by Jude Chapman
They came together.
Afterwards, mumbling nonsense against his chest, she slept. He didn’t. Instead he held her close and counted the steady beats of her heart. She stayed with him until half-nones before withdrawing from his embrace and dressing. Drake watched with admiring half-slit eyes. She sent him a gift: a coy smile framed by golden tresses. She stooped beside the bed, folding her arms across the mattress and dropping her chin onto snowy limbs. “Had I known a simple lie would lead to murder ….”
“Jen?”
“Too late, too late.” She parted with a final kiss.
“What lie?”
But she was already tripping away on soft-padded shoes. Gaily, she turned and said, “Did you hear? John has wed Isabelle.” She closed the door with nary a sound.
Drake picked up the missive Jenna wanted him to deliver to the brother of the king and held it against ambient window light. The parchment was folded in a unique manner: the corners creased inward, twice, and the binding cord sealed with purple wax and stamped with the matrix of her personal seal: G for Geneviève.
He got up. Outfitted himself for the journey to London. Tucked Jenna’s letter under his tunic. Packed up his gear. And discovered that his damascened dagger, the one given him by Richard, stolen in the Twyford Castle dungeon, and drawn out from his back not two nights past, was missing.
* * *
Drake meant to slip out unnoticed through the front portal. But Aveline, cleaning up after the family’s midday meal, had eyes in the back of her head. “Sit!”
Meekly, he entered her domain and obeyed the sharp command. She came at him with sewing shears, clicking them menacingly, and wordlessly removed the sutures from his brow. Her fingers stroked the scar. “There. Beautiful again.”
Peering at her with eyes of admiration, he said, “Whatever happened to plasters, ointments, and worthy suppuration? Not for the likes of a knight, it seems. Nay, he receives special treatment: a bad use of good wine and scarlet sutures.”
His smile produced the desired effect. She squirmed uncomfortably and glanced away, yet held her ground and swayed before him. “Getting more than her fair share of wounded knights and drunken louts, the difference between the two not especially notable, the daughter of an alewife soon learns what works and what doesn’t.”
He took her hands in his and examined the clipped fingernails and callused palms, hands of a hard-working woman yet handsome.
Her eyes lingered on his. She parted her lips as if to speak. Wrenching her hands away, she went to the cupboard and said, “You owe a month’s rent.” She slapped bread and cheese before him, followed by a goblet of mulled wine, a slice of roast, boiled greens and turnips, and one of her inimitable smirks.
“Say what you will,” Drake said. “And don’t pretend it has anything to do with rent.”
“Much good it would do.” She spun away and went back to straightening her kitchen and rearranging her stores.
He fumbled in his purse and gathered more than enough coins to cover the rent, the food, the tender loving care, and the wager lost at Hogshead Inn. The spill of silver brought her back to the trestle. She palmed the coins, counted out what was owed, and slid back the surplus.
“It’s your due.”
“I take only what’s rightfully mine, no more and no less.” Though her expression held anger, other emotions intervened: confusion, regret, embarrassment, pride. Her eyes angled toward the sack near the door. “Take it when you leave. You’ll need it on your journey to London.”
“Don’t change the subject. And don’t be shy. Own up to it. You’re put out because Jenna came to my chamber.”
Her back stiffened. She went to the postern door, which had been left open to clear out the afternoon heat, and sent it home with a bang. She kept her voice low when she said, “I would think you’d like to know why Yacob ben Yosel cancelled Stephen’s debt.”
“Weren’t we talking about Jenna?”
“We were. We are.”
“I see.”
“Well?”
He answered her. “I was led to believe Graham settled it.”
“Settled, aye! But why?” When he faltered, she said, “Because it was Stephen who talked Jenna into spreading the rumor about Maynard. About them being lovers.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t you want to know why he committed such a vile act against his brother? And why Jenna did whatever he asked of her.”
He knew the answer already. What happened in Stephen’s rented chamber was not a matter of subterfuge. Jenna wasn’t making love to her betrothed. She was making love to the brother of her betrothed, as she had made love to him many times before. “I’m the one who ought to be angry.”
