A Dishonorable Knight (53 page)

Very well, she admitted, growing more
disgusted with
herself
, perhaps that wasn't exactly
what he had said. That annoying sense of fairness gained a foothold and
reminded her what Gareth
had
said: "I love you, Elena, and I would
take you to the farthest ends of the known world if circumstances were
different."

"Well it doesn't matter what he
said, does it?" she muttered. "I'm still here and he'll no doubt end
up dead by year's end."

"My lady?" the
kinder
of the three guardsmen said.

"Nothing," Elena replied
abruptly, and then, since he had been polite to her while the other two men had
been barely respectful, "I'm just talking to myself. How much longer must
we travel tonight?"

"We shall reach a small inn
before midnight and rest there until morning. With this full moon, we could
travel all night, but the horses will need food and rest as, I'm sure, will
you, my lady."

Elena said nothing but thought that
she would not be able to sleep no matter how far they rode tonight. Her nerves
were still taut from helping Gareth escape and worrying that her role in his
escape would be discovered. She didn't think there could be a way of connecting
her to him other than the guard, but he had become so drunk, surely he could
not remember what she looked like. She did hope, however, that he remembered
what name she had given him. She grinned in the darkness as she thought of
Catherine being suspected of aiding a traitor. It would be no less than she
deserved. Amazing, was it not, what court life could do to some people? Elena
shook her head with disappointment. Poor Catherine had become the epitome of
the manipulative, calculating and single-minded courtier.
And
in such a short time, too.

Blissfully ignoring the fact that
until a month past, she could have put Catherine's actions to shame, Elena
returned to her litany of curses against Gareth.

"And you've no idea when you
were set upon by these two large men?" Sir Jasper asked the bleary-eyed
Osgood.

"I told ye, sir, I was on watch
since dawn this morning. Since
there's no windows
down
there, I've no idea if it was morning or evening, day or night. All I
knows
is that these two men came down and knocked me over
the head. I only came to when my relief came on duty and that was not more than
an hour ago. If ye look here," Osgood said, bending his head and pointing
to the top of his head. "I've got the knot on my head to prove my
story."

Sir Jasper scrutinized the increasing
bump beneath the guard's greasy hair and asked, "Where, then, did this
tankard, which smells like it had good wine in it, come from?"

Osgood swallowed visibly and shrugged
his beefy shoulders. "I guess one of the men who attacked me brung it with
them."

"So you didn't have even a
sip?"

"Well, uh--"

Sir Jasper held up a hand and said,
"Before you answer, Osgood, you should know that the guard who found you
smelled spirits on your breath and spilled wine on your shirt. Are you sure you
didn't merely pass out from drink allowing the prisoner to escape on his
own?"

"No sir! I was knocked
unconscious! See? Here's the bump I got. It still hurts, too."

"Yes, I've already examined it,
Osgood. I'm sure it does hurt. But you did drink the wine, did you not?"

Not overly keen even when sober,
Osgood's befuddled mind succumbed to Sir Jasper's gentle but insistent
questioning. "Yes, sir, I did. I'd been on watch since dawn and I hadn't
had a bite or drink all day."

"I understand. Where did you get
the wine from?"

Clearly, Osgood had not thought of a
response to this question, but one look at Sir Jasper's set face told him the
man would accept nothing but the truth. "A lady."

"What lady? A serving
maid?"

"No sir. She was a lady. She
smelled real good and she didn't talk like a wench."

"Did this belong to her?"
Sir Jasper held up the delicate necklace Osgood had pulled off of Elena with
his drunken clumsiness.

"I don't recall." Belatedly
seeing a way to shift some of the guilt, he changed his story and embroidered
it as well as his feeble imagination would allow. "Actually, I think I
broke that when I was fighting her for the keys. Ye see, she gave me this wine
and said food was on the way. I thought she was just a wench bringing me my
dinner so I started to drink it. There must have been witchcraft in it because
it was stronger than any wine I've ever drunk. Anyhow, when she saw it was
affecting me, she grabs for my keys, but I tried to fend her off. That's when I
must have
broke
her necklace. Then she pounds me on
the head and knocks me out."

"I see," Sir Jasper said
with a frown. "And I don't suppose you've seen her before or know who she
might be?"

Osgood shook his head gingerly for it
still throbbed. "I thought she was a new servin' wench bringing me my supper."

"I thought you said she was
definitely a lady."

Osgood licked his lips. "Well,
lady, wench, not much difference, eh?"

Sir Jasper pressed against his
temples with the thumb and midfinger of his right hand. Dropping his hand, he
returned his weary gaze to Osgood. "Do you remember what she looked
like?"

"She was real pretty."

Sir Jasper waited for more
information. When none was forthcoming, he prodded, "Her hair? Her eyes?
Do you remember their color? How about the color of her gown? Surely you must
remember more than that she was pretty."

"It's real dark down there and
she did trick me into drinking that wine. But it seems..." Sir Jasper felt
he could see Osgood's mind struggling to remember. "It seems she told me
her name. It was Clarice." Osgood shook his head. "No, but something
like that."

Sir Jasper's patience clearly
shortening, he said, "Oh very well. She's pretty and her name is something
like Clarice."

The strain in the knight's voice was
not lost on Osgood and fearing for life and limb--no one allowed a prisoner to
escape in King Richard's guard--Osgood kept babbling. "No, it wasn't
Clarice, it was...Catherine! That's it! I swear it on the grave of my father,
whoever he may be. Her name was Catherine. She told me right before she hit me
with the tankard. Her name was Catherine and she was real pretty and she
smelled good. I think her dress was red and she had long silky hair,"
Osgood was obviously making up things now, so worried was he that Sir Jasper
would have him flogged. "She was real fair, too."

