By Arrangement

by Madeline Hunter

  It was the dead of night and no sounds came from the inn or the chamber below. David turned to the roof, crouched, and grasped the eaves. He lowered his body down, slowly unbending his arms. His feet found the opening and he angled in, dropping with the slightest thud on the floor of the chamber.

  He peered around at the flickering shadows cast by one night candle. Curtains surrounded the beds in this expensive inn, but here they had been left open. He saw a man's naked back and blond hair, and a strong arm slung over another body. Long dark tresses poured over the sheet.

  His stomach clenched. A bloody fury obscured his sight. He unsheathed the dagger on his hip.

  Oliver swung in the window and landed beside him. He gestured for David to be still, and then eased over to the door. Sieg waited on the other side.

  With Sieg's arrival there could be little hope of keeping their presence a secret. The Swede stomped in, unsheathing his sword. Stephen Percy's head jerked up.

  Sieg reached him before he had fully turned over. He placed a silencing finger to Percy's lips and the sword to his throat. Stephen froze. The woman still slept.

  David found a taper near the hearth and bent it to the guttering night candle. He walked over and inspected the man who had caused him so much trouble.

  Bright green eyes stared back warily over the shining blade. Stephen had rugged features and his skin appeared very pale, especially with all of the blood gone out of it now. David grudgingly admitted that women might find this man attractive.

  “Who are you?” Stephen asked hoarsely in a voice that tried to sound indignant.

  David leaned into better view. “I am Christiana's husband. The merchant.”

  Stephen's gaze slid over David, then angled up at Sieg and over to Oliver. “Thank God,” he sighed with relief.

  Sieg frowned at David. David gestured to Oliver. The wiry man moved to the other side of the bed.

  Oliver pushed back the raven tresses spilling over a thin back. The girl jolted awake and turned. She managed one low shriek before Oliver's hand clamped down over her mouth.

  Oliver stared. “Hell, David, it isn't her!”

  “Nay. I never really thought it would be. She would not come on her own, and he never cared enough to abduct her. But I had to be sure.”

  The girl had noticed the sword at Percy's throat, its point not far from her own neck. She huddled herself into a ball and stared around wild-eyed.

  David smiled down at Sir Stephen. “You thought we might be her kinsmen?”

  Stephen gave a little shrug.

  “Another virgin sacrifice to your vanity, Sir Stephen?”

  Stephen's eyes narrowed. “Have you lost something, merchant? You can see she is not here, so be gone.”

  “Do you have her elsewhere?”

  Stephen laughed. “She was sweet, but not worth that much trouble.”

  Dangerous anger seeped into David's mind. “Sweet, was she?”

  A sneer played on Stephen's face. Sieg lifted the blade a bit, forcing Percy's chin to rise with it. Stephen glowered down at the sword and hesitated, but conceit won out.

  “Aye,” he smirked. “Very sweet. Well worth the wait.”

  “I kill him now, David,” Sieg said matter-of-factly.

  “Nay. If he dies, he is mine.”

  The girl had begun crying into her knees. Oliver sat beside her and patted her shoulder. She muttered something between her sobs.

  “Considering your position, you are either very brave or very stupid to taunt me thus,” David said.

  Stephen laughed. “You are no threat to me, mercer.

  Harm a hair on my head and you had best leave the realm. If the law doesn't hang you, my family will.”

  “A good point. Except that I had already planned to leave the realm, and so it appears that I have nothing to lose.”

  The smug smile fell from Stephen's face.

  “David,” Oliver said, “this girl is little more than a child. Look at how small she is. How old are you, girl?”

  “Just fourteen this summer,” she sobbed miserably. She glared at Stephen. “He was going to take me to London, wasn't he?”

  Stephen rolled his eyes. “We will go, my sweet. After it is safe …”

  “Nay, you won't,” Oliver said to her. “He will leave you to the wrath of your kinsmen, and you'll be lucky to end up in a convent. What are you? Gentry? Aye, well, they won't press case against a Percy, will they? Nay, girl, it's a convent or whoring for you, I'm afraid.”

