As expected, the domains of Brittany, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine had risen in support of Arthur. Normandy’s barons, those who had the strongest ties with England, supported the wisdom of William the Marshal. The Aquitaine, the rich and vast province that had come under England’s rule with the marriage of Henry and Eleanor, was still and ever loyal to the dowager queen, who, though seventy-eight years of age when she had cradled the golden head of her dying Lionheart, had also known that in order to avoid a bloody civil war, she must support her son over her beloved grandson.
Rejected and betrayed, Arthur had fled to Paris to live under Philip’s protection. At fifteen he had been knighted by the French monarch and wed to the dauphine, Marie. At sixteen, with the might of his father-in-law’s army behind him, Arthur had marched on Normandy, declaring his intention to reinstate himself as a claimant to the throne of England. Foolishly advised, his first point of attack had been the dowager’s castle at Mirebeau. Eleanor, by then a bent, frail figure who walked the ramparts with the aid of a cane, collected her defenders around her and held the castle until John arrived to relieve the siege. Arthur, who had advanced on Mirebeau with less than a third of his forces, was surprised by his uncle’s swift and deadly response. Surrounded and vastly outnumbered, he had no choice but to surrender. He had been taken prisoner and held at Falaise; more recently moved to Rouen to await John’s decision as to what to do with this bold and handsome young prince who reminded him all too painfully of the two great kings who had gone before him.
“Two years ago,” John said evenly, “when you realized the barons of England and Normandy would never support your feeble claim, you whimpered to me on bended knee, as I recall, and pledged homage … swearing your allegiance and loyalty in exchange for my not stripping you of your rights as Duke of Brittany.”
Arthur squeezed his thumb and forefinger together. In the tomblike silence of his donjon cell, he could hear the soft pat pat pat of blood dripping from the end of his thumb, but his face remained expressionless.
“For that I do thank you, Uncle,” he said calmly. “Without those rights, I should not have been able to add to my army in Brittany.”
“Army? You call that handful of ill-trained rabble you had capering about you … an army? Your own captain of the guard, M’sieur des Roches”—he spat the name with the contempt it deserved—“deserted at the first sight of armoured men along the Seine.”
Several more drips were added to the crimson stain at Arthur’s heels as his fair complexion turned ruddy. The air was dank and chilled, the stench of mold on the walls was ripened by the stench that came from the overflowed slops bucket in the corner. The cell was small, lit by a single smoky candle. It boasted the comforts of one scarred table and one x-chair— which his uncle now occupied—and a lumpy pile of months-old rushes that served as Arthur’s bed. He had not seen the sun or filled his lungs with clean air for better than three months.
“I could have you killed,” John said matter-of-factly, picking at a weal on his chin. “As a vassal rebelling against your king, your life is legally forfeit in the eyes of any court or country. I could have you killed and not a brow in the kingdom would be raised in approbation. Moreover, you attacked your own grandmother. My mother. The beloved dowager queen of England. You laid siege to an old, frail, defenseless woman— dried teat that she may be—and by doing so, earned the scorn and condemnation of every knight in Christendom.” He chuckled and flicked away the bit of pustule he had collected under his nail. “I could have you executed and not even be challenged to justify the deed.”
“Then order it and be done, Uncle, for I weary of these games.”
“Games?” John launched himself out of the chair—something he had been reluctant to do since the boy was a full head and neck taller. “You call it a game to decide your fate?”
“Uncle—” The title was used disdainfully, accompanied by a hard glint of shrewdness in the crystalline blue eyes. “You decided my fate the instant Richard drew his last breath. You decided it before the barons took their puppet vote, and long before my mother bartered a few sweaty hours in your bed for the privilege of permitting me to pledge homage.”
“I showed you mercy,” John seethed.
