Crown of the Realm (A White Knight Adventure Book 2) (25 page)

A
MIDST MUTED SHRIEKS,
Chauvigny, Fors, and Béthune ushered Alais into the king’s pavilion. Cloaked into anonymity, she was about as cooperative as a water snake.

Arriving belatedly, the king’s marshal entered the tent, squinting in the un
accustomed darkness. He looked toward the king for direction.

Richard marched to and fro, a cyclone of pique.
“You shall soon learn all,” he said to Clarendon. At his gesture, Devon closed the flaps for privacy.

Checking his
wrath, the king approached his bride-to-be and stood before her. Calculation etched his brow. Malevolence marked his expression. With aforethought but not restraint, he struck her across her scowling face as a man would strike a man in a brawl. The force catapulted her into the arms of the marshal, who clasped her about the waist and broke her fall. She moaned miserably, head bowed and eyes shut against the pain.

When she had been near to death at the bottom of the river, p
erhaps she had seen the great void, witnessed the hellish fires, and returned forthwith. Perhaps she saw her fate etched in stone, including the day and manner of her death. Perhaps she saw her past spread out behind her like a vast barren plain. Perhaps she beheld all of these imaginings—past, present, and future—or none at all. Whatever her visions, she had seen the end draw nigh, only to be slammed back to the here and now with the vicious cuff of a man’s broad hand.

The slap reverberated
yet, and when she finally regained her wits, Alais de Capét gave Richard her sauciest look of approbation and rubbed the bruise on her cheek, already mottling with assorted colors. On the verge of speaking, shouting, or flinging out invectives, she was stopped by the enraged face of the man she had known for a lifetime and wisely held her tongue. Brandishing a truculent flourish borne of a lifetime of practice, she took possession of a stool, flung off her mantle, and shook out her tangled hair. The wet gown accentuated the rise of her nipples. She knew it and mindfully chose to reveal all, assuming a posture that accentuated the assets of a woman in the prime of her life.
Let the king drool,
was written on her face.
Let him stink in his own vices
. Thrusting out her proud chin, she awaited judgment.

Alais Capét was as mad as the moon and
just as unfathomable.

Devon helped the king off with his shirts of mail. Flexing his shoulders from the reduced weight, Richard knelt before
Stephen, who sat on a cot. The king bracketed the knight’s head gently between his massive hands and held the slashed cheekbone up to the light.

Stephen protested. “You needn’t …”

“I need, and I shall.” He called for Auxerre wine, and producing a clean cloth, personally, as a squire to his knight, cleaned the wound with care while Drake hovered protectively nearby. Stephen winced but did not flinch, that is until Richard found the gash in his scalp, at which point he yelped despite the brave front he had put up until now. Scavenging for other damage, the king felt for and found the knob, half as big as his fist, at the back of Stephen’s skull. He ordered a wineskin filled, not with spirits but with cold river water.

Stephen said, “Begging milord’s pardon, but I’ve had my fill of river water.”

“It’s not meant for imbibing, but as to that ….” Richard placed a goblet brimming with wine into Stephen’s still-trembling hands. Then he shook out a woolen blanket and dropped it around the shivering shoulders of his courageous knight.

The king brought
over a stool and sat. Drake took up his brother’s side. The remaining knights made do with bandaging their own badges of honor, superficial as they turned out to be, and remained standing in order to better guard Alais against escape and against the king’s person.

Now that she had Richard’s undivided attention, the princess of France threatened excommunication, she threatened retribution,
she threatened the might of her brother and the courage of her people.

Richard’s chainse was damp and stained with blood, but in no way was the king otherwise discommoded. Listening impassively, he remained unimpressed.
“Are you done?”

“I’ll never be done!”
she spat out, but upon beholding the king’s renewed fury, wisely descended into fretful silence.

On
the platter of his upturned palm, Drake held out the gem-studded dagger. Richard took it. His eyes alternately focused on his betrothed and the sharp weapon, which he turned over in his steady hands.

“That dagger has killed before,” Drake said.

Richard lifted a querulous brow.

