by Jude Chapman
Like a true brother, Stephen kept up drink for drink. He was past hurting. Drake was not. Hence, he said it. “The day before I rode for London, Jenna asked me to deliver a note to court. Folded at four corners, twice, and sealed with a G for Geneviève. And took me to bed in gratitude, thinking I was you.”
The words slowly penetrated his brother’s mind. A flash of lightning exposed his milky orbs. “God’s eyes, she didn’t!”
Drake had no mercy left in his heart, not even for the span of three breaths. “I protected you. Ask me how.”
Stephen was slow to say, “How?”
“I told the sheriff Graham was the murderer. Not in so many words, but ….”
Stephen held his breath. “And is he?”
“Brother mine, you killed Maynard, and after rescuing me, went back and finished off Seward and Rufus.” Drake took a long drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his steady hand. “Did someone reward you for that? Or was your reward their share of the booty?”
Stephen sat up. “What do you take me for?”
“A murderer. A profligate. A deviant.”
“You … you must be mad.”
Lightning sketched denizens of the dark across the ceiling. “Drogo’s death was curious since we never went about with him. But then I remembered he was part of the gang of thieves extracting tribute money from our fathers.” He looked askance at his brother. “When he was killed along with two other dragoons, I thought you were in Chinon. As it turned out, you weren’t.”
Thunder struck nearby. Stephen started. Drake did not.
“Jenna didn’t spread the rumor about Maynard. You did. That’s why Graham settled your account with the Jew. Dead men tell no tales. Your one mistake, leaving Graham alive. Or is he dead, too, by now?”
“He ran off before I got the chance to eviscerate him.” Glibness echoed in Stephen’s voice but dread dwelt in his heart. “But I will. Mark my words, I will.”
“Outside the palace, you pointed me out to two cutpurses who stole Jenna’s missive. Then you dispatched them to kill her at the aerie. For you knew where it was—Didn’t you?—since you and she went there.”
“I ….” Stephen couldn’t speak to his own defense.
“John may have known, I suppose. But he likes featherbeds too much and wouldn’t soil his finery in a cave, even to bed a woman as beautiful as Jenna. As it turned out, those cutthroats also knew where to find Yacob ben Yosel.” Drake turned his head. “You’ve been very busy, passing on information hither and thither. How much were you paid? Did John curry your favors himself? Or did he use an emissary? Did you know he was Jenna’s lover, too? Is that the real reason you spread the rumor? To protect our cousin?”
“Do you know what you’re accusing me of?’”
“Graham was convinced I was a murderer. Me. Or you. How did he put it? Stephen or Drake, Drake or Stephen, what does it matter which whoreson you are? In his mind, a hanging was justified. In my mind, too. His only mistake was singling out the wrong fitzAlan brother.”
“Why would I commit such horrible acts?”
“You wanted the silver, as much as you could get your hands on, didn’t matter the source. Because you couldn’t abide it!” He banged his fist on the floor. “You couldn’t stomach that I stood to inherit Itchendel!”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“You did your best to impoverish William. And through him, me.” His head nodded up and down, up and down, making him dizzy. “First with dicing. Then by extorting your own father. Our father. You hate William. You’ve always hated him. For favoring me.”
Stephen shuddered. He lowered his forehead into an encompassing hand and stared at the floor.
“I can see you bringing Graham to Itchendel with you for backbone when you went to collect the scutage.” Drake’s ears were buzzing. Everything was bright and white and spinning. “But Drogo?”
“Drogo,” Stephen spit out. “I wouldn’t let Drogo step one foot inside Itchendel. That’s why ….” He stopped and bit his lower lip.
Drake lifted his head. “Crist’s pain! You couldn’t even do that right. You didn’t pick a fight with Drogo. He picked a fight with you. For insulting him.”
Even Stephen had to laugh.
“But you didn’t stop there, did you, with the coin you filched off William. Straightaway you gambled away the garnet ring.”
“By Crist’s passion, Drake. I’m your brother!”