“You showed me arrogance, greed, and blind ambition. You showed me a man so twisted with corruption and jealousy he could barely wait until his brother’s blood had cooled before he was racing to count the coins in the royal treasury. You showed me a man with a soft sword who would pay homage to a French king instead of recognizing him as an enemy and driving him from the land with force, as your father did before you, and his father before him. Softsword … is that not what your loyal subjects call you now?”
“Traitor … is that not what your subjects would call you for making your bed under Philip’s roof?”
“There is a difference, Uncle, between cultivating an ally to pacify him, and constantly testing an enemy to invite him to destroy you.”
The king swayed slightly under a rush of hot anger. He bunched his fist and swung out sharply, catching Arthur’s cheek and tearing the flesh on the edge of one of his gold rings. The duke staggered back a step, but did not fall. He straightened immediately, his eyes burning brightly, his jaw clenched so stiffly the blood oozed from the fresh cut and ran in a jagged streak down his neck.
“Six months ago, when I threatened to have you blinded, I should not have allowed myself to be swayed by compassion. I should have had the irons heated then and there and your eyes seared from the sockets, ridding me once and for all of your insolence. You begged me then, boy. You begged me in the name of pity to withhold the irons.”
“You will not enjoy the pleasure again, Uncle,” Arthur said through the grate of his teeth. “Take my eyes. Take my hands and my limbs. Take anything you wish piece by piece and see how quickly the tide of condemnation would turn. Kill me, aye, and you remove an enemy from power. Torture me, blind me, cripple me, and every knight in the realm would see you for the yellow cur you are.”
“You plead an increasingly good argument for death, boy.”
“By killing me, you announce to the world that you were afraid of a sixteen-year-old stripling. If my death would make such a coward out of you, then I welcome it.”
John’s hands were trembling with the fury that coursed through him. He turned and paced the length and width of the small chamber, his rage pounding in his temples, his vision blurring under sharp jolts of pain.
If he had hoped the deprivations of the past few months would humble his nephew, he had been mistaken. If anything, the boy had found new strength in his spine where there had been sinews lacking. Even worse, all of Brittany, Touraine, Poitou, and Normandy were demanding clemency for the brave, but misguided young princeling. Philip was using Arthur’s continued imprisonment as an excuse to push his army deeper into English territory. The barons were outraged at their king’s inability to drive Philip back into France, yet not so enraged that they would send another man or spare another denier to fight the French plague. John’s ancestors were Norman and had conquered the English Isles, yet here he stood, on the verge of losing all of the Norman domains to a poxy French king who had been a mere vassal himself a decade ago.
Arthur. Arthur was the root of all his troubles. Arthur had tested the loyalty of the English barons, and had incited rebels into calling for a civil war, not once, but twice! If he was allowed to go free, the arrogant young upstart would only join forces with Philip and unite the armies of France with those of Brittany, crushing Normandy between them. Even if he kept the boy in prison the rest of his life, there would always be the threat of some malcontent breaking him free and stirring up trouble all over again. Blinding him had been an inspired notion. Whether his claim was viewed as legitimate or not, the people would never rally behind a blind king. Unfortunately, however, the moment of inspiration had passed and maiming the fool now would earn only the disgust of his nobles.
What he needed was for the boy to humble hims
elf in front of a vast audience of witnesses. He needed the boy to earn the scorn and derision of his peers, to subject himself to such public humiliation that no sane man in the kingdom would look to him again as a leader or a king.
Straightening himself, forcing his anger back under control, John walked to the cell door and yanked it open. He nodded once, brusquely, to someone waiting outside and a soft bloom of yellow light came forward, the splutter of a torch preceding the low whisper of velvet skirts dragging over the rough floor.
Arthur closed his eyes. He knew who it was without looking. He knew simply by the glow that radiated long after the torch was withdrawn, by the scent of sunlight and rosewater that not even the effect of grinding his thumb could overpower.
“Arthur? Dear God … Arthur …?”
The warmth of pure sunlight came closer and Arthur averted his face. It was a cruelty beyond belief to bring such beauty into such squalor. It was the cruellest offense of all that she should have to see him like this.
