by Колин Глисон
He gripped the bars, his breath increasing in speed, and saw the answer in their faces before Clem was able to respond. “She is gone? She is gone?” His voice rose and he shook the bars. “Get me the king! I must see him! Get him to me now!”
Sickness pitched his stomach and he felt the sweat springing to life all over his body, trickling down his back and face. “Take me to the king!” he commanded, staring at the guard, and reaching through the bars to grasp the man’s tunic. “I must see him!” He pulled, slamming the man up against the bars with a clank. “Get me to the king.”
He released the guard, who, with a terrified backward glance, rushed off. Gavin turned his attention to Clem and Jube, trying desperately to control the panic that screamed through his veins. “Tell me what happened, you fools! Where is she? How long has she been gone?”
Clem stepped forward, disease patterned on his face. “When last I saw her, ’twas yesterday morn when I brought her to visit you. I waited for her and whilst she visited with you, Rohan came to me with the message that Jube and Thomas required my assistance at the stables with Rule. He assured me he would return Lady Madelyne to her chamber.”
Jube glanced at Clem and picked up the story. “I received a message from Rohan that Madelyne would stay with Lady Judith last night, so I did not think to find her until after the midday meal, when she did not come to eat.”
“No one has seen Rohan and Madelyne since yesterday morn, my lord.”
“Rohan. He is the one.” Gavin spat the words, even as his mouth dried in fear. As he did in battle, he fought to collect his mind, to clear it from the dread that threatened to paralyze him. Calm and clear. He would remain calm and clear, for this was the most important battle of his life.
“Fantin has taken her to Tricourten, I would stake my life on it. You must go there, go after her…if the king does not release me… ” His voice trailed off. He could not conceive of that possibility…Henry must let him go. “You must go! Go now!”
Gavin paced blindly after they left. Would Henry come to him? Would he understand the urgency? He stopped and grasped the bars when he thought he heard the sound of someone approaching, but no one came.
He paced more, feeling the rising tension in his chest. His heart thumped crazily, his breath came faster, in short, sharp pants as he tried to keep from imagining what was happening to Madelyne…what her mad father was doing to her.
But he could not keep his mind clear, and the bile gathered in the back of his throat. He retched in the corner, sagging against the wall, pushing his fingers into his eyes to keep the tears at bay.
* * *
Clem and Jube had to take the time to gather their things and collect the other men-at-arms from Gavin’s retinue, and then they were off to Tricourten.
They traveled quickly, with one wagon carrying some basic supplies…and for transportation for Lady Madelyne, should they need it. The wagon would not keep their pace, but for the first leg of the trip, it would stay within a short distance.
When they stopped the first night, the wagon rolled into their camp only an hour after the men had dismounted. Clem and Jube sat with Thomas, Peter, Antoine, and three others around a fire on which a rabbit roasted. As he poked the meat with a stick to determine whether it was cooked, Clem saw an unfamiliar shadow emerge from the back of the wagon.
Bolting to his feet, he started toward it. “Who goes there?” he shouted, then stopped in his tracks as he recognized the deliciously plump figure of Patricka.
“’Tis I.” She stepped from the shadows, planting her hands on her hips, and Clem felt a wave of disbelief wash over him.
“What in the bloody hell are you doing here?” he stomped toward her, wanting nothing more than to wrap his hands around her neck…and squeeze.
“I want to help. I may need to care for Maddie…” her voice wavered, but she continued. “We do not know how she will be when we find her…and I couldn’t wait at Whitehall to hear from you. I won’t be in your way, and I can help.” Her hands remained on her hips and her chin thrust in the air.
“Woman, you are the most foolish, addlepated female I have ever met! You cannot go with us! You will return to Whitehall immediately!” He stuck his hands on his hips and thrust his chin in her direction.
Tricky stepped toward him, seeming to be unaware of the other men crowding around, watching the display. “And how will I get there? You cannot take me back, and I cannot go on my own. I will have to go with you, and Clem,” as she spoke, her brown eyes grew wide, gleaming earnestly in the moonlight. “I will be no trouble! I won’t slow you down, and I’ll do as you say…but I must go. Please! I beg you.”
