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

by Jude Chapman

  The rider rode a Camargue, the legendary white horse of the sea. The steed bore its heavy head forward while its plumed tail caught the wind. In a sea of bay, ebony, dun, and chestnut, he shouldered other horses commandingly aside. Jennets nickered and whinnied. Destriers yielded. Palfreys protested but gave way. And the Camargue advanced.

  His intelligent head and strong quarters led the way without requiring a great deal of direction or urging. Yet in Drake’s mind, the manner in which the rider sat his proud horse did not ring true. While he demonstrated needful mastery over the wide-hoofed and unshod gallant, his riding seemed slightly undisciplined. It might have been in the way he held the reins, hunched his shoulders, or sat forward in the saddle that made him seem a tad ungainly, slightly off balance, and somewhat frenetic, as if he had an important task at hand, one that couldn’t wait.

  The horseman had progressed halfway across the bridge when he craned his neck and focused his vision on the eastern landing, where pennons of red-and-gold rippled in the wind, where the armor of the king’s knights shone brilliantly, and where the king, remounted and stripped of surcote, appeared hale and in command. The rider held his sights momentarily on the august figure and mumbled to himself, shaking his head in denial.

  Drake saw it in his eyes. Single-minded determination, impatience, annoyance, pique, and something else … a kind of madness.

  Invoking a curse, he fumbled for something beneath his cloak. A dagger appeared in the taut grip of his hand. He shook the hood away. A whirl of dark ermine hair flew about a face wild with jubilation. With a calculating grin, he jerked the reins and spurred the horse. The Camargue heeded his master and picked up his pace. The horseman released a war cry, high-pitched and warbling. As he raced headlong toward the front of the column, his dagger caught the sun’s reflection. The haft was bejeweled. The steel was long and lethal.

  Stephen raised an alarm and charged past his brother.

  The rider, blinded by his unwavering purpose, didn’t see Stephen advance until it was too late. After blocking the Camargue’s advance with the broadside of his steed, and despite being lashed across the face by the stinging reins of the rider, Stephen easily reached down, grabbed the Camargue’s bridle, and reined in the horse. The assassin, not understanding who or what had thwarted his charge, pushed back the tangles of his hair to better see his opponent.

  Coming up on his brother and the tussle taking place on the rise of the bridge, Drake didn’t recognize the assassin at first, even though he noticed something familiar about the sheen of his brunette locks, the brilliance of his sapphire eyes, the poutiness of his cherry lips, and the curve of his alabaster neck. The same sense of familiarity struck Stephen, but by the time he figured it out, it was too late.

  With the strength of a titan and the wickedness of a fiend, Alais de Capét whipped her arm around. The tip of the dagger drew blood. Stephen flinched from the assault but reacted quickly. Letting go of the bridle, he placed her wrist into a crippling grip. She did not surrender easily. She fought dirty. She swore foully. Screaming at the heavens above and cursing the fires below, she called upon the gods to wreak vengeance on her enemies, and this enemy in particular. “Aha!” she squawked after admiring her deft handiwork. “At least now, people will be able to tell the difference between the fitzAlan brothers, though I know you too well, Stephen fitzAlan!” Through sheer force of will, she forced her trapped fist downward and drove the dagger straight toward Stephen’s Adam’s apple. She missed the aim and struck chainmail. The tip of the blade deflected backwards, wrenching her arm. She yapped but kept at him, fingers turning into claws and eyes blazing with ire.

  Stephen looked back at his brother. “Are you just going to sit there?”

  The wrangling would have been laughable if it weren’t so tragic, but Stephen had the princess of France well in hand, even if it required brutish strength along with a great deal of head-bobbing and body-lurching. Drake said pleasantly, “You don’t seem to need my help.”

  “You are a bastard.”

  “If I am, then so are you, dear brother.”

  With a bone-breaking twist, Stephen disarmed the woman and flung her from the saddle. She fell hard against the wooden planks of the bridge, the wind knocked out of her. Smiling grimly, he dismounted and confiscated her weapon. Regarding it and then her, he surmised whether she was a sheep in wolf’s clothing or a formidable opponent. Having made up his mind, he calmly swiped blood from his cheek and swabbed it across her comely though scowling face.

