The Last Knight

by Candice Proctor

  “Attica—” He tried to grasp her by the shoulders, but she jerked out of his reach. “Splendor of God, what would you have had me do? Take him to Chinon in chains to meet a traitor's death?”

  She backed away from him, her eyes wide with pain and an anger that bordered dangerously near to hatred. “You could have let him go.”

  She swung away, her arms wrapping around her waist as she doubled over, an aching moan curling up from someplace deep inside her. “Oh, God. You killed him.” Her legs buckled beneath her, and she sank to her knees in the grass. She pressed her hands flat to her face, her chest shuddering with the effort to draw in breath.

  “I would have given up everything for you,” she said, her hands sliding down to clench her skirt. “I would have betrayed my house, my liege lord, my vow to God, all for you. And you”— she let out a horrible laugh— “you kill my brother.”

  “I would die for you, Attica. Without hesitation or regret. But I couldn't let Henry die, not because of my love for you. I couldn't look the other way while Stephen betrayed his lord to his enemies.”

  She stared at him. Her hands had left smears of her brother's blood on her cheeks and neck, the red standing out starkly against the white of her skin. “You couldn't even look the other way while Stephen rode off ?”

  Damion tightened his jaw, unable to answer her. Because while it was true that, in the end, he had pulled up, it was also true that for a few, fatal heartbeats, the bloodlust of battle had pounded hot through him and he had begun to give chase.

  A sob rasped painfully from her throat as she swung her face away from him, her eyes squeezing shut against the tears that now welled up hot and fast. He ached with the need to go to her, to enfold her in his arms and comfort her with his warmth and his strength and his love. But he knew this was one time his touch would bring her no ease.

  His head lifted, his gaze caught by the flight of an egret that rose, white and graceful, from the reeds near the water's edge. He saw the lanner before the egret did, the hawk's dark wings spread wide, its curved beak bold against the blue sky as it hovered, then swooped, claws grasping. The egret let out a shrill cry and fell to earth, the lanner diving behind. And still Damion stared at the empty sky.

  He was aware of Sergei reining in to slip from his saddle and go kneel beside Attica. The squire's hand touched her shoulder gently, and she turned to him, harsh sobs shaking her shoulders as she clutched him. Damion stood where he was, watching Attica turn away. Then he went to where Stephen lay, still, on the grass.

  This at least, Damion thought, he could do for her.

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  Henry Plantagenet, King of England and Wales, and lord of more French lands than the French king himself, lay beneath a coverlet of thick marten fur in a bed curtained with scarlet silk. Though the summer evening was bright and warm, the shutters had been closed against the setting sun. A brazier glowed on the stone hearth in the chamber's corner, the bubbling contents of an earthenware pot nestled among the coals filling the room with a heavy, herb-scented heat.

  Stepping into the faint glimmer of light thrown by the cresset lamp hanging by a chain from a bracket on the wall, Damion bowed. “You wished to see me, Your Grace?”

  Henry struggled to push himself up on the pillows. “I hear Philip's armies are overrunning what's left of Maine and Touraine. Is it true?”

  Damion met the English king's gaze unswervingly. “Yes, Your Grace.”

  A draft swung the cresset overhead, the light flickering over a face shockingly pinched by illness. The fingers of one of Henry's hands plucked restlessly at the edge of the camlet sheet as his gaze drifted away. “Perhaps it would have been for the best, after all, if Richard had succeeded in taking me today.” A breath lifted his chest, then eased out in a long sigh. His gaze drifted away, and it was as if he spoke to himself, his words a broken murmur. “I've dedicated my life to bringing peace, prosperity, and justice to my lands. I don't want to spend what might be my last hours watching everything I've worked for destroyed.”

  He brought his gaze back to Damion, his face hardening, his voice turning bitter and cold. “I want you to send word to Richard and Philip. Tell them I've decided to agree to their terms. My subjects will swear allegiance to Richard, and he shall have Alice to wife on his return from his Crusade.” A growl rumbled his barrel chest as he added savagely, “If she's lucky, perhaps the treacherous bastard won't come back.”

