Henry and Eduard exchanged a glance, with the latter pausing to scowl over Sparrow’s loose tongue before he addressed the Welshman. “We will not be going to Gloucester, Dafydd.”
“Not going?” The dark brown eyes lingered on Eduard’s face a moment before seeking Ariel’s in the glow of the firelight. “But … those were the arrangements, were they not?”
Ariel moistened her lips to speak, but it was Henry who drew the young man’s startled gaze.
“Aye, and a fine way to repay a man’s diligence and perseverance, by any measure. And we’ve no excuses to offer, my lord, save for a woman’s complete lack of sensibilities, for it seems my sister has decided to follow her heart, not her head, and return to Normandy with Lord FitzRandwulf.”
Over the sudden stillness that gripped the close circle of men, Ariel heard Sparrow mutter another curse to all the saints who had conspired to put him in service with madmen. Robin, conversely, seemed to come to life, his eyes widening and growing bright with dawning comprehension, his every romantic belief in chivalry, knighthood, and honour justified. Sedrick was giving his head a little shake, as if a faery had planted feathers in his ear, and Iorwerth …
Dafydd ap Iorwerth had stopped staring at Henry and was instead staring intently at the floor, his hand studiously massaging his heavily bandaged forearm.
Ariel reached out and laid her pale, cool fingers over his.
“I am sorry, Dafydd. Truly I am. For you to have come all this way, to have acted in good faith and friendship as you have, only to be betrayed by a woman’s fickle nature …” She hesitated and bit down hard on her lip. “You have every right to be furious with me. To hate me, even.”
Dafydd’s brow pleated in a frown. “My brother is the one who will be furious. The insult to his pride he might be able to swallow, but do not think, for all the heartfelt apologies or appeals to his human nature, he will so easily walk away from a promised alliance to the House of Pembroke. The fact that he has a contract, signed by the earl marshal—”
“My signature was never affixed to those documents,” she interrupted quietly. “A small thing, I know, but—”
“Your consent was implied,” he countered.
“Nonetheless, I swore no formal oath before witnesses, my lord, and in Norman England, if not in Wales, such an agreement is not binding without my written consent. Moreover”—she felt her cheeks warming to the challenge to defend her actions—“if your brother was so determined to wed himself to Pembroke, why did he not accompany us himself? Why did he not plead his case before my uncle in person? Why did he send you in his stead when he could have witnessed the contracts and taken me to wife then and there?”
Dafydd’s head was still bowed and his expression was difficult to read aside from the muscles that flexed in his jaw.
“He sent me, my lady—” he lifted his handsome young face to the light, startling all present with the sight of a wide grin “—because he had the problem of his other wife to tend to before he could marry with you.”
“His other wife?” Henry and Ariel echoed.
“Aye. A puling sop of a thing foisted on him by Llywellyn some ten years ago. Ugly as a dray horse as well, but she gave him deed to a goodly portion of Clun Forest in the bargain.”
“Why are we just hearing about this wife now?” Henry demanded.
“Why was I only told about Eleanor of Brittany outside the walls of Corfe Castle?” Dafydd rejoined smoothly.
Henry sat back on his heels, stymied for an answer that would be taken as anything other than a challenge to the Welshman’s honour.
Eduard rubbed his thumb along the lush growth of stubble covering his chin. “How was your brother proposing to deal with this small matter of an existing wife?”
“Annulment. He has huffed and puffed over her for ten years to no avail: she is barren. More’s the like he will have tossed her over the ramparts at Deheubarth, for he would not want to lose Clun back to her father or brothers. The same fate, I might add, undoubtedly awaits me if I return, for Rhys has little patience for fools or failures.”
“You are his brother,” Eleanor said, her voice husked behind the wall of blankets.
