“I am glad to hear it. I would not want to think I had been so mean and overbearing as to rouse feelings of vindictiveness in either of you.”
“We would do nothing … nothing to hurt you or Lady Isabella!” Ariel cried sincerely. “Surely you know this?”
William’s eyes narrowed. “Just as you must know I would not force you to do anything your heart was set against. If you harbour strong objections to this Welsh prince—if his nose is too large, or his legs too spindly—then by all means, voice them now and I will place myself and my sword between you and the king’s choler, regardless of the consequences.”
Ariel gazed steadily up into the penetrating blue eyes and knew, despite the wry twist behind his words, he was making both their positions quite clear. She was the one who had chosen to defy the king’s orders; she did not have a choice now and neither did he.
“Lord Rhys has a fine nose,” she said softly. “And his legs are as straight as pillars.”
“Your aunt did mention, now that I recall, he was a handsome rogue.”
Ariel lowered her head and rested her cheek on William’s knee. She tried hard to conjure an image of Rhys ap Iorwerth in her mind, but the best she could manage was a picture of a man who was dark and bearded, powerful in stature … with a slain fawn slung over the crupper of his saddle.
“Will you be happier with him than with the gaoler’s son?” William asked quietly, smoothing a gnarled hand over the shiny crown of her head.
“I will be content,” she said.
“Have no fear—he will know, by the terms of the agreement and by the dower estates I contract into his keeping, that I place an extremely high value on your safety and continuing happiness.”
She tilted her chin up and smiled. “Mayhap it will temper his need to lift so many of your cattle.”
“Aye. We can always hope.”
They shared a few moments of comfortable silence before Ariel ventured to speak again.
“Uncle … I will be more than content with Lord Rhys for a husband, but … must I endure the company of the Bastard d’Amboise for an escort? Henry and Sedrick managed well enough on their own to find their way here; surely you trust them well enough to follow their noses home again.”
“It is not a question of trust, child, it is a matter of necessity. In the short time you have been in Normandy, armies have moved, towns and cities have been besieged—most by men who either know FitzRandwulf on sight or by reputation. For all that he rubs your fur the wrong way, little kitten, he is also known as a friend to their cause and would not attract the same hostilities as our own Pembroke lion might.”
“A friend to their cause? He would see Normandy split from England? He would throw his lot with King Philip of France?”
“It is not so much a case of throwing his lot with Philip, as it is a case of not throwing his lot with King John.”
“In other words, he cannot make up his mind? He has not the courage of his convictions to make one clear choice over another? You would trust a man like this with our defense?”
“FitzRandwulf’s courage has never been questioned. He has fought long and hard with his conscience, as have we all. He supported Arthur’s claim to the throne, yet for honour’s sake, not only had to help bring the young prince to his knees at Mirebeau, but he then had to stand aside and watch the duke be led away to his doom. To have done otherwise would have broken faith with his father—another man of immeasurably tormented loyalties, bounden by blood oath unto the dowager, yet more than eager to see John crushed by his own corrupted powers.”
“The dowager is very old, is she not?”
“She has seen eight decades pass by.”
In a time when most people rarely lived to see half that many years, Ariel could not begin to comprehend Eleanor of Aquitaine’s longevity. “Surely she will have to die some day. What will happen then?”
“The heavy chains that hold both the Wolf and his Cub will snap and methinks our good and brave King John will feel the reverberations from whatever hole he finds to crawl into.”
“La Seyne Sur Mer has this much power?”
“He has the power to strike fear into men’s hearts, aye, and such power cannot be taken lightly, even though he does so himself.”
“You have just as much power, do you not?”
William saw where her questions were leading and he sighed, feeling suddenly far too old and weary to deal with the pride he saw in his niece’s eyes.
