The possession might yet cost him his life, but what odds? It had been worth it, if only for the dream.
The Angelus bell was ringing, the day far gone, when David found him in the palace stable where he had gone to check on Shadow and feed the destrier a windfall apple. The lad was flushed and out of breath, his eyes dark blue with worry. Seeing Rand there in the dim interior of the great, echoing building, he broke into a run.
“Sir! A message, come an hour ago. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“Lady Isabel?” he asked, his voice sharp.
“No, no,” David assured him in quick comprehension of his alarm. “I saw her in the solar just now. She sent me to seek you here.”
How had she known, Rand wondered, unless she was more aware of his habits than he thought, or had watched him from their chamber window? He would have to think on that later. “From Braesford, then?”
David gave a quick shake of his head that sent evening light glinting across the waves of his fair hair. With a quick look around to be certain they were not observed, he took a rolled piece of parchment from his tunic. “It was a villein that brought it to the servant hall.”
A villein—slave to his master, though a freeman to all others—could be ordered to do almost anything, Rand knew. Nor would he speak of it later for fear of maiming punishment. “Brought to you, rather than to me?” he asked with a frown.
“Someone may have pointed me out to him as your squire. I’d not seen him before, I’d swear to it.”
The parchment crackled as Rand unrolled it. The writing straggled across the page, an uneven script embellished with flourishes, dashes and inventive spelling for all its correct French. Rand angled it toward the light.
“Cher ami…”
A stinging prickle of alertness ran down his spine as the first words leaped to his sight. His fingers tightened to a death grip as he swept his gaze down the few lines.
The writer begged his indulgence that she addressed her message to him, but she knew not where else to turn. She dared presume on his kindness that had been shown to her during her recent travail by begging for succor. The keep that had been represented to her as a sanctuary had become a prison. Escape was imperative as she feared for her life and that of her child. It was her earnest plea that he attend upon her without delay. He was to take care on his journey for enemies were everywhere. She would await his coming with fervent prayers for his safe arrival. She was his grateful and affectionate Juliette d’Amboise.
Rand whispered an oath. The note was like the lady, a shade dramatic but polite and concerned for others. It was also a quiet essay in terror.
“Sir?”
Rand told his squire what the message contained, while a frown drew his brows together. “There was nothing else,” he asked, “no directions given?”
“The villein who brought it waits on your convenience. He grunts instead of speaking, but indicated he is to guide you.”
“Does he now? And who might he serve?”
“He wears no livery but only peasant’s clothing, gave no sensible answer when asked for the name of his master.” David shook his head. “It doesn’t feel right.”
Rand agreed wholeheartedly. He longed to find Mademoiselle Juliette, yes, but to go harrying off into the night with a guide he had never laid eyes on would be foolhardy.
“It may be a trick to get you to break your pledge to remain in the palace, so give the king cause to send you to the Tower.”
“So it may,” Rand answered, tapping the parchment against his thumb, “but what if it is not?”
That was the question, one his squire did not attempt to answer. “The man seems to have traveled many leagues. You’d need to leave soon if you would go and return before dawn.”
Before he was missed, David meant. It left little time for contemplation. But what was the point of that when all was said and done? He could not ignore the possibility that Mademoiselle Juliette had need of his aid.
“It seems you could not have found me in a more appropriate place,” he said in dry approval as he reached to thread his fingers through Shadow’s forelock.
“We are going, then.”
“I am going. You will remain.” He hesitated. “You said nothing of this to Lady Isabel?”
“Nay, never.”
David sounded insulted, as if his loyalty had been impugned. Or else it was the refusal of his services as a squire that set him on his high horse. “I prefer that you stay by my lady,” Rand said, placing a hand on the lad’s shoulder. “I cannot protect two gentlewomen at once.”
David sighed, then squared his shoulders. “As it pleases you, sir.”
“Excellent,” he said, infusing his voice with assurance. But in truth he was not pleased at all.
Where was Rand?
Isabel had not seen him since their exchange earlier in the day. The time since had dragged past with leaden slowness. She had pricked her finger so many times while embroidering that she feared the wall cloth under construction by the queen’s ladies would forever bear the stains of her blood. The tunes played on lute and clavichord for their pleasure as they worked had seemed off-key and insipid. She dined with Cate as a companion of the plate and goblet, but had expected to sup with her husband. That he had not appeared as evening drew in was worrisome, raising suspicions that he stayed away because she refused to be bedded at his convenience.
When the long, mist-laden twilight turned slowly to darkness and still he had not appeared, she began to fret in earnest. Where could he be? On the king’s order, he must not leave the palace and its environs. He was not in the great hall, not in the tiltyard, not in any of the taverns snug within its commodious walls, for she had sent David to look. He did not attend upon Henry, for everyone knew the king had been meeting with his council for most of the day. What did that leave?
