The muscle that tightened across Eduard’s jaw was answer enough.
“Many years ago, her mother and I were … more than just friends,” the marshal confessed softly. “It seemed to be the least I could do at the time to see her situated comfortably. But content yourself; Marienne is a good and loving child. She has betrayed your secret to no one else but me, and then only because she has come to love the princess so dearly she is desperate for some way to save her from a life of captivity and deprivation. She gave me your name in the strictest confidence and trust, and it will remain so, locked by the same vow we all gave as we sat at this table.”
“So,” said the Wolf, “being unsure of how I might react to your request, you came prepared to ask my son to take advantage of the trust and friendship he and Princess Eleanor have developed over the years.”
William weathered the sarcasm without apology. “I never had any intention of asking you to risk yourself in this venture. How could I? John has had a legion of spies watching your every move for the past ten years. It was you the queen dispatched all those years ago to pay the ransom he demanded for the princess’s safe return the first time his greed and ambition prompted him to take her hostage. He will assume any attempt to rescue her now will originate here, at Amboise, and that you would trust no other man but yourself to such a hazardous undertaking.”
“In this, Lackland shows remarkable insight and intelligence,” the Wolf commented dryly.
“He has his moments.”
“Even though I am a cripple and a doddering old fool?”
“No one is calling you either,” William insisted. “Which is precisely why you must remain here, visible and accessible at all times. Thus, while he debates and ponders and concentrates all of his efforts watching you and waiting for you to come after the princess, he will not have much notice to spare on my niece.”
A general stirring occurred around the table as each man wondered at the connection.
“Your niece?” Eduard asked. “What has your niece to do with any of this?”
“As I mentioned earlier, the king has thoughtfully arranged a betrothal between the Lady Ariel and the son of William de Braose. My niece, through terms of her own concocting, has managed to avoid receipt of the charter, but it is only a matter of time before we are required to acknowledge it.”
“Ariel will never acknowledge it,” Henry insisted. “She will take herself to a nunnery before she agrees to marry the son of a common routier.”
Eduard, who was hearing of this proposed union for the first time, temporarily set aside his concerns for the princess and spared a muttered thought for the abbess. “I pity anyone who tries to teach her complacency and obedience.”
William smiled, causing a faint ruddiness to rise in Eduard’s throat as he demonstrated the excellence of his hearing. “I would be the first to agree she is in possession of a high spirit. Nevertheless, she is of my wife’s blood and a De Glare, and I do not thank the king for interfering in my family matters.”
“You will refuse his command?” Alaric asked.
“Outwardly, no. I intend, in fact, to send her back to England at once to comply with the king’s writ … in the company of a heavily armed escort, if necessary.”
“It will be necessary,” Henry murmured bleakly.
“I am counting on it,” William assured him.
Sparrow perked instantly. “For in this heavily armed escort …?”
“… Will be a few handpicked men who will break away at the proper time and …”
“… Pluck our Little Pearl out from under Lack Jack’s nose before he even sniffs a plot afoot!” Sparrow finished, puffing his chest with smug delight, pleased to have proved himself beyond worth yet again.
Not all of the conspirators were so smug or so pleased.
“How will you determine where to find the Pearl in order to pluck her?” Alaric asked with a frown, attacking the most obvious weakness.
“I … have my own sources of information among the king’s equerries,” William said carefully. “The right amount of gold in the right hands will buy what we need to know, and in plenty of time for Eduard to make his plans before he embarks from Normandy.”
“You predict the destination will either be Corfe or Bristol?”
“Those would be my choices.”
“They would be mine too,” Alaric admitted honestly, glancing at the Wolf. “For neither are hospitable to strangers and neither open their gates readily to visitors.”
“Aah, but they might … if they thought those visitors travelled by the king’s command, escorting the bride of his choosing to the groom of his choice. Since both castles lie along the route to Radnor, it would not seem unusual for the bridal party to pass by.”
