The Robin Hood Trilogy

by Marsha Canham

  “Half forgotten and well hidden all these years,” Solange reminded him.

  “Your next question, of course, is how do we find her?”

  “It would seem to pose a small problem,” she agreed.

  “Not if you know where to look.”

  She puzzled over his smug smile for a moment then a green light suddenly flared in her eyes and she joined him in staring down at the body. “ ‘Remove the pearl from Nottingham,’” she quoted. “The pearl… the Pearl of Brittany! They have hidden the Pearl of Brittany in Nottingham!” Her exuberance suffered a momentary setback as she looked up at him. “But where in Nottingham?”

  “Where could a woman remain hidden away for eleven years, isolated from intrusion by the outside world?”

  “A convent? But there must be hundreds of them in middle England.”

  “Ahh, but how many would have once come under the patronage of Lucien Wardieu, Baron de Gournay?”

  “Wardieu? There is another plague of Wardieus in England?”

  He laughed. “Only the one plague, my dear, but of course you are too young to know Lucien Wardieu as anything other than Randwulf de la Seyne Sur Mer.”

  “Christ Jesus!” She gasped. “Is there no end to this web?”

  “None. Unless we tear it down and insure it can never be spun again.”

  “To do that, you would have to destroy the Black Wolf.”

  “The Wolf is all but a cripple,” Malagane said, dismissing his importance with a flick of his wrist. “He needs sticks to walk with and barely has the strength to stand on his own and piss. The real power of the black-and-gold is held in the hands of his sons, the vaunted heroes of Roche-au-Moines, the shining pantheon of chivalry and courage in mortal guise—three of whom, as it happens, could well be inside the walls of the chateau as we speak.”

  “They have come to Gaillard to play at jousting while their precious Pearl is in danger?”

  “They may not know it yet.”

  She looked dubious. “We may have intercepted the Welshman, but would a message of this importance be entrusted to only one courier? For all we know, another has already been delivered to Amboise and the heroes are halfway to England!”

  “If there were any changes to their plans, I would have known by now. And besides, their pennons were seen on the road early this morning. They are here, all right. I can feel their arrogance in the air.”

  Solange regarded him closely. “You are not thinking of doing anything foolhardy, are you, my love? Cripple or not, if the Black Wolf of Amboise even suspected you of plotting to kill his sons, he would raze Gaillard to the ground and roast your liver over the rubble.”

  “I have no intentions of killing all of them; only the one who poses the greatest threat to our immediate plans.”

  “Robert Wardieu,” she surmised.

  “The heir and champion of champions,” he concurred dryly. “Without him to control them, the other two are hot-headed and careless; they will get themselves killed cuckolding some intolerant husband and spare us the bother. Lord Robert is their anchor. Cut him loose and the others will drift wildly into the wind.”

  “Have you someone in mind capable—or willing—to wield the axe?”

  “As it happens, the matter is already well in hand.” His gaze was drawn to the arched stone portal at the far side of the vast chamber. There, a soft bloom of light could be seen growing brighter, accompanied by the sound of footsteps grating on the stone steps. “Behold, my dear. Gerome has come at last. And with him, hopefully, the solution to our little problem.”

  As if on cue, two men came through the entryway, but only Gerome de Saintonge came forward out of the shadows. He carried a smoking pitch torch in front of him, the glare from the sputtering flame caused his yellow hair and gold surcoat to blaze brilliantly against the gloom and to temporarily blind both Solange and Malagane as he approached.

  Eyes that were a dull blue imitation of his father’s went first to the lifeless body on the table, then to Solange, who had moved discreetly behind Malagane’s shoulder to shield herself from the bright torchlight.

  “Forgive me,” he said, offering a mock bow. “I forget you prefer the comfort of darkness.”

  He doused the offending instrument in the water barrel, releasing a boiling foment of hissing bubbles and a huge cloud of steam into the air. “Still toying with the Welshman?”

  “Until a short while ago,” Malagane nodded. “Alas, he did not bear up very well.”

  “Few men do under the skilful renderings of our demoiselle tortionnaire.”

  Malagane’s eyes were still scorched by the effects of the light, and he could distinguish little more than the vague outline of a man standing back in the shadows. “You were successful? You had no trouble finding him?”

  “He found me, actually.” Gerome turned and raised his hand. “Come, my lord. Meet your host and my father, Bertrand Malagane, Count of Saintonge.”

  Malagane waited, unaware he was holding his breath as the newcomer entered the dull ring of light cast by the horn lantern. He had been given a rough description for identification sake, but nothing had prepared him for the sheer menacing size of the man. He was dressed all in black, from his boots to his hose to his tunic. His hair was black as well, carelessly cut and left loose to flow around his massive shoulders. A stray reflection, or some other trick of the light, caused his eyes to glow out of the dark long before the rest of him took shape. Like a big cat emerging from the shadows, the eyes were all that were visible, steady and unblinking. A pale gray-green they were, like the luminous phosphorescence on a moon-washed sea.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Griffyn Renaud de Verdelay.” Malagane reined in his excitement with an effort. “I have heard a great deal about you. We are flattered you could find your way to accept our invitation to attend.”