Dafydd stared at the barrier a moment, then shrugged and sighed. “No more than an extra spill of our father’s seed so far as either Rhys or Llywellyn are concerned. Rhys has only tolerated my presence this long because I have an honest face and gentle manner that makes it easier for a lord to believe his cattle have strayed rather than been stolen.” He glanced pointedly at Henry, flushing slightly under the returned glare, then let his gaze touch briefly on Eduard, Sedrick, and Robin. “You have shown me more camaraderie in these past few weeks than my brothers have in all my years. Not that I consider myself in any way worthy or”—he bowed his head again quickly—“or deserving of the friendship of such men as yourselves, but … if I might say it without drawing anyone’s scorn or wrath, I will guard the memory of these times for howsoever long I have left in this mortal guise.”
Sparrow groaned again and rapped the palm of his hand against his brow. “I am besotted by a plague of fools. I suppose now we must trail this wet-eyed lambkin along with us? I do not suppose we could simply beckon yon Littlejohn to wield his steel pricker to good effect and solve the problem of an addled Welshman with one swarthy stroke?”
“I do not suppose we could,” Eduard mused. “But you assume, Puck, our fine young Welshman would be addled enough to want to throw his lot in with us after all we have not confided in him.”
Dafydd’s face was as honest in its relief as it was open in its disbelief “You would allow it? You would allow me to return with you to Normandy?”
“If my wife will have no objections,” Eduard said, turning to arch a brow in Ariel’s direction.
“None,” she said at once. “But what about Lord Rhys? How long will he wait at Gloucester before he realizes we are not coming?”
“Long enough for Llywellyn to plan a warm reception for him when he returns to Deheubarth,” Dafydd suggested.
“No warmer, I troth,” Sparrow declared, “than the one Lackland is planning for us ere we linger too long in these poxy woods—or am I the only one recalling we are but a half day’s ride from the donjons at Corfe?”
“We have none of us forgotten,” Eduard replied blandly. “And we will be on our way just as soon as we find a barber to pluck that arrow out of your shoulder. ’Tis wedged too deep in the bone for any of us to try to dig it free. Littlejohn—? You know the villages hereabout better than we; do any of them boast a skilled healer?”
“Bah!” Brevant drew out his eating knife and spit on the blade. “No need to waste time with such extravagances. I have separated my share of iron from bone.”
Sparrow gawped. “I do not be thinking so, Lord Lubbergut. I would sooner dis-wedge it myself before I would let those great hairy paws have at me!”
“Then you had best dis-wedge it,” Brevant growled, looming closer, the blade of his knife flaring orange in the firelight. “And do it fast, before these paws decide there would be more pleasure pushing rather than pulling.”
Sparrow gave a yelp and yanked on the shaft of the arrow, surprising no one more than himself when it jerked out freely in his hand. He stared at the gleaming redness that dripped from the barbed tip, then at the gaping wet hole in his flesh … and his eyes crossed and rolled to the back of his head.
Eduard caught him before he could splat onto the hard ground, quickly ascertaining this faint was for real. It was just as well he remained unconscious for a time; without the benefit of needle and thread to close the wound, they had no choice but to staunch the bleeding by cauterizing it with a glowing faggot from the fire.
Within the hour, and under a cloak of darkness, they had been packed up and on their way. Sparrow, still oblivious, was strapped securely onto Robin’s saddle pack and did not rouse again until they stopped on the far side of Salisbury. They rested during the day and at dusk took to the roads again, skirtin
g well clear of towns and villages, breaking the pattern only when it became necessary to send one of their number to purchase foodstuffs they could not scrounge from the land.
On the morning of the third day, Sedrick announced his decision not to stop and rest with the others but to strike out due west and to keep pushing day and night until he reached Pembroke. Someone had to warn Lady Isabella before the king thought to dispatch a troop of men to take her and the children hostage in retaliation. Since he, with his gruff appearance and Celtic accent, could move more anonymously through the border Marches than Henry, Sedrick had elected himself to the task without any consultation or argument.
