Henry sagged back in his chair. “Ariel may not be so easily convinced, nor am I certain she will see much benefit.”
“Was this union not her own suggestion?”
Henry smiled wanly. “I do not think she planned it to go further than just that: a suggestion.”
“Then I will suggest she look upon it as a choice—a final choice between a prince of Wales and a gaoler’s son.”
Sparrow, who gave less credence to a woman’s right to choose a husband than he did a dog’s right to choose a flea, tested his patience against more pressing concerns.
“Think you the king will not question the eager bride’s timely appearance, or, when he discovers his prisoner has gone a-missing, that he will not add the one’s appearance to the other’s disappearance and dismiss neither as being coincidence? For that matter, will he not know, by those same eyes and ears who watch my master’s every nose-blow, that your niece is here in Normandy with you?”
William spread his hands flat on the table again. “Until the introductions were made shortly before dinner, no one has actually breathed the name De Clare or identified either my niece or nephew by name. Ariel arrived in my camp garbed as a squire and has remained thus until tonight. Therein lies another reason why I have brought her here to Amboise. My own personal guard, I trust with my life. They are loyal to a man and would burn in hell before betraying me or mine. When I leave here, however, I ride for Falaise, and then on to Cherbourg to join the king. I do not want Ariel with me. Waylaying the king’s courier was one matter, waylaying the king himself would be another and I doubt very much, once he laid an eye upon her, or suspected she was in my entourage, he would be so easily persuaded to let her go her own way again. Moreover, he would see, by virtue of touching the smallest hair on her head, how he could twist mine own heart within my chest, and it might be he would not send her on to Radnor at all. At the very least, he would assign his own guard to escort her, if and when he thought he had tormented me enough.
“No,” he continued determinedly. “She must not stay a moment longer in my company. She must be taken by an entirely different—and secretive—route to the coast, and from there across the Channel to England. Once across, I would again support the utmost secrecy with regards to her whereabouts until and if it becomes necessary to adopt the guise of a bridal cortege. At that time, if they are stopped for any reason, it will appear they are headed in the right direction, following the king’s command. As to any coincidences the king may or may not suspect, unless something goes dreadfully awry—and I pray we speak only in terms of supposition now—unless the men involved are captured or killed, the king will have no real proof as to the identity of the thieves. He may suspect. He may know. He may even accuse … but without proof …?” He shrugged and folded his hands together again. “Further to my hopes, by the time the castle guards finish scouring the niches and crannies of the castle, searching frantically for explanations that might keep them their heads, my niece will be well on her way into Wales.”
“When she fails to arrive at Radnor?” Alaric asked. “What then?”
William smiled tightly. “The king will be incensed. He will be livid and foaming and threatening to drench the land in blood … but again, he will not be able to lift a hand against her—not without risking the dissolution of the treaty he entered with Llywellyn ap Iorwerth. In truth, he will have no means of knowing when Ariel left Pembroke, or if she had any knowledge of the writ naming Reginald de Braose as the prospective groom. Since his envoy was waylaid by Lord Rhys, it might even be argued that it was the Welsh prince alone who knew of the king’s charter and, because he and I were already discussing terms for my niece’s hand, he thought it a fine irony —with the best romantic intentions, of course—to delay the writ until he and Ariel were safely wed. This is the story I will hold to. John will undoubtedly cry false and levy a large fine for both mine and the Welshman’s impudence, but he will do nothing to risk losing Llywellyn as an ally and opening the Marches to warfare again.”
“Has the Lady Ariel been asked her opinion of any of this?” Eduard wanted to know.
“I have every faith she will see her duty—and her salvation—and be only too willing to assist in any way she can.”
Henry looked dubious and Eduard felt a ridge of tension forming along his spine. “My lord, your motives are honourable, no question of that, but … to knowingly place your niece in such peril …?”
“My niece has put herself in peril, FitzRandwulf,” the earl declared, blistering the air with a moment of heat. “I am only trying to find her a way out. If, at the same time, there is an opportunity for something to be done for Eleanor of Brittany, then we must take the risk. I did not settle upon this plan lightly. Nor will I be entrusting her into your capable care with anything less than a blood oath that you will deliver her to Wales unharmed, untouched, unblemished by so much as a bruised fingertip. If you are unwilling or unable to promise me this, then I shall find another who will. I did not say it was of prime importance to have someone familiar to the princess in command of this rescue, only that it would ease the way. I have a score of knights in my own troop who would eagerly take charge without a single question asked.”
Eduard’s jaw flexed, the scar again standing out white and angry on his cheek, but it was the Wolf who responded coolly and calmly to the earl’s challenge.
“Neither my son’s abilities nor his willingness is the question here. What worries him—and me—is the state of Lack-land’s mind and the lengths to which he might go for revenge. You seem confident this Lord Rhys will protect your niece, but who is to say he will not turn his coat and sell the princess back to John in lieu of paying any fine, and well before she can safely cross Gwynedd’s lands into Powys? For that matter, there is Gwynwynwyn himself. How do you know you can trust him?”