Rand had gone to another woman, that was surely it. She did not doubt any number of them would take delight in stroking his injured pride along with his manly parts, but how could he go from her bed to theirs so blithely? How could he strip naked and caress some other female with the same hands, lips and tongue he had used to stall her heart and turn her bones as liquid as melted wax?
She did not care, of course she did not, she told herself as she paced up and down their chamber. It was insulting, all the same, that he made no distinction. She had thought she was something more than a body to be used for his pleasure. She was his wife, after all.
Why did he not return? How long could it take to—what was that word?—tup some compliant female? But no, she would not think of that. It could take all night, as she had learned to her amazement. It was not a question of stamina but of dedication to the task, of deliberately tended responses and infinite caring allied to insatiable need. Rand had been so…
She wouldn’t think of that, she would not.
David, being Rand’s shadow, must surely be aware of any adulterous affair. That such a thing could be kept from him was unlikely even if his master wished it. Add the lad’s extra attentiveness to her in the past few hours, as if to make up for lack of her husband, and the thing became painfully clear.
The palace had grown quiet for the night, though revelry could still be heard from the town taverns and chanting from the abbey, when Isabel sent for David. Gwynne opened the chamber door to him, then busied herself brushing a velvet bodice and changing its lacings. Isabel stood at the open window, staring out into the thunderous night, until she was certain her features were composed. She turned then to face Rand’s squire.
“Where is he?”
“Milady?”
“Don’t act the simpleton with me. I know well you were searching for him this afternoon. Did you find him?”
“Aye, milady.”
“Where?”
He told her but added no details, nothing that might allow her to guess what her husband did now or what he intended. He set his jaw when he finished speaking, his blue gaze focused somewhere over her head.
“Did he leave the palace?”
Uneasiness brushed the lad’s features, as if he realized any answer he might make would plunge him into deeper trouble. “I can’t say, milady.”
“Can’t or won’t? Never mind. Why did you not go with him?”
“He said I was to stay and look after you.”
“Did he now?” She clenched her teeth, trying to think how to dislodge information held in loyalty’s grip. “Did he venture out to see another woman?”
“Milady…”
She pinned him with a stern gaze. “Did he?”
He folded his lips in a firm line, saying nothing. It was as damning as any admission.
She had not thought it of Rand, not really. She realized that now as pain swept in, surrounding her heart. She had thought him steadfast and true, chivalrous, loyal, kind—the very reflection of all the knightly virtues. It was devastating to be proven wrong.
She had been naive. It was a mistake she’d not make again.
Her voice a rasp in her throat, she asked finally, “Have you any idea when he will return?”
“Nay, milady.”
“You may go,” she said, lifting her chin, turning away before Rand’s squire could see the tears that stung her eyes, threatening to spill over her lashes.
“He had to go, I swear it,” David said softly, “but he will come back, milady. He will come back.”
Yes, of course he would. He would come back and she would be waiting. He would slide into their bed and reach for her, pretending all was as it had been before. But he would be wrong.
He would be so very wrong.
13
Purple-gray banks of clouds covered the evening sky, and the air had a damp feel to it. The gathering darkness was not as apparent while Rand and his guide wound their way through Westminster town where candles and lamps had been lighted. The glow from taverns or houses that leaned so close together that neighbors could whisper secrets across the narrow streets was sufficient for their needs. By the time they reached the open fields where straggling trails led off the road to scattered villages, however, it had grown dark indeed.
Smells of ripe grain and damp earth drifted on the night wind. A fine mist blew into their faces, though it never quite turned to rain. Dogs barked and a cow lowed now and then as they skirted the looming, humpback shapes of thatched cottages. They rode through the forest—land of some nobleman’s domain where the rustling, sighing leafiness closed above them like a tunnel. An owl called, a fox barked and then all was quiet again but for the thud of their horses’ hooves. That sound echoed back from the encroaching trees with a muffled echo like the distant sound of some mounted troop. It was an hour, maybe more, before they left the woodland behind. Afterward, the road stretched ahead, empty, deep trodden between hedgerows, absorbing the shadows and their hoofbeats into its soft mud.
The guide did not speak. Rand thought him the usual taciturn countryman at first, with his grunts and abrupt gestures. He soon realized his mistake. The man, of early middle age, square built and lumpish in his hooded tunic of weed-dyed wool and rough-cobbled shoes, had no tongue.
A man’s tongue could be cut out for talking treason, for spreading false rumors, slandering his neighbor or at the whim of his master. The tragedy of it was the same, regardless. Rand felt for his companion, but could not allow it to make a difference. What was important was that the villein knew where he was going even if he could not give the direction.
He did not say where that was, of course. Nor could he explain why he appeared reluctant to start out when Rand had first come upon him in a low tavern. He had jumped up, waving his hands and making sounds of protest. It seemed he had not expected Rand before midnight when everyone slept, felt they should wait until that hour to depart.
Rand lacked the patience. Mademoiselle Juliette had asked that he come without delay. He would not sit kicking his heels while danger closed in upon her. Besides, the sooner he and the guide were off, the sooner he could return.
