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

by Jude Chapman

  The pronouncement was harsh but left little doubt. “I see,” Drake said. “You used us both.”

  “We did,” the queen said.

  “But you are no closer to unmasking the traitor.”

  Neither the queen nor the king answered. The strong hand remained, soothing and supportive. Richard, a force to be reckoned with even when not speaking, finally said, “You have already tried to kill your king and failed. Although the king obligingly lay on his deathbed for his own purposes, no traitor other than Drake fitzAlan has been exposed. Further, no word has reached us of Stephen fitzAlan. Do I rightly assume you do not wish to try again?”

  “I might succeed the next time.”

  “Of that I have little doubt. Hence we are left with only one reasonable option. You must find Stephen,” was the king’s declaration.

  “Don’t you think I’ve tried already?”

  “Then you will try again. Where were you given the ultimatum?”

  Though Drake thought the king’s suggestion held little promise, he answered. “A château.”

  “And …?”

  “The knights were well-armed and their horses of good breeding. They blinded me. Rode in circles. Spoke little. Backtracked more than once. But it was south, steadily south.”

  “And the man or men who gave you the order?”

  “One only. An arrogant bastard. He spoke in the langue d’oïl.”

  The king’s gaze traveled toward his mother the queen. An unspoken intelligence passed between them.

  “You know something,” Drake said. “Do you suspect King Philippe?”

  “Marshal de Clarendon, you shall accompany the Sieur fitzAlan on his quest.”

  “And the Judas?” Drake asked.

  “Will be uncovered once you find Stephen.”

  “If I find Stephen.”

  “When. That is an order. I shall declare it officially in a writ if you or Clarendon deigns, with my seal and signature affixed so that neither of you can quibble.”

  Squeezing shut his eyes, Drake said, “There will be no need, milord, for a writ.”

  The bed stirred as Richard withdrew his hand and stood. “As you say, the king can play dead for only so long. On the morrow, I shall rise like Lazarus and resume the reins of power. In a month, I ride south for the Aquitaine. When I return, you and Stephen shall be here to greet me, hale and hearty, and drunk to the gills.”

  “It would seem there is more than one madman here.” The queen’s chambermaid immediately knelt and bowed her head. Richard chuckled before settling into a chair by the hearth. “And now, let us proceed with the charade.”

  By order of the queen, Drake fitzAlan was coddled, corn-fed, and restored to rosy-cheeked fitness. Though returned forthwith to the Tour de Moulin by d’Amboise and Clarendon, he was held under improved conditions: cosseted in a decent bed, suckled of the king’s wheat bread, and sotted with the tastiest Touraine wine. The king’s surgeon took a sample of his urine daily, twisted his ankle on occasion, and changed the bandages binding his ribs. The king’s marshal daily interrogated the prisoner while sharing his meals and drinking his wine. To his regret, the prisoner was expressly forbidden the comforts, a half night a throw or otherwise, of the queen’s chambermaid, who had duties to perform and proprieties to observe.

  His guard was doubled by Geoffrey and trebled by John. Nightly, instead of receiving his ladylove, one or the other of the king’s brothers, a lamp lighting his way, entered the turret chamber while Drake slept. The turnkey on night watch usually grumbled when ordered to double- and triple-check the leg iron affixed to the wall. Only when the lamp receded, the door banged home, and the key turned in the lock did Drake open his eyes. On one of those occasions, John was still standing over him.

  Drake sat up. The chain rattled, which also rattled the king’s brother. Unable to look Drake directly in the eye, John shifted his eyes sideways. “Richard lives.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “You must be disappointed.”

  “Hardly. But it must be disheartening for you. Since all your brothers must die before you can ascend the throne, and none will be there to witness your glory.”

  He mouth curled into a scowl. His eyes flared with heat. The pulse in his neck throbbed. He clenched and unclenched his fists. “As God is my witness, you will hang.”

  Drake threw his legs over the side of the cot. The chain clanked. John lurched away. “You should be afraid of me,” Drake said as he deliberately rose to his feet. “Because, you see, I know everything. Of your treachery. Your jealousies. Your plotting. Your murderous ways. And your basic weakness.”