Clem’s tongue thickened in his mouth and he could not speak. His insides had melted into a puddle, and he was alternately desirous of paddling the wench and tearing off her clothes. But of course, he could do neither. The blasted woman loved Jube.
Instead, he swallowed, coughed, and, when he heard a snicker behind him, turned to glare at the man who dared do so. “All right.” His words, gruff and short, were all that he said before swinging around to take his place by the fire.
* * *
At last, Gavin heard the sound of voices approaching. He prayed that it was the king…and his prayers were answered as the robust figure of Henry Plantagenet came around the corner.
“What is it that ails you, Mal Verne?” Henry bellowed, coming face to face with Gavin, with only the bars betwixt them. “You have been shouting the walls down here and nearly sent my guard to an early grave.”
“’Tis Madelyne—she is gone, she’s been taken by her father. You must release me and allow me to rescue her.” Gavin strained against the bars again, bringing his face breath to breath with his liege lord.
“Fantin has Madelyne? How can that be? Did you not make arrangements for her to be guarded—”
“By God, man,” Gavin breathed sharp and short, his teeth tight. “You know that I would not neglect such a thing! ’Twas one of my men who has betrayed me…and I believe ’t has been him all this time, reporting to Fantin, that has enable him to best me so many times! ’Twas he—it has to be—who put the poison on the necklet! Now he has absconded with my wife and I must go after her!” He sagged against the bars, the cold metal a relief against his hot face. “Please, my liege, as I have served you well…please release me… ”
Henry stepped away from the bars. “Release the man,” he told the guard, watching impassively as Gavin straightened eagerly. “Go with God, Gavin…and this time, do you not return without de Belgrume’s head on a platter.”
* * *
Had he not been on such an urgent mission, Gavin would have reveled in the freedom of charging down the road on his mount’s back. As it was, he had no pleasure in the moment. From the instant the bars opened on the door to his cell, Gavin had been in motion, frenetic and frantic.
Early the morning following his release—by his count, two days since Madelyne had been taken—Gavin overtook his men and their party. They were only hours from Tricourten Keep.
He barely registered the presence of the woman in the group, the maid Tricky, except to speak sharply to Clem to keep her out of his way, and then dismissing her from his mind. His focus, his life, his every breath was pinpointed upon arriving at Tricourten and finding a way inside the keep.
Gavin kept his mind from considering what he might find when they gained entrance. He could let nothing distract him from his goal of getting there, and finding Madelyne…and treating Fantin to a slow, painful death.
Twenty-Seven
Madelyne’s throat was dry, but she dared not ask for water. She swallowed, again, wishing for just a drop of something for her parched mouth.
She’d arrived at Tricourten only a day before, but the hours that had passed since had been of such nighmarish quality that she dared not think on them. Instead, she allowed her head to fall back against the stone wall to which her wrists were chained. Her arms ached, extended as they were, and her fingers an
d feet had no sensation.
Bruises from the rough handling during her abduction and subsequent travel thudded painfully whenever she moved. The memory of her father’s fingers fastened around her neck, thumbs pressing into the soft underpart of her jaw until she swooned, caused panic to rush anew through her veins.
Now, she watched fearfully as Fantin and his assistant Tavis, along with a pale priest, sat at a long, rough table in the underground laboratory at Tricourten. She had vague memories of this room from her childhood, prompted by the nauseating smells and evil-looking devices scattered throughout.
She saw the way her father’s fingers opened and closed, opened and closed, like the mouth of a beached fish. “She will serve God here, with me. But she cannot do that if he has touched her and got her with child!”
“You must wait,” the priest said to her father, his voice soothing. “All may not be lost. If she is not breeding yet, she can once again attain her pure state.”
Fantin looked at her, and the expression in his eyes made her stomach heave. ’Twas not one of anger or evil…’twas one beaming with love—the love of a father. A mad father.