With a loud sigh, Sir Jasper said,
"You are dismissed, Osgood. Return to the barracks and do not leave until
I grant you permission. If you remember anything else, send word to me
immediately."

Osgood bowed awkwardly and backed out
of the room, congratulating himself for having so cleverly gotten out of that
mess.

In the small antechamber where he had
questioned the simple-minded guard, Sir Jasper wondered what in all of England
would have possessed Lady Catherine to assist Gareth in escaping. Had she taken
a fancy to the young knight? Sir Jasper didn't see how the two would have even
come in contact with each other, but there was no accounting for the fancies of
the young. What the king would do to the chit, he knew not. Shaking his head in
pity for the no-doubt love struck lass, Sir Jasper rose and left the room to
search out the king.

***

"Lady Catherine."

"Your Majesty," Catherine
said with a deep curtsey. This was it, she thought. He was now going to tell
her that she would become a countess as soon as her wedding trousseau could be
prepared. She had been nothing but honeyed sweetness to Earl Brackley and she
had no doubt he was well taken with her. She had even thought of a way to
convince her new husband to allow her to remain at court for a while so she
could lord her exalted position over the other ladies who had thought her a
ninny since she first came to court, nine months before. Smoothing her face
into a pleasant expression that could instantly pinken with surprised pleasure
at the news the king was sure to impart, she looked up into Richard's narrowed
gaze. What she heard made her mouth drop open in an unbecoming gape.

"Lady Catherine, how is it that
you came to help Gareth
ap
Morgan escape from Our
prison this day? Do you not know that you have committed an act of most heinous
treason?"

"What? Gareth who? Your Majesty,
I--"

Richard slammed his hand down on the
arm of his chair. "Do not toy with
Us
, lady. We
are well enraged at your betrayal as it is. Where is Gareth
ap
Morgan? Has he left for France to meet up with the dog Tudor or is he headed
for Wales?"

Though her legs were quaking with the
effort to remain standing, Catherine cleared her throat and said, "Your
Majesty, I humbly beg your forgiveness, for I do not know of what you speak.
Who has escaped? What have I done?"   

"That is what
We
would like to know." Richard's voice was hoarse with anger.

Sir Jasper stepped forward and
without the king's permission, addressed Catherine. "Good Lady, were you
in the lower chambers anytime today?"

"Heaven forbid, no! It's
horribly nasty down there. Why on earth should I go there?"

"Would you mind telling us where
you spent the day?"

"I was with His Majesty's
entourage as he hunted! Remember Your Majesty? I rode with the Earl of
Brackley? I was wearing a blue gown."

Sir Jasper turned to Richard for
confirmation. Grudgingly, the king answered, "I do not remember seeing you
with
Us
, but I did authorize your presence with
Us."

Turning back to the nervous
Catherine, Sir Jasper asked, "And what did you do upon returning to the
castle?"

"I went upstairs to bathe and
dress for the evening meal. Margaret was in the room, you can ask her."

"That won't be necessary."
Pulling the broken necklace from his pocket, Sir Jasper asked Catherine,
"Is this yours, my lady? A guard found it and thought he had seen it round
your neck."

Catherine recognized the expensive
piece as Elena's and was tempted to claim it since Elena would never be back
for it. Her lingering fear over being barked at by the king stopped her.
"No, Sir Knight. That necklace belongs to Ele--Lady Elena."

King Richard stood so abruptly and
forcefully that his chair tipped backwards, crashing loudly against the stone
floor. "Of course it does," he bellowed. "Why have you wasted
Our
time, Jasper? By now that conniving bitch could be
anywhere. She's probably met up with Morgan by now and they are on their way to
tell Tudor all they can about my troops!"

Catherine's eyes were wide with fear
and surprise at seeing Richard nearly mad with rage. Bowing quickly, she backed
out of the room as fast as she could. Once outside the room, she leaned against
the cold damp wall and tried to stop her trembling. For an instant in there,
she had thought to visit the executioner at dawn. Now that she was safely out
of Richard's sight, she realized that his rage was directed at Elena and she
smiled. Straightening from the wall, she began humming a tuneless song as she
walked upstairs. Perhaps it does help to tell the truth, she thought.

Elena was going to drop out of the
saddle if she rode one more league. Was it but a few hours ago that she had
thought she'd never be able to sleep? She now felt as though she could fall
asleep in the narrow culvert that ran next to the moonlit road. "How much
longer to the inn?" she asked wearily.

The two soldiers who had ignored her
thus far looked at each other and then returned their attention to the road.
The ever-polite guard--did he have a slight accent? Elena was too tired to
decide--urged his horse up next to hers and said, "We should arrive any
moment, Lady. Do you think you can last a few more minutes?"

There was a definite lilt to the
man's speech, Elena decided. Not bothering to answer his question (after all,
she had to go on whether she thought she could hold out or not), she posed one
of her own. "Are you Welsh? Your accent reminds me of my recent visit
there."

One of the unfriendly soldiers turned
in his saddle and stared at Elena and the third man. Disgusted with his ill
manners and physically exhausted, she did not suppress the urge to stick her
tongue out at him. The rude man turned back around and Elena returned her gaze
to her companion just in time to see him hide his look of unease at her
question behind a broad grin. "I am from all over England, lady. I've traveled
so much that I don't remember where I'm originally from."

"Well, you sound Welsh,"
she replied. "Though your are a bit taller than most Welshmen."

"There you have it.
For I am indeed tall.
Perhaps I'm a Viking. I understand
they are a tall breed."

"So I've read. But they are also
a large people and you are rather scrawny to fit their mold."