  Other riders milled around to see what the excitement was about. Some sniggered lightly. Others, unimpressed, grumbled. Still others laughed heartily.

  When at last Alais regained her breath, she did not surrender lightly. Instead she launched a scuffle bred of stubbornness, which Stephen was only too glad to accommodate. Shoving her to the flat of her back, he straddled her torso and tightened his fist around her pale and delicate throat. She kicked her feet and threw out her arms, landing several effective blows. Stephen ignored the insults, painful as they might have been, and increased the pressure. Under the chokehold, she was succumbing by degrees. The once rosy face paled. The once pretty eyes faded. The once shapely lips grimaced. She let out a final gasp, fluttered long eyelashes a final time, and went utterly limp, legs athwart and hands turned up.

  “Enough, Stephen. The king won’t like it.”

  Stephen glanced up. “Which one?”

  “Both.”

  He conceded the wisdom of his brother’s advice and opened his hand, and just as he did, something snapped. The noise seemed insignificant at first, like the splintering of an oak branch or the clap of far-distant thunder. The hammering repeated. Repeated again.

  Drake looked around for the source but found none, only the curious alertness of everyone else. The crunching wasn’t merely a sound. It was a vibration, a shudder, a shiver that threw him and the steed beneath him off balance. The palfrey whickered, shook his head, stamped his hoofs. Shouting went up. Horses bucked. Men scrambled for safety.

  Drake met his brother’s eyes and saw alarm in them.

  The rumbling increased in volume. The river churned. A tremor traveled the length of the bridge like a galloping horse. Someone cried out. Other voices joined in. A chorus of voices wailed in terror. The bridge visibly began to sway. Wood creaked. Something heavy settled with a lurch followed by a sickening thrust. The bridge let off a final groan, low-pitched and mournful.

  Everything happened at once. Panic took hold. Horses bolted willy-nilly, throwing off riders and bowling over men. The railing broke apart and splashed into the river. Seeing a way out, many jumped into the waters. Others were tossed aside like so much wreckage and waste.

  Only then did Drake understand the magnitude. Under the weight of men, horses, and wagons, the bridge was collapsing.

  Stephen rolled onto his back. In a sluggish pile of arms and legs, the would-be assassin followed, the two locked together in a death grip. Stretching out a hand, Drake tried to reach them, but with a dying gasp, the bridge heaved. The distance separating twin from twin widened. Stephen took a last look at his brother before pylons gave way and the bridge began to sink, taking on water and regurgitating mangled bodies.

  A final explosion thrust the middle of the bridge upward like a rising pyramid and sent the far sections sinking beneath crushing weight. Stephen splashed into the stygian river, taking with him as bride to groom Alais de Capét, comtesse of Vexin, princess of France, and king’s future queen.

  * * *

  Stephen fought rescue. Fought the clamp beneath his chin and the wrenching grasp beneath his armpit. Fought being trawled through the tumescent waters. Fought being hoisted onto dry land. Even fought the heeled palms bearing down on his ribs. But when the need to fight came to an end, he turned his head and disgorged river water from his lungs.

  After climbing off his brother, Drake crawled onto all fours and ejected his own share of the Rhône, then gave into feebleness and crumpled, huffin
g in choking gasps. Lying prone on the ground, unable to move a muscle, he croaked, “Who taught you to swim? Because whoever did, did a damnably poor job.”

  Stephen opened his eyes. “You,” he rasped.

  “I feared you would say that.”

  Slumped beside Drake, waterlogged the same as his masters, Devon was engaged in his own coughing fit.

  “Where is …?” Stephen said, looking about.

  Drake nudged his head. “On the other side of you.”

  Stephen shifted sluggishly and beheld Alais. Her eyes were sealed shut. Her face was pasty. She looked like death. But the heaving of her chest said she was very much alive. With a weak arm, he pushed her onto her back. Arms and legs gracefully unfolded. Water rose in a gush from her peevish mouth. She coughed her way to consciousness. Her pale blue eyes opened to narrow slits and blinked skyward.

