Crown of the Realm (A White Knight Adventure Book 2)

by Jude Chapman

  Wearing a stolen surcote purloined from a dozing guard, now sleeping quite soundly from a knock on the head, Drake slipped into the castle unnoticed. Every knight of the king’s guard wore identical cotes-of-arms—three lions running rampant on a split field of red and gold. And since vigilance was in a sorry state of affairs after the disorderly night, those guards astir at this early hour had been too weary to look closely at his face, and those who did, failed to recognize an accused assassin whose pertinent features were half-shrouded by the ventail and coif of Béthune’s hauberk as well as the nose-guard of his helm.

  Though sprawled across a bed massive enough to hold the archbishop and three ladies of his choosing, Geoffrey slept alone in the uppermost chamber of the southeast tower, a makeshift accommodation yet private. In the dark of night, the king’s brother still hadn’t recognized the knight everyone supposed was an assassin. Gradually becoming aware of the trickling warmth and acrid odor of his own blood, Geoffrey stopped breathing. The last vestiges of sleep slithered back to the netherworld as his gray eyes grew accustomed to the shadows. The archbishop of York resumed breathing and opened wider his eyelids.

  Drake slung back the coif and slipped a finger of silence across his lips. Geoffrey had no intention of calling for help. The tendons in his neck relaxed. Fear abated somewhat, but sweat beading up on his upper lip attested to his basic cowardice. “Which are you? Drake or Stephen?”

  “Guess.”

  “Drake,” the archbishop wisely concluded.

  Casting his eyes about the unadorned walls and sparse furniture, and sniffing a distinctive fragrance, Drake observed, “My dear archbishop, you’ve been entertaining.” Geoffrey started to defend himself, but the dagger’s edge, pressed more tightly against his throat, curtailed any protest. Drake threw his eyes once more over the chamber and listened. Assuring himself they were quite alone, he withdrew the weapon and made himself comfortable on the bed. “Though I suppose even an archbishop needs to gladden his loins, whether it be with a comely woman, a charming man, or …” Surmising, he lifted his eyes to the ceiling.

  “His own hands?” Geoffrey suggested.

  “Not unless his hands are sweetened with lily of the valley. But even that would qualify as a sin, would it not, Archbishop?” Peering into Geoffrey’s pale eyes, so like Richard’s, unsettled Drake. “Enough of assignations with sinful hands. Let’s talk about Tancrede d’Évreux.”

  Cautiously Geoffrey pushed himself into a sitting position and leaned against the pillows. “One of Richard’s knights, isn’t he?” He swiped a hand across his neck and examined the smeared blood.

  “No longer. He shot the assassin’s arrow.”

  “Not d’Évreux. You.” As if to convince himself, Geoffrey said, “I saw. Everybody saw.”

  “All eyes were on me, it’s true, explaining why no one noticed d’Évreux step out of line.”

  “He was first to shoot.”

  “And last.”

  The Plantagenêt eyes shifted with intelligence. “You’re saying he released a second arrow?”

  Drake let out a sigh of frustration.

  “Mon Dieu.”

  “God, my dear Archbishop, had nothing to do with it.”

  “But man, in his treachery, did.”

  “The burning question is, which man paid off d’Évreux?”

  Geoffrey lifted a corner of the bed linen to his neck and calmly stanched the flow of blood. “Surely, you’re not accusing me?”

  “Richard released John from his oath.”

  “He didn’t release me,” Geoffrey said in a huff.

  “Precisely.”

  The king’s older brother laughed bitterly. “The first I heard of it, though I’m not surprised. Eleanor’s doing? And so John—who has no office, no duties, no authority, and no sanction—can come and go as he pleases. Whereas I, who accepted my destiny as archbishop of York because Richard demanded it and also because it was our father’s dying wish, am sworn to avoid England for three long years. Like a lackey. Less than a lackey. A royal bastard.” Geoffrey dabbed his neck one last time and let the linen drop. “I may often rail against my position in life, but I would not damn my soul to Hell by committing fratricide. Richard is my father’s son as much as I am.”