“’Tis true, I wield enough to give the odd man cause to squeeze a clod of dung into his braies now and then. ’Tis also true I could give Henry and Sedrick writs of safe passage across Normandy and across the Channel into England. It is not true, sadly, that I could guarantee these writs would be honoured by the lords who seek to sharpen the blade that rests across John’s neck. I am still the king’s man in their eyes. Taking my niece and nephew hostage could put quite a feather in the caps of those who would use such leverage against me.”
“They would not dare!” she gasped.
“If they would dare open rebellion against their king, they would indeed dare to use an impulsive pair of truants against the king’s marshal. Especially if those truants were themselves defying the king’s orders.”
The seriousness of her uncle’s words sent her heart plummeting into her belly like a rock thrown into a pond. “I did not know,” she whispered in horror. “I did not even think! Supposing someone does capture us? Supposing someone does recognize us …?”
“Precautions will be taken to guard against that happening. When you leave here, you must travel in absolute anonymity, keeping to the crooked, less frequented roads, and in as nondescript a manner as possible. Henry has suggested, since you made such a fine squire on the way to Normandy, you might make an equally good one on the way back. Above all, you must obey FitzRandwulf’s orders to the letter, for if anyone can see you safely through, he can.”
Ariel chewed her lip until she drew blood. “We were foolish for coming here, were we not?”
William laid his hand on her cheek. “Would that I could tell you otherwise, but you followed your heart and who can say that it is always such a foolish thing to do?”
“It was not my heart so much as my pride.”
“Ah, well. There you have the downfall of us all. But take cheer, all is not lost yet. Nor will it be, praise God, if FitzRandwulf can see his mission safely through.”
Ariel studied the crags and creases of her uncle’s face, noticing for the first time the deeply etched lines of fatigue and worry. He was staring into the fire and his hand was trembling as it moved against her cheek, and she had the strangest feeling, all of a sudden, that he was not talking about her impending journey to Wales.
“Uncle?”
His eyes lingered on the flames a moment and he was careful to arrange a smile on his face before he looked down at her. “Niece?”
“I do love you, you know. With all my heart.”
“And I you, little kitten. I take comfort in knowing Cardigan is but a day’s ride north of Pembroke. You will not be entirely out of my grasp.”
She returned his smile—not quite so cheerfully—and rested her cheek on his knee again.
“In the meantime, however, you will try to stay out of trouble, will you not? You will try not to give FitzRandwulf and Henry cause to tear their hair out by the roots?”
Ariel sighed. “I always try to stay out of trouble, Uncle. Sometimes, though, it just manages to find me.”
CHAPTER NINE
William the Marshal departed Amboise the following day and Ariel was tempted, even to the last moment be-fore his guard vanished along the forest road, to change her mind and go with him. She was filled with a sudden, inexplicable sense of foreboding that had no reason or cause other than her own uncertainty as to whether she had agreed too quickly to the union with the Welsh prince; if she had been too hasty, too proud, too stubborn … too weak in accepting her uncle’s ultimatum, despite the fact that it
had been of her own devising.
What other choice did she have, however? Her uncle had displayed remarkable tolerance and patience where another would simply have had her whipped and sent to De Braose gyved hand and foot in heavy chains. If she had balked, or refused Iorwerth after all the trouble she had caused and all of the trouble this planned foiling of the king’s command would cause …? How could she have refused? How could she have done anything less than agree to put herself into FitzRandwulf’s hands, however abhorrent the thought might be?
And so, well before the grim, ash-colored light of a second dawn rose above Amboise’s battlements, an equally grim, cold group of travellers assembled in the inner court of the bailey. Horses stamped and snorted white funnels of mist into air already laden with frosted crystals; the groomsmen who held the reins shivered through chattering teeth and checked cinches and buckles continuously, if only to keep moving and keep warm. The occasional swirl of wind rippled saddlecloths and caused the scarlet leaves of the ivy that climbed partway up the walls of the keep to shift in blood-red waves. Those with the poorest grip on the vines were torn free and slapped wetly on the cobbles. Others merely shook and spattered dew on the heads of the men who gathered outside the covered entry.