“Who watched his brother get beaten to pith and marrow. Poor Stephen. Always too late to the party. I’m not surprised. Truly, I’m not.” Drake drank from the cup, the wine dribbling down his chin and staining his chainse like blood. “I can almost forgive the greed, the jealousy. I can almost understand. The murders, maybe you were protecting yourself. Maybe it was you or them. But not for a moment did I think you were so depraved as to mutilate men and hack off their manhood!”
Stephen went for his throat.
They were a matched pair in everything that signified. In weight, height, build, and strength, but especially in pride and temper.
Drake kicked his brother’s haunches out from under him. Stephen toppled like a Stonehenge slab but not before dragging Drake down with him. Drake scrambled away on all fours. Stephen grabbed a leg, put it into a bone-crunching hold, and then grappled farther up, trapping an arm. Drake twisted onto his side, relieving the pressure. Stephen repositioned his hands, and sought and found a more secure hold. One-handed, Drake dug fingers into his twin’s arm, but Stephen applied a wrenching torque, and Drake cried out. Drake reached again, groping for a hold, and trapped one of Stephen’s legs. Stephen shot out his free leg and kicked his brother in the gut. Drake rolled backwards. His leg came free but not his arm. He punched both legs out in tandem and struck the table. A flagon of wine tilted and smashed Stephen over the head. Pottery shards broke away and wine sluiced his face.
The storm raged outside, wind-lashed and tempestuous, but no worse than the turbulence indoors.
Drake seized Stephen’s arm and twisted it behind his back. Struggling to break the hold, Stephen yowled and kicked. Drake increased the tension, intent on breaking bone or dislocating joint. Stephen’s face turned an even more ghastly white. He pounded his free hand into the floor, seeking relief, then sent it laterally, slicing Drake across the side. They rolled over each other. Stephen landed on top of Drake, who tenaciously hung on to his brother’s arm. Stephen whipped out his unfettered arm and grappled the leg of the table, tipping it off base. The top’s hard edge struck Drake’s shoulder. The shooting pain opened his hand.
Stephen heaved himself to his feet. “Enough!” he yelled. Overhead, a clap of thunder drowned out the word.
Drake found his breath and growled, using the momentum to propel himself at his brother’s shins. Stephen crashed onto his back, shooting headfirst out the door. Together they hurled down the wheel staircase, falling rumble-tumble and crashing to the bottom.
Aveline’s family roused themselves from sleep and bounded below stairs after the brothers.
Grabbing Stephen’s hair, Drake beat his skull against the wall. Blood splattered in a circle. Stephen’s eyes glazed over. Aveline screamed for Drake to stop. Her screams went unheard. Stephen reached into his boot, brought out a poniard, and blindly struck out. Drake grabbed his wrist and bent it backwards. Stephen cried out. The blade dropped harmlessly. Drake took the poniard and drove the blade straight toward his twin’s chest.
Another hand, not Stephen’s, one bigger and stronger than either brother’s, grabbed his arm and squeezed. The weapon fell, clanking against the floor. Drake spun around. It was Da, the head of Aveline’s family, invigorated like a young’un. He yelled something Drake didn’t catch. Then Drake saw Aveline, flattened against a wall, scared and crying; but not for herself; for him. He saw himself reflected in her eyes. The warped image belonged to a stranger.
Thunder struck twice in rapid succession. And Stephen ran.
Drake chased him into t
he kitchen. Stephen was trying to get away. At his back, one after another, Drake threw a skillet, a pan, a pot, anything he could lay his hands on. Stephen staggered. Stephen’s blood-spattered hand reached for the door. He had his fingers on the bar. A cauldron clipped him at the base of his skull. He went down like a wet rag. Finding a kitchen knife in his hand, Drake raised it over his brother’s back. Something struck him on the head. His skull clanged like a bell. He collapsed next to Stephen, gazing blearily up.
Holding a skillet above her head, Aveline was prepared to use it again.
Twin brothers crawled weakly over the cluttered floor, drunk with drink, drunk with passion, drunk with injuries. Drake retched and made a mess of himself.
“Don’t you understand?” Aveline yelled.
“I understand he betrayed me! I understand he’s a murderer!”
“Think of what you’re saying!” she said. “Once you’ve said the words, you can never take them back!”
Stephen shouted, “He doesn’t … he’ll never … he won’t understand!”
