In the Shadow of Midnight Page 2

  She turned and confronted her uncle with a fierce loathing. “Can you not see he is fevering and ill?”

  John shrugged and arched a black eyebrow. “He knows what he must do. Both of you know what he must do.”

  “What is it he wants you to tell me?” Arthur asked on a weary sigh, for he had heard all of the bribes and promises before. The lies, the treachery …

  The most beautiful face in all the world lifted to his, becoming even more breathtakingly exquisite as her shoulders drew back in proud defiance. “I am come to tell you you are the rightful king of England,” she declared. “I am come to tell you I have refused to bow to his puny, cowardly threats and that I will continue to stand by you no matter what befalls.”

  “No!” John screamed. “No! No! No! I offered exile! The two of you together! As far away as I can send you, but alive. Alive, you fools!”

  Arthur’s eyes had not left Eleanor’s. “You did not believe him?”

  “Did you think I would?”

  He raised hands that were shaking and bloody and laced his fingers with hers. “If I thought … if I truly believed I could do something to save you …”

  Eleanor smiled then, a loving, tender smile that he took to his heart and hoarded like a priceless jewel. “I would not love you half so much if you bowed to him now. And not at all if you bowed because of me.”

  She heard her uncle’s savage curse and she flung herself forward, clinging to her brother through one last, fierce hug before the guard rushed into the cell and dragged her away.

  “Believe nothing he tells you,” she cried. “Believe only that I love you, that the people of Brittany love you, and that one day they will seize this serpent by the throat and grind him under their heels. On that day they will make you king. King Arthur! Long live the king!”

  “Bitch!” John screamed, pushing her out the door. He kicked the thick oak panel after he slammed it shut and when he spun back around, his fists were clenched and his face mottled with rage.

  “Will you or will you not openly pledge me homage, relinquishing once and for all any claim to the throne of England?”

  Arthur continued to stare straight ahead. He could see his uncle’s shadow on the wall; John was standing beside the table, his shoulders hunched, his fists moving in spastic little punches against his thighs. The young duke bit his lip to keep his courage aloft and said slowly, evenly, “Neither chains nor prison towers nor the threat of an executioner’s axe shall make me coward enough to deny the right I hold from my father and my God. This I would declare before all who would listen.”

  John let the air hiss out from between his teeth. His vision danced with painful spheres of bursting light and his fist curled around the iron candlestick.

  “And that is your last word?” “With my last breath, if need be.”

  Arthur heard his uncle curse and experienced an explosion of pain at the base of his skull. He stumbled forward with the blow, his hands flying out in front to save him from a hard crash against the stone wall. But they also braced him upright for the next blow … and the next. Hot splashes of wax sprayed his hands and arms, and splashes of something else—warm and wet and red—began to spatter the rough surface of the wall. The agony in his head sent him staggering onto his knees, but the driving, thudding blows followed him down, slamming again and again into his neck and skull.

  Out in the low-ceilinged corridor, the captain of the prison guard, William de Braose, heard what he thought was the wail of a wounded animal. He reached for the latch of the cell door, but on a farther thought, hesitated. He was a large, square-jawed bull of a man but he knew the king’s rages all too well. To interrupt without being summoned could put him in his own shackles in his own cell with his back flayed to bloody ribbands.

  So instead, he pressed his ear to the door and tried to identify the rhythmic, muted thuds. He tried for two, three minutes, his brow beading with sweat and his hands clammy with indecision. He glanced both ways down the corridor, but the other guards were long gone, dragging the weeping princess between them.

  Suppose the prince had overpowered his uncle and was beating him to death? Suppose the wailing sound was the king trying to call for help? Suppose—?

  De Braose lifted his ear away from the oak. The thudding had abruptly stopped, as had the eerie wailing sound. He glanced down and noticed there was no longer a sliver of light showing beneath the door … someone had doused the candle and thrown the cell into darkness.

  De Braose drew his sword and reached for a torch smoking blackly in a nearby cresset. He adjusted his helm forward so that the steel rim was level with the slits of his eyes, and, with a caution born of many years spent as a mercenary and assassin-for-hire, he twisted the door latch and used his boot to kick the panel wide.

  It was black as pitch inside the cell and at first he did not see anyone. A faint shuffling, snuffling sound was coming from the far corner and De Braose angled the torch higher to thrust the spill of harsh orange light over the disturbance.

  The king was lying there, his limbs rigid and twitching like the wooden legs on a marionette. His eyes were rolled back in their sockets, his mouth was wide and flecked with foam. There was blood on his hands, blood soaking the sleeves and front of his tunic, blood splashed in his hair and in the forks of his beard, and sprayed down the legs of his hose. An iron candlestick lay beside one clawed hand, the candle knocked off the spike, the carved base clotted with gore.

  De Braose edged farther into the room, the point of his sword beginning to tremble as he saw the second, crumpled body in the corner. There were dark, glistening stains on the walls and floor, and not much more than a shapeless lump of bloodied mush and shattered bone where the proud, golden head of the Duke of Brittany should have been.

