Prince John was given no choice but to nod his head in complete agreement. “Arrest him. We shall get to the bottom of this treachery … one way or another.”
The wall of guards surged forward and swarmed over the fallen knight. Still reeling from the blow to his head, the Wolf was dragged from the enclosure and taken away in chains to the castle donjon.
Friar sat in stunned silence, unable to move, hardly able to believe what he had just seen and heard. There had been no time, no chance to react to Etienne Wardieu’s charade, and to a man, the Wolf’s knights had stood helplessly by and watched their leader carried from the field in chains. Prince John was already embellishing the lies by speculating over political motivations. Alaric only half-listened; to pay full heed might have been temptation enough to assassinate the gloating regent himself.
He was more concerned over the whereabouts of Gil, Sparrow, and the others. Sparrow had appeared briefly in front of the Wolf’s pavilion, but had successfully vanished in the crowd. Robert the Welshman, normally visible by virtue of his height and bulk alone, had melted back into the ring of spectators and either taken cover in the nearby stables, or had been caught doing something reckless—like attempting to rescue the Wolf single-handedly—and lay dead somewhere with his good intentions spilling out onto the cobblestones.
Friar was no less reassured to see a detachment of guards sent at once to reinforce the sentries on the main gates. Was the Dragon assuming his brother had had the foresight to ensure the presence of a few friendly faces in the crowd? Or was he just taking normal precautions against the sympathy of the general rabble? La Seyne Sur Mer, as the dowager’s champion, had been the favorite of the commoners. The Black Wolf of Lincoln, brave, bold, and daring in his exploits against the tyranny of De Gournay and the regent’s tax collectors, was more simply put, their hero. To have the two legendary rogues revealed as being one and the same man, had brought upwards of two hundred angry, rebellious bodies crushing against the bars of the iron portcullis gates.
Fear they might break in was ludicrous, therefore it must mean the Dragon was wary of anyone else breaking out.
The guests began to disperse from the field. The ladies departed on cushioned litters, returning to the main keep by the same method they had been carried forth. Some of the nobles rode as well—horses or litters—and took away their flocks of servants and retainers in the process. Prince John was among the first group to leave the dais, but delayed his return to the keep long enough to stop at the Dragon’s pavilion and offer his congratulations. There, the castle chirurgeon was busy sewing and bandaging the lord’s wounds, plucking out pieces of iron link that had become embedded in cut flesh, clucking and frowning over bruises that had turned the underlying pads of muscle into mush. Most of the injuries were slight; only one caused a flurry of clacking tongues and fingers, and a suggestion to attach leeches to drain off any possible threat of infection.
Friar was one of the last to leave the covered dais. He started to walk toward the rows of pavilions and stared, as he did so, at the empty field, now strewn with garbage, debris from the broken palisades, and clods of uprooted grass and dirt from the horses’ churning hooves. He tried to think, tried to place himself inside the Wolf’s head to devise a plan for rescuing the captured knight, but nothing crystallized. They were vastly outnumbered. They had been outmaneuvered once and would be again, for without the Wolf’s knowledge of the castle grounds, they could search for a week without ever discovering the donjon where he was being held.
And a week was too long by any man’s guess.
“My lord bishop—a word with you?”
Friar’s attention was startled away from the field by the sound of a man’s gruff voice over his shoulder. He turned and could not completely quell a chill of foreboding as he came face-to-face with an armed knight and three brawny guardsmen. The knight looked vaguely familiar with his long, thin nose, deep-set eyes, and coarsely unpleasant features, but for the moment, his blazon of scarlet and yellow eluded identity. As casually as he could, Friar clasped his hands together within the voluminous cuffs of his bishop’s robes and nodded a formal greeting.
“Do I know you, sir knight?”
“You might. If you were in the forest a sennight ago and part of a band of rogues who ambushed innocent travelers … you might know me.”
Friar’s right hand inched toward the dagger he had strapped to the inside of his other wrist. The act was concealed by his sleeves, yet the knight detected the movement and grasped a hand around Friar’s wrist, knife and all, effectively spoiling the intent.