“To answer the first part of your question, Lord Rhys ap Iorwerth will see that marrying my niece with my full knowledge and support will be of far more benefit to him than double-crossing me. And my niece, for her part, will not consent to the marriage until Eleanor is safely ensconced in Powys. To answer the second question, Gwynwynwyn hates John with a passion that has even chilled my blood on occasion. He will safeguard Eleanor if for no other reason than to know he has helped put the English fox’s neck in a snare.”
“Nor will he overlook the possibility of having one of his sons chosen as her consort,” Alaric added wryly.
“I will not deny, he is one of the candidates,” William admitted.
Eduard felt another ripple of tension. Eleanor would indeed have to marry, and marry well if she were to pose any kind of threat to her uncle. Gentle, sweet Eleanor. Sadder and more solemn than a princess of eighteen years should have been, she had already suffered immeasurably from her family’s political maneuverings. In the past five years alone, she had been betrothed three times to three rulers in exchange for promises of future alliances. Each time she had been supplanted by a more favourable candidate. Here was a proposal for a fourth, and the promise this time was freedom—but freedom to what fate? Eleanor was sunlight and music; Wales was darkness and barbaric clan wars. Could he embark on this rescue only to see her banished to a bleaker prison?
As the Lady Ariel had so tactfully pointed out, he was bastard born and as such should not even dream of a marriage with noble blood, let alone royal. It did not stop him from loving Eleanor, however, or from caring deeply about her happiness—something he could not see her obtaining in the arms of a rutting Welsh bull.
Yet, even as the image took shape in FitzRandwulf’s mind, it was not the helplessly pinioned body of the princess he saw being cruelly ravished; it was the flame-haired Lady Ariel de Glare who was crying out in rage and despair, desperately imploring him for help.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Ariel could not sleep. She paced the narrow confines of her chamber, her robe gathered tightly around her shoulders, her sandaled feet making soft slapping sounds on the plank flooring. The roo
m was small, located in a tower that abutted the main keep, and cool in spite of the iron brazier full of hot, glowing coals.
There was only one window in her chamber, the embrasure tall and thin in design. The opening was barely the width of a pair of slender shoulders, and so deeply recessed into the wall she had to sit on the stone ledge and crane her neck well forward to see even a portion of the sprawling grounds below. There were wooden shutters afixed to either side, and a woven arras hooked above the window which could be lowered in the winter months to keep out the winds, or in the long days of the summer to keep out the heat and stench from the moat. Tonight the room had been muffled against the threat of an approaching storm, but even though the shutters were a snug fit, the arras moved like a woolen lung, alternately swelling and sucking inward as the wind buffeted the outer walls.
The furnishings offered no relief for her restlessness. A bed, built in the style of the French court, sat on a raised platform and was enclosed in a thick swath of curtains which rose in an elegant twist above the top of the frame. There was a writing table and two chairs, a leather coffer for storing clothes, and a small pallet tucked beneath the bed where a page or maid—neither of whom Ariel had with her at present —could sleep.
A crucifix was hung prominently on one wall, but Ariel had already said her evening prayers and could see no benefit in overtaxing her knees. On another wall, someone had painted a gay profusion of tulips and roses over the whitewashed blocks, but after a while they seemed more of an irritant than a comfort, assuming the shapes of twisted, deformed faces that leered at her on each walk past. A tall, multi-branched candelabra stood by the table, the five thick candlesticks blazing lustily in the errant drafts. Someone had sprinkled fennel leaves over the coals in an hospitable attempt to give the chamber a mellow, sweet smell, but Ariel found it cloying in a room already burdened with the odour of tallow and cramped tidiness.
She had accompanied Dafydd ap Iorwerth into the gardens after supper, the residue of her anger keeping her warm as they wandered the well-tended paths of flowers. Most of the more delicate plants had succumbed to recent days of frost and cold, but sheltered against the wall, there were indeed several rosebushes determined to give flowers and buds.
There had been no moonlight to speak of, only hints of light here and there through the thickening banks of cloud. The promise of a storm had grown stronger on every gust of wind that swirled over the top of the stone walls. Dried leaves rushed across the cobbled path at every footstep; the air tasted metallic with the threat of thunder and rain.
Normally she loved stormy weather. It suited her temperament somehow to watch all that power and fury unleashed in a limitless sky. Once, as a child, she had been caught out-of-doors during an especially violent display of God’s wrath, but far from being terrified by the experience, the brilliance and ominous beauty exhilarated her to the point where she still stood before an open window during a storm, hoping to recapture the excitement.
Dafydd ap Iorwerth had not been so enthralled by the elements. He kept glancing upward, as if he expected demons and dragons to appear in the sky above him. Ariel, as hard as she tried not to, was growing almost fond of the young Welshman. He was well mannered (in comparison to most other Welsh barbarians) and quiet. He was shy to the point where Ariel had amused herself by seeing how many times she could raise a blush on his face. He spoke enthusiastically of Wales, leading Ariel to believe he was more comfortable in his dark forests and misty mountains than he was in the bustle of a civilized town or city. He spoke eloquently of his homeland and ancestors and agreed, with no reservations whatsoever, that the Welsh were a violent race—but with good reason. Generations had been raised on blood and warfare, fighting for their freedom against the Saxons first, and then with the arrogant Normans, with whom they still battled to keep their identity. He recounted stories of villages and crofts where the forests were known to stir and rumble at night as the ghost of their great king, Arthur Pendragon, gathered a new army around him, anticipating the day when England would falter to its knees and be ripe for conquest. And, with the lords of Gwynedd being direct descendants of Pendragon, it stood to reason they should always be prepared to take up the call to arms.