“Tancrede d’Évreux
,” Drake said to the king, though his eyesight was fixed on Alais. “He had a rendezvous with the lady-in-waiting who died that same fateful night. Not to receive her favors but to collect the price of a well-placed arrow. She was the intermediary. Except she was already dead. Whether d’Évreux succeeded in killing the king or not, his reward was destined to be the same. Your lady could not afford to leave either alive.”

On a spurt of
rage, Richard launched the dagger. The blade skewered the center pole of the tent. Alais flinched. After staring at the dagger, she furtively guided her vision back to the king.

“And who is your lover?” the king asked easily.

She tossed the untamed locks over her shoulder. “Your father!” she spit out.

Richard
rose and hit her a second time across the already bruised cheek. “That is a matter of known history.” He would not be sitting again.

She raised an unsteady hand to her cheek. “How was I to know that one day you would be king
? You were such a gangly and clumsy child. And I was young. And impressionable. Your father was like a god. He took advantage of my innocence.” Quaking, the voice was convincing, but her tears were not.

“
Ma douce
, you were never innocent.”

The tears shut off. H
er face screwed up. “We were all innocent. Once. In our cradles.”

“And when my father the king left this earth and his son the king showed no signs of making you his queen …?”

Her smile was beguiling and her eyes like iron, unflinching and cold. “I seduced his brothers.”

“With your body
? Or your brother’s army?”

She cackled
with amusement. “Being greedy and gullible, they didn’t know the difference. But if truth be known, they must prefer boys. They were not swayed by my guiles. They tried, oh how they tried. But they could not perform the way your father performed. Henry produced weak sons from his spent loins, and you are just one of the diseased products.”

“Perhaps
my brothers only feared disease.”

Her eyes rounded on him. “Whoever has impugned my reputation
shall lose his head.”

“
Sans
crown, I fear.”

Her
laughter was giddy. “Richard, Richard, why didn’t you show this side before. It is ever so much fun to fence with one as cunning as I.”

“You were able to convince John and Geoffrey of your sincerity … how?”

She pursed her lips and crossed a leg.

“Come, come, you are doomed in any event. Perhaps I
shall go easier on you. Perhaps I will not impale your pretty neck as I just impaled that pole.”

After glancing at the dagger, she made a calculation and said,
“Not so much how as when. They wanted to see how it would play out.”

“Then your brother …?”

“—Promised them whatever they wanted to hear.”

“But shied away from using the word
regicide
.”

Her eyes danced. “My, aren’t you the quick-witted king.
Did you never entertain the thought yourself, my dear one? On days that ended in
i
? How convenient that your father succumbed to a fistula of the bowel instead of a blade to the gut.”

“And when John and Geoffrey were occupying their idle hours measuring their heads for my crown, and Philippe was making bold promises he never intended to keep …?”

She shrugged a shoulder. “Someone had to do something. It was amusing, actually. While you and your mother and your meddlesome knights were searching for a man, you overlooked a woman, a woman no better than one of the king’s horses. But if you must know …” She pointed. “There! There is your assassin. Your gallant knight
extraordinaire.
Stephen fitzAlan.”

Stephen took Devon’s offer of the water-filled wineskin
, fresh from the river, and applied it to the back of his head. His eyes, though, were fixed on Alais.

“Stephen,” said
Richard, “does not stand before the king’s sword of justice. You do.” Taking control of his temper, he went on calmly, “Who provided you with the use of the seal of France?”

She smiled coyly. “Not the king himself?”

Drake said, “Philippe’s chaplain.”

“
It seems, “Richard said, “Andreas Capellanus of Champagne has taken his treatise on love too much to heart. Do not flatter yourself, my dear. You were but a means to a superfluous end.”

“As was he!” she spat out. “Do you want to hear how
the good monk drooled over my thighs, how he kneaded my breasts, how he cried in my arms, how he waxed poetic about my lips? As once you did? No? These delights do not interest you?”

“Not where you’re concerned,
mon ange
.”

“But they matter to him. In time he will confess his carnal sins, on his knees and weeping, first before his God
and then before his king.”

Richard arched an eyebrow. “
Perhaps to his God, but never to his king. Andreas Capellanus may be a fool when it comes to practicing the art of courtly love, but not so much a fool as to admit it.” 