“Arthur …” Cool, gentle fingers brushed his jaw and forced him to turn back, forced him to face a torment almost greater than he could bear. He braced himself and looked down into clear blue eyes that were a mirror reflection of his own. The face itself bore a startling resemblance, with the same fine, straight nose, the same noble cheekbones and generously shaped mouth. In his sister, however, the fair complexion only added to her ethereal beauty; the spun gold hair became a cascade of luminous, rippling silk.
Eleanor was eighteen months older than Arthur, but equally as foolhardy, for she had insisted upon riding by her brother’s side when he had marched through Brittany. She had also insisted upon remaining with him even though she had known surrender and captivity would be her only reward for loyalty.
“Dearest brother,” she whispered and rose on tiptoes, pressing the clean, smooth surface of her cheek against his.
“Do you not mean ridiculous, foolish, asinine brother?” John said, pacing in front of the door. “Tell him. Tell him, by God, and we can end this matter once and for all.”
Eleanor retreated haltingly, sinking back onto the soles of her feet, leaving only her hand cradled to her brother’s cheek. The threat of tears was in her eyes as she noted the open sores on his skin—rat bites that had gone untreated and were festering. He was thin. So very thin. His eyes were sunken deep into their sockets, smeared with dark purple circles beneath. His hair hung in lank, greasy strings and his clothes were in tatters, crusted in filth, stained with blood and vomit. Whether by jest or torment, those clothes still included the azure blue tunic he had worn so proudly and defiantly at Mirebeau. The device of lion, griffon, and unicorn was boldly emblazoned on his chest, though all three creatures were sadly tarnished.
She turned and confronted her uncle with a fierce loathing. “Can you not see he is fevering and ill?”
John shrugged and arched a black eyebrow. “He knows what he must do. Both of you know what he must do.”
“What is it he wants you to tell me?” Arthur asked on a weary sigh, for he had heard all of the bribes and promises before. The lies, the treachery …
The most beautiful face in all the world lifted to his, becoming even more breathtakingly exquisite as her shoulders drew back in proud defiance. “I am come to tell you that you are the rightful king of England,” she declared. “I am come to tell you I have refused to bow to his puny, cowardly threats and that I will continue to stand by you no matter what befalls.”
“No!” John screamed. “No! No! No! I offered exile! The two of you together! As far away as I can send you, but alive. Alive, you fools!”
Arthur’s eyes had not left Eleanor’s. “You did not believe him?”
“Did you think I would?”
He raised hands that were shaking and bloody and laced his fingers with hers. “If I thought … if I truly believed I could do something to save you …”
Eleanor smiled then, a loving, tender smile that he took to his heart and hoarded like a priceless jewel. “I would not love you half so much if you bowed to him now. And not at all if you bowed because of me.”
She heard her uncle’s savage curse and she flung herself forward, clinging to her brother through one last, fierce hug before the guard rushed into the cell and dragged her away.
“Believe nothing he tells you,” she cried. “Believe only that I love you, that the people of Brittany love you, and that one day they will seize this serpent by the throat and grind him under their heels. On that day they will make you king. King Arthur! Long live the king!”
“Bitch!” John screamed, pushing her out the door. He kicked the thick oak panel after he slammed it shut and when he spun back around, his fists were clenched and his face mottled with rage.
“Will you or will you not openly pledge me homage, relinquishing once and for all any claim to the throne of England?”
Arthur continued to stare straight ahead. He could see his uncle’s shadow on the wall; John was standing beside the table, his shoulders hunched, his fists moving in spastic little punches against his thighs. The young duke bit his lip to keep his courage aloft and said slowly, evenly, “Neither chains nor prison towers nor the threat of an executioner’s axe shall make me coward enough to deny the right I hold from my father and my God. This I would declare before all who would listen.”