He was troubled in mind over going back on his pledge to Henry. It was not something he undertook lightly; his word was sacred, not to be broken. But neither could he fail someone who depended on him. If he had to do penance to king or priest for riding to a lady’s aid, then so be it.
Leaving the palace had been no simple thing. As he could hardly mount Shadow and ride out the gate, some subterfuge had been necessary. He had loosened one of Shadow’s shoes as an excuse for taking him from the stable. David had then led the gray outside the palace gates, grumbling every step about a master too high-handed to wait for the palace blacksmith to manage the task.
Once the lad was away, Rand made for his chamber where he changed into his darkest, most sturdy clothing. He thought to see Isabel, perhaps to steal a kiss to see him on his way, but she was still occupied in the solar. Disgruntled, he left again, making his way through the maze of rooms to a rear servant’s stair. He skimmed down this, slipped through the kitchens and along an alleyway to the kitchen garden. With the aid of an ancient apple tree, he scaled the stone wall that surrounded it. When he dropped down on the far side, he was loose in the streets of Westminster town.
A number of servants spied him as he made his escape. Most of them being female, he had winked and smiled in hope they would think his intentions were dictated by the needs of his crotch. With luck, he would be back before he was missed so they would not be called upon to recount his movements.
David and Shadow had awaited him at the stable attached to the tavern and inn where Rand was to meet the guide. The two of them found the man deep in a tankard of ale. Rand had arranged with David to return to the tavern stable in the early-morning hours, in case of need. Then he had forced an immediate departure.
Riding through the darkness now, Rand was as jumpy as a hart in rutting season. He cursed the lack of moonlight while squinting against the dampness and wishing for a torch to light their way. Now and then, he drew up, staring back along the distance they had come while he listened for pursuit.
Nothing.
That did not mean he could let down his guard.
He had no idea how far they had to travel and could not extract the information from the man who slumped in the saddle beside him. The longer he was away, the more certain it was he would be missed. David would not raise the alarm if he did not return before daylight, but he feared Isabel might. His dependence was on his squire to prevent it, though he had no idea how the lad might go about it.
It was a little after midnight, he thought, when they turned off the main road, meandered some distance along an overgrown pathway and emerged before a stone gatehouse. It belonged to a darkened building that loomed above it, appearing to be a smallish castle so ancient it was falling into ruin. It had a stone curtain wall set on mounded earth and a drawbridge that spanned a dry moat. No one challenged them as they rode forward, no trumpets sounded and no one came out to greet them.
Their hoofbeats rattled across the loose planks of the drawbridge, and they ducked under a snaggletooth portcullis that seemed as likely to impale a friend as a foe. The fitful blaze of a single torch lighted their way into the bailey with its rough stone walls. Centering it was a great, battlemented pile of stone two stories high, with arrow slits instead of windows. Towers with conical roofs anchored each of its front corners and stone steps mounted to a center entrance. No attempt to soften its nature as a defensive bastion had been made, no gesture toward making it a comfortable place to reside. It was a fortress to hold against all comers, or one to imprison those its master wanted to keep.
The torch that shed orange-and-yellow light over the bailey was fixed in a ringed holder beside the solid entrance, gleaming on the wide door’s bronze nail heads and the sunken places on the tall stone steps where thousands of booted feet had trod. The place dated at least three hundred years back, possibly more. It might have served as a refuge at some time during the wars of the past thirty years, but the village it had no doubt protected seemed to
have vanished, wiped out by plague or famine, so the castle no longer had a purpose.
Rand pulled up so sharply inside the bailey that Shadow reared back on his haunches. Settling the stallion with a firm hand, he stared around him. Nothing moved—not a sentry, not a single man-at-arms or bond servant. No pennon flapped to show who owned the keep, nor was there sight or sound of an animal of any kind.
His heart rattled against the walls of his chest. His every sense narrowed to near-painful alertness.
It struck him then, the question that had lain half-formed at the back of his mind from the moment he had opened Mademoiselle Juliette’s message. If she was a prisoner, and had been one since leaving Braesford weeks ago, how had she known to direct her plea to him at Westminster?
“Where is everyone?” he asked, turning in his saddle to seek counsel of his guide.
The man was no longer behind him. He had stopped just inside the gate. Swinging his mount now, he galloped back under the portcullis with his elbows flapping against his sides. The hooves of his horse pounded on the drawbridge, then thudded away into the dark.
Calm settled over Rand. He sat staring around him for a moment more, noting the crumbling state of the keep’s defenses, the sagging wood of a postern gate set in the rear wall, the litter of old leaves, moldering straw and ancient horse droppings that had settled against the bottom of the steps. Dismounting, he passed the bridle over the gray’s head and led him to a horse trough half-full of rainwater. He left him there as he eased cautiously up to the heavy entrance and knocked on its door.
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