Prickles raced up her spine, covering her shoulders like a nasty cloak. “Aye…after we have exorcised every bit of Mal Verne’s touch, and all thought of disobedience, she will be better prepared to serve.”
Madelyne’s stomach tilted. He referred to the day before when he’d beaten her with his hand and a thin leather whip until she collapsed on the floor, all bravado and strength disintegrating into blood and tears. She swallowed again, and closed her eyes against the tears. Gavin. She couldn’t control the shaking of her body. It trembled against the cold, rough wall.
“Think, my lord,” Tavis was telling her father. “She has been wed with Mal Verne for less than a fortnight…’tis only slightly possible that she carries his child. She may know the answer now.”
Fantin swiveled toward Madelyne, his long face taut and white. “Do you carry that man’s child?”
She could not speak. The words would not form. Madelyne tried to respond, but nothing came from her mouth. Fantin surged out of his chair and stalked over to her. Planting a hand on either side of her head, he stared into her eyes…and what she saw there was enough to make her light-headed with terror. They were empty: cold, blue, steel… empty …with tiny black pinpoints in the center.
“Do—you—carry—Mal—Verne’s—child,” he breathed, his stale, wine-tainted breath washing over her face. “Answer me, Madelyne, or I will pull that devil’s child from you!” Quick as a flash, he brandished a thin, shining hook, waving it unsteadily under her nose.
“I do not know,” she croaked, forcing the words from her trembling lips. “’Tis possible.”
Fantin’s shriek rang in her ears, and she instinctively ducked as he pivoted away from her. His hands slammed onto the table in rage, then wooden bowls and metal goblets tumbled to the floor as he swept his hand across them, knocking them awry. “Now what shall I do?” he howled, picking up a mortar and pestle and pitching them wildly toward her.
Madelyne did not move in time, and the wooden bowl struck her in the shoulder.
“Master, master… ” Tavis’s voice somehow reached through Fantin’s insanity and served to redirect the man’s anger. “We will simply wait until she has had her courses…and then you will know that she is ready for you. And if she does not have them in one moon’s time… ” he cast a sly look at Madelyne, trapping her eyes with his, “we shall rid her of the bastard’s babe and then you might be assured she is pure once again.”
“And then, when she is whole again, wholesome, she will devote herself to my work—praying and fasting in the name of God. She will be my link to the Father, and with her, I will find the answer.”
Darkness, thankfully, washed over her and Madelyne slid into oblivion.
When she opened her eyes some time later, a man’s face—one vaguely familiar—hovered near hers. As some of the cloudiness drifted from her gaze, and her mind began to focus, she realized that she was prone, on her back, and her arms, though still restrained, were not stretched as taut as they’d been.
The man brought a cup to her mouth and water—cold, heavenly, life-giving water—dripped between her lips. Her tongue slipped out to capture drops of it, and he tilted the cup so that it flowed more freely.
“Madelyne,” said the man—an older man, of an age with her father, “I’m here to help you.” He had red hair streaked with white, and calm gray eyes.
She tried to shake her head, but black spots danced before her eyes and she was forced to close them. It was an effort, but she forced a wan smile.
“You do not remember me…but your mother knew me well. I am Seton de Masin.”
When he spoke, the remembrance renewed itself in her mind. Seton: the man who’d allowed them to escape Tricourten during his night watch. The man who’d kissed her mother with more than a chaste wish of peace. The man who’d come to the abbey in search of them all those years ago…and who duly reported to Fantin that they were not there.
“I cannot free you yet,” he spoke quietly. “Fantin trusts me, and I must wait until the right moment. But I will do what I can to keep them from harming you further. I’ve sent word to Whitehall that you’re here.”
She tried to speak, to ask why…and he must have understood.
“As yet, I have no way to get you out of here…it will take a bit of planning. I have waited many years for a moment such as this, for I knew it would come. Though I always thought your mother would be the one in danger. Please, Madelyne, try to be brave for another short time…I will never be far from you…and I will get you free as soon as I can.”