She let out a wild shriek, banged one last pot, and fled from the kitchen.
He left, heaving up the sack but leaving the platter of uneaten food for the vagrant napping not far from Aveline’s postern door.
Chapter 19
DRAKE FOUND GRAHAM CROUCHED IN in front of an abandoned cottage, singing a song of lost love while picking out the tune on a battered lute. At first, he didn’t notice Drake standing in the dark nook of the woods. When he did, the lute went flying.
Drake had no trouble catching up with a man whose legs were filled with fear and aqua vitae. Graham tripped over a crevice, flopped like a mule, and landed on his belly. He scrabbled beneath Drake’s weight and clawed dirt with ragged fingernails, madly trying to get away. Drake twisted an arm against his spine. Graham howled, but not understanding he had already lost the fight before it began, swore foully and punched his free hand into the ground until finally he went limp, heaving and choking. His voice emerged from beneath his free arm, muffled and broken. “Be done with it, Drake! Do what you came to do! Stab me in the back! As I did you!”
Drake released him and rolled to his knees. “Get up. We have to talk.” He strolled back toward Graham’s makeshift hovel.
Later, sitting cross-legged before the dilapidated structure, Graham shared his wineskin. From his perch on a fallen log, Drake offered Graham a round of cheese from Aveline’s travel sack. His friend ate ravenously, every now and then stealing a look at the man he had tried to kill.
“I have come to beg a favor.”
Graham wiped his mouth with the back of a soiled hand, eyes distrustful.
“Will you watch after Jenna while I’m in London? Something’s wrong. She won’t tell me what.”
“I know what. She’s afeard of you.”
Drake chuckled lightly. “Not everyone is afraid of Drake fitzAlan.”
Acid caught in his throat. Jenna had betrayed him with his brother, sometimes innocently and other times knowingly. Despite the game they played in the aerie—where they recounted all the times they had been intimate—Jenna deftly avoided mentioning the instances when she and Stephen had been together. “No, it’s something else.”
Graham washed down the cheese. “You would trust me then? With Jenna?”
Acid turned to bile. The two people he loved most in this world had stolen from Drake everything he knew to be true. It was hard enough to swallow without also suspecting Stephen was up to his neck in other chicanery, the kind of chicanery that had brought havoc down on their family, left three friends dead, and Drake on the run. “You’re still Graham de Lacy? The lad who taught me how to filch goods from the shopkeepers and run as though the Devil was at my back?”
He smiled wistfully. “That lad no longer exists.”
Drake studied his hands. They were the hands of a man, strong enough to fight yet graceful enough to caress a woman. “She took my dagger.”
“The one I put into your back?” Graham laughed and cocked his head, appreciating the irony, until his face grew serious. “There must be a reason for Jenna to be so fearful.”
“What is this place?” Drake circled his vision at the squalid hovel and the years of overgrowth that had nearly displaced it. “We used to play hereabouts, I know, but ….”
“Saracens and Crusaders.
” Graham smiled, remembering. “I lived here once, with my mother. Until Lord de Lacy acknowledged me as his son on condition she leave the county and never see me again.”
“You’re not saying you’re a—?”
“Bastard? Aye, through and through.” He tipped back his head and drank. A rueful look came to his face along with a smile of remembrance. “I was but three or four when I came to live at the manor. Lord de Lacy already had eight legitimate sons and daughters, all of them devils. Another child in their midst blended in with hardly a blink. I never saw my mother again. June last, I brought a lass here. Seeing that one too many de Lacy bastards live hereabouts, I had her get rid of the babe. She bled to death. In there.” He cocked his head toward the shack. “The old woman gave her too much ergot. The Devil stood side-by-side with me that long night.” He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to wipe away the memory. “The story about Maynard using a lass roughly? ’Twasn’t true. I’m the one who put the girl and her babe into the river and spread the story about that it was Maynard’s doing. Woe unto Maynard. Woe unto me ….”
