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

by Jude Chapman

  “The tourney in Limoges is to be a great event, and long overdue after so many years of drought, war, and famine. Aimery, the vicomte of Limoges, has finally opened up his purse and his castle. Do you know him, Aimery of Limoges, the half-brother of Comte Ademar of Angoulême? But no, I shouldn’t expect you would. You don’t look like the sort to have the particular acquaintance of comtes or vicomtes.”

  Eble said, “I fear that Gaucelm, Alamanda, and Guiraut are sorry they joined us. Their heads are always spinning, either with wine or Gui’s voice.”

  “True enough,” said Guiraut, his eyes glassy. “I haven’t composed a single line of verse.”

  “But you have been well fed.”

  The brothers along with their absent cousin Elias had been brought up in the Château d’Ussel as privileged nobility, much like Drake and Stephen had been nurtured at Itchendel. But unlike the fitzAlans, though perhaps not so unlike Stephen, the brothers d’Ussel were doing their best to reject their heritage and the attendant burdens. The elder d’Ussel had given up on his sons and told them so regularly, going so far as to write a note of condolence to his brother, the father of Elias, on the premature passing of his son, even while the mother of his red-headed boys cried inconsolably into her pillow. None of it stopped the brothers and their cousin from dipping into the family coffers when funds ran low, which was monthly. During the colder weather, when the tourneys weren’t running, father and mother invariably welcomed their sons back to hearth and castle, where they were fed, pampered, and lectured. Come spring, they returned to their travels, living as vagabonds with no means of support except to subsist off the dole of the elder d’Ussel and, when luck ran their way, the occasional winnings gleaned from the tournaments. For two years they had been getting by in this way.

  Drake more than admired their independence, something he could never consider since William fitzAlan would sooner lock him in a dungeon for the rest of his natural-born days than have him wandering around the countryside getting into mischief.

  Gui said, “They think we will soon grow out of the notion.”

  “That remains to be seen,” Peire put in.

  “My point exactly,” responded the effervescent Gui, who had taken a break from the digging. As long as his brothers didn’t complain, he was in no hurry to cut short his respite, and interspersed his comments to Drake with pointers to Eble and Peire on how to better wield their shovels and how not to litter the campsite with dirt. His brothers grumbled but went on digging, not once enjoining Gui to take a turn.

  Wiping his mouth of a fresh taste of wine, Gui asked, “Do you know the name Guillaume Maréchal?”

  “William Marshall? Not only do I know the name, I know the man.”

  “Truly? Perhaps you are the kind of man to associate with comtes and vicomtes. We all aspire to the greatness of Maréchal.”

  “And will all fail miserably.”

  A ruddy eyebrow lifted. “Ought I rethink my future then? Being a troubadour is a noble occupation, is it not Alamanda? Others are obliged to feed and house you, and you can roam the countryside to a ripe old age without a care in the world. I’ve heard that the duke of Aquitaine, in his gentler moments, plays the lute and composes songs.”

  “Uncommonly well.”

  The other ruddy eyebrow lifted. “Drake fitzAlan of Winchester, there is much you are not telling us.”

  “But why?” the discerning Gaucelm asked later, after the tasty heron had been devoured to the bone. “Why did they take your brother hostage?”

  Favoring his wounded arm, Drake peered out from beneath his hair. “I don’t remember saying such.”

  “Behold the evidence. Matched sets of swords and daggers, and only one brother at hand, your gentle squire notwithstanding.”

  “Not having been around many troubadours,” Drake said, “except to enjoy their music, I suppose they have unnaturally inquiring minds?”

  Gaucelm shrugged. “What else is poetry but a travelogue of men’s lives?”

  “Other men’s lives,” Guiraut added, “as ours are usually dull.”

  Throwing his head back against the tree trunk, Drake inhaled slowly. “Very well. I’ll tell you, insofar as I can. To force me into an action against my nature.”

  “—Which prudence makes you hesitate to say,” Gaucelm guessed. “And so, to avoid the routiers’ mandate, you have been seeking your brother’s whereabouts—what man would not?—but with little success since he could be locked up in any one of a thousand dark dungeons for any one of a thousand dark reasons by any one of a thousand dark men. Not esteeming your noble motives, which undermined their own, the routiers wished to speed you on your course.”

