By His Majesty's Grace

by Jennifer Blake

  The three were traitors. It was not just Rand’s death they sought, but that of the king, as well. The die had been cast. They could not withdraw now, could do nothing except play it out.

  A brief glance of communication passed between the intruders. Faces set, they leaped to the assault.

  At the same moment, Henry stepped into the fight with a ringing clash of steel. He deflected a hard thrust from Viscount Henley, engaging him, drawing the wild-eyed peer away from Rand. His jeweled sword hilt shone with red, green and blue fire between his two hands as he parried in tierce, in prime, his tall form moving with strength and grace. Driving his opponent before him with skill as well as power, he forced him back step by step, back away from the cradle and the queen. And it was easy for Isabel to think, watching him with wide eyes and breathless disbelief, that he had come armed to the confrontation with Rand because he did not trust his friend after holding him prisoner, might not trust him even now.

  Moving in concert on the far side, David challenged Graydon with a shout. Isabel, trying frantically to follow this action, saw her stepbrother turn with a guttural oath, saw his eyes light with confidence in his ability to squelch this lesser threat. Her heart doubled its crazed beat as fear he was right scalded her chest. David had been wounded in the clash with Graydon and Henley over Madeleine. It had been his left arm that was slashed, yet how fit was he for this terrible contest?

  Rand was left facing his half brother. They circled each other, watching for an opening, two men almost perfectly matched in size and strength. The only difference Isabel could see was that McConnell appeared a trifle more burly in the upper body while Rand had the longer reach. The concentration on their features was the same, and the determination.

  McConnell lunged into a lethal advance with every ounce of his strength behind it. Rand met and matched it, his sword catching the lamplight with the flash of a beacon. They settled then into a fury of beating, clanging attacks and parries, slashing at each other with whistling blades and grunts of effort. Sweat shone on their brows, made them blink as it ran into their eyes. McConnell tried a desperate stratagem, plunging into an assault of such power it seemed he thought to beat Rand down with it, to take advantage of his old injuries from the tourney and the weakening affect of prison. But Rand executed a parry that sent his half brother’s sword point sliding harmlessly past his shoulder, then whirled into a riposte that tangled his blade, nearly springing it from his hand. McConnell leaped back, disengaging, while his chest heaved with his hard breathing.

  “Unfinished affairs, William?” Rand inquired holding his guard position. “You overreach yourself, it appears, trying to remove not only a pesky half brother who stands between you and what you consider yours, but a duly crowned king. Ah, no, allow me a correction. You meant also to dispose of the newborn heir and his mother so as to eliminate all threat. Otherwise, you accomplish nothing.”

  “It can yet be done,” McConnell answered, leaning into another advance.

  “Without losing your head for it?” Rand parried with swift grace and a bell-like chime of blades. “I’d have said differently. To take the blame for your crimes, yet again, is no part of my plans.”

  McConnell gave a breathless laugh. “Why not, when you make such a perfect whipping boy?”

  At that snide reminder of past pain, Rand sprang forward to drive his half brother back. His words were as sharp-edged as his sword. “My part in this game is paltry. If Henry did not send the men-at-arms—or mercenaries, rather—to Braesford for Mademoiselle Juliette, then it had to be you. Naturally, you could not afford to come yourself, but the thing was easily arranged. Who else had the authority to use the king’s livery? Who had access to such directives as could be forged for your purpose, or to mercenaries who cared nothing for how they earned their pay?”

  “The advantages of rank are many,” McConnell answered, with arrogance layering every word of that platitude.

  “It was always you from the first, hanging about when Juliette’s baby was born, making trouble by suggesting to the dull-witted midwife that the small mite had burned to death, taking the rumor of it to Westminster so Henry’s hand was forced and he had to recall me to the palace. You even pushed your men like a devil’s spawn so they reached Braesford on Isabel’s heels, in time to stop the wedding.”

  “Are you just now seeing it? I thought you sharper than that.”

  “Or less trusting, mayhap? Would that I had been! Poor Juliette. Was she frightened when she realized your men were not taking her to a retreat arranged by the king? Did you visit her in her prison? Was she trying to escape when you threw her down the stairs, then cut her throat?”

