Later in the day, a Tristan was pushed through under the door. Again, despite his anger and frustration, Ian was shaken with laughter. Apparently, Sir Peter did not wish him to be bored. He had furnished a book to while away the dull hours. Only Ian’s hours were not particularly dull. He had first of all made a complete inventory of every object in both rooms. Then, in the inner chamber, safe from prying eyes, he was constructing some effective weapons from odds and ends. That was a very slow process, because the tools he was using had to be constructed from makeshifts, and also he wanted to make as little noise as possible.
His first hope for escape received a setback on the second day. Once it became clear that his detention—one could not call such gentle handling imprisonment—was to be as pleasant as possible, Ian had assumed that servants would enter to clean the rooms, empty the chamber pot, remove the soiled dishes, and perform other similar tasks. They would wait until he was asleep, Ian reasoned, or come with a strong guard. After a few visits their vigilance would relax. By then Ian was sure his weapons would be ready. He would take them by surprise and escape. However, no servant at all approached the door. It was Sir Peter’s squire who brought the dinner and told Ian that he should pass out the pot through a larger opening, which he unbolted for that purpose. The man—he was no longer a boy—gave Ian no opening for threat, pleading, or conversation. Having said his few words, he stood and waited, mouth firmly shut, until the pot came out. He took it, passed in a clean one, rebolted the opening, and hurried away.
That hope gone, Ian scoured his brain for another idea. What he came up with was to retreat to the inner chamber and refuse to come out for his food or any other purpose. He was quite certain that would bring someone, likely Sir Peter himself, to investigate. Several days were necessary to prepare for this plan. Ian had to stock food of the type that would not rot, and drink also, from the meals that were sent in. He had no intention of really weakening himself by thirst and starvation. Likely he would need to hold out for several days, because they would suspect a trick at first. Also, he had to finish his work on his weapons.
By the end of that week, Ian was ready. He was pleased with his plan, sure it would work. It had occurred to Ian that the reason no servant or man-at-arms was allowed near him was that Sir Peter did not trust his people. It also explained the luxurious confinement. As long as fine meals were carried up and served with ceremony, it would be easy to explain Ian’s absence with a tale of sickness—at least for a week or two. Ian’s own men-at-arms would be content for that long. They would assume that his squires were nursing him. That probably meant that Owain and Geoffrey were in another room on the same floor. More important, it meant that Ian only needed to win free and show himself to the men-at-arms of Clyro Hill.
The only drawback to having completed his arrangements was that it left Ian free to worry about whether he could escape before Alinor fell into the trap laid for her. An explanation of Sir Peter’s pleasure at seeing him and disappointment over Alinor’s absence had finally come to Ian. It must have been Gwenwynwyn who raised doubts of Ian’s intentions in Sir Peter. And if Sir Peter had assurance of Gwenwynwyn’s support and his willingness to take Sir Peter’s oath as a vassal, then Sir Peter would not fall into John’s hands when Alinor and Ian died. The logic was good. The timing was right. After a few days of “sickness”, Sir Peter would naturally send to inform Alinor that her husband was not well. Alinor would come, catch the “sickness”, both would die of it, and the boys—Geoffrey and Owain—would be hostages to protect Sir Peter and Gwenwynwyn from Llewelyn and the king. Ian closed his eyes and tried to push the frightening thoughts away. Perhaps Alinor was so angry that she would not come. Perhaps she was sufficiently suspicious of Sir Peter—
“My lord.”
Ian opened his eyes and turned his head slowly, but he did not move from the chair. He would not come closer to the door and allow Sir Peter to see how his complexion had changed, or lift his arms and display how his hands trembled. Sir Peter’s voice at the door could only mean that his plan was useless. It was too late. If Alinor had come to harm— Madness curled in the black depths of Ian’s mind.
“My lord, I am passing your arms and armor in to you. When you are ready, I will come in naked. I beg you to let me live long enough to explain what has happened. After that, you may do with me as you will.”
