“So you’re going to steal this money?” she asked.
“Move it. To force his hand.”
“Because there are French guards.”
“He claims they’re from Aquitaine, that he called them to protect the treasury so he could protect you with his knights,” I told her.
“That is a very sensible reason for them to be there,” she insisted.
“But the timeline doesn’t work out—and consider the alternative, Eleanor. You yourself said he would need to buy armies. You said France would be the first place he turned.”
“But these are not armies,” she said. “If they’re knights, you can’t buy them, they’re dedicated to someone. And if they’re not Aquitanian, they belong to someone else. So they must be Aquitanian, because who else would offer him men?”
“Then there will be nothing to worry about,” I told her.
She shook her head. “Of course there will. You are striking a hornet’s nest, and I’m holding the ladder to let you do it.” She frowned. “How is Margaret?”
“Miserable,” I told her.
An eyebrow lifted. “And still here?”
“Yes,” I said, confused.
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake. That fine earl of hers needs to toss her out a window and run off with her. Why are they still here?”
“She wants to obey her father.”
Eleanor drew a breath, and raised her stone chin. “Take me to her.”
She rapped her jeweled walking stick on the ground, and I nodded, leading her quick out of the room to where Margaret were. I knocked on the door and announced Eleanor, and when the maid answered, she looked frightened. “My lady Queen,” she greeted, curtsying. “My lady Margaret is not quite here.”
“Not quite?” I questioned.
“Has she gone to the meal?” Eleanor asked. “Is she walking? It’s after dark.”
The maid shook her head. “Your Highness, she’s not . . . here.”
Eleanor’s eyebrows rose sharp. “She left. The palace. Of her own free will?” Eleanor asked.
“Yes,” the maid said quiet. “With . . . someone.”
“With Winchester?” I asked, worried sudden. What if de Clare—or the prince—
“Yes,” the maid said. “I’m not meant to say anything.”
“Oh,” said Eleanor, raising her chin again. “Next time someone asks you, you silly girl, tell people she fainted and needs her rest. Tell them she will be well by morning, yes?”
“Yes, my lady,” the girl said, dipping and bowing her head, then retreating into the room.
Eleanor looked at me. “Good. That was easier than I thought. Now go do whatever it is you must do—the less I know the better, I imagine.”
I brought David and Allan into the room with me. Rob were already there, and he stood as I came in.
“Well?” he asked.
“Winchester and Margaret ran off,” I told him.
His face broke into a grin. “What? Really?”
I nodded. “And we need to do this tonight. Eleanor put the chests in place, just as I asked. Her carriage is full of them and waiting in the courtyard.”
He drew a breath. “Very well. David, Allan, get horses and meet us by the carriage.”
David glanced at me, ever loyal, and I nodded once.
They had just bare left when a knock came to the door.
Our maid opened it and announced Essex. Rob bristled as Essex came into the room, coming straight for me. His cheeks were filled with color and bright, and he looked wild.
“Is it true?” he asked. “Everything you hinted at—is Prince John a traitor?” he demanded.
“I don’t know,” I told him. “We’ll find out soon enough. Why? What’s the matter?”
“He struck her,” he growled, and Rob came closer to me. “He struck her and he’s going to annul their marriage.”
“What?” Rob said.
“Isabel?” I asked.
“You’d think pain would count more than children,” he said. “But it doesn’t. He tortures her and she has yet to give him a child, so he will annul their marriage and marry Isabelle of Angouleme.”
My breath caught. “Good Lord. The knights—they’re her men.”
“What knights?”
“The prince put the ransom in the White Tower. The men guarding it are French knights—he claims they’re from Aquitaine, but they can’t be.”
He nodded. “That must have been what Isabel meant.” He looked at me. “Please tell me you have some scheme to stop this, Marian. John Lackland will purchase a crown with his new wife’s money. Isabel said he told her himself he’s planning on sending the money to France to make sure Richard never returns.”
Rob crossed his arms. “Scarlet. Her name is Scarlet,” he snapped. He shrugged his shoulders at me. “I can’t stand hearing that name on everyone’s mouth.”
“My name doesn’t matter,” I told him. “What they call me, the words I use—they don’t matter. Our actions, and what we will do to bring the King of England home matter.” I looked at Essex. “So yes, I have a plan.”
CHAPTER
“I look terrible in this,” Allan whined.
David scowled at him. “The great trickster. I thought you could pretend to be whatever you wanted. Having difficulty pretending to be me?”
“But I look so much handsomer as me,” Allan said.
I frowned at them from the carriage seat. “You’d make a terrible knight, Allan. Try to look intimidating.”
“David’s not intimidating,” Allan said, looking at David on his horse.
“Be thankful you haven’t seen that side of me yet, Allan,” David grunted.
The gates round the White Tower came into view, and David rode forward to trot abreast of the carriage with Rob and me on the coachman’s seat. The French guards came out to greet us, looking wary.
“Open the gate,” David ordered.
“On what business?”
“We have contributions from the queen for the king’s ransom,” David said.
They opened the gate.