  “Bastard or not, you are the Old King’s elder son.”

  “There lies the sticking point, doesn’t it?” Geoffrey brandished a ruby signet ring inlaid with the two golden lions of Normandy. “And here my honor. My father died a broken man, stripped of his kingship, his pride, the loyalty and love of his wife and their sons, the support of his liege lord the king of France, and the very clothes off his back. Everyone he counted on repudiated him. Everyone save William Marshal and a bastard son. Look elsewhere, Drake fitzAlan, for your agent. I did not subvert Tancrede d’Évreux or anyone else to assassinate the king, nor would I ever. That I swear, and the king needn’t force me to my knees to do so.”

  When Drake reached the bottom of the turret staircase, Mercadier was waiting to greet him, his muscular shoulder leaning against a wall and his hand resting on the pommel of his sword. The sweat and dust of hard riding and midnight duties streaked his sun-darkened skin. “I hear tell you encountered some trouble from my men.”

  “Not as much trouble as I encountered later.”

  “Did my men have anything to do with it?”

  “Not near as I could tell. Have you spoken with Richard?”

  Crimped brown hair fell in two disorderly plaits on either side of his boxy face. Eyes of identical brown were constantly on the move. “I have.” Mercadier had been with Richard for untold years. If there was a single man Richard trusted, it was Mercadier, who adhered to two simple rules of survival. To obey, implicitly and instantly. And to remain unwaveringly loyal. “He rides with Philippe to the border. You didn’t see them on your ride back from Dreux?” His broken-toothed smile was crooked.

  “I didn’t take the main road. And the French court?”

  “Ride with their king. A courier arrived with sad news. His queen died in childbirth. I was on my way to inform the archbishop.” His ears were alert to the smallest of sounds. “You best look to your fellow knights.”

  “Such as d’Évreux?”

  “Then you know. He wasn’t working alone.”

  “The king’s brothers?”

  “Are not to be trusted. Ever. But who’s to say.” His massive hand still clamped on the haft of his sword, he stepped aside.

  Feeling the sweating heat of a man who never rested, Drake tread past the mercenary. When he looked back, Mercadier was gone.

  Chapter 7

  ANDRÉ DE CHAUVIGNY was in a most ungainly position. Sweat-soaked and disheveled, and with his ruddy head poked down the latrine, the man retched miserably. Done for the moment, he sat on his haunches, groaned, coughed. Upon beholding a menacing knight brandishing a dragon sword, he threw his head back over the opening and released the dregs of his entrails. Afterwards, spitting away a foul mouth and even fouler viscera, he used the wall at his back for support.

  “Send me to Valhalla, fitzAlan. I cannot fight you.” Having no strength left, he closed his eyes and awaited the executioner’s stroke.

  Nothing.

  He ventured to open one pale eye, soon followed by the other. Drake held out a wineskin.

  Chauvigny groaned. “The last thing I need.”

  Drake lifted a shoulder. “But the quickest cure.”

  “I take the point.” He reached for the skin, and swilling the first mouthful, spit it down the latrine. Afterwards he drank in earnest. Gratified that he would go to Odin’s hall of slain heroes a contented man, he sat back. “How in the Devil’s name did you gain entry?”

  “The king has a pack of knaves in his employ.”

  “So it would seem. Why in the Devil’s name did you gain entry?”

  “D’Évreux.”

  “What of him?” He took another swallow and wiped his mouth. Then he swung bloodshot eyes up at Drake. The cresset
lamp flickered with his movement. “Les yeux de Dieu!”

  “And other parts of His anatomy.”

  “Which shall go unmentioned, in all due respect.” He gestured away the jest, which he wasn’t inclined to laugh at regardless. “D’Évreux is the assassin?”

  Drake cocked an eyebrow.

  “He was standing to the left of me.”

  “Not every moment. Where is he?”

  “In the arms of a lady.”

  “The fair and feisty Jacotte?”

  “He spoke of nothing else.” André put his energies to thinking. Taking another generous swallow to lessen the pain and a topper for added numbness, he went on thinking. When Chauvigny arrived at the end of his ruminations, he looked like he was about to stick his head down the latrine yet again. “You think he has met with a bad end?”