  “You know nothing, Drake fitzAlan.”

  “She wore a blue kirtle.”

  John lifted his head and met Drake’s eyes. “She?”

  “The gentle Geneviève de Berneval. My betrothed.”

  “You mean your whore,” he spat. “What’s the count now?”

  “Not as many as you.”

  “I don’t have to listen to this,” John said, starting away.

  “But you will!” Lightning fast, Drake was upon him, leg iron or no, and grabbed him one-handed about the throat. Undeterred by his thrashing, his wild punches, his frantic kicks, Drake squeezed his neck until the prince’s face turned purple and his squawks for help descended into a gurgling wheeze. “When I came upon her, it seemed as if she had been waiting up for her lover but fallen asleep when he didn’t come. Except the drained color of her face and the stillness of her pose told a different story. She lay in a pool of blood. And her eyes, those trusting blue eyes … you looked into them in the night, did you not, when you falsely promised her matrimony … were open but unseeing. She was as beautiful as a summer’s eve. And she was dead.”

  John’s punches had been coming in spurts, weak and ineffectual. Instinct held him erect and hatred that spurred him on. Drake could have killed him then and there, nothing to stop him. But death would have been too good for the treacherous brother of the king, who deserved tortures unending and the everlasting fires of Hell.

  Drake opened his fist. John collapsed into a pile of excrement. “Jenna never would have betrayed you. But you silenced her anyway. ”

  Words wheezing past his constricted throat, John gazed blearily up at his archenemy. “It wasn’t me who killed her.” His defense was only half given.

  “Then whoever you sent! May God forgive you, Jean Sans Terre, for I never will.”

  Wiping his mouth with the back of a trembling hand, John said, “Your days are numbered, Drake fitzAlan. You will die an ignominious death. And I will be there to give witness. You haven’t seen the last of John Lackland, but you soon will.” He laughed heartily, his last hurrah and final lament.

  Slowly, agonizingly, he regained his feet and banged on the dungeon door. When the latchkey came, John thundered past him and was gone in a pounding of feet. And Drake, weary to the bone, sank on the cot and dropped his head into his hands.

  * * *

  The queen daily reported to court and castle of the king’s slow but steady recovery. John was heard to be drinking himself into a stupor. Geoffrey was daily confessing his sins directly to Almighty God.

  On the prisoner’s last night in Chinon Castle, the queen’s chambermaid was allowed a brief visitation under the vigilant eye of Captain d’Amboise. Drake gathered her loose hair into his hands and swept it behind her shoulders. “Lady, be kind.”

  “There is a limit, Drake fitzAlan, to what the daughter of an alewife will allow.”

  Fanning out the silken strands of her hair, he let them drift back to the sides of her face, where they swung to the tempest of her rage. He said, “It seems you haven’t reached that limit yet.”

  “This I know: I won’t sit by and watch you martyred.”

  “You’re welcome to return to Winchester.”

  “Winchester!” she spouted.

  “You have an ugly dog there that needs a bath or two by now.”

  “I have an ugly dog here
that needs a bath or two.”

  “Lucky for the dog, the king’s tower does not provide the means.” He draped his hands over her shoulders and touched his forehead to hers. “Has the queen treated you well?”

  “More than well,” Aveline answered, “considering she took a whore into her bedchamber.”

  “Don’t degrade yourself.”

  “It’s what I am, a whore. Your whore.”

  He shook his head against hers. “Out there … when I thought I’d lost you … when I thought you were …. I don’t deserve you, Aveline Darcy, and I … I daren’t ask … but before God …”

  Aveline broke from his embrace. “I have never asked you for anything, nay, nor will I ever.”

  “Will you stand with me before the church doors?”

  She threw her hands to her ears.

  “Will you accept one-third of my worldly goods?”

  “No … no …”

  “Will you bear my sons and my daughters, too? Will you grow old with me? Will you be my wedded wife?”

  “A thousand times no! Your king would annul such a marriage. Your father would disown you. And you would think of me only as the wench you once took pity on.”

  “Then you don’t know me.”