There were more knights now; at least thirty, ambling around. They didn’t help us as we rode the carriage close, and Rob and David hefted a chest between them. They walked it to the stairway, a wooden thing that led up to the entrance of the tower and could be rolled away if enemies approached.
The thing creaked as they went up, and I followed slow behind them.
They brought the chest into the treasury room on the lowest floor of the tower. They set the chest down and went back to repeat the task, and I stood watch over the room. The man of accounts came to me and asked the sums, and I told him.
He left, and I unlocked the chest that Rob and David had just set down.
A dirty face looked up at me. “Quick,” I told him.
The young man leapt out of the chest. I went out to the hall and Allan were there. “This way,” he told me, and he grabbed one chest while the boy grabbed another.
They disappeared into a smudge of darkness underneath the stairs.
Rob and David came down again with a chest.
I frowned. “Where are your swords?” I asked them.
“They keep hitting the stairs,” David said. “We put them in the carriage.”
Hairs raised on the back of my neck. “Hurry, then.”
Rob gave me a solemn nod, laying the chest down.
Again, one of Kate’s orphans sprang out of a chest, and he waited for Allan and the other to return, leading them down to a secret entrance in the bottom of the tower that let out onto the river.
“We call it Traitor’s Gate,” Allan had told us. “But seeing as thieves don’t have much say about it, I doubt that name will stick.”
David and Rob took as much time as they could. We had seven boys hidden in chests, and they made quick work of secreting the ransom away to the water gate and Kate’s rowboats. It were a short trip down the river to where her ship were docked.
One by one, the ch
ests disappeared, and the sky didn’t fall upon our heads.
Rob and David dropped a chest to the floor of the treasury, and Rob kissed me, sweat heavy on his brow. “We have one more chest,” he said. “Get them ready.”
There were only two left in the treasury.
I nodded. Allan returned with three boys. Two took the chests that sat there, and one waited anxious for Rob and David’s footsteps.
I held my breath.
Long moments passed before Rob and David appeared, hefting the chest down the stairs.
The boy took it, turning under the stairs as a set of metaled boots appeared at the height of the stairs.
I pulled the door shut. “Can someone lock this?” I called.
The knight ducked so he could see us, and came downstairs, replacing the lock and inserting the key. He stood by the door.
We nodded, and started up the stairs.
The night were thick and warm, one of the first that didn’t get cooler without the sun. Summer were close, hovering, waiting to make her mark on us. To push us through another year.
I stood at the top of the stairs, and Rob’s arm came round me. He were bright and shining with sweat. David glanced at us and turned his head, trotting down the stairs.
Rob kissed me, and I tasted salt on his lips. “I love you, Scar.”
“I love you too,” I told him. “Let’s get back before anyone misses us.”
He leaned forward and touched my lips to his. It were quick and brief. A kiss that were meant to be a beginning, a start, the first of a thousand.
We hadn’t made it to the bottom of the staircase when the gate began to open.
I looked at Rob, and David.
We hadn’t asked them to open the gate yet. It were too early.
We made for the carriage. I had knives in my dress, but Rob didn’t have his sword. David didn’t either.
The knights stopped us, blocking us off. David, Rob, and I stood close together. I didn’t see Allan.
Prince John stood outside the gate, mounted on his horse, with a legion of men holding torches around him, beside him, behind him.
He rode in slow, looking at us with a smug smile on his face, and my heart slammed against my chest.
“Lady Huntingdon,” he said. “Earl Huntingdon. Now, tell me this. Why would my mother come to London, escorted by two noblemen and a legion of knights, and then send her precious ransom off with her granddaughter? Hm?”
I didn’t open my mouth.
“It’s strange, isn’t it? Meanwhile, my nattering wife says she has friends, friends that will stop me. There aren’t many people foolish enough to cross me. Except you two. So it could all be a rather strange coincidence, or perhaps it isn’t.”
Rob took my half hand in his.
“Jacques,” Prince John called, snapping his fingers. The knight who had taken our accounting stepped forward. “What did they do while they were here?”
“They dropped off the silver, my lord,” he said.
“Did you watch them do it? Pick it up, put it down, you watched every chest?”
He paused. “Yes,” he said. But he hadn’t.
“And you went through each chest? Matched the amounts, verified their contents?”
He paused longer. I tugged Rob’s hand to sit on the small of my back over the hilt of my knife, and his eyes met mine for one brief look.
“Go check the silver,” Prince John snapped.
He went. We only had moments.
Prince John dismounted. The knights parted for him, and he came into the circle with us with a wide grin. “Anything you want to confess, Marian?”
“Don’t speak to her,” Rob snapped. “You want to accuse her of something, speak to me.”
“Confess,” he said, stepping close to me. “And I’ll make up a good lie about how you died.”
“I’ll confess,” I whispered.
He stepped a tiny bit closer. “A little louder, Marian.”
“You used to be afraid to get so close to me,” I told him, and he met my eyes. “That was a good instinct.”
I slammed my knee into his crotch, drawing my knife as Rob pulled the other knife from my back. Prince John grabbed my hand with the knife, but I pushed back on his hold, forcing the knights to break the circle as he fell back.