  “Why should I do that? The little whore was quite accommodating, as you may imagine.” McConnell snorted. “She thought to gain her freedom with a bedding or two, expected to be released when I tired of her.”

  “Because you told her so, I don’t doubt, and she expected a nobleman to stand by his word.”

  “More fool she, when it was given to one so worthless. But it was Henley who ended her life. He was annoyed, you see, as she refused to accommodate him.”

  It was said so easily. Isabel put a hand to her mouth to hold back a cry of disgust laced with sick rage. Behind her, she heard the king’s growl of fury, the queen’s strained breathing, the nursemaid’s moans. Above all these rose the crying of the babies in their shared cradle, a frantic rasping brought on by the tension in the chamber, the raised voices and the clamor of blades.

  Rand seemed beyond it all as he narrowed his gaze on the man before him. “You allowed Henley to kill her,” he said in grim accusation.

  McConnell twitched a shoulder. “You were to have the blame, after all. All was in order—the message to you written as I stood over the French strumpet, the men-at-arms led at a fair distance behind as you rode gallantly to her rescue, her death at the appointed hour so you might be caught with a warm corpse. But you came early, so outdistanced us. You found her before we arrived, must have seen us coming.”

  “Thus slipped through your careful trap. Such a disappointment for you.”

  “These things depend on dame fortune. Your escape was temporary, however. Dear Henry signed the order for your arrest almost before I could present the story of Mademoiselle’s death. You should thank him, as the Tower can be a refuge as well as a prison. My next move, had you been available, would have been to stir up the common folk so they hanged you out of hand.”

  The words were shortened by McConnell’s labored breathing. Rand, his features grim and hair wet with sweat in the gold-and-orange glazing of lamplight, gave him no time to recover but bore in with another advance. The snick and slide of the blades was like an accompaniment to the harsh clash of their voices. Beneath both, like an obbligato, was the clang and clatter of the other matches and nerve-shattering screams of the babies. The smells of sweat, hot metal and lamp oil hung heavy in the thick air.

  “Enterprising,” Rand commented. “Still, the effect of your plotting was failure, as with the tampering with Leon’s firebox.”

  “Graydon’s stupidity, that. It was to have been a fiery death for Henry, Elizabeth and the heir she carried. And you, too, had He not ordained otherwise.”

  “To what end? A Yorkist king on the throne again? Did you expect Braesford as your reward for bringing it about?”

  “Why not, as you were so disobliging as to avoid death twice on your wedding day. Did you actually believe I was coming to your aid at the tourney? No, no. It was for the coup de grâce.”

  “After I was unhorsed by Graydon and Henley, of course.”

  “So simple a thing in the dust and confusion, yet the clumsy idiots could not manage it.”

  Grim acceptance was Rand’s only response that Isabel could see. “And the courtier who thought to entice me into a dawn meeting?”

  “Another unworthy instrument too easily vanquished. But I still had hope then of seeing you hanged for the death of the French whore’s bastard.”
>
  “But the baby lived,” Rand said, constantly harrying his adversary.

  “Henley misplaced her in the dark. You had the luck of the devil, laying hands on her so quickly. No doubt it was borrowed from your accursed wife. I expect to enjoy the like myself one day.”

  “You intend to have her along with Braesford Hall.”

  McConnell grunted. “Oh, aye, her above all.”

  “Above all, indeed, as she is and always will be forbidden to you,” Rand returned in accents like the breaking of thickest glass. “As the widow of your half brother, she would fall within the forbidden degrees of consanguinity.”

  “Who said aught of marriage? The curse of the Graces should be avoided if I merely bed her. But you, as her duly wedded husband, must die for daring to be wed in defiance of it.”

  “No!” Isabel cried out in half-mad anguish. “No, he need not! There is no curse, never was a curse.”

  McConnell gave a harsh laugh, his gaze raking her before he snapped his attention back to Rand. “She lies for you, is that not fascinating? She ignored my whispered persuasion, my enticements to turn false for our purpose. She would not agree, even under threat, to perjure herself at what should have been your appearance before the King’s Court. Did you know?”