“Then tell him! Tell him so he does.”
Stephen braced himself against the postern door. Drake propped himself against a cupboard and held a rag reeking of leeks to his head.
“I … I only wanted to pay off the debts,” Stephen said, gasping. “I told Graham … when we came back from Itchendel … I didn’t want any part of the tribute money, William’s or anyone else’s. Graham and the others, they wanted to keep it. Going to Itchendel, it was my one and only foray. I stayed outside. I didn’t have the courage. Everything William gave Graham went to the Jew, all of it. I made him take it. I didn’t want to soil my hands.” He laughed as if crazed. “I didn’t know the tribute was meant to pay off the loans. Ironic, wouldn’t you say?” He laughed again, and then stopped laughing on a sob. “Paying off the debt … it had nothing to do with the rumor.”
The worst of the storm was moving off, leaving behind rain that drummed the roof.
“I never killed. How could you believe I killed? Or mutilated? Or betrayed Jenna? You’ve known me all my life.”
Of course, Drake didn’t believe. He feared. Beyond reason, he feared. “You betrayed me with Jenna!”
“I loved Jenna!” His voice broke. “Why shouldn’t I love her? How could I not love her?”
Silence became their companion, spread like a cancer into their souls, and divided two brothers, turning a whole into two incomplete halves.
Stephen broke the silence. “I would die without you, Drake. I would cease to exist. I might walk and talk, and eat and sleep, but I’d be a dead man all the same. What you love, I love. What you hate, I hate. That’s the truth of what you are to me.”
Drake drew up his knees and lowered his head onto crossed arms. Silence reaffirmed itself.
Clambering painfully to his feet, Stephen made a hopeless gesture and started to leave. Not to go upstairs but out the door. His hand was already wrapped around the handle when Drake clapped him on the shoulder. Stephen twisted around. When he saw wetness tracking down the plains of Drake’s face, tears filled his own eyes.
“And,” said Drake, “that is the truth of what you are to me.”
They fell into each other’s arms, neither able to stand on his own, both needing the other for support. They cried, over their lost innocence, their lost childhood, their lost carefree days, and their lost beloved—Jenna—whom they loved equally.
* * *
The brothers came to mindfulness with a sudden, startling chill. Aveline had doused each with a basin of cold water. They swore at her in equal measure. Stephen lay spread-eagle on the bed. Drake replicated his brother’s position, but on the floor. After the initial shock subsided, Stephen returned to blissful senselessness while Drake contemplated the advantages of paralysis.
Aveline stood above him in a blurred portrait of riled womanhood. His cotton-dry mouth managed to croak something that came out halfway intelligibly. “What poison did you put in your brew?”
After their bruising reconciliation, the fitzAlan brothers insisted on further drowning their sorrows by drinking themselves into forgetfulness. The wine had been consumed down their gullets and in the fight. So they paid for, in hard coin, a quantity of ale that achieved the aim just as well.
“The usual. A bit of this, a little of that. Henbane, nightshade, hemlock. Why is it you’re not dead?”
“Whoever claims I’m not is a filthy liar.”
“What you need is a tisane of barley, betony, and vervain boiled together, wrapped in a cloth, and laid on your forehead. After that and twelve jugs of water, you ought to recover around compline.”
“And if I don’t follow your remedy?”
“You ought to recover around compline.”
He laughed. It made him all the more sick to laugh. He stopped laughing and groaned instead.
Aveline wasn’t a quitter. She berated and poked and swore at both knights, until they adjudged there would be no peace until the daughter of an alewife had her way. When they tottered unsteadily out of Stephen’s chamber and staggered downstairs to the kitchen, a tub of hot water awaited.
“Strip.”
She lifted the kitchen broom like a battle-axe. Matching their moods, the morning was gloomy with a steady gray rain. Since the streets were running with mud, the notion of brisk escape was squelched by both nature and woman. They obeyed. The tub made a tight fit.
She scrubbed them down with lavender bathwater and made them rinse their mouths with the same foul perfume. Still sotted to the winds, they sang mindless tunes, exchanged lewd tales, and made up naughty riddles. Aveline scowled in silence.
She wrapped Stephen in an absorbent sheet and put him to bed.
