come calmly over the draw if you had known, or would you have stormed it with blood in your eyes? Would you have humoured Gisbourne’s airs of grandeur or would you have treated him like a boil and lanced him at the first opportunity? As God is my witness, I did not think you would get this far. I never thought you would have the ballocks to ride through the gates let alone make plans to ride out again with Gisbourne’s prized possession in your grasp.”

  “Are you suggesting there is a way to ride out of Gorfe? There is a way to steal the princess out of here?”

  Brevant’s mighty chest swelled with the makings of a ripe curse, for Robin’s sword was still hovering near enough to threaten the hump of his Adam’s apple.

  “Not with two broken legs and a cracked skull, there isn’t,” he snarled, “and that is what this fine-tempered lad will have if he waves his blade a hair closer.”

  “Robin,” Eduard ordered quietly. “Let us hear what he has to say.”

  Reluctantly, and slowly enough to cause the reflected spires of firelight to dance and leap along the length of the polished steel, Robin obliged. He did not sheath the weapon, however, nor did he remove his eyes from the captain’s bullish face.

  “Are you suggesting there is a way to break a prisoner out of Gorfe?” Eduard asked again.

  “No,” Brevant said flatly. “I am suggesting no such thing. You try to break her out, you try to make a run through the gates, and your backs will be as prickled as a porcupine with crossbow bolts.”

  “Then what can we do, Captain Littlejohn?” Ariel asked softly. “Can you help us?”

  Glittering black eyes went to her face as if he was acknowledging her presence for the first time. “I can help you mount your horses so you can ride out of here, my lady. Calmly and openly under the eyes of the castle guard. I would stress the word calmly, for you would have an extra two riders in your group, but if the timing is right and the guards preoccupied with other matters … which they will be with all the preparations for the king’s arrival … you might just be able to get a league or two beyond crossbow range before an alarm is sounded.”

  “Explain,” Eduard demanded.

  Brevant nodded and pursed his lips. “Gisbourne has ordered the castle guard doubled—not unexpected after the fright you tickled him with tonight. By tomorrow night, he will double it again, leaving very few heads lying abed for too many hours at a time. I know these men. Ask too much of them, press too hard, and they start fighting among themselves, missing their whores and ale, not giving a hell-fired damn if God himself was expected to ride across the draw.”

  “Are you saying they would not question the appearance of an extra rider in our group?” Henry scoffed.

  “Two extra riders,” Brevant said. “The little maid goes too.”

  “Marienne!” Robin gasped. “Of course she goes with us; we would not think of leaving her behind.”

  Henry looked as if he was about to scowl an objection but Robin and his sword had suddenly allied themselves in the camp of Jean de Brevant. “You cannot just leave her behind to suffer the governor’s wrath alone,” he protested. “I would sooner give her my place and take my chances here, with the captain.”

  Brevant glanced down and over his shoulder. “The captain will not be here, lad. He has had more than enough of the smell of this place. Besides”—the black, bottomless eyes looked at Eduard again—“as soon as the king discovers his castellan has been host to the son of the Black Wolf … he will undoubtedly loose the hounds of hell upon you. You will need an extra sword arm.”

  Startled, Eduard returned the calm stare. “You knew?”

  The giant offered a rare, wide grin. “I saw you run the lists once, in Bayonne. It brought me back to England with a healthy respect for the training grounds of Poitou and Anjou. Yours is a face hard to forget, despite the bearding and the armour of a humble graycloak.”

  “You could have earned your
own weight in silver marks had you sold your knowledge to Gisbourne.”

  Brevant’s grin widened. “Aye, well, call me a fool. I would pay twice as much to see the look on Gisbourne’s face when he finds the lady’s cell empty.”

  Eduard nodded. “That makes nine of us all told. Exactly how belligerent do you think the guards will be?”

  “You leave them to me. Just be ready, within an hour’s notice, to be on your horses and waiting in the bailey.”

  “There is one other small problem,” Henry pointed out. “Gisbourne has insisted we have an escort as far as the Salisbury road. Will they not notice the addition of two extra members to our party?”

  “You are speaking of the king’s finest,” Brevant snorted disdainfully. “Find one among them who can count and I will find you a whore with three titties.”

  Henry’s brows lifted gently. “Have they no sense of direction either? Once we leave Gorfe, we can have no witnesses to say which road we took or which direction we favoured.”

  “Have you ever seen a dead man point his finger one way or the other?” Brevant demanded.

  “Ahh. Indeed.” Henry glanced at Eduard and shrugged. “So much for leaving any doubt as to who has plucked the Pearl from the gilded cage.”

  “If you are squeamish,” Brevant grunted, “you can stay here and protest your innocence to Gisbourne. A day or two on the rack, if you are pitiable enough, he may believe what’s left of you … enough to toss you over the sea wall, where he disposes of most of his unwanted witnesses.”

  “How will we get the princess out of the tower?” Eduard wanted to know.

  “How will you convince her to come along?”

  “I will convince her,” Eduard promised steadfastly. “I will offer her something I know she cannot refuse now. Something she has wanted, needed, for a long time and is only now free to grasp with her whole heart and soul.”

  “Aye, well. If luck and God be with us, I can bring her here under the guise of taking her to the chapel. Once she is here, though, it will be up to you to either persuade her to come peacefully, or to knock her cold and pack her on a rouncy with the rest of your provisions.”