  “Oh, I know you, Drake fitzAlan, better than you know yourself.” He went to take her in his arms, but she stepped beyond the reach of the leg iron and was soon gone.

  Chapter 15

  A FORTNIGHT AFTER Drake fitzAlan shot his king in the back, he left Chinon in the custody of Randall of Clarendon, former deputy sheriff of Hampshire, now king’s marshal.

  Officially he was to be taken forthwith to Nonancourt Castle, there to be locked up with his co-conspirators and afterwards transported to England. Once in England, the once-faithful knights Drake fitzAlan, Guillaume de Fors, Baldwin de Béthune, and André de Chauvigny, faithful no more, and the squire Devon of Wheeling, unwittingly caught up in the intrigue but no less guilty, were to be shut up in Dover Castle Tower, there to await judgment by execution.

  Unofficially Drake fitzAlan was setting out on a mission of deliverance.

  The sunny skies promised frivolity and gaiety, but since dawn was just breaking, few witnessed a traitor’s departure. Predictably the king did not bid adieu to his would-be assassin.

  The youngest brother of the king did, gleefully threatening sweet requital at the edge of an executioner’s sword, suitably accompanied by appropriate tortures beforehand and the quartering of his body afterwards. The condemned sensibly said nothing.

  The king’s bastard brother observed the knight’s departure from a near distance but offered no comment, gloating or otherwise.

  The queen’s chambermaid wisely made herself absent.

  Thus the party of two rode out of Chinon. Drake fitzAlan was properly shackled apropos his status as assassin and traitor. Rand Clarendon carried on his person the king’s authority to transport the prisoner … and a key. One mile out of Chinon, the shackles slipped from Drake’s wrists. And soon, he and the marshal settled into an easy gait.

  Toward dusk, an echo assaulted them from the rear. Were it not for the hoofs of their horses clattering along the rutted trail and the din of dusk-born swallows, Drake and Rand would have heard the rider sooner. As it turned out, they had been aware of the trailing bloodhound for quite some time, and throughout the day, had taken evasive maneuvers and managed, they thought, to outpace the cur. The rider was not alone. Had he been, Drake would have never let him get this far.

  Growing weary of the charade, they dismounted, Drake taking one side of the track and Rand the other. After a count of thirty, the lead horseman trotted along. Heedless of the trap, he rode rather awkwardly around a fallen log, his seat bouncing unsteadily in the saddle and his command of the reins inept. The Breton chestnut, wide of girth but clean of leg, was much too powerful for the rider’s shapely but untrained limbs. He wore a felt cap that flopped with the irregular action of the horse, dark hose sheathed in passable boots, an oversized chainse, a faded brown tunic, and a leather belt wrapped twice around his narrow waist.

  Drake didn’t have the heart but tugged on the rope.

  A bass voice yelled warning. Strung between opposing tree trunks, the woven hemp tautened. The Breton slapped against it, full in the chest. Rider and horse let out blended shrieks. The horse reared but kept its legs. The horseman tottered from the saddle and landed brutally. Knocked senseless, he lay sprawled in a tangle.

  Drake hopped gamely out from his hiding place and rolled the unfortunate victim into his arms. The cap fell off, revealing a fan of sable hair cascading from a narrow brow and moist temples. Except for smudges of dirt and sweat, the close-pored cheeks had lost every bit of color. The front of his throat arched gracefully back from a heaving chest. His pouty chin thrust skyward. His delicate jaw opened slightly, revealing lips invitingly full, wholly incongruent for a boy. Drake swore. The rider’s eyes blinked open. He groaned miserably, gently cursed God in His heaven, and more vehemently damned the debased knight clasping him about the shoulders.

  “Aveline,” Drake said, “where did you learn such unladylike words?”

  Her breath still not having caught up with her, she said with difficulty, “Since I am the daughter of an alewife, there is more where that came from!” Furious was the only way to describe the look on her chalk-white face.

  Drake tenderly swept back a stray tendril of hair. “I ought to turn you over and thrash you like most men thrash their women as a matter of habit.” He tapped her on the rump. “But then you won’t be able to ride, which, come to think,”—and here she slapped his arm in frustration—“you can’t claim even now.”

