Bond of Blood (45 page)

Sometimes even this last resort failed, and one day Gaunt arrived at just such a moment. He glanced quickly from Leah's face to his son, then told her harshly to go with his armed troop to buy five pounds of the finest eels for a gift to Stephen. When she returned, Radnor was sullen and silent, like a child that has been punished, but he was very well behaved for several hours. From then on, every time her husband became too obstreperous, Leah went out to amuse herself—to ride to market, to visit, or just to ride outside the city walls and breathe the bright summer air. The color came back to her cheeks and lips, the sheen to her hair, and her sense of humor returned too, enabling her to laugh at her irascible husband.

She was just so engaged, standing ready dressed to go out and laughing at her lord's angry warnings, when a tremendous noise of confusion came from the usually quiet courtyard. The warnings died on Cain's lips, and this time when he snapped, "Get me my shoes," Leah ran for them at once. He drew the sword always laid ready by the side of the bed, grimacing because his arm still hurt when used; but before he could don the shoes Leah brought, Giles and a royal guard burst through the doorway together. Radnor sat upright and raised his weapon. Even naked he was formidable enough to make the guard stop short.

"You are Lord Radnor?"

"Yes."

"Sheathe your sword, my lord," the guard said haughtily. "I am on royal business."

"I had some experience of royal business," Radnor replied with suspicious gentleness, pointing to the right side of his body, which was still horribly discolored with bruises.

The guard blinked with surprise at the tone and began again, much more pacifically. "We have no desire to disturb you, my lord. We only wish to search for an escaped prisoner."

"In my wife's bedchamber?" Lord Radnor laughed unpleasantly. "You may look for all I care, but tell your royal mistress that my temper is not good and grows steadily worse."

"No, my lord, of course not in your bedchamber, but in the guardroom below and in the outhouses."

Radnor frowned. "What prisoner?" Who would be likely to come to him? Hereford he hoped was not in trouble again.

Chester?

"The Earl of Pembroke, my lord."

"So." The lids dropped over Radnor's eyes and his wooden face gave no sign of his satisfaction. "I have heard nothing from my father-by-marriage, certainly nothing of his being a prisoner. What is all this about, Giles?"

"I have no idea." An almost imperceptible shifting of the eyes indicated that Pembroke was not there.

"Very well. I have no objection to the search. If you ask politely, as a favor, you will be granted that favor. Now, get out of my wife's chamber, and thank God I am not a hasty man. I could have killed you within my rights in this place. You may spread the word that I will not be so soft another time to a man who enters unbidden into my wife's room."

The guard backed out hastily and Cain looked at Leah. "We move again, but I know not where. Do not go out today. That is an order, no jest."

"No, my lord, no jest. I will not stir from this room until you bid me."

"And now, also no jest, I must try my legs." He leaned forward to put on his shoes and straightened with a groan. "I cannot. Leah—"

She was already on her knees, slipping the chausses on and then the shoes. "Put your arm on my shoulder and stand so that I can pull these up." He swayed dizzily. "Can you stand without help?"

"In a minute, my head swims. For all I made your life a misery to you with demands to be out of bed, I had no desire to do it thus on a sudden. I can stand now. Go tell Giles to send out to my father at once, as soon as he is free of that hound of Maud's."

When Leah returned, her husband was pacing the length of the room unsteadily, grasping at the furniture to help him. In a short while he sat down. "I can do no more just now." He ran his hand through his hair and then began to finger the scars on his face. Automatically, Leah sat down at her embroidery frame, but she did not lift the needle. The look of thought on Cain's face was suddenly replaced by one of resolution. "Leah, can I ride?"

"Ride?" She turned pale. "You cannot even walk. Where should you want to ride?"

"I must have your father out of London and safe out of the queen's hands. Answer my question, will it kill me to ride hard for a day and a night perhaps?"

Loyal, disloyal—it did not matter any longer what Cain thought of her. Leah only knew that he was endangering himself for his most vicious enemy, that he was placing himself, weak and nearly helpless, in her father's hands. "You cannot mean to save him," she cried. "He is an evil man. He plots against your life. Will you free him from all restraint to make more plots?"

There was love, full measure and overflowing. Even her fear of Pembroke could still her tongue no longer. Cain drew his wife to him.