  The girl wailed. Percy cursed.

  “So do we kill him now?” Sieg asked.

  Quick. Easy. So tempting. David gazed impassively at the rugged face trying to remain brave and cool.

  “I think not,” he finally said.

  Stephen's eyes closed in relief as Sieg cursed and sheathed his sword.

  “Give me your dagger, David,” Sieg said, holding out his hand. “The Mamluk one.”

  “What for?”

  Sieg sniffed. “In honor of the love I feel for this country and in protection of the few virgins left in it, I'm going to fix this man.”

  Stephen frowned in perplexity.

  “Remember that physician in prison, David? The one who had once worked at the palace? Well, he told me how they made eunuchs. It is a simple thing, really. Just a quick cut …”

  Stephen's eyes widened in horror.

  “Sieg …” David began.

  “The dagger, David. You always keep it sharp. We'll be out of here as quick as a nick.”

  David looked at Sir Stephen's sweating brow. He looked at the crying girl and Oliver's gentle comfort. He thought about Christiana's pain over this man.

  “If you insist,” he said blandly.

  “Aye. Oliver, help hold him down for me.”

  The girl saw the dagger approach and began a series of low, hoarse screams. Sir Stephen practically jumped out of his skin. He inched back on the bed, staring at the looming, implacable Sieg. He turned to David. “Good God, man, you can't be serious!”

  “As I said, I have nothing to lose.”

  Stephen laughed nervously and held up a hand as if to ward off the dagger. “Listen. Seriously. What I said before about Christiana …I was lying. I never had her. In truth I never did.”

  “It is more likely that you are lying now.”

  “I swear to you, I never …I barely touched her! I tried, I'll admit, but, hell, we all try, don't we?” He turned wildly to Sieg and Oliver, seeking confirmation.

  “Let's see. Kneel on his legs, David. Oliver, climb over and put your weight on his chest,” Sieg said as he reached for the sheet.

  “Jesus!” Stephen yelled. “I swear it on my soul, she wouldn't have me.”

  David smiled. “I already knew that.”

  Sieg took another step forward. Stephen looked ready to faint.

  “How?” Stephen croaked while he stared at the ugly length of steel.

  “She told me.” He placed a hand on Sieg's shoulder. “Let us go, Sieg. Leave this man.”

  “Hell, David, he is disgusting …”

  “Let us go.”

  Oliver got up from the bed and fetched some garments from a stool. “You wait outside, we will be down soon.”

  “We?”

  “We can't leave her here, can we? He's ruined her if she's found. I told her that we'd take her to Newcastle and leave her at an abbey. She'll say that she got knocked on the head and lost her memory and wandered for days until some kind soul brought her to the city.”

  “Ah. The knocked-on-the-head-and-wandered-for-days explanation. A bit overused, don't you think?”

  “Her family will believe it because they will want to. On the way, I'll tell her how to fake the evidence when she gets married.”

  “Oliver …”

  “She's just a child, David. Too trusting, that is all.”

  “You are a whoremonger, Oliver. You are supposed to recruit girls who have fallen, not save them.” He looked at the girl not much younger than Joanna ha
d been. He sighed and went to the door with Sieg.

  Hell. At this rate, he'd never get out of England.

  But, then, that had been the whole point of forcing him to make this search in the first place.

  CHAPTER 19

  CHRISTIANA PULLED THE knotted sheets and towels tautly to be sure they held together. She slid her arm through the center of the coiled rope of cloth and draped her light cloak over all of it.

  It will work, she decided. It has to.

  Leaving the chamber and building, she walked across the courtyard to the hall. She sought out Heloise sewing with her servants and three daughters. Beautiful, blond Heloise looked up kindly as she approached.