  “The invitation did not come without flattery of its own,” Griffyn replied.

  “Ah, yes.” The count gave Gerome a curt nod and the yellow-haired knight melted back into the shadows, returning with a helmet-sized leather chest he had retrieved from a nearby table. A flick of a squared thumbnail freed the hasp and he lifted the lid, tilting the contents into the warm glow of light from the horn lantern. It was filled with coins. Hundreds of them. All minted with the curly-haired likeness of Henry II.

  “A thousand marks was the agreed price, I believe? I trust you have no objection to receiving it in English sterling rather than Norman deniers?”

  “Why would I object to receiving greater value for my coin?”

  Malagane chuckled. “Why indeed?”

  He saw where the knight’s gaze had strayed and he invited Solange forward for an introduction. For her part, she had already finished her inspection and decided this was no ordinary mercenary, no ordinary sword for hire. The wool of his hose was as tight and smooth a weave as Malagane’s, his tunic was a dark hunting green, not black, and made of such tender doeskin it could be mistaken for velvet. His skin was as bronzed as a peasant’s, yet the face … the face was anything but common or loutish. It was handsome in a way that almost stripped the breath from her throat, and she reacted the way she always reacted to an object of such obvious sexual promise. The flesh across her breasts grew taut, the nipples puckered and stiffened into visible prominence beneath the silk of her cotte, and her murmured greeting came out in a low, rasping growl.

  “May we offer you some wine, my lord?”

  “Wine would sweeten the mood considerably, thank you.”

  She crossed deliberately in front of him and slipped into the shadows, the hem of her cotte reduced to a transparent mist around her ankles. The cotte itself was made of the finest cream-colored Syrian baudekin, a delicate cloth woven with threads of pure gold that caught what little light there was and shimmered around every curve and indent of her body.

  Griffyn’s eyes started to follow her, as she expected they would, but when she turned, he was not looking at her but at the ravaged body splayed limp
upon the table.

  Malagane laughed at his expression. “Be at ease, we are all friends here.”

  “I have no friends.” Griffyn’s mouth flattened. “And I prefer to take my ease in small increments. Even if that were not the case”—he paused and glanced around the torture chamber—“I doubt it would have been possible for you to have chosen a more comforting place to meet.”

  “There are few places inside Gaillard where one can guarantee absolute privacy,” Malagane replied easily. “If it disturbs you, however … ?”

  The dark knight waved a hand dismissively and extended the gesture to accept the goblet of wine Solange offered. As their fingers touched, the texture of the scarred skin drew her attention downward for a moment and when she looked up again, there was more than a hint of curiosity in her eyes.

  “I tried to retrieve my soul from hell once,” he explained blithely. “It preferred to stay where it was.”

  The clear, opaline eyes widened.

  “I think I like him, Bertrand,” she breathed. “He has wit.”

  Malagane had watched the exchange but now addressed his son. “Did you notice any new arrivals in the bailey?”

  “He is come.” Gerome nodded, knowing whom he meant. “Surrounded by at least four-score knights to boast the grand occasion of his presence.”

  “We are speaking, of course, of Robert Wardieu d’Amboise,” Malagane said to Griffyn. “Do you know him?”

  “We have met in the lists before … but then you must have known that already before you sent all the way to Burgundy inviting me to attend your little gathering.”

  “Gascon, was it not?” Malagane asked. “You fought to a draw.”

  “The judges did not see it that way.”

  “No. No, in sooth they did not. They called the win in Wardieu’s favor despite the fact you landed far more solid strikes than he.”

  “You were there?”

  “As a spectator only,” he said with a deprecatory shrug. “But tell me, Lord Griffyn: why have you never ventured back into Normandy to demand a rematch?”

  “One of us would likely have killed the other long ere now, if I had.”

  “And now? Which one of you would emerge the victor, do you suppose?”

  Griffyn swirled the wine around the bottom of the goblet. “I would not rush to affix a price on my armour any too soon.”

  It was not said as a boast nor with any measure of false conceit. Any knight worthy of wearing his spurs entered the lists confident of his power and prowess, yet was still cautious enough to have visited the moneylenders in advance to put a fair trophy value on his horse and armour.

  “Wardieu has not seen the belly of a horse in five years,” Malagane argued guardedly.

  “The last belly I saw”—the pale eyes flicked to Solange—“was soft and white and quivered at my touch.”

  She stared at his mouth and her own slackened as a spray of gooseflesh shivered into prominence down her arms.

  “The thousand marks was your invitation to attend,” Malagane said, returning to the issue at hand. “But it is only half of what I am willing to pay should you run the lists against Robert Wardieu and defeat him.” He waited for Griffyn’s gaze to return, narrowed with interest. “Do you think you could do it?”

  “For that much, I could feign holy vows and split the Pope out of his pulpit… but all the English sterling in the realm will not put me into the lists with Robert Wardieu if he himself has chosen not to fight.”

  “Not fight?” Gerome de Saintonge sneered. “Where did you hear such nonsense?”

  “From his own lips, not an hour ago when our paths crossed in the bailey. Just before I met up with you, as a matter of fact. He claims to have injured himself hunting boar and while he is still entered in the mêlée, he is taking no challenges for single-combat matches.”