  From the towering height of his stallion, Richard looked down on her lovely face. A voice, even-tempered and sonorous, said, “Alais, my sweet wife-to-be.”

  Chapter 32

  AMIDST MUTED SHRIEKS, Chauvigny, Fors, and Béthune ushered Alais into the king’s pavilion. Cloaked into anonymity, she was about as cooperative as a water snake.

  Arriving belatedly, the king’s marshal entered the tent, squinting in the unaccustomed darkness. He looked toward the king for direction.

  Richard marched to and fro, a cyclone of pique. “You shall soon learn all,” he said to Clarendon. At his gesture, Devon closed the flaps for privacy.

  Checking his wrath, the king approached his bride-to-be and stood before her. Calculation etched his brow. Malevolence marked his expression. With aforethought but not restraint, he struck her across her scowling face as a man would strike a man in a brawl. The force catapulted her into the arms of the marshal, who clasped her about the waist and broke her fall. She moaned miserably, head bowed and eyes shut against the pain.

  When she had been near to death at the bottom of the river, perhaps she had seen the great void, witnessed the hellish fires, and returned forthwith. Perhaps she saw her fate etched in stone, including the day and manner of her death. Perhaps she saw her past spread out behind her like a vast barren plain. Perhaps she beheld all of these imaginings—past, present, and future—or none at all. Whatever her visions, she had seen the end draw nigh, only to be slammed back to the here and now with the vicious cuff of a man’s broad hand.

  The slap reverberated yet, and when she finally regained her wits, Alais de Capét gave Richard her sauciest look of approbation and rubbed the bruise on her cheek, already mottling with assorted colors. On the verge of speaking, shouting, or flinging out invectives, she was stopped by the enraged face of the man she had known for a lifetime and wisely held her tongue. Brandishing a truculent flourish borne of a lifetime of practice, she took possession of a stool, flung off her mantle, and shook out her tangled hair. The wet gown accentuated the rise of her nipples. She knew it and mindfully chose to reveal all, assuming a posture that accentuated the assets of a woman in the prime of her life. Let the king drool, was written on her face. Let him stink in his own vices. Thrusting out her proud chin, she awaited judgment.

  Alais Capét was as mad as the moon and just as unfathomable.

  Devon helped the king off with his shirts of mail. Flexing his shoulders from the reduced weight, Richard knelt before Stephen, who sat on a cot. The king bracketed the knight’s head gently between his massive hands and held the slashed cheekbone up to the light.

  Stephen protested. “You needn’t …”

  “I need, and I shall.” He called for Auxerre wine, and producing a clean cloth, personally, as a squire to his knight, cleaned the wound with care while Drake hovered protectively nearby. Stephen winced but did not flinch, that is until Richard found the gash in his scalp, at which point he yelped despite the brave front he had put up until now. Scavenging for other damage, the king felt for and found the knob, half as big as his fist, at the back of Stephen’s skull. He ordered a wineskin filled, not with spirits but with cold river water.

  Stephen said, “Begging milord’s pardon, but I’ve had my fill of river water.”

  “It’s not meant for imbibing, but as to that ….” Richard placed a goblet brimming with wine into Stephen’s still-trembling hands. Then he shook out a woolen blanket and dropped it around the shivering shoulders of his courageous knight.

  The king brought over a stool and sat. Drake took up his brother’s side. The remaining knights made do with bandaging their own badges of honor, superficial as they turned out to be, and remained standing in order to better guard Alais against escape and against the king’s person.

  Now that she had Richard’s undivided attention, the princess of France threatened excommunication, she threatened retribution, she threatened the might of her brother and the courage of her people.

  Richard’s chainse was damp and stained with blood, but in no way was the king otherwise discommoded. Listening impassively, he remained unimpressed. “Are you done?”

  “I’ll never be done!” she spat out, but upon beholding the king’s renewed fury, wisely descended into fretful silence.

  On the platter of his upturned palm, Drake held out the gem-studded dagger. Richard took it. His eyes alternately focused on his betrothed and the sharp weapon, which he turned over in his steady hands.