Though the sun was unwelcome in this sequestered niche of the woods, the circle of trees with the creek streaming nearby was a pleasant refuge, the aromatic scent of wildflowers peaceful and the rustling of nature comforting. Drake gazed down at his laced fingers. “What happened to the tribute money?”
“The what?” Graham’s eyes emerged from a troubled reverie. “You heard about that, did you? We paid our debts and divided the remaining lucre among ourselves. My share is yet hidden. I don’t know what happened to the rest.”
“Whoever killed Maynard, Rufus, and Seward does. He’s looking for it. He wants it for himself.”
The revelation was too much for Graham. “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. But the wolf rose up and destroyed the lamb and the kid and the calf. A child led them, each and every one, to their doom … Graham de Lacy … baseborn and weak.” He shook his head with regret and looked up at Drake. “Did you know Lord de Lacy covered my gambling debts? Erased them as if they never existed? As if I never existed? Of course you didn’t. I wasn’t to know of it either. Disgrace is one commodity in short supply at the de Lacy manor, by edict of its munificent lord. To set himself above the rest, he put me in charge of collecting the so-called tribute but failed to explain the true purpose. Maynard, Rufus, Seward, and I, we were led to believe it was a special scutage sanctioned by the sheriff’s office. To put the stamp of authority on it, he recruited Drogo. And I, in my bitterness, set out to prove Lord Robert de Lacy the most heartless man in England.” He hugged his bent knees. “When Maynard found out we meant to filch the silver for our own purses, he wanted no part of it. I laughed at him. Dear God, I laughed at him.”
“And Stephen?” Drake asked.
“What of him?”
“He racked up a debt, same as the rest, didn’t he?”
The assertion raised Graham’s hackles. “What if he did?”
Someone settled his debts.
He reddened. “Your …” He stopped himself and then went on. “Your … father … asked me to. The fitzAlans … they’re … you’re proud men, aren’t you?”
“Aye. True enough.”
Graham capped the wineskin and stood. Drake stood with him. “I’ll see Jenna comes to no harm. With my life, if need be. You have my pledge.”
Before Drake rode away on Stephen’s palfrey, Graham pulled Drake’s garnet ring from his finger and held it out to its rightful owner. Drake pushed his hand away, saying, “As payment, and a token of our friendship.”
A shudder ran through Graham. “Wait.” Slipping into the hovel, he quickly returned and slapped a leather purse into Drake’s upturned palm.
A respectable weight in silver coins filled the pouch. Acknowledging Graham’s gesture with an unspoken nod, he tucked the booty inside his tunic and reached down. They clasped hands above the wrists and locked arms in a solid grip.
“It was because the fates favored you,” Graham explained, baring his soul. “Because you favored by King Richard. And because I saw you as a rival instead of a friend. That is why I was willing to believe the worst of Drake fitzAlan and overlook my own sins. God forgive me ….”
~ End Game ~
The stage of the game played where a greatly reduced number of pieces are left on the chessboard.
Saturday, the 2nd of September, in the Year of Grace 1189
Chapter 20
“DRAKE, MON CHER,” QUEEN ELEANOR said.
As he knelt before her, Drake choked. Alais Capét, the sister of King Philippe of France and Richard’s betrothed, had escorted him to the uppermost level of Palatine Castle and announced him as Stephen.
The queen continued. “Richard is indisposed and John is hunting some-such prey, but I trust my presence will suffice.”
Because the London road had been crowded with travelers coming for the king’s coronation, it took three days of riding to cover the distance. Arriving midday, he rode straight for the Tower and directly tried to gain admittance to John. As Eleanor just confirmed, the prince was unavailable. He was fingering Jenna’s note, ready to hand it over to John’s secretary, when Alais intercepted him.
“Indeed, Milady,” he said, and kissed her hand.