Her
face contorted. “You will go to Hell for your sins, dear husband not.”

“We are all destined for Hell. Especially the mad.”

She ignored the innuendo and spewed, “And who have you chosen for your new bride? Does she have dark hair? A dark face? A well-endowed bosom? A dark king for a father?”

“Don’t forget youth. And above all, purity.”

She snarled and spit out, “Berengaria of Navarre. The most ripe, most beauteous, most virtuous virgin of the nether regions. And the granddaughter of my grandfather. It would be humorous if it weren’t so tragic. Her father and my aunt’s husband are the same man, the incomparable King Sancho of Navarre. He has outdone himself. His sword, his might, and his oiled Spanish tongue have won him a place in history, not to mention progeny who will infect Aquitaine for generations to come. Is it not ironic? Is it not delicious? That you have traded one Castilian princess for another? Aren’t you afraid that insanity runs in the blood? Don’t you fear spawning lunatic daughters and crazed sons? Cannot the riches of Hell thwart the powers of Heaven?” Her laughter was the laughter of the demented.

“And does your brother know?”

“He will when—” She stopped herself on a note of premature triumph.

“I’m afraid you’ve just missed him, dear sister.” He
loomed closed to her and stroked a finger along her cheek. She reared from the touch. “Your Brabançon lover … my God, how many bedmates does it take to kill one king? … reached you too late with the news of your cousin’s impending marriage.”

“And what of your most high, your most gallant,
your most interfering
chevalier de ce moment
? Hmm? Whom I seduced equal to any stupid monk, prince, or
routier
?”

It was the second time Alais
had accused Stephen. Richard turned toward him, expecting a denial at best, an uneasy explanation at worst.

With care Stephen put down the wine and the wineskin. “It is true, what she says.
She appealed to my … vanity. She flattered me with her … feminine wiles. She suggested we might be together if something fatal were to befall the king. I took her suggestions for what they were: nonsense. I didn’t understand they were anything but nonsense … until it was too late.”

“Since I could not use you in one way, dear Stephen, I found another. Were you dreaming of me all those
weeks alone in the dark? Pleasuring yourself with memories of our blissful nights together? The kisses? The caresses? The promises of love? The pleasurable touch of—”

“They were nightmares
!” Stephen bellowed. And dropping to a knee, he knelt humbly before the king, his arms braced on an upraised leg, his head bowed, and the nape of his neck exposed. “I am guilty of high treason against the king. First by taking that which did not belong to me and what was most dear to the king and the king’s honor. And then by endangering his life, not so much by commission as omission, which carries a greater penalty. I take the bitter with the sweet. I submit to the king’s justice. Here and now.”

* * *

Richard made an
abrupt gesture. The tent flaps parted. Alais was hustled into the custody of the king’s guard and spirited away.

With Stephen’s silence, the general silence expanded.
Day was ending. The setting sun filled the king’s pavilion with dusky shadows. The hum of awakening insects mingled with faraway voices. A sword of sharpest edge rang from its scabbard.

Sniffing the tang of steel, Drake
shot up and shouted, “No!”

“Silence!”
Richard said.

Chauvigny
and Béthune each clasped one of Drake’s arms and held him at bay. “Milord,” Drake begged, struggling to break away. “You can’t!”

His color high, his jaw set
, and his eyes afire, Richard stepped around to Stephen’s back and lifted the sword two-fisted.

“Three breaths separate us.
If you kill one, you must kill the other. I beg of you! Let me kneel beside my brother.”

“You shall not!” Richard steadied the sword.

“He’s lying, I tell you!” Drake dragged on his arms, but the knights held him fast. “He would never—”

“May God damn me to Hell if I
am not speaking the truth!” Stephen looked soulfully at his brother. His eyes—colorless in the waning light—glistened pure and virtuous. He had made his peace with God, and with his king. He was prepared to die.

“Then damn
you to that everlasting Hell of yours, dear brother, but I will get there afore you, since my sins are greater than yours.” Drake dropped to his knee and beseeched his king. “Will you execute a man whose only crime is that of protecting his brother?”