  “That dagger has killed before,” Drake said.

  Richard lifted a querulous brow.

  “Tancrede d’Évreux,” Drake said to the king, though his eyesight was fixed on Alais. “He had a rendezvous with the lady-in-waiting who died that same fateful night. Not to receive her favors but to collect the price of a well-placed arrow. She was the intermediary. Except she was already dead. Whether d’Évreux succeeded in killing the king or not, his reward was destined to be the same. Your lady could not afford to leave either alive.”

  On a spurt of rage, Richard launched the dagger. The blade skewered the center pole of the tent. Alais flinched. After staring at the dagger, she furtively guided her vision back to the king.

  “And who is your lover?” the king asked easily.

  She tossed the untamed locks over her shoulder. “Your father!” she spit out.

  Richard rose and hit her a second time across the already bruised cheek. “That is a matter of known history.” He would not be sitting again.

  She raised an unsteady hand to her cheek. “How was I to know that one day you would be king? You were such a gangly and clumsy child. And I was young. And impressionable. Your father was like a god. He took advantage of my innocence.” Quaking, the voice was convincing, but her tears were not.

  “Ma douce, you were never innocent.”

  The tears shut off. Her face screwed up. “We were all innocent. Once. In our cradles.”

  “And when my father the king left this earth and his son the king showed no signs of making you his queen …?”

  Her smile was beguiling and her eyes like iron, unflinching and cold. “I seduced his brothers.”

  “With your body? Or your brother’s army?”

  She cackled with amusement. “Being greedy and gullible, they didn’t know the difference. But if truth be known, they must prefer boys. They were not swayed by my guiles. They tried, oh how they tried. But they could not perform the way your father performed. Henry produced weak sons from his spent loins, and you are just one of the diseased products.”

  “Perhaps my brothers only feared disease.”

  Her eyes rounded on him. “Whoever has impugned my reputation shall lose his head.”

  “Sans crown, I fear.”

  Her laughter was giddy. “Richard, Richard, why didn’t you show this side before. It is ever so much fun to fence with one as cunning as I.”

  “You were able to convince John and Geoffrey of your sincerity … how?”

  She pursed her lips and crossed a leg.

  “Come, come, you are doomed in any event. Perhaps I shall go easier on you. Perhaps I will not impale your pretty
neck as I just impaled that pole.”

  After glancing at the dagger, she made a calculation and said, “Not so much how as when. They wanted to see how it would play out.”

  “Then your brother …?”

  “—Promised them whatever they wanted to hear.”

  “But shied away from using the word regicide.”

  Her eyes danced. “My, aren’t you the quick-witted king. Did you never entertain the thought yourself, my dear one? On days that ended in i? How convenient that your father succumbed to a fistula of the bowel instead of a blade to the gut.”

  “And when John and Geoffrey were occupying their idle hours measuring their heads for my crown, and Philippe was making bold promises he never intended to keep …?”

  She shrugged a shoulder. “Someone had to do something. It was amusing, actually. While you and your mother and your meddlesome knights were searching for a man, you overlooked a woman, a woman no better than one of the king’s horses. But if you must know …” She pointed. “There! There is your assassin. Your gallant knight extraordinaire. Stephen fitzAlan.”

  Stephen took Devon’s offer of the water-filled wineskin, fresh from the river, and applied it to the back of his head. His eyes, though, were fixed on Alais.

  “Stephen,” said Richard, “does not stand before the king’s sword of justice. You do.” Taking control of his temper, he went on calmly, “Who provided you with the use of the seal of France?”

  She smiled coyly. “Not the king himself?”

  Drake said, “Philippe’s chaplain.”

  “It seems, “Richard said, “Andreas Capellanus of Champagne has taken his treatise on love too much to heart. Do not flatter yourself, my dear. You were but a means to a superfluous end.”

  “As was he!” she spat out. “Do you want to hear how the good monk drooled over my thighs, how he kneaded my breasts, how he cried in my arms, how he waxed poetic about my lips? As once you did? No? These delights do not interest you?”