“To pass by, aye,” Sparrow said, his enthusiasm waning under a puckered frown. “But to breach the gates, pluck the Pearl out of her shell, and make haste away with all heads still attached to shoulders …?” He paused and sucked a stubby finger, clucking his tongue with grave approbation.
“We have one other thing in our favour,” the marshal said, leaning forward. “The man assigned to guard the princess is known to me. His name is Brevant and he has a fondness for gold that matches his dislike for the king.”
“Neither reason warms my cockles,” Sparrow declared.
“Nor can they be counted upon to bear the strain of too close a brush with danger. But even assuming our stout fellows keep their ears and eyes and entrails, where do they go afterwards? Every road pointed back to Normandy will be too hot to tread upon.”
“And so thick with the king’s men,” William agreed calmly, “they will have few to spare on the roads heading north, into Wales.”
“Wales?”
“Northern Wales, to be even more precise. Powys. Prince Gwynwynwyn has promised to give Her Highness sanctuary for as long as is necessary. This too fits neatly into the scheme of things, for the Braose lands are in Marcher country; Powys falls in a more or less direct line north and west of Radnor.”
Henry clenched his teeth against a curse of exasperation. “I thought you had agreed against delivering Ariel to De Braose?”
“Just so. But the king will not know this until it is too late —hopefully—and she has been safely delivered to the real groom.”
“The real groom?”
William nodded. “If the plan is agreed upon, I will have the contracts drawn, signed, and dispatched with all haste.”
“Dispatched where?” Henry asked, bewildered.
The lord marshal took up the spluttering candle and tilted it so that a pendant of hot wax fell onto the tabletop. “Corfe Castle,” he said, drawing an imaginary line beneath it to mark the English coastline. He dripped a second bead directly north and announced, “Bristol.” The third drop was placed an equal distance north again, along another quickly sketched impression of the Severn River. “Radnor.”
With all eyes following the candle, the next blot of wax splashed due west of Radnor, landing too far south of the region ruled by Gwynwynwyn.
“Snowdonia,” the marshal said quietly. “The heart of Gwynedd.”
Henry’s eyes widened and he looked up at his uncle. “You are not serious.”
“I am deadly serious … as your sister should have been when she rashly enlisted the rogue’s help in the first place. Lord Rhys ap Iorwerth,” William explained to those who were still befuddled. “His brother is Llywellyn ap Iorwerth, Prince of Gwynedd, and a staunch ally of King John. He is, in fact, betrothed to John’s bastard daughter. And, lest anyone think I have arrived at this decision in haste—or madness—be assured it is not the first time I have considered it. Lord Rhys has impressive holdings in Gwynedd and has the ambition to replace his brother as leader of all the clans. He already rules Cardigan and Deheubarth with the airs of a dark prince and craves nothing better than to strike an alliance with the House of Pembroke through willing and mutually beneficial terms. His younger brother, Lord Dafydd, whom you have alread
y met, has presented Lord Rhys’s case most convincingly.”
Henry sagged back in his chair. “Ariel may not be so easily convinced, nor am I certain she will see much benefit.”
“Was this union not her own suggestion?”
Henry smiled wanly. “I do not think she planned it to go further than just that: a suggestion.”
“Then I will suggest she look upon it as a choice—a final choice between a prince of Wales and a gaoler’s son.”
Sparrow, who gave less credence to a woman’s right to choose a husband than he did a dog’s right to choose a flea, tested his patience against more pressing concerns.
“Think you the king will not question the eager bride’s timely appearance, or, when he discovers his prisoner has gone a-missing, that he will not add the one’s appearance to the other’s disappearance and dismiss neither as being coincidence? For that matter, will he not know, by those same eyes and ears who watch my master’s every nose-blow, that your niece is here in Normandy with you?”