Though sixty-seven years of age, the queen dowager of England—la reine douairière—was remarkably well preserved and uncommonly youthful, in part due to the wimple shrouding her white hair and lined neck, but the rest relying on fortitude and enduring beauty. Confined and guarded, forbidden her sovereign liberty, refused the comforts of her position, denied the years of her prime and the affection of her sons, she emerged from imprisonment seemingly untrammeled by sixteen years of isolation. Elegant and stately, Eleanor of Aquitaine was a grand lady, none to rival her. She held her fingers in place. “You are wondering how I read through the artifice.”
“It was the foremost question on my lips, Milady.”
Drake was not shown into a formal chamber of reception but rather the queen’s living quarters. A sweet-scented oil permeated the royal antechamber. The walls were paneled with polished maple, the floors tiled with imported marble, the windows fitted with glass, and the quarters furnished with silk hangings, carpets from the Levant, satin cushions, and embroidered tapestries. A collection of possessions surrounded her, possessions garnered and treasured over the years of her reigns, first as queen of France and then, after the annulment of her first marriage on grounds of consanguinity, queen of England. In a twist of fate, or more likely careful design, Eleanor was distantly related by blood to both her husbands, all three having descended from King Robert the Pious of France.
“Your brother Stephen knows how to wear clothes as they ought to be worn, even after travelling dusty roads for days. Sad to say, you don’t.”
“I regret appearing crude to the queen.”
“Not crude, my dear boy. Endearing. In need of guidance.” She withdrew her hand and motioned toward a nearby stool. “You may sit.”
Assisted by Eleanor’s maid Amaria, the queen’s personal seamstress had been showing her mistress an exquisite scarlet cape made of ells and ells of silk edged with sable and squirrel. A matching gown similarly trimmed completed the ensemble. Returning her attention to the dress she would undoubtedly wear for her son’s coronation, Eleanor perfunctorily approved both items with some slight alterations. Amaria and the seamstress departed on a whisper. The door closed behind them, leaving Drake alone with the queen and the princess Alais.
Her sky-blue eyes penetrating him to the core. “She was a beautiful lady, your mother. You take after her more and more, you and Stephen. A tall woman. Graceful. Pious.”
“I don’t remember her. Stephen does. Says he does.”
“Oui, she was that kind of woman, Philippia of Aquitaine. A woman to remember. You have come for the festivities?”
“I have.”
“I promise you will not be disappointed. My son the king has left the coronation in my hands. And you well know how I can entertain, sparing no expense.”
“I have had the pleasure.”
Drake’s earliest memories of the celebrated queen were of her incarceration. After King Henry took up with the fair Rosamund; after he dangled annulment before his queen; and after Eleanor joined forces with her three living sons against the king, the lady was fortified behind the impregnable walls of several castles. Nearby Sarum and Winchester Castles were among her prisons, but there were others. She was moved like so much forgotten baggage, always under guard and under suspicion, cruelly separated from gentile society, and allowed only the briefest visits from her sons, who had briefly joined with her in mutiny against their father the king and failed miserably. In recent years, Old King Henry allowed the door of his queen’s cage to be opened on occasion, and Eleanor readily took advantage of those short flights of freedom, surrounding herself with the courtly gestures of old.
Even while regarding Drake with a motherly pride, she was remembering those days when she was shut up like a canary in a cage. Indeed, how could she ever forget her removal from all those things she held dear, the comforts of castles and privilege, and the profane separation of a mother from her sons? “Do you trust he will make a good king, your liege lord?”
During those few times when Drake was brought before her, she demonstrated unceasing loyalty to her favored son Richard. Now that he was to be crowned king of England, she had achieved the crowning achievement of a lifetime fraught with hard-fought battles and deprivations. Her question appealed for either fawning sanction or a weighed response. Knowing Eleanor, she preferred the weighed response.
“He may make a great king, Milady. If he remembers he is king and not knight.”
“Ah, oui. He thinks himself immortal. He believes illness cannot harm him, arrows pierce other men’s flesh, and Death knows not his name. You and I, we know better. We shall make it our mission—shall we not?—to teach him the difference between chevalier and roi.” She arranged the skirts of her purple damask as if posing for a statue. “And how is your brother?”
