This was no royal performance. This was the cry of a man who would safeguard his wife, his heir, his throne.
Seeing Henry now, with resolution burning in the smithy of his mind, Griffith was struck anew by the rightness of his kingship. This man would wield England into one entity, given the chance, and his vow—that nothing and no one would ever take his throne—branded fear in Griffith’s soul. Fear, respect, and comprehension. A comprehension far beyond men’s fumbling attempts at communication.
“I will do so, whether you wish it or no, but I must know—who is the child?”
Henry’s eyes betrayed no emotion. “Why, he is Lady Marian’s son.”
At the appearance of Henry’s cold, still face, Griffith stifled the questions that clamored for release.
“Oliver!” Henry cried.
The secretary leaped to his feet.
“Write to the lady Marian, inviting her to visit us immediately, and we will celebrate her marriage to Sir Griffith at court.” Henry beamed benevolently at Griffith. “Although her father has the means, I myself will help dower the bride.”
Griffith gulped in dismay. “I don’t know…”
Reading Griffith’s mind, Henry asked, “She will come. We simply must choose the messenger with care. Whom does she trust above all others?”
“Art,” Griffith replied.
Art stuck his head in the tent. “Ye called?”
“Art.” Henry wrapped his arm around the man’s skinny shoulders. “Art, Griffith tells me the lady Marian trusts you.”
Wary, Art agreed.
“Then you’re the very man to fetch her to her dear one’s side so we can conclude a marriage between Sir Griffith and Lady Marian. Dear me.” Henry frowned. “She’s the daughter of an earl, so she carries the title of ‘Lady,’ and Griffith is only a ‘Sir.’ We’ll have to do something about that. Oliver, make a note. Sir Griffith needs a title.”
“Aye, my liege.” Oliver’s face never changed expression as he selected a clean parchment and wrote the reminder in bold letters.
Griffith faltered, “Henry, there’s no need.”
Henry waved aside his protest. “Nonsense. You’ve served me faithfully, and the quest which I have asked of you is not without danger. Now, Art, how long will it take you to go to Wales and return with Lady Marian?”
“Depends on if ye stay in one place,” Art answered, doubt clear in his tone.
“I intend to return to Kenilworth after this engagement”—Henry peered at Griffith—“if it is successful, God willing. Bring her there.”
“Five days of hard riding to get to Castle Powel,” Art said. “Returning with a lady to Kenilworth—probably ten days.”
“Returning with Lady Marian,” Griffith said dryly, “probably seven days.”
“Returning with Lionel,” Art countered, “probably twelve days.”
Henry squeezed Art’s arm a little too tightly. “Don’t bring the child. My realm is not as safe as I would like, and Castle Powel will keep him from harm.”
“Don’t know that she’ll come without Lionel,” Art said.
“It is the king’s command,” Henry answered.
Art cast a pleading glance at Griffith, but Griffith only shrugged. “If anyone can bring her, ’tis you, Art.”
“Art will convince her.” The king had grown into his royal role, for he sounded completely sure of Art’s abilities. Leaning down, he picked something up. “What’s this?” From his fingers dangled a tooled red leather pouch held closed by a golden thread.
“It was in Griffith’s saddlebags,” Art said. “It musta fallen out when I opened them.”
Griffith cast him a suspicious glance but took the bag and opened it. Into his palm tumbled a gray stone, looking just like the stones that built Castle Powel. More slowly, a clinging mass slid out, and Griffith recognized the color. Lifting it by one end, he suspended a thin, bright red braid of human hair that almost brushed the ground. The sunshine became entangled in it, as did Griffith’s heart.
Henry touched the glittering braid. “Your lady’s token?”
“I suppose.…” Griffith blinked back emotion. “Aye, ’tis my lady’s token. She would have me be as strong as Samson.”
“And the rock?” Henry asked.
Griffith stared at Art, who gazed innocently at the ceiling. “I suppose my squire might know.”
Rocking on his heels, Art said, “I don’t know nothing, but I surmise the stone is to keep you as everlasting as the good Welsh hills.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Griffith tried to sound sarcastic. Instead he sounded as soft as new-made pudding. “Why I didn’t find this before?”