"Have I any choice?" he asked gently. "He is bound in blood to me. Can I raise my hand against your father?"

"He has raised his against you!"

"Ay, and I make no jest to say I would gladly have him dead, for he would serve my purpose as well that way, but I am sufficiently blackened with sin. I cannot. Partly because I cannot take a man's life by stealth and he is too old to fight, and partly because … You think you would not care, sweeting, but in the end you would. It is not good to lie abed with the man who spilled your father's blood."

"He is no father to me. His seed filled my mother's womb, but more than that, except to hurt me, he never did," Leah replied.

"Enough, my love. You do not know your own tenderness of heart. Now you hate because he has hurt me and you believe he will be able to hurt me again. That is not true. Moreover, when he is dead, if you thought yourself to blame it would grow like a canker inside you. Tell me, can I ride?"

"It will not kill you, but if you take a fall—"

"I am not in the habit of falling off my horse." Cain replied dryly but with a smile. "Where is that man we sent to my father?" He rose and began to pace the room again, to be interrupted by Giles who ushered in a man garbed in the dress of a leper with only his vicious mouth showing beneath his drawn hood. Giles hit the staff so that it gave forth its hollow rattle, and Cain's mouth dropped open in surprise and amusement.

"Pembroke, by all that's holy!"

"I can see nothing to laugh at," Pembroke said in a voice quivering with fury. "I never thought, when I asked succor of Lord Hereford, that he would dress me in this insane garb, laughing like a madman all the while. But that is no matter. I have a bone to pick with you, Radnor. How is it that you, my own son-by-marriage, did nothing in all these weeks when I was held by the queen? Hereford must have told you that I was here and meant to come to you. You must have known that I was held in restraint and that the deposition I made against Chester was forced from me by Maud. You could not think that I had willingly put down the words which were read out at the council table. If I wished to say those things, I would have gone to council myself and said them."

Radnor's lips tightened, but he managed to answer smoothly enough. "Perhaps I thought you did not wish for interference. Perhaps I did nothing because I was too close to death to do aught for anyone. You knew not that I was sorely injured in the tourney?"

"How could I know, being close confined?"

Leah gave a strangled cry. "He lies! He lies!"

"Viper!" Pembroke shrieked. "Do you wish to make bad blood between your father and your husband? It is your place to offer smooth words to make peace. I will teach you to hold your tongue!"

He raised the leper's staff to strike her. Leah shrank back; Radnor, in his weakness, stumbled and went down on his knees. Quite calmly, Giles wrenched the staff from Pembroke's hand and then went to lift his master.

"Where do you find such gall?" Radnor gasped, trembling. "How could you dare to go to Hereford after the trick you played him? How do you dare outface me, when— What is the use of words? Let us understand each other. I will get you safe away, if it be in my power, but not for love of you or belief of your lies. I tell you too that you will not have Fitz Richard's lands, for I will free him and Chester also from this coil they are in. For the sake of this 'viper' alone, I will let you live, but—"

"Very well, very well. I understand you perfectly. You wish to blame me for what was no fault of mine, and no reasoning will alter your stubbornness. I played Hereford no trick. He was drunk already so that one cup of wine made him helpless. If I wished to harm him, why did I not do so then?"

"Your power to harm even a fly is gone, Gilbert. Hold your tongue."

All turned to face the voice, which came from the doorway, and Pembroke went grey as ashes when he saw Gaunt. The old man shoved Leah's embroidery frame out of the way and sat down in her chair, casting a disapproving glance at his son. "You are a fool, Cain. I have always said so and always will. What is the use in arguing about something that cannot be mended? Yet you sit here crossing words when it cannot be unknown that a leper entered your house. Is there a reason for such a thing? Strip the garb off this fool, put it on someone else, and send him forth. Then, tonsure me this monk. My daughter-by-marriage has long needed a confessor. Here she has one to hand."

"Very good, father. He can stay here for a day or two, and then I will be ready to go."

"What brains you were born with, the fever must have addled. Where will you go?"

Cain answered without replying directly to the question, that since his father had finished his business in London it was reasonable that he should wish to go home. The following dawn he should do so, openly, allowing the royal guard to examine his men and search his baggage. After he rid himself of royal spies, Gaunt was to turn south and meet Radnor who would have smuggled Pembroke out.