Surprise held Ian frozen as he watched his hauberk being pushed in under the door through the opening that was large enough for a pot but not large enough for a man. Next came his swordbelt and his scabbarded weapons. When he made no move to seize them, a pole was used to push them further in and away to the side where Ian would be relatively safe from an arrow shot.
“It is no trick,” Sir Peter said pleadingly. “I will tell you through the door if you do not wish me to come in. I only desire that you be less angry so that you will understand what I say.”
“Where is Lady Alinor?” Ian asked.
“I do not know, my lord. I thought sure she would be here already. The first night, a messenger came for you, and I turned him away. I thought, since it was known you were here, that would bring her in haste without need for me to write any threats or lies.”
It sounded like the truth. Ian should have felt relief, but he was swamped by pain. It seemed incredible that Alinor should hate him so much that she would not even send some men to discover what had happened to him. Two weeks, nearly two weeks, and not even a letter to Sir Peter to ask—
“Please, my lord,” Sir Peter pleaded, “please listen. Because—”
“Where are my squires?”
“Here, my lord, well cared for. I would send them in to you, but I am afeared they will do themselves some hurt in their rage. My lord, you may come out, if only you will promise not to leave the keep until you listen to me. We are besieged.”
“By whom?”
“Lord Gwenwynwyn. I am a fool! Doubly and triply duped!” Sir Peter cried. “I deserve whatever will befall me, for I have violated my whole life’s beliefs to buy safety for my children, and instead I have purchased death and dishonor for myself and beggary for them.” Ian finally rose from his chair and walked over to pick up and draw his sword. He pulled his eating knife from its sheath and struck the sword blade sharply. It rang true—sweet, mellow, and sustained. No one had tampered with the temper of the steel. Ian turned toward the door.
“Come in and tell your tale, if you will.”
“Will you pass your word that you will let me finish before you kill me?”
“I will not.”
There was a little silence. Sir Peter’s face disappeared from the barred window. Ian did not care. He was so confused, so torn between relief that Alinor was not in danger and hurt because she was indifferent to his life or death that he desired only to be alone to untangle his emotions. Solitude was not to be his, however. He heard a heavy sob, and then the sound of the bars being lifted from the door. It was pulled open, and Ian could see the room beyond was completely empty. Before he could wonder whether this was a trick in which he was to be “killed in battle”, Sir Peter entered the room. True to his word, he was wearing no more than a house gown; even the sheath of his eating knife was empty.
At first he paused near the door, seemingly bracing his courage. Then he walked slowly toward Ian. “I pray you let me help you to arm,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because I believe we will soon be assaulted. I was taken completely by surprise. I had barely enough time to close the gates, and they must know this. They will try to take us as soon as they can form and bring up their ladders and machines. I do not wish my keep to fall into the hands that have led me to my destruction. Someone must lead the men. If I am dead— But I am going backward about my tale.”
“Where are my shield and helmet?”
“Just without the door. Listen—”
“Show me where my squires are.”
“My lord, time is of the essence, and—”
Ian started
to walk toward the door. Sir Peter uttered another sob and followed, pointing wordlessly to a second chamber with a closed door. A table stood outside, and on it lay a key. Ian unlocked the door and swung it open. Before he could step either inside or aside, both boys had launched themselves upon him. He staggered back and would have fallen had not Sir Peter caught him.
“Owain! Geoffrey!”
The sound of his voice froze them. They lowered the makeshift weapons they held and stared. Geoffrey burst into tears and embraced him. Owain stood panting. His hand half lifted the candlestick he bore, and his lips writhed back in a snarl when his eyes fell on Sir Peter.
“Not now, Owain,” Ian warned. “Go below—cautiously. Do not go too far from the stair at first, so that you may come up again in haste if you are pursued. If you are greeted easily, go find your armor and Geoffrey’s and bring it here. Also—” Ian turned toward Sir Peter. “Where are my men-at-arms?”