William spread his hands flat on the table again. “Until the introductions were made shortly before dinner, no one has actually breathed the name De Clare or identified either my niece or nephew by name. Ariel arrived in my camp garbed as a squire and has remained thus until tonight. Therein lies another reason why I have brought her here to Amboise. My own personal guard, I trust with my life. They are loyal to a man and would burn in hell before betraying me or mine. When I leave here, however, I ride for Falaise, and then on to Cherbourg to join the king. I do not want Ariel with me. Waylaying the king’s courier was one matter, waylaying the king himself would be another and I doubt very much, once he laid an eye upon her, or suspected she was in my entourage, he would be so easily persuaded to let her go her own way again. Moreover, he would see, by virtue of touching the smallest hair on her head, how he could twist mine own heart within my chest, and it might be he would not send her on to Radnor at all. At the very least, he would assign his own guard to escort her, if and when he thought he had tormented me enough.
“No,” he continued determinedly. “She must not stay a moment longer in my company. She must be taken by an entirely different—and secretive—route to the coast, and from there across the Channel to England. Once across, I would again support the utmost secrecy with regards to her whereabouts until and if it becomes necessary to adopt the guise of a bridal cortege. At that time, if they are stopped for any reason, it will appear they are headed in the right direction, following the king’s command. As to any coincidences the king may or may not suspect, unless something goes dreadfully awry—and I pray we speak only in terms of supposition now—unless the men involved are captured or killed, the king will have no real proof as to the identity of the thieves. He may suspect. He may know. He may even accuse … but without proof …?” He shrugged and folded his hands together again. “Further to my hopes, by the time the castle guards finish scouring the niches and crannies of the castle, searching frantically for explanations that might keep them their heads, my niece will be well on her way into Wales.”
“When she fails to arrive at Radnor?” Alaric asked. “What then?”
William smiled tightly. “The king will be incensed. He will be livid and foaming and threatening to drench the land in blood … but again, he will not be able to lift a hand against her—not without risking the dissolution of the treaty he entered with Llywellyn ap Iorwerth. In truth, he will have no means of knowing when Ariel left Pembroke, or if she had any knowledge of the writ naming Reginald de Braose as the prospective groom. Since his envoy was waylaid by Lord Rhys, it might even be argued that it was the Welsh prince alone who knew of the king’s charter and, because he and I were already discussing terms for my niece’s hand, he thought it a fine irony —with the best romantic intentions, of course—to delay the writ until he and Ariel were safely wed. This is the story I will hold to. John will undoubtedly cry false and levy a large fine for both mine and the Welshman’s impudence, but he will do nothing to risk losing Llywellyn as an ally and opening the Marches to warfare again.”
“Has the Lady Ariel been asked her opinion of any of this?” Eduard wanted to know.
“I have every faith she will see her duty—and her salvation—and be only too willing to assist in any way she can.”
Henry looked dubious and Eduard felt a ridge of tension forming along his spine. “My lord, your motives are honourable, no question of that, but … to knowingly place your niece in such peril …?”
“My niece has put herself in peril, FitzRandwulf,” the earl declared, blistering the air with a moment of heat. “I am only trying to find her a way out. If, at the same time, there is an opportunity for something to be done for Eleanor of Brittany, then we must take the risk. I did not settle upon this plan lightly. Nor will I be entrusting her into your capable care with anything less than a blood oath that you will deliver her to Wales unharmed, untouched, unblemished by so much as a bruised fingertip. If you are unwilling or unable to promise me this, then I shall find another who will. I did not say it was of prime importance to have someone familiar to the princess in command of this rescue, only that it would ease the way. I have a score of knights in my own troop who would eagerly take charge without a single question asked.”
Eduard’s jaw flexed, the scar again standing out white and angry on his cheek, but it was the Wolf who responded coolly and calmly to the earl’s challenge.
“Neither my son’s abilities nor his willingness is the question here. What worries him—and me—is the state of Lack-land’s mind and the lengths to which he might go for revenge. You seem confident this Lord Rhys will protect your niece, but who is to say he will not turn his coat and sell the princess back to John in lieu of paying any fine, and well before she can safely cross Gwynedd’s lands into Powys? For that matter, there is Gwynwynwyn himself. How do you know you can trust him?”