Quick, I grabbed Prince John while he were off balance. I kicked at his knees and stepped fast to the side, grabbing his hair and jerking his head back as I moved behind him.
Two knights came for me, and I pressed the knife to his throat. “Stop!” I yelled.
I saw Rob and David fighting, and they looked at me. A knight hit David across the face, and he fell, and a knight wrapped his arm around Rob’s throat.
Rob stabbed his knife into the knight’s arm, and the knight dropped him. Another knight held out his sword to Rob, while the other knights were backing up, looking at me.
“Move away from him. Now,” I told the knight.
“Kill him,” Prince John grunted.
“I will slit his throat,” I told the knight.
“No, she won’t!” Prince John said. “Kill him! Now!”
The knight were looking at me, not Prince John. “Do it and he dies,” I warned.
“You’re under orders,” John told him. The knight met his gaze. “Kill him! Tuez-le maintenant!”
The knight drew his arm back, and I pushed Prince John aside, leaping over him to grab the knight’s arm and prevent it from moving forward. I buried my knife in his side.
Another knight pulled me off. He slammed his fist into my stomach, and I lost my breath at the burst of pain.
A hand closed on my wrist with the knife, and someone else hit me across the face. Then I were in the grass, on my back, and people held my wrists and feet; someone even had a boot on my stomach.
“Get her up,” Prince John said.
They dragged me to my knees. Rob and David were on their knees too now, and they pushed us into a line.
Our revolt had lasted roughly a minute.
With three against thirty, two knives between us, we’d never had much hope. Except for delaying long enough to let Kate get away.
“Do you men even know what you do?” David shouted. “You strike the daughter of the King of England! A princess!”
“A bastard,” Prince John dismissed. “Jacques?” he asked.
I looked at Rob. His mouth were drooling blood, and a cut on his eye were bleeding too.
“My-my lord,” he stammered. “Mon seigneur, il est vide.”
I didn’t speak French, but I knew what that room contained well enough.
Prince John picked up one of my knives from the ground. He came close to us and looked at Rob for a long while. Then he looked at me. “So. I need to know where my money has gone, and I need one of you two to tell me.”
We didn’t say anything.
“These things—information, and the ways we request it—they’re very simple. It’s a transaction, you see. For a fine woolen coat I would pay a certain sum. For boots, a different sum. So the question is, what sum will you pay to conceal the information I need? And what sum is too high a price to ask?”
I were trembling.
“Marian, my dear niece, you know very well how I play this game, don’t you? You see, I understand that there must be certain negotiations, and well, I like to start the game off right.”
He took two long steps from me, past Rob, and he plunged the knife into David’s throat.
CHAPTER
I screamed. Blood bubbled fast up David’s throat, and his eyes were wide like he didn’t know what had happened. Like he were frozen and couldn’t move or stop his death from flying swift in. Just like John.
And then Prince John pulled the knife out, and David’s body collapsed like someone pulled out whatever made him upright.
Prince John stepped in front of Rob, and I weren’t sure if I were screaming or crying or all at once. Men had their hands on me to keep me still, and Rob’s hand grabbed for
mine, the only thing that calmed me. Rob were very still, looking at Prince John, not breaking his gaze.
“Tell me where the money is,” Prince John said. “Tell me how you got it out and where it’s gone.”
“We won’t tell you that,” Rob said. “Because you’ll use it to kill Richard.”
“Yes, I will,” Prince John said. “This is my country, and whether it’s today or sometime in the next year, when you have fat little children, when you think you’re safe, I’ll see you dead. I’ll see you both dead.”
I drew a shaking breath, tears streaking down my face. “Not tonight. You need us to tell you where the money is. And if you harm one, the other won’t tell.”
“Hm,” he said. “Or maybe, like your little outlaw said, you won’t tell me anyway. Because your faith in my brother’s right is so strong, is that it?”
“I’ve never met my father,” I told him. “I only know that you should never be allowed to be king.”
“Well,” he said. “You may be right. But nobody cares what a stupid, bastard girl thinks. So let’s make this interesting, shall we? I’ll give you until dawn to tell me where the money is. And then I’ll kill him. I’ll hang him from that tree,” he said, pointing. “So you can watch. So you can remember every detail and take it to your grave. And then I’ll kill you too,” he promised.
I shivered.
“And do you know why I’ll hang him?” Prince John said, coming close to my ear. “Because you’re the weak one. You will break, like you sacrificed me for him moments ago. You will tell me rather than have his death on your soul, won’t you?”
My eyes flicked up to his. “If you kill him, I won’t say a word. And if you kill me, Richard will be safe, and he will return, and he will flay the skin from your bones.”
His eyes narrowed. “Let’s find out, shall we?”
They brought us up in the tower. It had once been a royal residence, but my father had long been rebuilding it to be the strongest prison in the land. The rooms bore the rich signs of their royal past, but also the locks of their future.
They didn’t touch me. They left me in a room all night long, alone, and listening to sounds that could have only been Rob. Grunts, short, clipped yells, and then silence. Every so often a man would come to my door and ask where the money were. I never answered, and then the sounds from Rob would start over again.
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