She closed her eyes, hope beginning to billow within. “Gavin,” she managed to say. “My husband…he will come… ”
Seton was already nodding. “Aye, I know. I have sent the message to him at Whitehall… But your Mal Verne is a wise man, and ’tis likely he already knows you are here.”
Madelyne remembered suddenly that Gavin was not free to come and go… and despair washed over her. But she pushed it away. Seton was there to help…he had helped her mother before, and he would help her now. She made her mouth into a smile, and then drifted back into darkness.
* * *
Camped just out of sight of Tricourten’s guards, Gavin, his men, and Tricky conferred in the wood. They didn’t need a fire during the day, and at night would keep it very small so as not to alert the keep-dwellers that they were near.
“Fantin will be expecting us,” Gavin commented. “We will be unable to gain entrance to the keep except by stealth. There must be a private entrance…but there is no way to find out.”
His face felt tight and his eyes burned, gritty from lack of sleep. He’d barely eaten since leaving Whitehall—again, thanks to Madelyne for the robust meals she’d provided for him during his imprisonment, or he would be weaker. “He’ll have his guards watch for a party of men attempting to come in…or staying in the village. He likely has scouts set out into the woods, here, as well, and so we must act before they find us. ’Twill not be an easy task to get into the keep, and I dare not besiege the place for fear he will escape with Madelyne…or worse.”
Silence fell over the men as they digested this information. Their options were limited.
“I’ll go. I’ll go in and find a way to secure entrance for the rest of you. They don’t expect a woman…and ’twould be simple for me to pass as a serf or villager.”
Gavin stared at the plump little maid. His first reaction was to dismiss her offer, but the steadfast earnestness in her eyes gave him pause.
“Nay—you will not,” Clem spoke angrily when his master did not. “’Tis too dangerous. We will find another way in.”
Gavin looked from him to Tricky, a faint stirring in the back of his mind…but he thrust it away. “’Tis a ripe idea. I’ll go with her,” he said, nodding. “No one will expect mischief from a traveling husband and his wife—”
“Nay, my lord,” Clem interrupted. “I will go with her. You’d be easily recognized, and I’ll keep this wench from getting into trouble.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “If the woman must go, then I shall be the one to accompany her.” He dashed a glare at Jube, who’d remained silent, and then returned a steady look at Gavin.
“Very well, then, Clem and Patricka. We’ll discuss it no longer, as time is of great import. You will enter the keep and find a way to let us in before the sun rises on the morrow. When you have ascertained your plan, you must send us a message that all is well and give us our instruction. How do you propose to do this?”
“We shall meet with you at that oak tree,” Clem pointed at a strong tree hidden from the keep by a small hill and scattered brush. “As the sun sets.”
Gavin gave a short nod, his face tightening. Grasping the forearm of his man, he squeezed tightly and said, “Go with God. Fantin may be mad, but he is no fool—and he believes he is in the right. He and his servant Tavis will be watching carefully.” He turned to the maid, taking in the seriousness on her round, freckled face. “You are a brave girl to do this for your mistress. I’m certain that God will bless you.” He grasped her by the shoulders, squeezed, and released. “Be off.”
He turned, walking from the camp…needing to be alone while he waited…helpless.
* * *
Tricky and Clem arrived at Tricourten on foot. It would arouse too much suspicion if they rode in on a sure-footed destrier. He used a stick to walk, and affected a bit of a limp. They took care that their clothing was dirt-streaked, and Clem turned his tunic wrong-side out to hide the fine embroidery.
For all their pains, it was no hardship to enter Tricourten Keep. As Gavin had expected, the guards paid little attention to a man and woman—their attention would be attracted to a party of two or more men. Clem explained in a rough voice and poor grammar that they traveled to an abbey where his sister—Tricky—was to serve a great abbess, and that they merely needed one night’s lodging. The guards nodded them in with barely a glance.
