When can I return home? She had asked. Isabelle had not provided a satisfactory answer and Adalind had no intention of remaining at Arundel any longer. She had to get out, to find a nunnery somewhere, somehow, that would accept her pledge. There was no use in returning to Canterbury because there was nothing left for her there. She knew they had already buried Maddoc, as it had been weeks since his death, and the thought that she had been unable to attend his funeral brought instant tears. Her chewing slowed as tears coursed down her cheeks, and Isabelle happened to notice.
“Oh, my lady,” Isabelle sighed, going to Adalind and putting her hands on her shoulders to comfort her. Then she looked up at the servants milling about in the room. “Everyone get out! Get out now!”
The servants made all haste for the door, including those bearing hot water for the tub, but Isabelle yelled at those men to deposit their load before leaving. Water was dumped and people scattered, eventually leaving Isabelle alone with Adalind and a lone remaining serving woman who was cleaning up the splashed water on the floor. When the door finally shut, the room was suddenly still and quiet. Isabelle turned to Adalind.
“Now, my lady,” she said kindly. “Let us strip you of your soiled clothing and wash the dirt from your skin. You will feel better when you are clean again.”
Adalind’s tears for Maddoc had faded and her focus had returned to the servant’s door. She wasn’t thinking about anything else; food, bath, or rest. All she could think of was slipping from that door and losing herself in the maze of Arundel Castle, finding a way to escape the towering walls that were boxing her in.
Weeks of travel, of chaos, had shaken her usually steady mind. Grief had further shattered it. She was thinking the thoughts of a desperate person as if she couldn’t comprehend anything else. She wanted out. But in order to accomplish that, she had to rid herself of Lady Isabelle and the servant woman. She had to be clever. Sensing the woman was already very sympathetic towards her situation, she knew she had to exploit that. Not usually sly or conniving, Adalind dug down deep to find the necessary trait.
“I… I am not feeling very well,” she lied. “I realize you have gone to some trouble to bring a bath, but I cannot… I simply want to lie down. I do not wish to bathe now.”
Isabelle wasn’t entirely unsympathetic. “I understand you are pushed beyond your limit,” she said. “I promise we will make quick work of your bath and you will feel much better when we are finished.”
Adalind shook her head. “Nay,” she insisted weakly. “Please let me rest for a time and then I will submit to your attention. I simply do not feel strong enough now.”
Isabelle was indecisive but she didn’t want to push the young lady. It was the first time since Adalind had arrived at Arundel that she wasn’t screaming or throwing things, so she didn’t want to pressure the woman back into her animalistic behavior. Therefore, she graciously backed down.
“As you say, my lady,” she said. “We will return before the evening meal and perhaps you will feel better then.”
Adalind kept her gaze averted, her dirty hair hanging over her face. “Perhaps.”
“I shall leave the food. Perhaps you should eat a little more and regain your strength.”
“I will try. Please leave me alone.”
Isabelle was reluctant to leave her but forced a smile, accepting her guest’s wishes courteously. There was something so desperate and sorrowful about Lady Adalind, something that compelled her to want to remain with her. Something wasn’t right with the woman, but she honestly didn’t know what. All she knew was what her husband had told her. She wished she could engage the lady in a calm conversation but now was not the time. Perhaps later, after the lady rested, would be more appropriate.
Adalind sat in the chair, staring at the floor with her hair hanging over her face, as Isabelle and the serving woman silently quit the room. When the door shut softly, Adalind’s head shot up, her gaze on the closed door. She could hear voices in the corridor outside, Lady Isabelle’s mingled with a man’s voice. She didn’t recognize it and assumed it was a guard of some kind. When Lady Isabelle’s voice disappeared, Adalind bolted up from the chair.
With great silence, she skittered across the cold wood floor to the servant’s door. The panel was flush against the wall and the seams were nearly invisible, so it took Adalind a couple of pushes against the wall before the panel finally shifted. Another push and it swung open. Thrilled, Adalind peered down a set of narrow and dark stairs that led down into blackness. She couldn’t even see the bottom. But that didn’t matter to her and, with tremendous care, she slipped through the door and cautiously descended the stairs.
Adalind’s heart was racing as she came to the bottom of the dimly-lit steps, terrified every second that she was going to come across a servant or a soldier. The stairs dumped out into a low-ceilinged corridor with an arched roof and Adalind paused at the base of the steps, hearing voices off to her right and deciding that she would, therefore, go left.
As she slipped down the passageway, Adalind could see that she was in the storage area below the living level of the keep and there were several rooms that were stacked with items she couldn’t stop to explore. All she knew was that she was feeling freedom in her veins, escape from Brighton and the hell he had put her through the past seventeen days, and an overwhelming need to break away. She had to get out or die trying.
At the end of the corridor was a small kitchen with a blazing fire in a brick reinforced hearth and two women moving about their duties. There was also a small, heavily-fortified door that was cracked open. Smoke from the malfunctioning fireplace seeped out into the yard beyond. Adalind burst into the room and, seeing the startled women staring back at her, rushed out through the half-opened kitchen door like a runaway horse. The lure of the yard beyond was too great and she couldn’t control herself.