  “And paid with their lives,” commented Guiraut.

  The burial mounds, tamped down and covered with rocks, were prominent in their freshness.

  “But the man or men they served … for routiers never serve themselves as such … still thrive, do they not?” Gaucelm asked, holding his gaze on Drake. “Do you know who they might be?”

  “I cannot say with certainty.”

  “But being an astute man, as I can tell you are, you have hazarded a guess or two?”

  He shrugged. “All I know is that Botolphe … the one claimed by the river … said my brother was handed off to another. Someone calling himself Gui, who was supposed to transport him to the Île de France.”

  Intrigued by this, Gui d’Ussel leaned forward and asked, “Gui is a common enough name.”

  “A Gui from Nevers, he said. With brown hair.”

  “Perhaps I dyed mine like loose women do.”

  “I beg your pardon, Gui d’Ussel,” said Alamanda.

  “As I do yours,” Gui said, causing his brothers to laugh.

  “Whoever this Gui is,” Alamanda said, “you must do as the routiers have bid or your brother will be lost forever.”

  “If he is not lost already.” Drake smiled glumly. “In the end, Botolphe boasted of killing Stephen himself.”

  Gaucelm said, “Likely, then, he lied about everything else.”

  Drake stared into the pyre and nodded.

  Alamanda of Gascony wasn’t as young as first impressions told, nor was she a fragile member of her sisterhood. The fustian gown she wore had faded to a grayish-purple. Little jewelry adorned her and no powders spoiled the freshness of her sun-kissed complexion. Yet she was potently feminine. Her eyes wandered astutely to the weapons, wiped clean and returned to their scabbards. “Twin swords. Twin daggers. Twin rings. Therefore twin brothers. Identical twins? Naturally. I’m already getting headaches from seeing triple. You are alike, then, in every way?”

  “Except he is a man of thought and afterwards of action, whereas I am a man of action and afterwards of thought.”

  “You would be wise, Drake fitzAlan of Winchester, to not trouble yourself over our wicked-tongued Alamanda,” Peire commented. “She takes neither doubles nor triples into her skirts. Singles possibly, but not often enough for that, nor with the right single.”

  The other brothers gibed Gui with catcalls while Guiraut and Gaucelm remained prudently silent.

  “Do you remember, Guiraut?” Alamanda queried her fellow troubadour. “It was said that twin brothers served Duke Richard as his squires. Men, and women too, often jested over it.”

  “Did they?” Feeling a twinge of insult, Drake never thought of himself as a curiosity to be mocked by strangers.

  “Do not take offence. People have little in their lives, and when they can make little of other men, it gives them big dreams.”

  “And so,” Guiraut said, “you had to kill the routiers as you did. Probably they would have done your squire in, no matter.” He exchanged a meaningful look with Gaucelm.

  Taking heed of the prompting, Gaucelm said, “You realize the routiers have led you, wittingly or unwittingly, into a part of Aquitaine where feelings run high against Richard. And perhaps you know, or perhaps not, that Aimery, the vicomte of Limoges, had once been staunchly loyal to Old King H
enry since he grew to maturity under his aegis and because the king later presented the young heir of Limoges with a Plantagenêt heiress for his bride. In later years though, when the ongoing squabbles between the English king and his wayward sons exposed weakness, Aimery united with his half-brother Ademar of Angoulême. Together they rose in rebellion against King Henry and Duke Richard, and used routiers to wreak havoc. Each time the price exacted for defeat was the destruction of citadels and the forfeiture of ancestral lands. The routiers’ price was higher. They were often blinded, drowned, or maimed. Hence they harbor no love for Richard.”

  “Or anyone who serves him,” Guiraut added.

  “The decisive break came in ’82,” Gaucelm continued, “when Ademar and Aimery joined their older brother Guilhem in a fight that threatened the very survival of the Taillefer family. In dispute was an innocent child: Matilda of Angoulême, the daughter of their dead brother Vulgrin. Ah, you recognize her name.”

  Shrugging, Drake said nothing in response.