  “The evening is fair,” Christiana said in the distant tone she had maintained since her arrival. “I will sit in the garden for a while, I think.”

  “The breeze is cooling,” Heloise said.

  “I have brought my cloak if I need it.”

  The woman nodded and returned to her conversation.

  Christiana forced her steps to slow indifferently. Outside she nipped into the walled garden behind the hall.

  She meandered through the plantings so that her progress would appear accidental. Slowly, deliberately, she worked her way toward the tall tree in the back corner of the garden.

  Five days. Five days she had been a prisoner, and she still did not know why they had brought her here. She doubted that Heloise knew either. Perhaps her husband, the mayor of Caen, in whose palatial home she now found herself, had the answer, but he had explained nothing. Since the day she had stumbled into that hall, filthy and disheveled from her journey on horse and sea, furiously indignant and ready to kill or be killed, no one had told her anything. They had welcomed her as a guest, however, and shown her every honor and hospitality.

  Except one. She could not leave.

  Well, she would leave now. Yesterday she had found this tree. It grew higher than the wall, and she had eagerly climbed it, praying that some structure to which she could jump abutted the wall on the other side. Hovering amongst the obscuring branches and leaves, she had looked down at the sheer twenty-foot drop awaiting her. Even as disappointment flooded her, however, she had laid her plans.

  She glanced around cautiously while she backed up into the shadow of the tree. At least two hours before nightfall. Enough time to get away from this city and find shelter somewhere.

  Hoisting the line of sheets up her arm, she climbed the tree. She found a strong branch overhanging the wall's crest and settled herself on it. Easing off the sheets, she tied one end to the branch and threw the rest over the wall.

  She shimmied out over the precipice and looked down. The dangling white line reached within ten feet of the ground. If she hung near the end and dropped, she should be safe enough.

  She eyed the sheets and their knots. If they failed to support her weight, this could maim her. She prayed that the mayor of Caen bought top-quality linen for his bedding.

  Lowering her feet to the top of the wall, she grabbed the first knot. She stepped back.

  She had hoped that she could basically walk down the wall, but it didn't work that way. She found herself dangling against it, her hands clawing at the white line that supported her. The muscles in her arms and shoulders immediately rebelled.

  Only one way to go now. Grasping with all of her strength, she began to jerk her way down, hand over hand. Halfway to the ground, she began to hear a distant commotion. It grew and moved toward her.

  Noises and voices resonated through the stone wall. A lot of people were in the garden, thrashing around. She continued her painful progress and stared up at the tree limb fearfully, waiting for the face that would discover her. The leaves must have hidden her rope's end, because the noises retreated.

  She had tied some towels at the end to lengthen the rope, and she reached them now. The knot stretched against her weight. Just as her hands were about to give out anyway, she heard the rip that sent her crashing to the ground.

  It had only been a drop of eight feet, but it still stunned her. She cautiously rose to her feet and glanced around.

  Another wall, of another house, stretched in front of her. Between the two ran a very narrow alley where she now stood. At one end she saw a jumble of roofs that suggested it gave out on a city lane. The other way looked clearer.

  Staying in the wall's shadow, she quickly walked up the alley with a triumphant elation pounding through her. Whatever the mayor of Caen had planned for her, he could find another Englishwoman for the role.

  She would cross the river and and stay off the roads and make her way to the coast and a port town. Maybe she would find an English fisherman or merchant there who would help her.

  She stopped near the end of the wall and strained her ears for the sounds of the searchers. All was silent. She started forward again.

  Suddenly a man stepped from behind the wall's end. He stood twenty yards in front of her with his arms crossed over his chest. She paused and stared at him in the evening light.

  Definitely not the portly, short mayor. Too tall and lean, although the long hair was just as white and the clothing just as rich. Not one of his retainers either. She carefully walked forward, hoping that this man's presence had nothing to do with her, despite the concentrated way that he watched her approach.