The kitchen yard outside was boxed in but not too terribly. Even though it was the spring season, it was rather cold outside, and wet, as Adalind rushed into the center of the yard. Almost immediately, she spied a small gate that, once she charged through it, opened up into another yard, larger, with a fish pond and a big well. Adalind had visited enough castles during the course of her fostering and traveling with the entourage from Winchester that she knew most of the larger castles had postern gates, usually near the kitchens, for easy access to the yards and ponds. These postern gates were usually very small and extremely fortified in case of a siege. As Adalind ran a rather desperate circle around the yard, she spied a small iron gate set within the wall.
Making a mad dash for the gate, she saw that it was bolted well from the inside with a huge iron bolt. She grunted and groaned as she worked the bolt, trying to loosen it, and eventually the rod shifted enough so that she was able to slide it free. It took two good yanks to pull the gate open enough so that she could slip through because the mud and muck beneath it prevented easy movement.
From that point, it was a clear shot down the slopes of Arundel and into the woods that clustered around the fortress on the northeast side. Spring rains had left everything extremely wet and muddy, but Adalind didn’t care. All she could taste or feel was freedom. Once into the dense woods with their shielding trees and canopies of branches, she oriented herself to the direction she wanted to go via the main road that led to Arundel, knowing that road approached from almost due east. She had heard Brighton say so at some point. She also knew that Canterbury was almost due east.
Sticking to the fields and bramble, she made her desperate escape.
You become an image of what is remembered forever
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Unfortunately, Daniel has gone without us,” David said, looking particularly pale and drawn. “Seeing Maddoc on his deathbed was too much for the man to take. He has gone to seek vengeance against de Royans and against Norfolk.”
The solar of Canterbury was a crowded place. Dogs milled around, looking for scraps, as a host of powerful men filled the small room.
It was, in truth, a legendary assembly of de Lohrs and their allies, something that had not been witnessed for a very long time and, perhaps, would never be seen again. Men of power, breeding, and skill lined the walls as David spoke the sorrowful words.
“Then he is going to get himself killed.” The reply came from Gart Forbes who, having arrived only hours earlier, now found himself in the middle of a deepening crisis.
Very tall, very broad, and with chiseled features and a great bald head, as Lord Gallox, a vassal of Baron Buckland who also happened to be his stepson, Gart commanded an exceptionally powerful fighting force because, simply put, Gart was a warrior’s warrior. He had once been the best fighting man in the realm and still managed to maintain something of a very powerful reputation with an army of men sworn to him that had been compared to the precision and strength of ancient Roman troops. More than Gart’s intelligence or tactics, it was his sheer fighting ability that was greatly respected, even at his age.
David glanced over at the big man in well-used mail standing near the hearth. “Daniel is quick to temper,” he admitted, rolling his eyes at his brother when he caught the man smirking. “I realize he gets that particular attribute from me, but he also has the ability to see a situation from all sides once he has cooled. I would hope, at some point, he will realize he cannot take on the whole of Norfolk alone and return to us. But in the meanwhile, we must prepare to lay siege to Arundel Castle if, in fact, Adalind is there and they do not release her upon demand.”
The room fell silent for the most part, each man to his own thoughts, not wanting to voice the obvious. There was one thing they were all thinking but reluctant to mention it. It was too sad to comprehend. Still, it needed to be addressed.
“David,” Rhys finally broke the stale silence. “If de Royans has married her, there is nothing we can do about it. Surely we can lay siege to Arundel in vengeance for what de Royans did to Maddoc, but if Adalind is married to the knight, even though it is a forced marriage, the fact remains that she belongs to him and we cannot take her back.”
David looked at the man seated on the other side of his enormous and well-used desk. “Then I will charge him with thievery and I will charge Norfolk with harboring a criminal,” he hissed. “De Royans will not keep Adalind even if they are legally married, I assure you. I will take my grievance straight to Henry and let the king hear my evidence. De Royans stole my granddaughter and he will pay.”
“And he gravely injured my son,” Rhys shot back quietly. “No one wants to see the man pay more than I do but the matter of Adalind is separate from the matter of Maddoc. If she is de Royans’ wife, we cannot break that bond with all of the sieges and all of the weapons in the world.”
“Then I will kill him,” Evan de Foix, standing in the shadows behind his father, piped up. “He has virtually killed my brother so I will kill him. It is an honorable reckoning and once he is dead, we can claim the lady.”
Rhys held up a hand to silence his rather rash son. “I do not need two dead sons on my hands, Evan.”
“But you sit by and discuss details that are not insurmountable, Father,” the young man insisted. “If de Royans is dead, Adalind is no longer his wife.”
Rhys turned to look at his son. He had an identical twin brother, Edward, left home to protect Bellay Castle in their absence. Both young men were quick to temper and rather reckless, something Rhys, with his infinite patience, had been trying to work out of them. He was still working on it.
“You will kindly let the earl decide what is to be done,” he said, lifting his dark brows for emphasis. “Be still, now.”