  Damion glanced at the regal young woman who sat, quiet and unmoving, beside the king's sickbed. “Yes, Your Grace.” He kept his face as much of a mask as he could make it. “And Attica d'Alérion?”

  Henry swiped his hand through the air in an angry gesture. “She'll not reward Salers and his wife for their treason by making their son the new comte d'Alérion. Stephen d'Alérion's lands are declared forfeit by reason of his defection, and I'm settling them on you”— He gave Damion a considering look— “since you didn't seem overly enthusiastic about being the Earl of Carlyle.”

  “And the girl?” said Damion again. “Attica d'Alérion?”

  “Salers can have her if he still wants her, but I doubt he will, now that she won't have the power of her brother behind her.” Henry rubbed the back of his hand across his dry, cracked lips and nodded toward the silver ewer and delicate Venetian glass goblet resting on a nearby chest. “Pour me some wine,” he said, his voice becoming raspy. “The girl can take the veil.”

  Damion moved to the heavy oak coffer decorated across its side panels with carved dragons and two-headed beasts devouring their own tails. “I would have her to wife, Your Grace,” he said, his hand almost steady as he poured the wine and handed it to the king.

  “Oh, you would, would you?” Henry took the wine, a faint gleam of amusement lighting up his eyes. “That does much to explain your lack of interest in Carlyle.” He shrugged. “Go ahead and take the girl too, if you wish— that is assuming, of course, that she'll have you, with her brother's blood still fresh on your hands.” Raising the goblet, he drank deeply, then sighed in satisfaction, his head sinking back into the pillow. “If I thank God for anything,” he said, smiling faintly, “it's that He's had the mercy to let me fall ill in Anjou, where a sick man can at least be assured of drinking a good cup of wine.” He cocked one gray eyebrow at Damion. “Ever spend much time in England?”

  “Not a great deal, Your Grace.”

  Henry grunted in envy. “It's true what they say, you know: English wine can only be drunk with the eyes closed and the teeth clenched.”

  Damion laughed while Alice of France reached forward to pluck the wine goblet from the king's slack grasp. “You should rest now, Henry.”

  Henry threw a ferocious scowl at her and said, “Stop fussing over me, woman.” To Damion he added, “Arrange the meeting with Philip and that bastard son of mine, so that we may exchange the kiss of peace. Only don't make the place of meeting too far.”

  “You'll go in a litter, in any case,” said Alice hastily, pulling the covers up under his chin.

  “God's righteous wounds, I'll do no such thing,” he bellowed, his face suffusing with color as he struggled to sit up. “I'll ride there on my own horse, like the king I am. I'm not dead yet.”

  Heavy banks of clouds raced in from the west, blotting out the thin sliver of moon and the stars and stirring up a mournful wind that shrieked through the narrow streets of the darkened town.

  Attica threw a quick, anxious glance behind her, grateful in spite of her fear for the protective cloak of black secrecy the night wrapped around them. Stumbling, she threw out one hand, running it along the rough stone wall of the building beside her, feeling her way carefully as she followed Sergei down the steep, refuse-strewn street.

  As if he sensed her unease, Sergei's whisper floated back to her from out of the darkness. “We're almost there, my lady.”

  A wolf howled in the distance. Attica gripped together the edges of her mantle with her free hand and tried not to shiver.
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  It didn't seem right, somehow, that she should have to creep through the darkness of the night as furtively as a thief or a spy. There should be nothing wrong with a woman wanting to give her brother a decent burial, nothing wrong with wanting to spare his body the final degradation of the gibbet, nothing wrong with depriving Henry of the pleasure of seeing Stephen's head on a pike, decorating the castle gate along with the heads of the other rebel knights who had been killed today.

  Unfortunately, Henry hadn't seen it that way. He'd been furious to discover Stephen's body missing from among those brought back to the castle. She wasn't exactly certain how Sergei had managed to spirit her brother away, although she knew she had Damion to thank for it.