“I would have a word with you in private, my lord bishop,” said the knight again, his voice a low rumble of authority. “You have nothing to fear from me, unless of course, Mistress Bidwell has been duped out of her senses— which I suspect she has—and has asked me to seek help from the wrong quarter.”
“Mistress Bidwell? … Biddy?”
The knight scowled and squeezed Friar’s wrist to the point of making the hand swell and turn bright red before he released it. “I gave her my word to seek you out, and seek you out I have. Now, by God, you will come with me or you will die here by your own misfortune.”
Friar glanced past the knight’s shoulder and shook his head quickly at someone who had stepped out from behind a small, straw-filled cart. The knight, sensing the threat, whirled around, as did the three guards, only to find themselves staring down the shaft of a slender ashwood arrow. The “monk” holding the bow was tall and slim; his cowl had slipped back to reveal a shock of bright copper curls and an even more shocking scar down the left side of his face.
The three guards reached instinctively for the hilts of their swords, but a harsh command from the knight stopped them.
“You,” he snarled, staring into Gil Golden’s amber eyes. “I know you, by God. You were the one who did this—” Sir Roger de Chesnai smacked his thigh just above the bulge of padding that distorted the fit of his hose. His expression grew blacker as he swept his gaze along the length of Gil’s robes. “Aye, ’tis well you hid yourself behind the church’s cowl, for I would have scarred the other half of your head for you by now.”
“You can still try,” Gil said calmly. “Although I stopped your boastings once with ease.”
“A lucky shot,” De Chesnai growled.
The tip of the steel arrowhead swerved up and held unwaveringly to an imagined target dead centre of De Chesnai’s brow. “No luckier than the shot I could use now to send your eyeball out the back of your skull.”
“Christ on a cross,” Friar muttered. “This is hardly the time for petty vanities. Kill each other later if you have a mind to, but for the moment, could we all set our differences aside and find the answers to some questions? Sir Roger de Chesnai—aye, I have fixed a name to the face—you are one of Sir Hubert’s men?”
De Chesnai continued to glower at Gil while he nodded. “Sir Hubert’s man, and now the Lady Servanne’s.”
The feeling of dread that should have dissipated upon identifying Sir Roger had not alleviated in the least, and now Friar knew why.
“Lady Servanne … has something happened to her?”
“Alaric—” Gil’s voice interrupted before the knight could reply. “I tried to reach you before you took your seat on the dais, but you were so close to Prince John, and there were too many people about.”
“Has something happened to Lady Servanne?”
“Not here,” De Chesnai commanded coldly. “A dozen pairs of eyes could be on us, and an equal number of prickling ears. And for God’s sake, tell this red-haired bastard to lower his bow before we are all done for.”
“Gil—” Friar signaled her to put up the longbow, and grudgingly she obeyed. On a further thought, she set both bow and arrow aside long enough to shrug out of the monk’s robes, which were now a greater hindrance than a disguise.
“The old woman is hidden nearby,” said De Chesnai. “It is best you hear all from her. Come. She may be holding on to
life by a thread as it is; we can waste no more time.”
Alaric hesitated, wary of a trap. There had been no love lost between the old harridan and the Black Wolf; there was certainly no reason to trust Sir Roger de Chesnai, who still walked with a slight limp thanks to Gil’s aim. It could be a ruse, designed to catch Friar and lure out of hiding any others who were taking refuge amongst the castle inhabitants.
“All right,” Friar said. “Lead the way. But be advised there are more than a few steady hands pulling back on bowstrings as we wend our way through the shadows.”
De Chesnai’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing more. He beckoned his three men to fall into step behind him and started walking swiftly toward the castle’s cramped streets of smoky workshops. He followed a twisted route into the heart of the noisy, crowded labyrinth until they arrived at the start of armourers’ alley.
As hectic a place as it had been the previous nights, it was all but deserted now. The forges were cold in the smithies, the men all off somewhere celebrating their craftsmanship and skill. De Chesnai headed for one particularly dismal-looking bothy and again Friar paused, acutely conscious of how conspicuous he appeared in his black and crimson robes.