  De Braose, a hardened veteran of many battles and many battlefield slaughters, gagged over the sour taste of old ale that rose in his gorge. He sheathed his sword and choked back his disgust as he knelt beside the king and tried to determine, through the convulsive thrashings, if any of the blood was of royal leakage.

  He had heard rumours of the king’s apoplectic fits, but he had thought they were just that: rumours. He had no notion of what to do or how to help his sovereign beyond some vague recollection of ensuring the tongue was not bitten off and swallowed. As far as he could tell, there were no other physical injuries, but the stench of blood and vomit and urine was nearly overpowering.

  He sat back on his heels and stared at the king, then glanced over at the lifeless body in the corner. He should fetch help … not for the duke, but perhaps for the king, who might need some physic or potion to calm the spasms. At the very least, he thought with narrowed eyes, he should have another witness present, for had the king not just murdered his own nephew? Bludgeoned him to death with an iron candlestick?

  Maude. His wife Maude would know what best to do. She could ooze sympathy and oaths of discretion in such a way that even a king who suspected treachery and malice behind every shadow would have no cause to doubt their loyalty.

  Racing along the corridor, the torch guttering and the black smoke trailing in a stinking streamer behind him, De Braose smiled and wondered just how grateful a king could be.

  Pembroke Castle, Wales

  Chapter 1

  Lady Ariel de Clare bit down on the fleshy pad of her lip and separated the tightly woven lattice of branches as carefully as she dared. Her heart was pounding in her throat, her skin was cool and wet—not entirely the result of the too-hasty departure she had made from the bathing pond.

  The glade was almost a mile from the castle, deep in the heart of a belt of gaming forest where the echo of a scream would not carry very far. She knew she had disobeyed standing orders by coming to the pond alone, but it was not the first time she had done so, nor, if her past history of obeying orders was anything to judge by, would it be the last.

  The water in this particular pool was clear and sweet, held in a basin of sun-baked rock that kept it warm enough
for wading even this late in October. She had never been interrupted by human company before. Deer, hare, even the odd waddling grouse had succumbed to their curiosity and crept to the edge of the surrounding thicket to accept the offerings of fennel and basil she left for them. For the most part, however, she had always been left alone in the verdant mists and dappling sunshine.

  There had never been any reason to fear the isolation of the woods. The rolling fields and forests, as far as any man could see from the highest peak of the highest hill belonged to her uncle, the Earl Marshal, William of Pembroke. There had not been a poacher caught anywhere near Milford Haven over the past several years. Even the outlawed Welsh raiders, who often foraged south to harry the Marcher lords and protest the English presence on their land, stayed well clear of any estates brandishing the Pembroke lions.

  Strangers in the vicinity would explain why Ariel had not been visited by any of her four-legged friends. Particularly missed had been the spindly legged fawn who had begun to come shyly up to where she sat to take the sprigs of tender herbs right from her hand. Both the fawn and his mother must have smelled the intruders long before Ariel had heard the heavy tramping of horses hooves scything through the thick carpet of fallen autumn leaves.

  She had fled the pool at once, her body glistening in the sunlight, her hair a half-soaked tangle of long, gleaming skeins that hampered her every move as she gathered her clothing and quickly shielded her nudity. Without the benefit of a brisk toweling, her linen bluet had stuck to her wet flesh, bunching uncomfortably under her arms and down her legs, testing her patience as she tugged and pulled at the folds of her woolen overtunic. Having no time to waste on stockings, shoes, or headdress, she had snatched up all three and carried them to where her palfrey stood, head raised, ears pricked forward and twitching nervously as she followed the sounds.

  “Rest easy, my Beauty,” Ariel whispered, pressing her hand, then her lips to the elongated, velvety snout. “I have heard them too. Three, perhaps four of them, would you say? And carrying much armour for all the clanking and squeaking they make.”

  She glanced back over her shoulder, the motion causing a ripple to travel the full length of her hair. Out of its braids and pins, it fell almost to her knees, and while the crown was darkened to a rich auburn by the dampness it held, the ends had begun to dry and spread into a shining cloud of frothing, bright red curls.

  Eyes as pure and undiluted a green as the forest pond searched the banks of pine and oak, seeking the darkest, deepest cover. She gathered up the reins of the palfrey and urged the horse into the thicker shadows, knowing there was a cavern of rock a small distance away that would afford protection from sight and sound. Beauty was fleet of foot and could outrace the wind if it was asked of her, but she was also gentle-natured and appallingly terrified of the tremendously muscled destriers most knights rode. That these interlopers were knights, there could be no mistake. The sound of much grating metal made for distinctive and accurate identification over and above the fact they were boldly mounted and not creeping through the woods on foot.

  Offering several more strokes and whispers for assurance, Ariel hobbled her mare, and, as an added precaution, withdrew the shortsword that hung in a sheath on her saddle.

  “As still as still can be, my Beauty,” she cautioned, then slipped back the way she had come, her head bent low and her tunic lifted high to avoid having it snagged on an errant branch.