Art smirked. “I don’t know, of course—”
“Of course,” Griffith said.
“—but Lady Marian probably didn’t want ye to find it until ye came close to battle, for fear the magic would rub off.”
When Griffith recovered enough to put the pouch into his shirt, Art said to Henry, “I’ve honed the knife, my liege. Your squire waits with hot water. Are ye ready to be shaved?”
“Shaved?” Henry frowned. “I’m going into battle, not courting a maid. Why would I want to be shaved? What I want is for you to leave on your mission.”
Art staggered. “Now?”
“Of course not! Your horse needs to rest. Still, I hate to have you wait.…” Henry drummed his fingers on the table, then his face brightened. “I’ll send you to my stable master with a royal seal set in wax, and with that he will believe you when you tell him you must have a fresh horse, the best we have, and supplies for a four-day trip.”
“Five days,” Griffith reminded him.
Henry didn’t acknowledge Griffith by even a flick of an eyelash. “Ah, Art, what an adventure you will have. I envy you the chance to visit Wales again.”
“Seems like I just left it,” Art mumbled.
14
“The battle proceeds as we had hoped. My dear Lord Oxford advanced to meet Lincoln’s charge down Rampire Hill. The fighting was fierce, but the superiority of my armor and weaponry soon revealed itself.” Smug and smiling, Henry looked up from the field dispatch he was reading. “It would seem, Griffith, that God does indeed favor the prepared.”
Frustrated, Griffith slapped his leather gloves onto the table littered with similar dispatches. He paced away, lifting each foot high, his metal sabbatons clinking each time he struck a rock. The plate armor that covered his legs made each step awkward, and the joints at elbow and knee creaked.
Griffith didn’t notice. He didn’t notice how the noonday sun broiled him like meat within a pot or that the heat made him sweat into the padding protecting him from the metal. He didn’t even notice Oliver King’s exasperated sigh or the telling glances with which Henry’s personal staff communicated. Sick of inaction, he sought the words to convince Henry to send him into battle. “God has certainly favored me, my liege, with your continued patronage, but I would be grateful for the chance to smite your enemies from the face of the earth.”
Untouched by Griffith’s effort to be eloquent, Henry rolled the parchment. “Bedford and Oxford have it well in hand.”
Griffith’s breastplate glistened in the morning sun. He held his helmet tightly under his arm and clenched his teeth. He wanted to fight. He needed to fight. He’d been frustrated for days, ever since he’d ridden away from Marian, knowing she didn’t care about him. Now he was frustrated as Art rode back to her, for he knew she did care. Her token even now hung beneath his breastplate, over his heart.
And Henry insisted on keeping him from battle.
But Henry wasn’t as obdurate as he appeared. “You know I’m right. ’Tis foolish to engage more men than is necessary. God favors us—why fly in the face of God because of misplaced manly pride?”
Misplaced manly pride? Was it misplaced manly pride that made Griffith want to relieve his frustration with hard labor? With fighting?
“I do require your assistance with Lady Marian more than I
require your assistance on the battlefield,” Henry went on.
“I know.”
“But if you’re going to sulk”—Henry sighed—“you may go.”
But for the weight of his armor, Griffith would have jumped for joy.
“Thank God,” Oliver muttered. “He’s been pacing for hours, and it sounds like a damned soul dragging his burdens through eternity.”
Henry swung on Oliver. “Don’t say that! ’Tis bad luck to speak of death before a battle.”
Shriveling beneath Henry’s admonition, Oliver stammered an apology.
Griffith glared. Would Oliver’s words remind Henry of the dangers of battle? Would Henry change his mind?
Henry only lifted his finger in admonition. “Stay out of the heavy fighting. Go only as a messenger. Observe the situation and bring me information about the fighting.”
“As you command, my lord.” As happy as a monk on Easter morn, Griffith tried to cram the helmet over his head, but the fastening chain caught on his nose. With a laugh, he unhooked the chain and dropped the helmet into place. He fumbled with the connection that would chain the helmet to his armor, but he couldn’t see it and his broad fingers weren’t meant to perform such delicate work.