On a command from De Chesnai, the three guards dispersed, strolling casually to take up positions overlooking the approaches to the bothy. Gil had melted into one of the snickleways long ago, but reappeared now to give Friar a reassuring nod.
“There are no eyes but our own watching us,” she announced, and smugly arched her brow in De Chesnai’s direction.
Bristling at the insult to his integrity, the knight thrust aside the ragged bit of canvas that served as a door. “Inside, the pair of you. And there had best be no tricks, or I will be the first to twist a knife in your gizzards.”
Friar ducked through the doorway, followed by Gil and Sir Roger. The bothy was windowless and airless, the stench of raw bog iron nearly as overpowering to their throat and eyes as the tang of animal urine in the filthy straw. What light there was came through gaps in the thatched roof and holes in the canvas door.
Biddy was lying on a pallet in the corner, and at first glance, she was so pale and still, Alaric thought she was dead.
“Biddy?” He dropped down onto a knee beside her and took up one of her ice cold hands in his. “Mistress Bidwell? Can you hear me?”
Biddy cracked open an eyelid. It took a moment for her to bring Friar’s face into focus, but when she did, she squeezed his hand with more strength than he would have supposed she possessed.
“What happened to you, Biddy?”
“Not important,” she said, straining to form each word. “My lamb is all that matters now. You must find her and take her away from this terrible place.”
“Find her? The lady is not in her chambers?”
“I was trying to tell you—” Gil blurted out, halted mid-sentence by the combined persuasion of De Chesnai’s grip on her arm and the glowering warning in his eyes.
“The baron’s men,” Biddy gasped. “They took her away. Dragged her from the tower. He … hurt her dreadfully. He … struck her … again and again!”
Biddy’s eyes rolled upward so that only the whites showed from between her shivering lashes. Her breathing was raspy and uneven, and Alaric, at a loss what to do to ease her pain, held her hand as tightly as he dared and suffered silently through the spasm with her.
“She managed somehow to crawl down from the tower and find me where I waited by a postern gate,” De Chesnai explained in a murmur. “The effort cost her dearly, but she was determined not to die until I brought her to La Seyne Sur Mer.”
“La Seyne?” Alaric looked up.
“Indeed. My men and I barely managed to bring her this far before the talebearers were blazing through the castle grounds with the news of De Gournay’s victory. Since her first choice was obviously out of reach, she insisted upon you.”
Friar glanced back down at Biddy. Her eyes were open and clear, save for the tears that flowed in a fat stream down her temples.
“He will kill her, Friar,” she cried. “He means to torment her first, then kill her; I know he does. The same for poor Eduard—oh, the brave, brave lad! He tried to help, but he was no match for the Dragon. And because he is the Wolf’s son, you can imagine how much pleasure it will give the baron to hurt him.” A great shuddering sob racked Biddy’s body before she added, “I dread to think how much more it will delight him to torture my poor lamb.”
Friar shook his head as if to clear it of cobwebs. “Did you say … the Wolf’s son?”
“Eduard. Young Eduard … the Dragon’s squire. He has been taken away as well but wounded so mortally, I fear he cannot have lived out the hour.”
“Do you know where he was taken? Do you know where the Lady Servanne was taken?”
Biddy swallowed hard and ran a dry tongue across her lips. “The boy … no. But I heard him tell the guards to take my lady to … to the eagle’s eyrie. Yes, yes that was what he called it: the eagle’s eyrie.”
Alaric raised a questioning brow in Roger de Chesnai’s direction, but the knight was as much in ignorance of the castle’s thousands of chambers and passageways as was Friar. Nonetheless, he had a few questions of his own to ask.
“Is it true what she told me? Is La Seyne Sur Mer … your Black Wolf of Lincoln” he said with a faint snort, “the real Lucien Wardieu? And is it also true the man posing as Lucien Wardieu is come to the name and title through false means?”
“It is all true,” Friar said levelly.
“Have you any proof of this to offer?”