The marshal had not survived the various Angevin temperaments for over sixty years by being taken unawares. No doubt his spies had already informed him of the princess’s escape and he was already taking steps, albeit reluctantly, to divert suspicion away from any personal involvement. They had discussed this at Amboise and Henry had, with his usual casual indifference, accepted the possibility of full blame falling on the De Clare name, and also that his presence might not be too welcome in England for some time. He had assumed Ariel would be safely hidden away in the wilds of Deheubarth, and he had assumed he would be equally isolated at Cardigan where nothing short of an armed siege would pry him loose.
That was, of course, before Ariel had announced she had no intentions of fleeing to Wales or of marrying Rhys ap Iorwerth. It was also before he realized he was falling in love with Eleanor of Brittany.
“I do not think I will be returning to Normandy with you, Puss. Not just yet, at any rate.”
“Not return?” She sought her brother’s face, brightly lit under the wash of moonlight. Henry had said he wanted a private moment of conversation with her, and for all that they had stood apart from the others, admiring the walls of Kirklees Abbey for nigh on ten minutes, these were the first words he had spoken. “But why not? Where will you go? What will you do? You cannot go back to Pembroke; you said yourself the king will declare us outlaws and traitors. Where can you go, other than Normandy, where you will have less chance of someone recognizing you and bringing the royal hounds down on your heels?”
“Actually—” He paused and looked around them, his hazel eyes focussing on the black crust of forest that bristled across the horizon. “I was not planning to go far. Not until I can be sure the princess is safe and none of those same hounds have sniffed her out here.”
“And if you are recognized? Will you not be drawing them to her?” Ariel asked gently.
“As Henry de Glare, aye, I might,” he agreed. “Even as a solitary nameless knight, my presence might stir a rumour or two. But I have been listening to some of Robin’s tales too (he had been regaling them all with more tales than a troubadour, hoping to distract Eleanor from her worries with more pleasant reminiscences). The one that stalls in my mind is the one about his mother’s first meeting with the Wolf and Alaric FitzAthelstan—do you recall it?”
Ariel shook her head, too perplexed to think of tales told around a fireside.
“She had been kidnapped by Lord Randwulf and managed to escape briefly into the woods. Drawn by the bells of a monastery, she sought refuge there, unaware the grounds had been long abandoned. Lord Alaric, disguised as a humble friar, had answered her plea for sanctuary, and she had thrown herself at his mercy only to discover he was the Wolf’s loyal captain.”
“And so you plan to find a deserted monastery and disguise yourself as a monk?” Ariel asked wryly.
“Kirklees is cloistered,” he said softly, ignoring her sarcasm. “The only men allowed inside the main gates are of the Holy Order. If I have to shave my head in a tonsure and wear the robes of a monk in order to see her, I will do it gladly and willingly.”
Ariel’s smile faded. “You are serious.”
After a long, wind-rustled delay, Henry met her gaze. “I cannot just ride away and leave her here unprotected.”
“What will you do? Tuck a sword beneath your cassock while you tend sheep on the hillside?”
“I will tuck a sword and tuck a knife … I will even tuck Littlejohn’s glaive beneath my robes if need be, but I will not leave Eleanor alone and unprotected until either the king is dead or the barons come to their senses and find a way to prevent him from murdering his niece as he did his nephew.”
Whether it was a trick of the moonlight or just the heat of his convictions burning through, Henry’s eyes were glowing white-hot, like the core of a flame. Ariel had seen the same heated passion before, in Eduard’s eyes, the stormy night on the ramparts of Corfe Castle. She had attributed it then to the lightning, and only later to love, but …
“Henry …?” The unspoken question was snatched away on a frosted breath, but the answer was plain enough to see.
“Laugh if you like,” he said stubbornly, hunching his shoulders against a chill. “It would be no less than your due after the way I reacted to you and FitzRandwulf.”
“But … the Princess Eleanor …” Trying to think of the gentlest way to say it, Ariel was eased of the burden when Henry said it himself.
“Longs only to show her love for the Church, yes, I know. And I would not even try to dissuade her, for that love is as pure and shining as any I have seen. Nay, I would be content just to be near her, to see her now and then, to speak with her of harmless things.” He looked away again, staring at the gray walls of Kirklees as if he knew they would soon be enclosing his heart.