  Damion …

  But the thought of him brought with it such a confused welling of hot anger and desperate longing that she jerked her mind away.

  “Here,” said Sergei, ducking suddenly through a small arched doorway.

  She followed him down a short flight of shallow steps, for the priory of Saint-Rémy was an old one, and over the centuries the level of the street outside had risen. She found herself in the side aisle of a small church with barrel vaults and twin arcades of squat sandstone arches, dimly lit by candles that glimmered over fresco-covered walls and ceilings.

  A movement near the altar drew her attention to a monk who rose, genuflected, then came toward them, his hands together before him as if in prayer. “Welcome, daughter. Your brother lies there, in the Lady chapel.”

  But she had already seen him, a still, darkly robed form lying on a trestle table before a side altar.

  She walked up to him on shaky legs, her breath rasping harshly as she gazed down on him. In place of his armor, he now wore the habit of an Augustinian monk, the cowl drawn up around his face like the hood of a mail hauberk. The monks had bathed the blood from him, and the cowl hid the gaping wound in his throat. In the gentle light of the candles, he looked so young, she thought; young and, oddly for one who had met such a violent death, at peace.

  “You do not mind that we have dressed him as one of our order?” asked the monk, coming up quietly beside her.

  “No.” She reached out a trembling hand to touch the sleeve of his habit. “He was actually consecrated to God once. But our elder brother died, and so Stephen became our father's heir.”

  Yet he had never really delighted in the sport of knights, she remembered, even though he had done his best to live up to Robert d'Alérion's expectations. They had both been taught to bend themselves to their father's genial but implacable will, to put the needs of the house of Alérion ahead of their own wishes and desires.

  Oh, Stephen, she thought. My poor knighted monk.

  She sank to her knees beside his body, her hands folded together and resting on the cloth of his robes, her head bowed in prayer. She was aware of Sergei and the monk moving off down the nave, their voices lowered to soothing murmurs. She was glad they had not left her entirely alone.

  She did not know how long she knelt there in prayer. She felt a touch on her shoulder and looked up into Ser-gei's anxious face. “We must get back, my lady. We must not risk letting your brother's location be known before the monks can bury him in the morning.”

  She crossed herself and rose stiffly to her feet, but she found she could not bear to leave him. She stood gazing down at his boyishly handsome face with its prominent cheekbones and delicately sculpted mouth. He would never grow old now, she thought. He would always look thus in her memory.

  She was vaguely aware of Sergei stepping back, of a sudden charge of energy humming in the air, as if a flash of lightning were about to crackle through the chapel.

  She lifted her head, her gaze locking with that of the man who now stood, tall and straight and silent, on the far side of the bier. He must have only just ridden in, she thought, for he still wore his hauberk, and his cheeks and nose still bore the faint black smudges left by his helm. The air around her filled with the scent of the night wind and warm horseflesh and cold steel.

  “Why have you come?” she asked, her voice a harsh whisper.

  He leaned toward her, his fingers curling over the edge of the bier, his face hard and intent. “I had to see you.”

  “Here?” Her hand swept through the air, flickering the candles that burned beside her brother's body.

  “Yes, here.” The dancing candlelight flared over the fierce bones of his face and glittered in the frightening depths of his beautiful, beloved eyes. “I thought you ought to know that Henry has declared Stephen's lands forfeit.”

  She was aware of a curious inner emptiness. She knew she should feel something—anger, dismay, perhaps even fear. As Robert d'Alérion's only surviving child, she would have inherited all his lands after her brother's death if Stephen hadn't died taking up arms against his liege lord. Yet she felt nothing. It was as if the losses she had already borne had hollowed her out inside, so that she couldn't care about anything.

  “He has settled both lands and titles on me,” Damion said, still staring at her hard.

  She forced her lips into a travesty of a smile. “So now you have everything you've always wanted. Land. Titles. Power. Congratulations.”

  She saw his brows draw together in a confused frown, as if he couldn't understand her reaction. But then, she couldn't understand herself. She felt dead inside. As dead as her brother before her.