“Two nights ago I put them out of the keep. I did them no hurt. They had their arms and their horses.”
Ian passed a hand across his face. “I do believe you are quite mad,” he said amazedly.
“I do believe it also,” Sir Peter muttered.
“They have been with me long,” Ian pointed out. “Did you not realize they would fly either to my lady or to my vassals to seek succor for me?”
“Your vassals? I did not think of that. I was sure the Welshmen would run to Lord Llewelyn.”
Ian’s mouth opened to ask another question. Then he shook his head. “Go, Owain. Geoffrey, you come with me and help me arm. You also, Sir Peter. And I think you had better begin this tale of yours before I run mad.”
“When Lady Alinor sent me word of her second marriage,” Sir Peter began dully, “I was well pleased. I loved Sir Simon well, but his long illness left us with nowhere to turn for help. Lady Alinor would do what she could, but she was tied to her husband’s side in his illness. Here on the borders of Wales it is often the knowledge that a strong man will come, rather than his actual coming, that keeps the peace. Soon upon that time, Lord Gwenwynwyn and I went for a hunt, and I asked him if he knew you. He was nowise pleased at my news—now I see it; then I did not. He spoke great praise of you, but he told me, too, that you were clan brother to Lord Llewelyn. I do not know how it came about, but he made it clear to me that you were a close party to Llewelyn’s desire to eat all of Wales.”
Ian’s hauberk was on, and Geoffrey was buckling his sword belt. “No,” he said shortly. “And not because I do not love Llewelyn or that I do not think Wales would do better under him as master. It is because I know the Angevins too well. If Llewelyn unifies Wales under his rule, John will fall upon him with all the strength of England—and I will be torn apart between my two liege lords. But that is beside the point. Why should you care if Llewelyn ruled Wales?”
“Because,” replied Sir Peter, “I was given to understand that to rule Wales, the first step must be to draw Gwenwynwyn into battle, and what better way to do that than to set a man in Clyro Keep who would offend Gwenwynwyn?”
“You thought Lady Alinor would agree to this?”
“I believed she would obey you. At your wedding, she could look on no one else than you nor hear what any man other than you spoke. And when she came here, she near killed me when I barely—”
It was true, Alinor had come to him eagerly, Ian thought, Sir Peter’s voice a meaningless mumble in the background. She had loved him eagerly. They had a month of nearly perfect joy. Quarrels, yes. It was impossible to live with Alinor without quarreling, but they had always ended laughing—or in making love. What had happened? Sir Peter’s voice continued to drone on, and Ian caught enough of what he said to realize that his guesses about the man’s intentions were close to right. He had been wrong only in believing Sir Peter disloyal to Alinor. Distracted as he was by wondering what was different in the quarrel after the tourney than in all the other quarrels, Ian could not make out the muddled reasoning by which Sir Peter decided he would prove to Alinor that her husband’s plan of yielding Clyro Hill to Llewelyn’s vassal was dangerous.
“And then,” Sir Peter said, his voice wavering, “everything went wrong. Lady Alinor did not come. Instead Lord Gwenwynwyn has brought an army. He sent me a message—such a message as I never thought could be addressed to me. I—”
“Lord!” Owain hurried in carrying his and Geoffrey’s armor and weapons. “Lord, no one in the keep knows aught of what has happened! When I came down, all the servants cried out to ask if you were well enough to join the battle. They thought you were confined with sickness and that we were nursing you. They were told not to come up for fear of contagion. They believe that Jamie and the men have gone to fetch your lady to you. The servants and the men-at-arms have no thought of this beast’s treachery.”
“Gently, Owain,” Ian soothed. “Do not pass judgment before you know the whole. Arm yourself and Geoffrey and go out upon the walls to see the preparations there. Also see, if you can, what preparations the enemy makes. And tell me, how were you fed and kept in that room if the servants were ignorant of this?”