  She wiped her nose using the back of a soiled hand. “With the right horse, I can.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sending you back. Your escort will see you safe.”

  “He will not.” The second rider jogged up to their position. He held up both hands to show himself unarmed and tractable … within means. One eye, black as a jet bead, sparkled. The other, half shut, winked. “Not after all the trouble he’s gone through.”

  Drake said, “Your hands have been full, I daresay.”

  “Pah! Aveline Darcy? Never.” He received a scathing glare from the demoiselle. “If you must know, she started out alone. She won’t go back. I’ve tried. God knows, I’ve tried. The more blisters she grows on her hindquarters, the more stubborn she becomes. Like a mule, she is.”

  “As if I didn’t already know.”

  The sore-bottomed daughter of an alewife unraveled herself from the embrace of her white knight and stood up, tucking down her tunic and knotting the loose tendrils of her hair beneath her cap. “I’m going with you. That is, if you don’t wish me to tell the king’s brothers what you’re up to,” she said, looking down at him, her smile smug.

  “You would, wouldn’t you?” he said, joining her. He leaned forward and pecked her lips, smeared bloody from a savaged lip. She winced but endured a second kiss, this one more curative. Taking the reins from Randall, she remounted with a leg-up from Drake and dug her heels into the steed’s flanks. The horse responded swiftly, taking its rider down the well-worn trail.

  When she realized no one was following her lead, she wheeled the horse around and trotted back. Smiling broadly, Drake waited for her at the trailhead. Behind him, Rand and Mallory were setting up camp in a nearby clearing. Noting the preparations, she dismounted, handed the reins to her man as if to a lowly groom, and with a fetching hitch to her gait, went to join the others. Pausing, she looked over her shoulder, saw the lustful glint in his eyes, and narrowed her own. “The queen’s ladies are the snippiest, most high-handed creatures on earth.”

  “With you to contend with, why wouldn’t they be?” Arriving at her side, he took her in his arms, but after seeing the other men grin with glee, guided her behind a stand of trees where the boughs shrouded them in privacy, the ferns muted their voices, and the song of chirping birds muffled their words.

&
nbsp; They tussled and snuggled and remarked on their mutual bruises and states of haleness before settling into each other’s arms as if an old married couple. “I think you ought to marry Matilda of Angoulême,” she said. “Oh, aye. Who has not heard of the match made in heaven? A lady of high nobility, they say. Handsome. Genial. Good breeding. And a hefty dowry.”

  “I am told she has a wart on her chin.”

  “In the dark, you won’t see it.”

  “And that she’s ill-tempered.”

  “Not unlike her intended.”

  “And fat.”

  “All the better to hold.”

  “You can rest assured, dear lady, never will I wed Matilda of Angoulême. There is only one woman for me.”

  “All men are rogues and scoundrels.”

  “But do all men kiss like this?”

  When Drake made sweet love to Aveline, world and worries disappeared. This moment was no different, however short-lived and even when his life was on the line, his king was in danger, and the mission before him was fraught with danger. Despite their impassioned kisses, the world eventually intruded. He pricked up his ears. She lifted her eyes. They parted.

  Emerging from the thick woodland, an army of men advanced. Drake foisted Aveline to his rear and unsheathed his sword. Weapons drawn, Clarendon and d’Amboise scrambled to the fore.

  The leader of the band, big-boned, broad-muscled, and marked with a scar along the underside of his chin, folded empty hands over the pommel of his saddle. “Drake fitzAlan?” he said levelly, his dark eyes sparkling in the gloom of twilight. “I’ll have you know me and my men chased you and your brother over field and forest that black night at Nonancourt, though half the time we didn’t know where in Hell we were, a tribute to your shrewdness.”

  Twisting around, he spoke to his men. “The bastards …” Belatedly recognizing the presence of a lady no matter how attired, he amended his speech. “Begging your pardon, ma demoiselle. The fitzAlans ran us in circles, did they not? We snapped off our own tails but not theirs.” The soldiers at his back groused, ready to attack at their captain’s command.