  “No,” Damion said, his head swinging sharply, once, from side to side. “Not everything. I don't have you, Attica. Henry has said I might take you to wife, but …” He paused, his breath pushing out in a long sigh. “It's your choice. You must agree to have me.”

  She stared at him, her heart beginning to pound wildly in her chest. For some reason, it hadn't occurred to her that with the death of both her brother and her father, she had become Henry's ward. Her mother might still be alive in Aquitaine, but women meant nothing in such matters. Attica was now in the king's gift. And Henry had given her to Damion.

  She licked her suddenly dry lips. “And if I refuse?”

  A muscle leapt in his tightened jaw. “Then you are to become a bride of Christ.”

  She spun away, the candles on the altar blurring into an arc of golden-white light as she brought her hands up to cover her mouth and nose.

  His voice came from behind her. “Will you, Attica? Will you refuse me? Would you rather take the veil?”

  She swung slowly back to face him, only to discover she could endure no more than one look at the intense longing burning in his eyes before she had to drop her gaze to her brother's peaceful features. “I would rather take the veil than marry anyone but you.” She paused, trying to swallow the sob that burned like a live coal in her chest. “Except … how can I marry the man who killed my own brother?” She heard the swift intake of Damion's breath and pressed on, before she lost her courage.

  “I love you, Damion. Beneath all the anger and hurt I'm feeling, I know the love is still there. But don't you see?” Somehow, she found the strength to look up at him again, although what she saw in his face almost destroyed her. “Don't you see?” she said again, her voice breaking. “Stephen's death will always lie between us. As surely as his body lies here between us now.”

  “Stephen lies here on his bier between us now, yes,” said Damion, his hand stabbing downward, the color riding high on his cheekbones. “But tomorrow he will be in his grave. And if he continues to come between us, then it is only because you have willed it so, Attica d'Alérion.”

  “My lady,” said Sergei, stepping forward again. “We must go.”

  For one intense, unforgettable moment she held Dami-on's gaze. Then she bent to kiss Stephen's cold cheek.

  She turned away almost blindly, pushing a small leather bag of coins into the monk's hand in alms. She was grateful when Sergei took her arm to guide her up the darkened steps.

  The door opened to the restless night, the air fresh and cool and damp with the promise of rain. But at the top of the steps she paused and glance
d back for one brief instant to see Damion still there, beside the bier, the candlelight glimmering soft and golden over the sun-darkened planes of his face as he gazed down at Stephen's body. And then he did the strangest thing: That hard, dark knight sank to his knees and bowed his head to pray.

  The door slammed shut behind her, and she saw him no more.

  Outside, the night wind tore at her mantle, whipped at her hair, thrashed the branches of the trees on the far side of the priory's high wall. A shutter banged in the distance, startling a dog into barking. She tipped back her head, staring up at the storm-tossed sky with wide, painfully dry eyes. Lightning cracked, splitting open the clouds, tearing at her heart and laying bare her grieving soul.

  Early the next morning, Attica stood on the windblown battlements and watched Henry and a small party of knights led by Damion de Jarnac ride forth from the castle of Chinon, their horses richly caparisoned, their pennants and banners snapping in the wind.

  When they returned, the English king was no longer on his horse but in a litter.

  Rumors whipped around the castle. They said Henry had reached a humiliating agreement with his son Richard and the French king, then collapsed. They said Henry had demanded that Richard and Philip furnish him with a list of the names of those who had conspired against him.

  They said Henry had cursed his son with the same breath as he had presented him with the kiss of peace.

  They said Henry was dying.

  Damion didn't see her again until early the following evening.

  He came upon her in the chamber that had once belonged to Stephen d'Alérion. It looked as if she had been gathering her brother's things together into a neat pile on a narrow bed oddly reminiscent of what one might see in a monastic cell. But now she simply stood half-turned away from him in the center of the room, her hands thrust into her sleeves, her head thrown back, her eyes closed as if she were lost in thought. Or in prayer.