  Gaucelm tipped his head back and drank from the handed-off wineskin. Licking his lips, he went on. “Richard claimed the child, but two years of age at the time, as his ward. And so the question of who owned the Angoulême came to fire and sword. Bolstered by alliances with the vicomtes of Ventadorn, Comborn, Torena, and Périgord, the Taillefer brothers fought valiantly. But Duke Richard does not entertain defeat. After devastating the Limousin, he carried off wives and daughters by force and made them his concubines against their wills, then handed them down for his knights to enjoy.”

  “I don’t believe a word.”

  “It does not matter whether you believe it, only that the people of the Dordogne believe it. To this day, the possession of the Angoumois is bitterly disputed between Richard and Ademar, who defies his liege lord by using the title comte. So you see, though these are Richard’s lands, you have wandered into enemy territory.”

  Gui broke the stillness. “What will you do now?”

  “Find my brother.”

  “Where will you look?” Gaucelm asked. “For even if you knew where to search, you’re not fit to travel for a week or more. Nor is your squire.”

  “I have an idea,” said the lively Gui, who had become even more animated with a liquefied bloodstream. “Why don’t you travel with us? Surely the monks at Tulle will tend to your injuries, yours and the child’s.”

  Devon opened an eyelid.

  “And after you’re fully restored, you can accompany us to Limoges. We travel slow, but we eat well.”

  “And drink well,” added Peire.

  “And drink better than well,” said Eble, holding up the wineskin and releasing a loud belch. “Guiraut knows well the truth of this and can vouch for us.”

  “There is safety in numbers,” Gui said, lifting his cup. “We will defend your virtue with our lives if need be.”

  “It is not my virtue that needs defending.” Drake agreed to the plan regardless, due in part to Gui’s wisdom, but mostly because of Gaucelm’s account. Though he was speaking over the heads of his three young companions but not over the heads of Guiraut or Alamanda, Gaucelm had not merely woven a fanciful story told round a campfire. He had told Drake where to find men who, even if they were not behind a plot to assassinate Richard Plantagenêt, certainly did not look kindly on one of his most trusted knights joining their landed niece in holy matrimony.

  “Of course, there is a danger,” Gaucelm cautioned. “If these men are holding your brother, surely you will be recognized.”

  Drake smiled winningly. “It’s a chance I’m willing to take. For the alternative is worse than death.”

  Chapter 23

  AT THE MONASTERY of Saint-Martin de Tulle, Bernart de Ventadorn eagerly greeted his old friend Gaucelm Faidit and just as eagerly welcomed his traveling companions. No longer regaled in the courts of Poitou, Limousin, and Toulouse, the former troubadour lived as a monk, his robes plain, his head shaven, and his voice raised in jubilant prayer instead of joyful song.

  The infirmarian and three lay brothers saw to the wounds of a knight and his squire, and thereafter provided comfortable beds, plentiful food and drink, and vigilant care. Drake divided his time between the infirmary, where Devon was recovering from a fever, and the guesthouse, where he and his cheerful comrades relaxed in austere though comfortable accommodations. Arriving a day later, the missing cousin Elias added a certain sobriety to the assemblage, one that was sorely needed given his talkative cousins.

  On quiet nights between compline and matins, when the rest of the monastery slept, Bernart regaled his guests with zestful tales about his days as a wandering troubadour and sang many of his exhaustive cansos, which extolled in lyrical verse the virtues of courtly fin’amor.

  Before leaving Tulle, Drake turned to profit the routiers’ horses. Now that he and Devon could contribute to the cook pot, wine reserves, and conviviality without being burdensome invalids, they became part of the nomadic band as if they had always been.

  On the way to Limoges, Drake let his beard grow, borrowed a new suit of clothing from Guiraut, and blackened his hair with Alamanda’s assistance. The lady also gave him a haircut to better hide his identity as the twin brother of a man who was being held for ransom. “I don’t think anyone will mistake you for your brother,” she declared. “Or yourself, for that matter. You were much too pretty, in any case. Now you look a man of dubious background and parentless heritage.”

  He didn’t know whether to take her comment as flattery or criticism. But when a grin touched her mouth, he kissed it.