The four knights—FitzRandwulf, Lord Henry, Sedrick of Grantham, and Daffyd ap lorwerth moved to and fro like large gray moths in the uncertain light. At a casual glance, they might be mistaken for pilgrims returning from the Holy Land, for they carried no pennants or shields emblazoned with armorial bearings. Over soft linen shirts and woolen tunics they wore sturdy leather gambesons—sleeved vests made of two thicknesses of cowhide stuffed with fleece and quilted in broad squares. Atop this they wore full suits of chain mail. Their hauberks were sleeved to the wrist and hooded for added protection, their chausses covered their legs from thigh to booted foot. Gypons were dull gray and shaped like a tube, belted at the waist, slitted front and back for riding, and here was the only splash of colour each wore: the red Crusader’s cross was stitched boldly on the gypon, front and back.
Ariel, in her guise as a squire, wore an abbreviated mail byrnie, not much longer than a slitted shirt, over a coarse undertunic padded more for bulk than protection, and certainly not for comfort. Her shirt and hose were of the roughest weave, scratchy and cumbersome. Her shoes were neither leather nor felt, but made of hard wooden soles and cloth cross-straps that had to be wound, like bandages, almost to the knees. A slouched felt hat sat like a flattened pillow on her head, covering and containing all but a few shiny red threads of hair that balked at such an ignoble confinement.
She had her suspicions FitzRandwulf had deliberately ordered the drabbest, bulkiest garments that could be found. She looked and felt the part of a red-nosed dullard, and there were areas of her body that already itched so abominably she dared not let herself wonder from whose lice-infested wardrobe he had commandeered the rags.
In another way she welcomed the misery for it would be a constant reminder of his warped sense of self-importance and would make it that much easier to ignore him whenever he was in her presence—the latter not a difficult challenge, since it seemed he had made the same resolve. Her best efforts at frosty disdain were wasted on the broad expanse of his back.
The sixth member of their group had caused the most debate. Were Robert d’Amboise any other than Eduard’s own half brother and La Seyne Sur Mer’s legitimate heir, a second thought would not have been given to a squire accompanying his lord. But he was Eduard’s brother, and he was the Wolf’s heir, the child conceived in the magical waters of the Silent Pool, and the one Sparrow claimed was destined for great things in the future. The Wolf himself had paled somewhat when Eduard had quietly alerted him to the dilemma. To leave him behind would show a lack of confidence that would humiliate him to the core. To take him along could put any future at dire risk—a risk FitzRandwulf was not altogether certain he was willing to take.
Robert’s strongest ally, oddly enough, had been his mother, Lady Servanne, who had reminded them all, with her heart in her throat, that a battlefield was no less dangerous than a trek through England and Wales, and that neither her husband nor Eduard had objected to Robert’s presence at Blois. Moreover, the blood of the two most courageous men Robert knew flowed through his veins and he looked upon the plight of Ariel de Clare as a chivalric adventure of the highest order. Safeguarding her from the king’s clutches, delivering her to her one true love—a royal prince of Wales, forsooth—was a quest clad in shining armour and he would not be deterred by anything less than sheer brute force.
Thus, Robert d’Amboise stood in the cold and dampness of the morning light, his shoulders padded under layers of wool and leather, his throat muffled by a scarf woven by Biddy and bound to him with a tearful vengeance, laced with many warnings, emphasized with an emotional vigor that had come close to bruising him.
Lastly, there was Sparrow. His lithe, wood sprite’s body was clad in forest colours of green and brown, his only armour a modified vest made of stitched plates of stiffened bullhide. He stalked around and between the horses’ legs, poking here, adjusting there, muttering to himself at each turn, and in louder tones whenever anyone was foolish enough to lend an ear. The young Welshman was targeted twice; once when he was supervising the loading of a small mahogany writing box onto the back of the packhorse—a waste of space they could ill afford, Sparrow declared—and again when he had declined to bow his head for the priest’s blessing—an act that surely identified him as a Celtic devil-worshiper, drinker of blood, purveyor of doom …
“Sparrow,” Eduard interrupted with a sigh, “is all in readiness?”