“To answer the first part of your question, Lord Rhys ap Iorwerth will see that marrying my niece with my full knowledge and support will be of far more benefit to him than double-crossing me. And my niece, for her part, will not consent to the marriage until Eleanor is safely ensconced in Powys. To answer the second question, Gwynwynwyn hates John with a passion that has even chilled my blood on occasion. He will safeguard Eleanor if for no other reason than to know he has helped put the English fox’s neck in a snare.”
“Nor will he overlook the possibility of having one of his sons chosen as her consort,” Alaric added wryly.
“I will not deny, he is one of the candidates,” William admitted.
Eduard felt another ripple of tension. Eleanor would indeed have to marry, and marry well if she were to pose any kind of threat to her uncle. Gentle, sweet Eleanor. Sadder and more solemn than a princess of eighteen years should have been, she had already suffered immeasurably from her family’s political maneuverings. In the past five years alone, she had been betrothed three times to three rulers in exchange for promises of future alliances. Each time she had been supplanted by a more favourable candidate. Here was a proposal for a fourth, and the promise this time was freedom—but freedom to what fate? Eleanor was sunlight and music; Wales was darkness and barbaric clan wars. Could he embark on this rescue only to see her banished to a bleaker prison?
As the Lady Ariel had so tactfully pointed out, he was bastard born and as such should not even dream of a marriage with noble blood, let alone royal. It did not stop him from loving Eleanor, however, or from caring deeply about her happiness—something he could not see her obtaining in the arms of a rutting Welsh bull.
Yet, even as the image took shape in FitzRandwulf’s mind, it was not the helplessly pinioned body of the princess he saw being cruelly ravished; it was the flame-haired Lady Ariel de Glare who was crying out in rage and despair, desperately imploring him for help.
Chapter 7
Ariel could not sleep. She paced the narrow confines of her chamber, her robe gathered tightly around her shoulders, her sandaled feet m
aking soft slapping sounds on the plank flooring. The room was small, located in a tower that abutted the main keep, and cool in spite of the iron brazier full of hot, glowing coals.
There was only one window in her chamber, the embrasure tall and thin in design. The opening was barely the width of a pair of slender shoulders, and so deeply recessed into the wall she had to sit on the stone ledge and crane her neck well forward to see even a portion of the sprawling grounds below. There were wooden shutters afixed to either side, and a woven arras hooked above the window which could be lowered in the winter months to keep out the winds, or in the long days of the summer to keep out the heat and stench from the moat. Tonight the room had been muffled against the threat of an approaching storm, but even though the shutters were a snug fit, the arras moved like a woolen lung, alternately swelling and sucking inward as the wind buffeted the outer walls.
The furnishings offered no relief for her restlessness. A bed, built in the style of the French court, sat on a raised platform and was enclosed in a thick swath of curtains which rose in an elegant twist above the top of the frame. There was a writing table and two chairs, a leather coffer for storing clothes, and a small pallet tucked beneath the bed where a page or maid—neither of whom Ariel had with her at present —could sleep.
A crucifix was hung prominently on one wall, but Ariel had already said her evening prayers and could see no benefit in overtaxing her knees. On another wall, someone had painted a gay profusion of tulips and roses over the whitewashed blocks, but after a while they seemed more of an irritant than a comfort, assuming the shapes of twisted, deformed faces that leered at her on each walk past. A tall, multibranched candelabra stood by the table, the five thick candlesticks blazing lustily in the errant drafts. Someone had sprinkled fennel leaves over the coals in an hospitable attempt to give the chamber a mellow, sweet smell, but Ariel found it cloying in a room already burdened with the odour of tallow and cramped tidiness.
She had accompanied Dafydd ap Iorwerth into the gardens after supper, the residue of her anger keeping her warm as they wandered the well-tended paths of flowers. Most of the more delicate plants had succumbed to recent days of frost and cold, but sheltered against the wall, there were indeed several rosebushes determined to give flowers and buds.
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