  The soil was rich and crumbly under her bare feet, cool beneath each stealthy step. She crept warily back to the verge of the glade and remained crouched behind a thicket, her gaze widening at the sight of the four mounted knights who emerged from the hazed mist of the forest and rode singly into the clearing. Unaware of any eyes watching them, they fanned out to sit abreast along the shore of the pond while their coursers lowered their heads and thrust their muzzles beneath the smooth surface of the water to drink.

  The four men wore full suits of armour; hauberks of iron-link mail over thickly quilted leather gambesons. They were sworded and carried their shields slung over their backs, but only two wore gypons emblazoned with coats-of-arms. The other two were bareheaded, their mail basinets lying in loose folds around their necks, their helms hanging from hooks on their saddles. Both had full beards as black as the shaggy manes of hair that curled forward over their cheeks and foreheads; both bore the rugged, insolent look of the Welsh warlords who inhabited the wild, mountainous regions to the north.

  Two Normans, two Welshmen. All four hard, seasoned veterans of the battlefield. They wore their armour like second skins, grown accustomed over the years to the hundredweight of added bulk and burden. Arms, shoulders, chests, and thighs were powerfully muscled and solid as rock. Even the steeds they rode were all steely muscle and lethal power, beasts from hell reared to respond with a unique savageness and skill to the scent of blood.

  Ariel crouched lower in the bushes and hoped the slight motion of the branches lacing back together would not be detected. A woman caught out in the open, unescorted, unprotected, was fair game to any or all who might need a lusty appetite assuaged. A beautiful woman come upon in the sylvan isolation of a sun-drenched glade would stand little chance of escaping untouched—or of escaping at all if a like-minded knight took it into his head to throw her over his saddle and keep her for amusement.

  She stared down at the sharp glint of the shortsword she gripped and acknowledged it to be a paltry defense against armoured knights with double-edged broadswords. She would have speed on her side if they dismounted, for a man burdened by layers of bullhide and chain mail moved like a lumbering ox. On horseback, however, a knight reigned supreme. In battle he could easily down ten, twelve, even a score of foot soldiers. In the forest or on an open plain, a mounted knight could run aground and prance merry circles around any man, beast … or woman.

  Ariel tilted her face up to the clear patch of blue that showed through the gap in the otherwise unbroken latticework of soaring treetops. She had left the castle around noon and ridden without haste to the glade, stopping here and there to gather the last of the wild currants she had seen growing along the way. Bathing had taken another leisurely hour at least, for she had enjoyed the delicious privacy of floating naked in the sparkling sunlight.

  “What hour do ye make it?” a gruff voice asked, startling Ariel’s attention back to the edge of the pond.

  One of the English knights reached up and unbuckled the leather strap under his chin, easing the conical steel helm off his head with a sigh.

  “What hour?” he asked. He pushed back the mail hood and snug woolen cap he wore, revealing a damp tousle of dark reddish-blond hair, flattened and glued to his scalp from the heat and sweat. “The eleventh, I fear, with the minutes passing faster than a man could care to guess.”

  The Welshmen exchanged a wry glance. They bore identical pairs of ebony eyes in faces so alike, despite the bearding, there could be no doubt they were brothers. The grin on one mouth turned into a slight scowl when he saw the blond knight making preparations to dismount.

  “Surely we must be close to the castle,” he said. “I have been smelling the sea since we entered this part of the forest.”

  “Aye well, as close as we may be,” the Norman retorted, “we are not close enough. Any further delay and you will smell naught but the foul mess in my chausses.”

  The men laughed good-naturedly and Ariel rolled her eyes skyward.

  “The next time, Lord Henry,” the burliest of the group advised, “mayhap ye’ll not be so quick to sample a cotter’s pies.”

  “There was nothing amiss with the pie.” The unmounted knight, distracted momentarily in a search for a suitable place to squat, removed his leather gloves and set them on the decaying stump of a tree. “It was the effort of trying to swallow the king’s intentions along with the pork lard that has soured my gut.”

  “Likewise has it caused you to drag your steps slower and slower with each league that passes?”

  “If I do drag
my steps, it is because I know the reaction our news will bring. I know it and I dread it and … merde!” —he groaned with relief, not a moment too soon after loosening his chausses and angling his bared rump over the log— “and I would sooner face a hoard of Infidels alone and unarmed.”

  “Come now, my lord,” chuckled the older of the two brothers. He scratched intently in his beard, then, as an afterthought, stuck the tip of his little finger in his ear and dug ferociously after an itch. “It cannot be as bad as all that. I for one, would risk those same Infidels just to have a roof over my head and bedding that does not rustle and stir beneath me the blessed night long.”

  “And a wench,” the heavyset knight grunted wistfully. “I would settle for a wench with stout thighs and a hearty need to clamp them around me. Nor would I care if she had fleas or not,” he added sincerely.

  The Welshman arched his brow, bemused by the Norman’s criteria. “Just so long as she does not bleat and kick too often with her hooves? Indeed, you have mellowed over the weeks, Sedrick.”

  The swarthy Sedrick bristled and curled his lips back over his teeth. “At least I know what to do with a wench when I do find one beneath me. And when they bleat, they do not bleat with laughter.”

  “More likely with pain,” the younger brother chided. “You crushed the last three whores you straddled, did you not?”