  This was unexpected news to Malagane, and he paced slowly to the wall, needing time to absorb it.

  “I find it difficult to believe,” he murmured. But then his sharply pinched nostrils flared as if scenting prey and he nodded to himself. “Yet it makes perfect sense. He would not want to run the risk of injuring himself more seriously—too seriously to venture abroad, for instance. On the other hand …” He reached up and gripped one of the iron shackles hanging from the wall, studying it with a thoughtful frown. “On the other hand, he is a proud man. A proud champion. At four and twenty he is in his prime in body and spirit, and holds a rare, unassailable belief in the ideals of chivalry. Do you know the history of his family, Verdelay?”

  Griffyn shrugged as if such things were of no interest to him. “I know his father was once called the Scourge of Mirebeau and, if the legends are to be believed, had a penchant for slaying dragons and salvaging lost souls.”

  Malagane laughed. “Indeed, where else but at Amboise would you find a lord who has a dwarf for a seneschal and a giant for a castellan? But did you know the first dragon he slew was his own brother? A bastard, to be sure, but so alike in face and form they were said to be as twins. As the story goes, the brother—Etienne Wardieu—sought to eliminate the bastardy in his blood and followed the Wolf on Crusade to Jerusalem, where he ambushed him and left him for dead, then returned to England and assumed his guise as Lucien Wardieu, Baron de Gournay.

  “The baron did not die, of course, but was sufficiently damaged and disillusioned to forestall an eager return to Lincoln. He sought to start a new life for himself in France instead, where he applied his rage to the tourney circuit and eventually won the attention of the old dowager, Eleanor of Aquitaine. She, in turn, used him with immeasurable success to keep her greedy sons in line. He actually fought Geoffrey Plantagenet in a joust to teach him some humility, although if memory serves, it was but a brief month later that the duke was killed in another tournament, so the lesson was not well learned.

  “The queen next called upon her scarred champion when the Lionheart was off slaying Infidels and John was acting as regent in his absence. It was then that Lackland made his first feeble attempt to eliminate Geoffrey’s children as an obstacle—he was convinced, you see, that Saladin could accomplish what he had been unable to bolster the nerve to do up to then; namely, kill his brother and clear the path to the throne. His ploy to kidnap Arthur and Eleanor was thwarted by the Black Wolf, who managed to rescue the boy before he could be smuggled on board a ship bound for England, and then to retrieve the young Princess Eleanor when she was carried off to Lincoln and entrusted to the care of none other than” … he paused for effect… “Wardieu’s own bastard brother, who was by then one of Prince John’s favorite pet dragons.

  “Subsequently, there came a mighty confrontation between the Wolf and the Dragon. When the flames cleared, the little princess was rescued and safely returned to her grandmother at Mirebeau. The Wolf not only slew his brother, but married the Dragon’s intended bride and discovered a son—Eduard—he never knew he had. All quite romantic and awe-inspiring, I assure you. You may even have heard one particular chanson d’amour that recounts the story of how Robert Wardieu was conceived by the waters of a magic pool, the product of a wolf and a virgin maiden, destined for some great and glorious enterprise that will have men singing his praises until the end of all time.”

  “I rarely have the time or patience to listen to songs,” Griffyn said dryly. “Or romantic stories.”

  “Nevertheless, a man should know his enemy. In this case, you should know that the blood of both the Wolf and the Dragon flow in Robert Wardieu’s veins. To him, the virtues of courage, courtliness, and largesse are not just noble notions to strive toward; they are a way of life and guide his every footstep. The need to triumph absolutely over evil fuels his passions, feeds his ambitions as it did his father and brother before him. I will not bore you with the details of Eduard FitzRandwulf’s championing days; suffice it to say John Lackland would not be king today, nor probably even alive, had Eduard been given free rein over his emotions eleven years ago. He was very close to Arthur of Brittany
and would have ridden in support of his quest for the throne had the foolish young duke not chosen, for his first act of war, to lead his army against Mirebeau and the dowager queen. Chivalry again, you see. Honor, pride, loyalty—the downfall of every man of such strident principles. Think of the trouble they could have saved us all,” he added with a sigh of genuine regret, “had there been but a drop more ambition and greed in their veins.”

  Griffyn’s voice began to grate with impatience. “I am still at a loss as to where all this is leading.”

  “It is leading, my lord, to the fact that I am willing to pay quite handsomely to see the great champion from Amboise humbled.”

  “Humbled?” Griffyn asked pointedly. “Or killed?”

  Malagane’s eyes narrowed, which caused the tall knight to offer up a wry laugh.

  “I stepped unknowingly on a hornet’s nest once,” Griffyn said, “and did not enjoy the experience. If there is something more going on here, I would know it before I agree to do this thing or not.”

  “I was not aware, in such a violent profession as yours, that you needed a reason to kill. I assumed it was merely a natural denouement. And that I would be paying enough to avert your curiosity.”

  “Actually … you are paying too much for a simple killing. And that makes me extremely curious indeed.”

  Malagane pursed his lips. “I would have to know I could count upon your absolute discretion.”