The kitchen was warm while the blazing hearth fire cooked one potage and Drake fitzAlan. He dozed off in the soothing water, his arm resting on a knee and his head resting on an arm. When she ran her fingers through his hair to wash out the grime, her massaging fingers also washed away the ache in his head. He gazed up, pleasantly sleepy.
“Your hair, it’s all sorts of colors.” Her face swirled with a mélange of emotions. Some, he understood. Most, he didn’t. “Chestnut, wheat, corn ….”
The emotions he was able to grasp made her even more attractive to him than her comely face or shapely figure. Whenever he gazed into her amber eyes, he saw himself reflected back as the man she saw. The way he charmed her in odd ways. The way he appeared both boyish and devilish. The way he moved with intensity and purpose yet remained graceful as a fawn. The way his hands gesticulated, revealing the essence of a man poised at the threshold of untold possibilities. “The sun, every summer,” he muttered drowsily, “turns it into a motley potage. It’ll grow out and turn dull brown in winter.”
“I noticed,” she said.
He looked up at her, his eyes nearly swollen shut from exhaustion, drink, and fight. “Why is it you never wed Pippa’s father?”
“Pippa’s father!” Flustered, she busied herself at the hearth.
“Pippa is Stephen’s, is she not?” He was testing her. “She is either sister or niece, and I mean to find out which.”
“You’re still drunk as a lord.”
“Aye, I am, but you haven’t answered my question.”
“And never will.” She stirred the potage but stirred him more. He was sizzling, and the source of the heat did not emanate from the hearth fire. With water sluicing off his body, he stepped out of the tub and gathered Aveline in his arms. She resisted his embrace, her face flushing as dark as the madder of her kirtle, while his hands enjoyed the many luxuries of her fine physique. Her voice took on a warbling tone. “Stephen would never marry my kind, as well you know. Nor would Drake fitzAlan.”
He probed her face.
“Drake,” she said not unkindly, “you are the product of your birth, as I am of mine. If it comes to a lad and a lass coming together for warmth and comfort, then each knows what is afoot and neither expects an attachment of more than a night. It is no
more complicated than that.”
He took breath to protest.
“And even if it were, that is the way it is, notwithstanding a child standing in the middle. The fact is, you love Jenna.”
Drake gasped and dropped his arms. “I will always love Jenna.”
“But you haven’t cried for her.”
“I have,” he defended. “In my own way.”
“Not to grieve. Or mourn her loss. And not to bid her adieu.” He must have been trembling, or else Aveline was, or both were. “She’s dead, Drake. And nothing you can do will bring her back. Not the ghost, not the glimmer, not the least of that poor girl can you replace with the daughter of an alewife.”
He cried out and sank to his knees. “Oh, God! Jenna, Jenna.”
Throwing a towel around him, she held him close.
“It’s my fault she’s dead.”
“’Tisn’t your doing.”
“I delivered the lamb into the wolf’s jaws. I entrusted her to Graham. Instead he ….”
“You couldn’t have stopped it in any case.” He let her kiss the tears away. “Jenna fashioned her own fate with her own two hands.”
He sought her lips, blindly, urgently. She let him and kissed him back in the heat of the moment, a sympathetic gesture, to lessen the emptiness of his heart. His passion was different: a hunger that went beyond courtesy.
The flat of her hand met his cheek. “You’re despicable, Drake fitzAlan!” And so he was.
Chapter 27
HE WAS HUGGING A FEATHER pillow when a hand shook his shoulder. He told Aveline to go away. Rudely. Then a pair of rough hands dragged him out of bed and flung him against the wall. Rudely. That fairly well woke him.
A sergeant flanking his side, Randall dangled a set of heavy iron shackles custom-fit for Drake’s delicate wrists. “Either you come with me dressed or you come with me as you entered this world.”
Quickly donning tunic and hose, Drake looked about the room. Stephen was nowhere about. As Rand’s sergeant secured the shackles, he asked, “What is it? What’s happened?”
“Someone used Tilda for drubbing practice. The only name we can get out of her is yours.” Rand smiled cheerfully. “Aren’t you going to ask which name?” He had made his point.