“Have you told Eduard?”
“I have told him,” he nodded. “I have also told him he has little say in the matter, little choice either, for he can waste no time returning to Normandy. The quicker he is known to have left England, the quicker the wind will carry the news and the name of his new bride to the king’s ears. What is more, John will hear that Henry de Clare is in Normandy as well—a little darker in appearance and speaking in a broader accent than might be expected, but—”
“Dafydd?”
“He has agreed to play me for a while, if only to throw his own brother’s hounds off the scent.”
Ariel whuffed a soft, misty breath into the stillness. It was obvious he and Eduard had discussed everything most thoroughly and she could expect small success in trying to persuade him to reconsider. It was nonetheless a shock to realize he would not be returning to Normandy with them, and a greater shock to realize she might not see him again for a very long time.
“Are you certain this is what you want to do?” she whispered.
“I have never been more certain of anything in my life … except, perhaps, knowing that I will miss you.”
Ariel went readily into his arms. “No more than I will miss you. You will be careful? You will do nothing foolish to draw attention to yourself?”
“I will be as careful as careful can,” he promised. “And you … you will have to learn to obey this new husband of yours; he does not seem to me the type to tolerate your schemes and rebellions with as much humour as the other men you have managed to tame into mere shadows of their former selves.”
“I have no wish to tame him,” she admitted honestly. “Although I confess, the prospect of being tamed holds great appeal.”
Henry held her out at arm’s length and frowned. “By God, I believe you really do love him.”
“Enough to forgive you for even doubting me.”
The faint crunch of footsteps prompted them to turn and follow the progress of the cloaked figure of Eduard FitzRandwulf as he walked down the slope from the abbey gates. The small group waiting by the horses, comprised of the Princess Eleanor and Marienne, Robin, Littlejohn, Dafydd, and Sparrow, stirred as well, and together with Henry and Ariel, converged on the descending knight as he reached the bottom of the hill.
“It is settled. The abbess has agreed, most heartily, to welcome Eleanor into their midst. She has also agreed to guard her anonymity, even amongst the other sisters, who will be told only that the new novitiate is the orphaned daughter of a noble who fell out of favour with the
king. A common enough story these days, it seems.”
“What did you tell her?” Henry wanted to know.
Eduard responded with a smile. “That the lady was in fear of her life. That she was indeed an orphan, persecuted by the king, and if word of her presence here—even the merest hint of a whisper were to reach the royal ear, not even the cloisters of Kirklees would be sacrosanct. It tended to raise her hackles a little, as I had hoped it would. She was ever a fearless old grisette; the only one of my memory who dared to challenge the Lord of Bloodmoor Keep’s droit du seigneur with the village maids who chose to marry themselves to the Church rather than submit to his lusts.”
“Did she remember you at all?” Eleanor asked.
“If she did, she kept it confined to the gleam in her eye. And if she suspects our lady’s identity, I have no doubt she will keep the secret with her unto the grave.”
“Eduard …” the princess stretched her hand across the darkness. “How can I ever thank you? How can I ever begin to thank any of you?”
“Your happiness is more than thanks enough,” Eduard said, pressing her slender fingers against his lips.
“And yours,” she whispered, “is all that I could have hoped for.”
“You still have the ring,” Eduard reminded her firmly. “If you ever need me, for any reason—”
Eleanor smiled. “I will dispatch it to Amboise with all haste, I promise. But between Lord Henry and Marienne, I doubt if even so much as a flea would dare trouble me.”
Robin’s gaze burned through the gloom and held Marienne’s for a moment, only to lose it in the next as she lowered her eyes. Eduard did not miss the pinched expression that came over the young squire’s face. Nor did Eleanor, with her strangely heightened perceptions, fail to detect the sudden tension that quickened her maid’s breath.
“Marienne is still young,” she said to no one in particular. “But she is old enough to know the Church is not her life, as it has always been mine. A year or two from now, when she is convinced I am content and at peace, she will be able to choose her own way in the world.”
The Robin Hood Trilogy Page 86