John let the air hiss out from between his teeth. His vision danced with painful spheres of bursting light and his fist curled around the iron candlestick.
“And that is your last word?”
“With my last breath, if need be.”
Arthur heard his uncle curse and experienced an explosion of pain at the base of his skull. He stumbled forward with the blow, his hands flying out in front to save him from a hard crash against the stone wall. But they also braced him upright for the next blow … and the next. Hot splashes of wax sprayed his hands and arms, and splashes of something else—warm and wet and red—began to spatter the rough surface of the wall. The agony in his head sent him staggering onto his knees, but the driving, thudding blows followed him down, slamming again and again into his neck and skull.
Out in the low-ceilinged corridor, the captain of the prison guard, William de Braose, heard what he thought was the wail of a wounded animal. He reached for the latch of the cell door, but on a farther thought, hesitated. He was a large, square-jawed bull of a man but he knew the king’s rages all too well. To interrupt without being summoned could put him in his own shackles in his own cell with his back flayed to bloody ribbands.
So instead, he pressed his ear to the door and tried to identify the rhythmic, muted thuds. He tried for two, three minutes, his brow beading with sweat and his hands clammy with indecision. He glanced both ways down the corridor, but the other guards were long gone, dragging the weeping princess between them.
Suppose the prince had overpowered his uncle and was beating him to death? Suppose the wailing sound was the king trying to call for help? Suppose—?
De Braose lifted his ear away from the oak. The thudding had abruptly stopped, as had the eerie wailing sound. He glanced down and noticed there was no longer a sliver of light showing beneath the door … someone had doused the candle and thrown the cell into darkness.
De Braose drew his sword and reached for a torch smoking blackly in a nearby cresset. He adjusted his helm forward so that the steel rim was level with the slits of his eyes, and, with a caution born of many years spent as a mercenary and assassin-for-hire, he twisted the door latch and used his boot to kick the panel wide.
It was black as pitch inside the cell and at first he did not see anyone. A faint shuffling, snuffling sound was coming from the far corner and De Braose angled the torch higher to thrust the spill of harsh orange light over the disturbance.
The king was lying there, his limbs rigid and twitching like the wooden legs on a marionette. His eyes were rolled back in their sockets, his mouth was wide and flecked with foam. There was blood on his hands, blood soaking the sleeves a
nd front of his tunic, blood splashed in his hair and in the forks of his beard, and sprayed down the legs of his hose. An iron candlestick lay beside one clawed hand, the candle knocked off the spike, the carved base clotted with gore.
De Braose edged farther into the room, the point of his sword beginning to tremble as he saw the second, crumpled body in the corner. There were dark, glistening stains on the walls and floor, and not much more than a shapeless lump of bloodied mush and shattered bone where the proud, golden head of the Duke of Brittany should have been.
De Braose, a hardened veteran of many battles and many battlefield slaughters, gagged over the sour taste of old ale that rose in his gorge. He sheathed his sword and choked back his disgust as he knelt beside the king and tried to determine, through the convulsive thrashings, if any of the blood was of royal leakage.
He had heard rumours of the king’s apoplectic fits, but he had thought they were just that: rumours. He had no notion of what to do or how to help his sovereign beyond some vague recollection of ensuring the tongue was not bitten off and swallowed. As far as he could tell, there were no other physical injuries, but the stench of blood and vomit and urine was nearly overpowering.
He sat back on his heels and stared at the king, then glanced over at the lifeless body in the corner. He should fetch help … not for the duke, but perhaps for the king, who might need some physic or potion to calm the spasms. At the very least, he thought with narrowed eyes, he should have another witness present, for had the king not just murdered his own nephew? Bludgeoned him to death with an iron candlestick?
Maude. His wife Maude would know what best to do. She could ooze sympathy and oaths of discretion in such a way that even a king who suspected treachery and malice behind every shadow would have no cause to doubt their loyalty.
The Robin Hood Trilogy Page 46