Ariel had listened to most of this with a gently arched brow, but the young prince was so earnest and so intense, it was difficult to mock him openly. It was not so difficult to assume a wary guise when he spoke of his brother Rhys, for she sensed there was more he did not tell her than what he did. She fully expected to hear he was the bravest, boldest, most feared knight in all of Wales, but at the same time, she could not help wondering why young Dafydd’s eyes could not hold hers for any measurable length of time while he extolled these endless virtues, or why his voice seemed flat and lacking any real conviction.
Conversely, with the scent of winter roses swirling on the currents of a rising storm, the Welsh prince could barely contain his enthusiasm for the bold knights who dwelled in Chateau d’Amboise.
“Did you know, my lady, the Wolf fought a real dragon, one with glowing red eyes and a forked tongue that spat fire?”
“His brother, was it not? Did you never think your own kin had serpentine qualities when you were young?”
“Your pardon, my lady?”
“Never mind,” she sighed. “’Twas only a jest.”
“Only a jest?” he repeated in some awe. “To be in the presence of such men? I was not fully convinced they were even real much less that your uncle would bring us here to meet them.”
Ariel’s polite smile had launched him into another tale he had thought was a figment of some bard’s imagination, but she was only half-listening. Her uncle had ridden a day and a night out of his way to seek the ear of Lord Randwulf de la Seyne Sur Mer and Ariel’s curiosity had been kept at a peak to know why. Henry, normally as malleable as clay in her hands, had been displaying an unusual ability to avoid answering her questions, and, since being advised of the earl’s decision to visit Amboise, had taken care not to be caught alone with her.
It could be nothing, or it could be something. But if the something had anything to do with her, she wanted to know. She had a right to know, did she not? Especially if any of these secrets and meetings involved her or her future.
Returned to her room, sequestered with her thoughts and her privacy, no amount of pacing seemed to provide any logical answers. The closeness of the walls and the staleness of the air seemed also to hamper her ability to breathe, and after a futile struggle with the heavy arras, she snatched her mantle off the edge of the bed and climbed the spiral stone staircase to the rooftop. She had to wrestle a moment with the unfamiliar latch of the trap-door, but with the aid of a timely gust of wind, she was able to fling it open and step out into the rush of bitingly fresh air.
Her hair, unfettered by braid or wimple, blew forward, a mass of tumbled waves that blinded her for as long as it took to sweep back the escaped curls and tuck them more securely beneath her hood. The air was cold and sharp, tainted with the slightly earthy tang of dampness and stone. Clouds were racing across the sky, their underbellies blue-white and roiling. The light was weak and murky, doing little to alleviate the ghostly shadows thrown by the ramparts.
No sentries were posted on this section of the roof; none were necessary. Ariel’s tower adjoined the section of the keep that faced out over a sheer drop of jagged rocks that spilled over the banks of the river Loire below. There were no windows on this side of the keep, no handholds, no toeholds, not even a postern gate at the base of the mighty stone walls. Only a fool or a goat would attempt an assault from the river, and then, because there were a dozen other towers and barbicans affording a breathtakingly clear view of all the surrounding lands in the valley, the warning would be given long before an enemy could begin to conquer the turbulent currents of the river.
The Wolf had displayed a keen eye for defense and privacy when he had chosen Amboise as his reward for serving the dowager queen. The village, hugging the shadow of the
castle’s fortifications, would have no cause to worry after the safety of its inhabitants. Once locked inside these walls, a warlord and all of his retainers could withstand a siege lasting many months and mete out more damage than they would sustain.
Ariel bundled her woolen mantle tighter around her shoulders and followed the ramparts around and down onto the broad, flat roof of the keep. As she passed each square-toothed crenel of stone, the wind sheared through the gap, tearing more strands of her hair free from the hood. The moon appeared briefly, and if she had not been distracted by a rough cobble underfoot, she might have noticed the second figure sharing the blustery solitude of the rooftops. She might have seen him make an abrupt halt in his own circuit of the ramparts and melt into the blackness of the parapet in the hopes of avoiding notice altogether.
Eduard recognized the cloaked and hooded figure at once. The long streamers of fiery red hair had been bleached by the eerie light to a dull coppery sheen, but there could be no further chance of mistaking Lady Ariel de Clare for a common serving wench.
Eduard watched her haphazard approach, noting the way she paused here and there to peer out over the stone parapet, or the way she turned against the force of the wind to give chase to the escaping tendrils of her hair. Once the wind caused her mantle to bell out behind her and he was given a filmy white view of the linen blanchet she wore beneath.
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