“Let my squire do it,” Henry said.
“Your squire is at the top of the ridge watching the battle with his eyes bugging out of his head,” Griffith replied.
“Oliver?” Henry asked.
Oliver lifted his head from the dispatches he was writing. “With all due respect, my liege, I’m no knight.”
Henry glanced around at his staff as they rushed to and fro, then sighed. “Here, I’ll do it.”
Remembering their positions, Griffith said, “Ah, King Henry? It isn’t proper for a king to serve a knight.”
“Let’s not tell anyone, then.” Grasping the flapping chain, Henry fastened it, then adjusted the helmet to its proper position and turned the bolts to secure it. He surveyed his handiwork with pride and said, “One never forgets the lessons one learns as a squire.”
Testing the set of his armor, Griffith agreed, “It would seem not.”
“I would that my most trusted adviser remains unharmed.” Henry dropped Griffith’s visor over his face.
Griffith waited until the ringing sound had faded from his ears before he promised, “So I will.”
He hoisted himself into the saddle of his destrier and then galloped toward Rampire Hill. Once on the field, he raised his visor again. After all, how could he report on the battle’s progress with restricted vision? It wasn’t likely he would fight, God rot it. The battle had wound down to a few individual combats, and here and there Henry’s men held hostages at sword point.
The flags of the enemy commanders were nowhere to be seen.
“Fled or dead,” Griffith muttered, surveying the carnage with an instinctive eye for the logistics. Noting a small pocket of hot conflict close against the side of the hill, he decided to investigate—not to disobey Henry, of course, but simply to report the tidings as completely as possible. As he neared, he heard a confused clamor of high-pitched Gaelic and guttural German and a good Welsh voice roaring, “Bleed your green blood on the soil and nourish it!”
As Griffith spurred his horse, he loosened his weapons: his spear, his steel mace, and his two-handed sword. Two Welsh knights stood on the ground, fighting back to back as a dozen foreigners shuffled around them, attacking carefully—they wanted the armor, Griffith knew, and would take care not to damage it. It was the only thing that had saved his countrymen thus far, but their plight had attracted more than just his attention. Three English knights were galloping to the scene.
He would get there first. Through the pounding of the hooves, he heard a Welsh roar, “Die, you lickspit! Burn in—”
Griffith lowered his lance and spitted a mercenary as one of the beleaguered knights staggered. Abandoning the lance, Griffith turned and charged back to the scene. Only one knight now stood, and as one mercenary prepared to perform the death blow, the others grouped together to defend themselves from Griffith.
Raising his mace, Griffith dented a helmet and smashed the head within, but the blow from one of the war hammers knocked him off his horse. As he slowly struggled to his feet, his armor weighing him down, the English knights arrived to distract the mercenaries. Griffith drew his two-handed sword from his destrier’s saddle in time to meet the charge of a maddened Irishman.
Griffith’s blood sang in his veins, his teeth parted in a fierce smile, and he used his advantage of weight and height to hammer the Irishman to the ground. He lifted his sword for the death thrust, but a German war cry brought him around to face a mercenary charge.
The German was big, a match for Griffith’s size, and skilled, a master of the sword. He moved well, and clearly he’d kept himself alive through a combination of strength and agility.
He was perfect.
Griffith couldn’t stop grinning, his lips pulled back from his teeth, his face frozen in a grimace. After this decisive victory, there would be few serious challenges to Henry’s power or to his dynasty, and even if there were, Henry had as much as told him he would no longer be in the center of any conflict that battered England. So Griffith resolved to make the most of this fight, to wring each drop of pleasure from the heat and smell, from the thrust and parry.
The German mercenary seemed to know. He laughed within his helmet and swung with ever-increasing vigor. The swords ground together, metal shrieking. Muscles strained, tendons creaked. The shouts of the other conflicts faded as Griffith concentrated on this fight, his final great contest.