“Three men came once a day armed with pikes. They held us off, two of them pinning us to the wall, while the third left the food and water and brought in clean chamber pots.”
“That was why we fell upon you, my lord,” Geoffrey explained eagerly. “When we saw we could not fight them, Owain and I pretended fear. We clung together, making no attempt to escape or wrest the pikes from them. We thought, sooner or later, they would become incautious. When the door opened, and we saw two unarmed men—”
“Well thought and well done,” Ian approved. “It was the only chance you had. Now hurry to make ready. This is like to be an ugly battle. Oh, be sure to look upon the walls for those who—”
“They are not here,” Sir Peter interrupted. His tone was indifferent with hopelessness. “It was my own squires—grown men now but with nowhere to go but my service—and my wife’s brother. I sent them out before I released you, my lord. I would not have them die also for my fault.”
Ian said no more, but his eyes signaled Owain to look anyway. Although he believed Sir Peter, he would not dismiss the chance that this was all arranged so that he would “die in battle”. He turned back to Sir Peter.
“What said this message from Gwenwynwyn?”
A faint color rose into Sir Peter’s gray face, a small signal of the shame and wrath he would have felt if all emotion had not been deadened by despair. “It offered me three choices. The first was to kill you and send out your squires as prisoners into his hands. If I did this, I would not have to open my keep to him. He would take me as vassal, he promised, and protect me both from Llewelyn’s wrath and the king’s. If I did not like the idea that your squires would cry aloud of my treachery, I could have a second choice. I could kill you all three. If I made this choice, however, I must yield the keep to him, since for our own safety it must seem as if you died in battle.”
“He did not explain how such seeming would be supported? And the third choice?”
“War—” Sir Peter’s eyes, which had been steadfastly fixed upon his own lax hands or upon the floor, at last lifted to Ian’s. “You never intended to drive me out, did you?”
“Of course not, you fool! What sort of idiot do you think I am to be the instrument of beginning a war in which Llewelyn had a right to summon me, which might rage for years, bringing in the king—who also has a right to summon me! To which would I go?”
Sir Peter shrugged. “Lord Gwenwynwyn has played me like a poor fish.” He sighed, and his eyes dropped to the floor again. “My tale is done, and I am done also.” Clumsily, like a man whose muscles protest against what his mind forces upon them, Sir Peter knelt. Ian looked down at him. A single blow of the sword he carried bare in his hand would solve the problem of a disloyal castellan. But was the man disloyal? Stupid, yes, but death seemed an excessive punishment for stupidity, especially in this case. Lord Gwenwynwyn was by no means stu
pid; he was a very clever and devious man. He had known exactly how to play this poor fish.
Besides, Ian thought, how could he explain their leader’s death to the men-at-arms who would, within hours probably, need to fight a much stronger force? They believed he had been sick. Their faith would be sorely shaken if Sir Peter suddenly disappeared, as well as his squires and brother-in-law. Had the man planned this? Was Sir Peter a clever archvillain rather than a poor fish? Ian looked down at him. He could not believe it. There was nothing, nothing even to hint at such brilliant deviousness. The chances Sir Peter had taken, was taking at this moment, were far too great. After all, had Ian been stupid, he would have killed him out of hand. “I beg you, my lord, strike,” Sir Peter pleaded, shaking with dry sobs. “I have done you a great wrong, but is my life not payment enough? Do not torture me.”
“Oh, stand up, you ass,” Ian exclaimed irritably, “and stop making me out as much of a fool as you. Do you think I would kill you now, just before a battle? Every sword will be needed if we are to beat off this foe.”
“What?”
“Get up, I say, and arm yourself,” Ian repeated. “We are all like to die because of your stupidity, but I am not going to sell my life cheaper by even one fighter. You got us into this coil. Now do what you can to get us out of it.”
“My lord, my lord,” Sir Peter cried, seizing Ian’s hand and kissing it fervently. “You will not regret your mercy, I promise you. I—”
Alinor Page 48