  Upon the party’s unheralded arrival at the Château d’Aixe, Drake was introduced as Grendel of Poitiers. Speaking to Vicomte Aimery de Limoges, Gui added with an unsmiling mouth, “Just another tourney follower we happened upon along the way. He’d been attacked by a gang of ruffians, hence the limp and bruises.” Pushing Devon to the fore, he added with soberer tones, “Also, my little cousin here, Roger of Maussac. At the tender age of four, his mother left him in the garderobe and promptly forgot him. A servant sent to clean the latrine some eleven years later discovered the filthy runt.”

  “Twelve years,” Devon corrected him.

  “And now,” Gui said, narrowing his eyes at Devon, “we can’t get rid of him, try as we might. The freckles,” he added with apology, “are from his father’s side of the family.”

  A humorless man nearing fifty, Aimery asked no questions and accepted Grendel and Roger as tang and heft of the eccentric d’Ussel party.

  After being in the company of the vicomte of Limoges for mere minutes, Drake determined he was tough as they came, in any climate and on any road. His unimpressive fortress, some five miles southwest of his one-time familial home of Limoges, was his dubious reward for defiance against his liege lord. Forced to turn over the citadel of Limoges to King Henry as punishment for his part in the rebellion of ’76, having forfeited another set of strongholds in the summer of ’82, and having all those losses reaffirmed with yet another defeat two years ago, Aimery was an embittered and self-righteous man. Precious few lands and châteaux were left him, and those that were his by rights belonged to Richard by claim, including the one he presently inhabited.

  His taciturn son Widomar, a few years older than Drake, seemed to have inherited his father’s disposition. It scarcely mattered whether he remembered the glory days of old or had vicariously lived them through oft-repeated tales. As a young man whose birthright had been stripped away, he experienced the hardships and deprivations nearly every day. During subsequent meals and evenings of entertainment, Wido usually took up a corner of the great hall somewhat like a decorative statue. And like a statue, he rarely drank, ate, or took part in the festivities, except for participating in the tournament. He also studied Drake with the keenest of eyes.

  His mother, Sarah of Cornwall, managed to rise above the underlying acrimony, warmly welcoming all to her hearthside, even while managing her peevish lord and lordling.

  Though the days were warme
d by the sun, the nights turned chilly. Come sundown, the hearth of Aixe Castle filled the great hall with swirling feathers of smoke. The cellars from last autumn’s harvest were dwindling and the availability of root vegetables, dried fruits, grains, and nuts were running dry. But platters upon platters of beef, veal, venison, and chicken, cheese and plover eggs, lampreys and salmon more than made up for the lack of stores. If these were not enough, overflowing pitchers of mead and wine filled in where the dishes lacked.

  On the days preceding and following Drake’s arrival, many visitors straggled into the hilltop castle. An army of knights armed for the games. Aimery’s half-brother Comte Ademar and his wife Alix de Courtenay. Aimery’s daughter Humberga, whose husband Geoffrey de Lusignan had been banished to Jerusalem on the orders of Richard. Aimery’s cousin Geoffrey de Rancon, who watched Richard destroy his castle of Taillebourg and would have been serving penance alongside Lusignan were it not for a ransom paid in lieu. Comte Élie of Périgord, who lost his castle to Richard five years earlier. Raimon of Toulouse and his bride Beatrice of Beziers, both of whom had also experienced their fair share of clashes with the Plantagenêts.

  But it was Hugh of Lusignan, nephew of the banished Geoffrey, who made the evenings bearable for Drake. Being his contemporary, the young Lusignan was eager enough to match faces to names and describe, often in jocular detail, the tragic histories of these men of power, powerful no more.

  During the tourney, Hugh and Drake teamed up as a formidable pair, preserving their wits and indispensable body parts while purchasing a fair amount of victories. If Drake fitzAlan of Winchester, or rather Grendel of Poitiers, had been a modest man, he would have arranged a run of bad luck. But he wasn’t a modest man.

  Riding in from the mêlée of the second day, heady and grimy from their triumphs, Drake and Hugh trotted in review past Aimery, perched on his black steed. Riding a few paces back, Elias, his brown curls slicked down by sweat, urged his horse abreast Drake, and imparting a cautionary look, threw a secondary glance toward the vicomte of Limoges.