For every thrust, the German had a parry. For every sword swing, Griffith had a dodge. Time slowed to minutes, grinding on rusty gears. His arms began to tremble beneath the weight of the blade. He noted with satisfaction that his opponent’s blade also quivered. His ears were clogged. His lungs burned, his reactions slowed. But the German never took advantage. Griffith still grinned, for the German couldn’t take advantage. As Griffith wore down, so did his foe.
Finally it seemed they were fighting in slow motion. Each stroke rose and fell with exquisite care. Each blow could scarcely be felt through the double protection of armor and padding. Griffith began to wonder how it would end—with the two combatants fainting from exhaustion?
Marshaling his strength, he aimed at the German’s neck and swung one last mighty blow. If it met the relatively slender protection of the gorget, the German would be at least knocked silly.
But it met with nothing. The German stumbled, deliberately falling backward, and the impetus pulled Griffith around in a great circle from which he couldn’t recover. He, too, fell, a twisted pile of metal. Lifting his head, he stared at the German
The mercenary raised his visor and stared back, then started to laugh. “I surrender,” he said in German.
Griffith didn’t understand a word, but he recognized the gestures and knew it to be the only ending possible. The mercenary stood on English soil. He had no choice but to surrender, and he had found in Griffith an opponent worthy of receiving his sword.
Griffith signaled his willingness to accept that surrender, then struggled to stand. The rotation of his fall had pushed the metal joints at knee and elbow ajar, and he felt like a turtle knocked on its back as he maneuvered to get his feet beneath him.
He had just succeeded when an English voice shouted, “Look out!” Griffith instinctively verified the location of his prisoner. The German posed no threat, but his horrified gaze brought Griffith’s face up.
The Irish warrior stood on his feet, bleeding, dying, but holding his sword high above his head. As Griffith stared, dumbstruck, the blade descended in a shining arc right for his face. He flung his arm up, but the armor only deflected the blow, it couldn’t block it. The blade slammed into his cheek. Blood spurted in a fountain before his eyes. He heard a shriek of pain and was distantly surprised he had screamed.
As his vision cleared, he saw the German, on his feet, wit
h the Irishman spitted on his sword.
He’d done it, Griffith realized. He’d got himself killed. Something covered his eyes, but he could still see the sun. It danced in his face, heating him. Black-and-red dots began to obscure it, but the heat increased. He pushed the place over his heart where Marian’s token hung, and like a vision of heaven, he saw the cool green of Wales, saw the gray stones of his home, and imagined his love, waiting patiently there for his return.
Marian watched the retreating shoreline of Wales and wondered if she’d ever see Griffith again.
Griffith. A man who forged his path of integrity through that confusing forest of right and wrong. Griffith. Strong and sure, but so far away, fighting for the king he loved. He’d triumph, she assured herself. No one could kill a warrior as massive and vital as he. No one could kill…She covered her eyes with her hand.
“If ye want th’ lad, ye’d best be grabbin’ him,” the old mariner growled.
She lunged for Lionel and caught him just as he tipped over the edge of the little rowboat in his quest to touch the shiny ocean swells. He squawked and fought, but she dragged him back to the seat at the stern and wrapped her arms around him.
“Nay, Mama! Lionel go swim,” he insisted.
“Lionel no swim,” she told him. “Lionel go home.”
He thought for a moment, then brightened. “Grandda Rhys?”
The mariner laughed, and his handsome, angry face watched them with what looked like satisfaction. He made her uncomfortable with his obvious malevolence, and Lionel made her want to cry with his obvious affections.
Rhys wasn’t his grandfather. Wenthaven was his grandfather, yet it was Rhys who had treated Lionel like a child to be cherished. He had given Lionel so much unstinting love that for the first time since Lionel had been born, Marian had found herself supplanted as Lionel’s favorite person. It had been odd to watch Rhys and Lionel together, to realize how much Lionel needed a masculine hand, to know that with Rhys as grandfather and Griffith as father, Lionel would grow brave and honorable.
Aye, he’d be brave and honorable, but he could be that and more, given the chance.
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