  She had just decided to smile sweetly and pretend that she belonged in this alley and neighborhood when she drew near enough to see his face.

  She recognized him and, she knew, he recognized her. Her heart sank as her feet continued bringing her closer to the French noble who had disguised himself to meet with David at Hampstead.

  She had not met him up close that day, but she stopped only a few paces away and faced him squarely now. She remembered more about his appearance than she had thought, for he looked very familiar to her in unspecified ways. Hooded brown eyes gazed down examining her. Between the white mustache and short beard, a slow smile formed.

  “You have spirit,” he said. “A good sign.” He looked down the alley to the swaying white line of sheets and towels. “You might have hurt yourself.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It matters a great deal.”

  “Well, that at least is good news.”

  He stepped aside. With a flourishing gesture, he pointed her back toward her prison.

  Christiana plied her needle in the twilight eking through the open window. A low fire burned in the hearth, but the early July evening was very warm and the fire would not be built up when the daylight faded.

  She glanced at the women and girls sitting around her, speaking lowly to each other as they bent to their own needlework. Occasionally one would look at her curiously. They still did not know why she had been foisted on them to befriend and entertain, and nothing beyond the previous polite courtesy had developed over the seven days since her attempted escape.

  She looked down the hall to the other hearth and the four men gathered around it. Two of them were local barons from the region who had arrived during the last few days with their retinues at the French king's command. Others had come before them. The city was filling with knights and soldiers. Some camped across the river that served as a natural defense to this Norman city. A few had entered the castle, but most came here, to the mayor's house, and consulted with the tall white-haired man sitting by the other hearth.

  She knew his name now. Theobald, the Comte of Senlis. Not just a noble, as she had surmised that day in Hampstead, but an important baron equal in rank to an English earl, and an advisor to the French king.

  He had only spoken to her enough to ascertain that she had not been harmed or molested. He had ignored her demanding questions. She suspected, however, that she had been brought here at his initiative and command, and not the mayor's.

  A prisoner still. His prisoner. To what end and what purpose? The women did not know. The Comte would not say. She sat in this house day after day, keeping to herself, refusing all but the barest hospitality, and
watched the lords' arrivals and the daily consultations at the other end of the hall.

  The light had faded. She rose and went to a bench below a window on the long wall of the hall. She would sit alone for a while and give the ladies time to gossip and speculate about her. Her unnatural and strained social situation did nothing to alleviate the chilling fear that she had carried inside her ever since those men had pulled her from her home. She admitted that the chill had gotten colder since she had faced the Comte at the end of the alley.

  She had imagined during her first days here that David would come to rescue her. Perhaps he would bring Morvan and Walter Manny and some of the other knights to help. They would ride up to the river and across the bridge and into the city and demand her release. Like something out of a chanson.

  She grimaced at her foolishness. If David were coming, he would have been here by now. In fact, he could have arrived before her. Returning home and finding her gone, he could have sailed from London and reached France before her own boat. Her captors had dragged her all the way north, almost to Scotland, before securing passage at a seaside port. A waste of time that made no sense, but then none of this did.

  She had closed her eyes as she contemplated her situation, and the hall had receded from her awareness. A slight commotion intruded on her reverie now.

  At the far hearth the Comte had risen from his chair and bent his ear to a gesturing man-at-arms. A broad smile broke over his face. He turned and said something to the mayor. One of the barons clapped his hand merrily on the other's shoulder.

  The entrance to the hall swung open and she had a view of the anteroom beyond. Through the threshold to the courtyard she saw a man approach. Torchlight reflected off armor before the darkness of the anteroom swallowed him.

  Another baron. They came to prepare for King Edward's invasion, of course. No doubt similar councils and musterings were taking place all over France.

  One of the Comte's squires entered first, carrying a helmet and shield. She glanced at the newly painted and unscarred blue and gold coat of arms on it. Five gold disks over three entwined serpents, and the bar sinister of a bastard son.