“The proof,” Gil seethed, “was there for all to see this afternoon in the lists. What kind of man strikes another in the back, especially when he has just been spared his own life?”
“Indeed,” De Chesnai mused. “Your wolf’s head fought well today. Better than any forest rogue or political schemer.”
“Yet you still harbour doubts to his identity—!”
Sir Roger held up a hand to counter Gil’s outburst. “In truth, lad, the only doubts I still harbour are those pertaining to our own abilities. My loyalty must first and foremost be to Lady Servanne de Briscourt, but even I, who would gladly trade my miserable life for hers, cannot see any hope of success in finding her, let alone freeing her, without the aid and knowledge of someone who knows this castle as if he were born to it.”
“Lucien Wardieu was born to it.” Alaric said quietly.
“Then it stands to reason,” Sir Roger replied mildly, “we should endeavour to free him first.”
“How?” Alaric demanded. “We are still likened to fish out of water here.”
“Ahh yes, but the Dragon believes he has captured the biggest fish of all. Will he not boast as much to his guests … and his bishop … and will it not, therefore, be an easy matter to inquire where and how the villain is being restrained so that one not need fear for the safety of one’s neck while asleep?”
“It could be done,” Alaric agreed slowly. “There is sure to be much drinking and celebrating in the great hall tonight.”
“I have six men at my command,” said Sir Roger. “Six who, like me, have no love for this yellow-maned dragon who sits so close to Lackland as to share the same stench of corruption. They will fight, to a man, if we can but provide the wherewithal to fight.” He paused and cast an arched brow over his shoulder at Gil. “Is this skinny bag of bones the best you have to contribute?”
“We have a dozen stout men inside the gates, as many more waiting out on the moor.” Alaric gave a wry smile before he added, “And I would take a care in how you refer to Gillian—she has a temper as finely honed as her bowstring.”
“She? A wench?”
“A wench who taught the Wolf a thing or two about the proper use of a longbow. But if you still doubt me, think back to the lesson learned by Bayard of Northumbria, who might have preferred we had a different teacher.”
De Chesnai frowned and scratched at the neatly trimmed beard that grew in
a point from his chin. “Well, a score of men—and one wench—will have to do, I suppose, at least until we can sniff out a malcontent or two from among the castle guard. There are bound to be some who would be glad to see the Dragon’s fire quenched after today’s debacle.”
Friar shook his head. “There is no time to recruit men from the castle guard. What we do must be done tonight, while there is revelry and celebration to dilute the urgency of the Dragon’s purpose. By the morrow, he will be thinking clearly again and know his only safe course lies in the hasty and permanent removal of anyone who poses a threat to his future.”
“He will kill your lord, as well as my lady,” De Chesnai agreed grimly. “Along with any of us who stumble into his hands.”
“Then we shall have to take special care to do no stumbling.”
A groan from the direction of the cot sent the men’s eyes back to Biddy; a squawk and flurry of parti-coloured vestments and tinkling bells sent them all into a guarded crouch as Sparrow plunged into the bothy. He skidded to a dusty halt when he saw the trio of grim faces and even grimmer weapons aimed toward him.
“Sparrow, for Christ’s sake—” Alaric resheathed his dagger and shook off the surge of adrenaline.
“I heard Old Blister was here. Robert said she was hurt—”
“Woodcock?” Biddy’s voice scratched out of the shadows. “Woodcock, is that you?”
The round cherub eyes searched past Gil’s frame and saw the still figure on the pallet. “Aye, ’tis me. What nonsense is this then?”
“Woodcock?” Biddy stretched out a trembling arm and Sparrow was by her side in an instant to sandwich her hand between his. “Have you heard … about my lady?”
“She is not where she is supposed to be?” he surmised grimly. “Aye, Master Wolf had some notion she might not be, although he should have given a deal more concern for his own whereabouts. Know you where they have taken her?”
“Somewhere called the eagle’s eyrie,” Friar interjected. “Your nose is usually everywhere it should not be: Have you heard mention of this place?”
The Robin Hood Trilogy Page 39