  “It was you who accosted me at the abbey,” she called in trembling recognition. “You assumed too much—my willingness to join your scheme, for one thing, my silence for another.” She was distracted, briefly, by the match between Henley and the king. It had come to an abrupt end as the king disarmed Henley. Shoving him backward so he stumbled on the solar’s Saracen carpets, Henry caught the viscount’s blade as it spun from his grasp, clutching the hilt in his free hand.

  David, squared-off against Graydon to her left, fought on with the dissonant clank of beating swords and the scrape of blades, edge to edge, that showered blue and orange-red sparks to the floor. Graydon tried again and again to overpower the younger man, as if hoping to beat him down with sheer might. Still, between attacks and attending to David’s lightning ripostes, he exchanged a crafty glance with McConnell.

  David, his movements armed with grace and economy, frowned to see it. And it almost seemed to Isabel, aching with fear for his safety, that the lad might have defeated her stepbrother handily except for the curb he put on his skill. It occurred to her that he could be reluctant to defeat Graydon in front of her, for fear of how she might react to his death.

  Before she could fully grasp the impression, the struggle between Rand and his half brother reclaimed her attention again.

  “Your lady wife will refuse me no longer when you are gone,” McConnell was saying with malignant satisfaction. “She will do exactly as I say or join you in your grave.”

  “I believe not,” Rand replied, his face like iron.

  Hard on the words, he whirled into an attack that drove his opponent back and back again, well away from Isabel. McConnell stumbled, recovered, though the move was jerky, almost uncoordinated. Regardless, there was no defeat in his face. It registered cunning instead. He seemed to drop back faster and farther than was necessary.

  Isabel saw the trap in that instant. David had only tenuous control of his fight against a swordsman less skilled yet of superior weight and malicious cunning. A few more steps and Rand would be within reach of Graydon’s sword. All McConnell had to do was lure him forward enough for his confederate, pausing for a single instant in his bout, to make a fatal thrust.

  Her heart caught in her throat. She screamed a high-pitched warning.

  It was unnecessary. Rand saw ploy.

  He closed abruptly with McConnell, stepping into his guard. Catching him in a travesty of brotherly embrace, he swung him toward Graydon and gave him a hard shove.

  Graydon’s blade took McConnell in the back, driving upward. A single, guttural cry sounded in the throat of Rand’s half brother before he sagged to the floor. His knees hit first and he fell forward. His sword clanked upon the carpet-softened stone of the floor, then spun across the bright-patterned wool, coming to a stop against the stiff skirt hem of the queen’s gown. Elizabeth of York stooped to pick it up by its heavy hilt, holding it with the tip trailing to the floor.

  The shock of what he had done stunned Graydon for a mortal instant. He jerked his blade up into guard position once more, but it was too late. David, leaning already into an attack, slid past his feeble defense and took him in the heart.

  The stillness was so sudden, so complete, that the fluttering of lamp flames on their oiled wicks had the sound of a flight of birds. Then Henley’s curse scalded the silence. Slewing around, he dived for the queen. Before Henry could bring up his sword again, Henley jerked the carmine-stained blade of his confederate from Elizabeth’s hand. With a growl like the bear emblazoned on his tunic, he turned toward Isabel.

  It was then that a shadow moved, circling from a darkened corner. Lithe, silent as death, it rose up behind Henley, casting over him a black pall that had within it a silvery gleam. A slender dark shape drew back an arm, struck deep with a slender blade. And when Henley sank down with a knife between his ribs, Leon, Master of Revels, was revealed in all his splendor of yellow doublet embroidered in black with musical notes. A knife of finest Spanish steel was in his hand and a smile of satisfaction on his beautiful mouth.

  “For my sister,” he said, sparing a brief, encompassing glance for those who stood watching in attitudes of stunned acceptance, “and for Lady Isabel. The man was an animal, and deserved to die.”

  Moving to the cradle then, he slid his arms under the girl child who lay mewling there and lifted her against his chest. He turned toward the door.

  “Stay!” Henry commanded.