  Drake leaned against the archway, arms folded and boots crossed at the ankles. “Stop obsessing over your new bride, André. She’s clouding your judgment.”

  Chauvigny regarded Drake. “Next time, my friend, you ought to take a virgin to bed. They’re a little skittish at first, and undisciplined, but when you put the whip to their backsides, they learn who’s lord and who’s peasant.”

  “Your heiress of the Châteauroux has clogged up your mind, André, along with your male member.”

  “You dare criticize?”

  “You’re still drunk.”

  “You, Drake fitzAlan? Who keeps a Winchester whore in a Dreux inn?”

  If Chauvigny was in agony before, it was nothing compared to what he was experiencing now. “How old are you, André? Five-and-twenty?” Applying greater pressure, Drake said easily, “Care to make it to six-and-twenty?”

  The knight’s arm was waving the hard way, backwards and from the hind end of his skull. At the same time his throat was losing the capacity to do simple tasks, like breathe, speak, and swallow.

  “When you speak of my lady, my red-haired lord of the red château, speak with respect. Unless you wish your cock tied into a Gordian knot.”

  The besotted knight managed a crooked nod. Drake released him into a heap. Without further fuss, Chauvigny relapsed into his former state, back propped against wall and groaning miserably. The hand that still worked rubbed his disjointed neck. “One day,” he said, his voice shrill, “you will have to show me how you did that.”

  “After you have kissed the hand of Aveline Darcy and offered her your apology.”

  “That I will gladly do.” With a cautious shake, he cleared his head. “Well, wherever Tancrede is to be found, it’s bound to be within these walls. Even if stuffed down a latrine. Though not this one. I have studied it well.” He offered up a hand. Drake took it and levered the knight to his feet. Chauvigny braced a hand on Drake’s shoulder. “Let’s see if we can’t find a trail of discarded clothing, shall we.”

  Torchlight witnessed firsthand the dangers of assignations with fair and feisty maidens.

  Drake and André did not find a trail of discarded clothing but did find Tancrede d’Évreux slumped over the bottom steps of a wheel staircase leading to the undercroft. His dispirited body was pleated like a supplicant, one foot bent awkwardly beneath his buttocks and his head slung back in agony. The angle between chin and chest was incongruous, an impossible feat were his throat not hacked open by the edge of a sharp blade. Blood drenched the dead knight’s shirt and was even now dripping down the elliptical steps. He had lived by Bacchus and died by Bacchus, and Hell was his reward.

  Chauvigny’s yellow-green complexion turned on Drake. “And the feisty Jacotte?”

  “Dead.”

  “You think?”

  As if the walls had heard, a wailing only a member of the gentler sex can produce answered from the upper levels. Just as the sorrowful sob ended, a chorus of shrieks began, echoing like the calls of Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa, the three hideous sisters of Gorgon with snakes for hair and eyes could turn an admirer into stone.

  Chapter 8

  THE INSISTENT SHOUTS and muffled words of alarm, filtered through layers of limestone and fear, could not be deciphered. But the underlying meaning was clear. Tragedy had befallen someone, most probably someone of the fairer sex.

  André reacted first. “Wait here,” he said, and was off, bolting up the stairs with revitalized purpose.

  Tancrede stared at Drake with accusing eyes. Glowing eerily green in the shifting rush light, his face had become a devil’s mask. Drake decided not to wait out the unknown with a betrayed ghost. Taking the torch with him, he resigned d’Évreux to the dark and climbed to the kitchen.

  In the predawn hours, the cooks, scullery maids, cellarers, and bakers were hard at work preparing for a sumptuous midday meal. Meanwhile, panic rang down from the castle’s upper reaches, provoking worried discourse interspersed with the slicing of an onion, the gutting of a flounder, and the whipping of a savory cream.

  “Another lady dies, they say,” said one.

  “I said only yesterday,” commented another, crossing herself, “when the lady Martine sacrificed her life for the king, that it was an omen of more wickedness to come. Surely a dark hand is at work.”