Upset but obedient, Evan sank back into the shadows with his brother and Gart Forbes’ son, Brydon, who was a well-established knight in his own right. Brydon had ridden to Canterbury with his father at the head of a nine hundred man army, silent and big like his father, watching and waiting from the shadows for actions to be planned and commands to be given. Rhys eyed the sons of the great knights in the room for a long moment before returning his attention to David.
“This is a critical and evil time, David,” he said quietly. “You know I respect your opinions and your decisions, but I would be remiss if I did not point out that your emotions could cause you to make a rash decision. I cannot reach a logical conclusion because my son is involved, and neither can Chris because of you and Adalind. I would suggest we ask Gart to lead us on this matter since he is the only one without a child involved.”
David looked at Christopher for the man’s reaction. It was as David had originally told his brother, in much the same scenario – everyone had an emotional stake in this endeavor except for Forbes. Rhys saw that, too. Christopher wasn’t one to relinquish control of a battle march but he had to admit that, at this juncture, it was the wise thing to do. He looked at Gart.
“It would seem you are the most level-headed and responsible out of all of us at this time,” he said, rather dryly. “You have heard the facts. You know the situation. What would you suggest?”
Gart’s gaze was steady. He had deep set eyes that were intense and mysterious, as if they hid a thousand secrets and a thousand emotions. With his gaze still lingering on Christopher, he spoke.
“Brydon?” he asked. “What would you do, lad?”
It was an invitation for his son to do what he did best; Brydon was a master of tactics and planning, and Gart relied heavily on the man. When all else was crumbling, Brydon held strong and steady, observing all, seeing all. The young knight heard his name, the softly uttered question, and stepped forward.
“It must be assumed that de Royans has married the lady already,” he said, his mind working quickly. “If I abducted a lady for the purpose of marrying her, I would not wait. Therefore, we must assume that Lady Adalind is now Lady de Royans. That being said, Lord du Bois is correct; we cannot simply wrest her away from her husband because the Church would side with him. Man cannot break what God has brought together.”
As the men in the solar shifted somewhat uncomfortably, knowing he spoke the truth, Brydon continued.
“It would seem to me that we should isolate the true reason behind our mighty force,” he said, his voice quiet but calculating. “Are we gathering in anger to blindly raze Arundel out of sheer fury and vengeance, or are we gathering to accomplish a clear purpose? We must define that purpose, my lords. Is it to regain the Lady Adalind, or is it to avenge Maddoc?”
“Both,” Evan spat. “My brother deserves justice.”
Brydon nodded in agreement before Rhys could quiet his son. “And he shall get it, but we must be smart with our actions,” he said. “It is my sense that we should march on Arundel and show him our strength. D’Aubigney will know that we mean business when he sees a two thousand-man army on his doorstep. But before we let a single arrow fly, we ask what has become of the Lady Adalind. If she is married, then we must call out de Royans to face our challenge, one on one. I will volunteer to face him but I am sure there are others that would take precedence over me. If de Royans refuses, not only is he a coward, but he is a thief, and at that point we will make demands to d’Aubigney to turn him over to us to face justice. Only if he refuses do we lay siege as a last resort. Is everything I have said so far making sense?”
While Gart grinned with pride, the others in the room nodded stiffly. No one liked what they were hearing but it was composed and reasonable. Brydon had a calming air about him that Gart did not have, making him ideal to deliver serious or bad news.
David nodded to Brydon’s question, leaning against the table with his chin in his hand. “You make complete sense,” he said, sounding rather depressed, “and you are correct – we must define our purpose. I will agree to your plan on how to handle this situation because it takes vengeance out of the mix and replaces it with justice. That is all I want for Maddoc and Adalind, truly – justice.”
Brydon glanced around the room, reading the various expressions, until he came to his father. Gart winked at his son, so very proud of the
man. Brydon smiled faintly in return.
“If we are all in agreement, I will have the sergeants begin assembling the troops,” Brydon said, winding down his speech because there was action to take. The time for talk was over. “It is at least one hundred miles to Arundel which means it will take us at least six days to reach it. The sooner we start, the sooner we can resolve the situation.”
David nodded at him and he quit the room swiftly, followed by Evan and Trevor. Christopher, David, Rhys, and Gart could hear the young men as they began to bark orders, their strong and steady voices wafting through the solar’s lancet windows. They were young men who had been well trained, bred from fine stock, now becoming the strongest generation as their fathers grew old and prepared to pass on their responsibilities. It was a rather pivotal moment as the men in the solar, the great knights of old, realized this might quite possibly be the last action they ever saw together. The feelings were bittersweet.
“As I listen to Brydon, I can only think that I have accomplished what I set out to do in life,” Gart murmured, glancing up at the three faces so familiar to him. “His mother and I have raised him correctly. He is a fine man with a fine heart. Even if I had conquered the entire world and all within it, at this moment, Brydon would still be my greatest accomplishment. I am content.”
David nodded, a faint glimmer in his eye. “I feel the same,” he said softly. “When I see Daniel, I feel as if I have truly accomplished something great in life.”
Against the wall, Christopher snorted softly. “Even when he teases you until your veins bulge?”
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