  Leon turned back, simple inquiry in his face.

  “You have our daughter there. You may not take her to become a pawn for France.”

  “I have my sister’s child, my own niece—though I once claimed her as my daughter in hope of keeping her safe. She was dearly loved by Juliette, just as she is dearly loved now by her uncle. Think you some matter of state was why she was conceived?”

  “Was it not?” Henry asked in grim doubt as he avoided the steady gaze of his wife.

  “Not on my sister’s part. She loved you, though she died with the sin of it upon her soul. If you would know who took payment from France, look to the good viscount. It was Henley who succumbed to the bribes of France while jaunting about the Continent from one tourney to another. He had need of it, being without lands or estates to go with his title.”

  The king’s chin had a stubborn tilt to it, though he cleared his throat before he spoke. “Who took French coin matters little. The use this small body may be put to now concerns us. Can you guarantee she will never be harmed because of her birth, that she will not be held as a hostage for our goodwill? Yes, and even if she is well guarded, what can you give her compared to the riches of our court, or the marriage we may arrange for her one day?”

  Leon glanced from the king to the baby in his arms and back again. Indecision crept like fog into the night darkness of his eyes.

  Isabel stirred as if rousing from a bad dream. Taking a single step forward, she spoke in soft reason. “Dear Leon, how will you keep a child while you wander from one court to another? What safeguards can you place around her, indeed, if others would use her for their ends? The king has the power to keep her secure. Would it not be best to allow it?”

  “As he kept her secure this night?” Leon asked with a twist to his smile, never taking his gaze from his niece.

  “The fault in that was mine.”

  Rand made a sound of denial, striding forward as if to support her until halted by an abrupt gesture from the king.

  “What if it happens again?” Leon demanded. “More than that, what if, in his fascination with his heir, Henry forgets little Madeleine’s existence?”

  “It is unlikely, especially after tonight.” Isabel’s somber gaze skimmed the bodies of the fallen whose bright lifeblood was soaking into th
e solar’s rugs.

  “Who will love her, hold her, teach her to dance and to sing?” Leon went on as if she had not spoken. “Who will show her joy, make certain she knows how to laugh and to love? Who will see she is given to a husband who will treat her gently and well? These things matter, you see. They matter to me.”

  “I am certain—” she began.

  “I am not. A king has other cares, other intentions that may loom as more important than the life of one small girl child. Such an uncertain fate cannot be allowed. I will not leave her unless…”

  “Unless what?” Henry demanded, scowling, as well he might, considering the insults he had endured.

  “Unless Lady Isabel is given charge of her,” Leon said, turning a limpid yet unseeing gaze on the king. “She can be trusted to see to her, to give her the love a child requires. For protection, she has the sword arm of Sir Rand behind her, and his example of honor and chivalry before her. I could bear to leave her with the two of them, with your gracious permission.”

  “We rejoice to see you accord us some authority,” Henry said in sardonic ire.

  Isabel, ignoring that small sign of disagreeableness, turned toward him. “The responsibility is great, sire, but I would accept it should it be your will.”

  “As will I,” Rand said, moving to her side in spite of the king’s prohibition.

  Henry stood in frowning thought for long moments. Then Elizabeth of York moved to his side with a soft whispering of silk skirts. “It is not my place to interfere in this matter, and yet, my dear husband, it seems agreement would be a kindness.”

  Henry looked down at his queen, his brow still furrowed. “I am seldom kind.”

  It was a sign of his perturbation that he had forgotten the royal plural, Isabel thought.

  “So you would have it,” Elizabeth said simply, “yet I know otherwise.”

  They stood for the space of several breaths while beyond the solar could be heard the tramp of marching feet. Then Henry reached to take Elizabeth’s hand, lifting it to his lips before placing it on his arm. “How am I to refuse the mother of my son and heir?” he murmured. He released an audible sigh, squared his shoulders and resumed his royal persona like donning a cloak of great weight. “Enough. Have it as you will, our Master of the Revels. Only you must leave England and never return. We can endure no more of your tragic danses macabre, no more sad music and sadder tales.”