  “The king’s court leaves for Chinon on the morrow. Three days early.”

  “I’ll be glad to be away from here. I’ve heard tell stories about Drake fitzAlan. He has a thirst for blood and a taste for buxom women.”

  The cook made the sign of the cross. “May he strike me dead with his good looks.”

  The women giggled while the men looked daggers.

  So busy were the servants, plucking their capons and clucking their tongues, that none noticed the presumed malefactor of the evil deeds depositing a torch and crossing agilely out of their domain.

  In the darkened passageway leading from kitchen to great hall, Alais Capét de France materialized as if from the walls. “I see you’ve returned to the scene of your brother’s treachery. Don’t worry. I shan’t call out.” She stepped away from the shadows. Light glowing from nearby wall sconces flamed her hair to a fiery chestnut.

  “You’re unable to sleep, milady?”

  Spots of blood dusted the bodice of her brocaded satin. “I have just come from laying out the Lady Martine. Where goes your ubiquitous brother?”

  “Everywhere and nowhere.”

  A sharp finger pushed him against the wall. Her tongue emerged and licked his ear. “This time, my black-hearted knight, I don’t believe anyone can save you and your brother, not even the king.” The oversweet fragrance was vaguely repulsive, and her roaming lips even more so.

  “This is all very pleasant, milady, but what have I done to deserve such reward?”

  She canted her head to one shoulder and surveyed him benignly. “Ah, you’re the other one. Your brother would have been more amenable and less cruel.”

  “I take it he has been in your bed.”

  “And you have been in Richard’s.” Up close, it was clear that the once brilliant sheen of her budding youth had diminished, but the hatred residing behind her eyes aged her more than thirty years of living could have accomplished. She lashed out her hand and slapped him roundly, the assault reverberating against the walls. “That is for your impudence.”

  Drake rubbed his cheek and leered at her. “If I have offended the lady, I apologize most humbly.”

  “And this is for your guile.” She went to slap him across the other cheek, but he checked her hand. The deadlock was at an impasse, both glaring at each other to see what the other would do. She wrenched away just as another mournful wail pierced the gloom. Drawing the sign of the cross athwart her heaving breast, Alais muttered, “Mon Dieu. You have struck again, haven’t you?”

  “You had better go, milady, else people we wonder what you’ve been up to.”

  “Oh, you are a dangerous one. We will have to speak again, though alas, I don’t think we’ll get the chance.” Like a sprite, she flew up the staircase without a backward glance.

  In the great hall, Drake trod nimbly between hou
nds and seminude men. Without clothing, very little differentiated nobleman from squire, cleric from knight, dog from servant. The rush-strewn floor absorbed his footfalls. The wall tapestries fluttered in his wake. Two lone swallows left off scavenging and winged their way to sanctuary in the rafters above.

  When he stepped into the gatehouse, a sword awaited, drawn and ready. “I anticipated a vicious rat might be skulking about, and I was right.”

  “Awake so early in the morn, John? Or did you never retire? I fear there’s an epidemic afoot.”

  The prince took after his mother more than his father, except for the hair, which was his father’s though darker in hue, and in the eyes, which were grayer than his mother’s. He made up for his prettiness with a bad temper, and proved it now by thrusting the point of his sword squarely into Drake’s throat. “Dear cousin, what have you wrought this time?”

  “Put up, John. You don’t seriously imagine you’re going to use that.”

  “Why ever not?” Though a year older than his cousin, John evinced a severe maturity, the result of having spent his formative years as an oblate at the Royal Abbey of Fontevraud. The fourth of four surviving sons at the time, his parents intended to sacrifice their youngest to God’s dominion. The premature deaths of two of his older brothers brought him out of the monastery and into the world, no more religious and all the more ambitious.

  Drake critically ran his eyes over the ruffled hair, the turned collar of his blouse, and the sorry state of his hose, one of which sagged toward an unbuckled boot. None of the slovenliness lessened the beauty of his bejeweled costume or the high color of his face. “Were you going to a pontifical ceremony, cousin, or coming from one?”