"Then I will return here, and you can see that Pembroke reaches Pevensey Castle, whence he can take ship for wherever he likes. Hell, I hope."

"Perhaps your brains are not so addled after all, although I have some matters to add. How will you cover your part in this, Cain?"

"Oh, Leah will say that I escaped from her keeping and went drinking or whoring or what she will, and that I am fevered again. It will only be for one day and night. I could never hope that none will suspect, but it will need catching me to bring proof. Giles and Beaufort will have to remain behind, of course, to give credence to the tale, but Cedric will be enough for me."

"Ay, if you get past the gate at all, you will be safe enough. Giles, tell half a dozen of my men to come up here to me and do you see that the others make ready to go. Woman, go to market and buy openly provisions for my troop to carry to Wales."

In the quiet and enforced isolation that followed Cain's departure two days later, Leah had a chance to catch her breath. When it was sure that he was safe past the gates, she was able to consider a new factor in her situation that distracted her a good deal from her fears. She had a fluttering hope that she could not as yet believe in that she was pregnant, She calculated and recalculated and, though her flux had been delayed before when she was excited or frightened—and God knew she had been both since her marriage—it had never been this late. Still, she was puzzled because she had no other sign; no uneasy stomach, no headache, no spells of dizziness. On her knees before her prie-dieu, she counted the days again. It should have started near the day of the tourney, so it was more than three weeks late. If it were only true that she was already increasing! The joy of telling Cain! Surely no wife could do more for her lord than to bring him a child in the first year of their marriage. Surely the proof of her value as a breeder would bind him still closer.

At a discreet distance, Beaufort watched his mistress at her prayers. Hating himself, but unable to resist the temptation, Sir Harry was using the period of his lord's absence to bring himself to Leah's attention. He followed her constantly with his eyes; he leapt to help her up from her
prie-dieu
when she was ready to rise; he brought flowers to brighten the dark room; he pressed wine on her because he said she was pale. And Leah smiled upon him readily, and held out her hand to him warmly, seeing in his actions nothing beyond the proper attention of a vassal to his lord's lady. Partly she was blind because she was innocent, and partly because all her real attention was concentrated on her inner hopes and fears.

If he took her, Beaufort thought, he would deserve to die, and if he did not, he would surely be slain by the madness that was tearing him apart. Giles came up from the guardroom to sit with Leah, and Sir Harry went out into the antechamber. His expression was one of such deep grief when Hereford came bounding up the stairs that the impetuous young earl stood stock still.

"I must speak with Lord Radnor."

"It is impossible."

"Beaufort, do not block me. I care not what he is doing. I will go in to him even if I must cut you down."

"I care not for that, but it would do you and him no good. You could jump up and down on him and scream in his ear. He will not hear you. He is raving again. If you do not believe me, I will call Lady Radnor or Giles. They will tell the same tale."

"My God, my God," Hereford groaned. "At such a time, when we need him so badly."

"If you will tell me what it is … Mayhap he will come to his senses and we can tell him." After all, Radnor would be back that night or early the next day, and if anything important had happened he would want to know.

"Where is Pembroke?"

"I do not know. He came here, but my master was out of his wits and the guards were searching. The earl thought it best to send him to Arundel. This much we did. We have heard nothing further."

"You did wrong. If Radnor knew— He will have a fit. Do you know what has happened? The king and his vassals have pursued Pembroke and are besieging Petworth."

"Petworth?" Sir Harry gasped, "but—"

"But what?"

Beaufort managed to stop before his tongue betrayed him. "But why?"

"Because that is where they came upon him. And Stephen has taken with him every armed man he could muster—the Gloucesters, Leicester … There is not a nobleman's house with anything in it but women. Are you sure you cannot bring Radnor to realize what is happening? I am willing to move in this myself at any risk. I understand that if Pembroke is convicted of treason Maud will put men loyal to her on his lands and all the Marcher lords will have enemies both behind and before as well as the Welsh to fight—but I know not what to do. I have only these few men with me. To fight is hopeless, and the king will listen to no word of mine for he knows me to be no good friend to him."