The little man planted his booted feet wide apart and glared up. “The boysters are loaded, the firmacula are firm. Freebooters are well on the roads by now, laying in their ambuscades waiting for purses to filch and throats to cut. If we delay much longer, we might as well announce our departure with trumpets and tumblers.”
Eduard turned to his father. “If God and luck be with us, we should be well beyond Tours by noon.”
“I would feel better if a troop guarded your back at least as far as the border of our lands.”
“At the first sight of black and gold on the road west, the rumours would start to fly. Ten men would be reported as a hundred, then a thousand.”
“Aye,” Sparrow snorted. “And from there the buzzing would grow and swell until it foretold an army on the move, striking blood and thunder in its path. The king would change his hose at every toll of the bells; each town and port would be put on its guard and our fine, noble cockerel would be clapped in irons the instant he shewed his pretty face anywhere near St. Malo.”
“It was only a suggestion,” the Wolf said dryly. “But you are probably right. The spies are as thick as flies on a carcass and what they see today has the uncanny ability to reach the king’s ear on the morrow. Still, it … does not sit well with me to stand idly by and do nothing while two of my sons set out on such a bold adventure. The very idea of it galls me and leaves me feeling more of a cripple than these damned sticks. Yet, at the same time”—he paused and his voice thickened with emotion—“I would have you know, I have never been prouder in all my life.”
Eduard held his father’s gaze a moment longer then went down on one knee before him.
“It goes without saying that you have my blessing,” Lord Randwulf said. He laid his hand on Eduard’s head and led the small group in a prayer for safe passage. Before it was finished, his steel gray eyes settled on Robert and he felt a wrenching tightness in his chest for the boy was no older than Eduard had been when they had stood together on a windswept cliff, the boy demanding to be recognized as a man.
Cool, slender fingers joined the Wolf’s where they still rested on Eduard’s bowed head, and he glanced down. He saw the love and pride shining on his wife’s face and some of the tightness eased. Enough, at least, to allow him to send his sons on their way in a loud, steady voice.
“God bless and God speed
,” he said, his fingers twining with Servanne’s behind his back as Eduard rose. “You will send word from St. Malo when you arrive?”
“The very moment.”
“And … from Wales, if all goes well?”
Eduard smiled. “I will bring word myself, I swear it.”
When William the Marshal had ridden away from Amboise it had been his intention to head directly north to Le Mans, then on through to Falaise where he would rejoin the slower-moving body of the cavalcade that had accompanied him to Paris. With his stamina and strength of purpose, he estimated it would take him three days. Eduard’s group, because it would wind west around Tours and Angers, then north to the coastal port of St. Malo, would take upwards of a week or more to complete this first leg of their journey—time enough, it was hoped, for the marshal to confirm where Eleanor of Brittany had been imprisoned and to send a coded message to FitzRandwulf at either Rennes or St. Malo.
Eduard established a steady pace, neither too slow, nor seeming to rush too fast. They were, after all, supposed to be knights returning from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Since their shields were covered in gray bunting and they travelled under a black banner to signify mourning, to be seen galloping across the countryside at full tilt would have sent heads twisting after them in askance.
Another factor that determined their speed was their choice of horses. Because of the nature of their journey, the decision had been made to forgo the encumbrance of too many extra animals. The knights rode their destriers—brave beasts, but not known for their enthusiasm for plodding miles on end with no bloody battles or tests of derring-do to show for their trouble. To add insult, their saddlecloths were of the plainest, dullest weave, frayed into sad neglect. The snaffle bits were unadorned iron, the saddlebags were coarse canvas without any fringes or armorial bearings. Ariel and Robert rode palfreys, with each leading by means of ropes strung through loops on their saddles, two extra rouncies laden with equipment, spare weapons, and supplies.
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