Drake’s comment brought Richard
up short. “Protecting?”

“
It was I who betrayed you, milord. It was I who took what was not mine. Worse than that, I took it in the name of my brother, pretending I was him.”

“Drake!
” Stephen shouted. “Don’t! Not for me! Save yourself!”

“
Your bride-to-be propositioned me. Not Stephen. Me and me alone.”

“
He’s lying,” Stephen shouted. “
Drake
is protecting
me
! I won’t let him!”

“
It’s true what I say,” Drake said. “May God strike me down where I kneel if it is not!”

Eyes stern and narrow
ed, the gray washed out with wrath, Richard stepped away from the younger fitzAlan brother and approached the elder brother. Once again, he swung back the sword.

Drake bowed his head.
He wanted to say a final prayer and ask for God’s forgiveness. But he could not think past the sensation of cold steel hovering above his neck.

Stephen said, “If that is so, and I declare it is not
… so help me God! … I am no less guilty. Three breaths separate us and ever will. Allow me kneel beside
my
brother. And take me three breaths after him so we can leave this world the way we came into it. For if you execute Drake, I shall follow him to the grave, by my own hand if need be.”

“You shall not!” Richard said a second time.

“Two halves to a whole—that is what we are to each other—and ever shall be,” Stephen said, his voice husky. “Nothing can separate us. Not even the might of the king.”

Drake held his sight to the ground beneath
his knee and said with a voice filled with dread, “I implore your majesty. Take me and spare my brother.”

“
If you take either, milord,” said Devon of Wheeling, “you must also take me.” Circling around, he dropped to a knee at Drake’s right and submitted his eyes humbly to the ground.

The shadow of the king’s sword cast a giant shadow on the canvas walls. The sheeting fluttered
in a breeze, distorting the straightness of the blade. The steel began to descend.

“And me!” said Chauvigny, stepping forward. “I also knew of fitzAlan’s recklessness …
whichever fitzAlan it was … and kept my own counsel.” He kneeled beside Devon.

The sword maintained its position.

“Milord,” said Béthune. “If not for the fitzAlans, you would have already met your Maker thrice over. I join my fellows.” And he knelt at Chauvigny’s side.

The sword lowered a notch.

De Fors stepped forward and said with reluctance, “I value my head, but …” And taking a breath of courage, continued, “I stand with the fitzAlans. They have been punished enough, and in spite of all, have served you well.” He took a place beside Béthune.

“
Am I to fight you all then?” Richard said.

“Or none,”
Chauvigny responded.

“After six heads roll, what am I to do for an encore?”

“Take the heads of both your brothers?” Chauvigny suggested.

“And not my betrothed?”

Casting his eyes downward, Chauvigny made a broad one-handed gesture. “That goes without saying, milord. She would make a pretty decoration.”

“And you, Clarendon? You do not wish to kneel with your countrymen and make this a true spectacle?”

“I will lose my head in any case.”

“How right you are!”
Richard said, and swore to God in his Heaven.

“If I may speak further,” ventured Chauvigny.

“You have spoken quite enough already!” The sword yet gripped in his mighty hand, Richard moved away from Drake and stood before Stephen.

Drake
glanced toward his brother to bid a final farewell, but since Stephen willfully affixed his eyes on the ground before him, their parting would have to come in the spirit world.

His voice resonant and full of authority, t
he king spoke. “I, Richard, by the grace of God, king of England, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, count of Anjou and also of Poitou …” Here he took a girding breath that presaged the verdict of a knight’s treason and the proclamation of his unmediated death. The sword Excalibur came to rest on Stephen’s shoulder. “… do hereby grant Stephen fitzAlan, son of William fitzAlan and Philippia d’Aquitaine, custody of the castle of Poitiers, the ancestral home of my dear mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, as well as the sum total of the rents derived therefrom, and of the properties and lands and privileges adherent. This honor I do bestow as pitiful payment for the most noble of services rendered to the person of the king by said knight, that of saving his life and of serving him faithfully in the face of his enemies.”

The sword Excalibur sang home.

“Arise Lord fitzAlan, and take your place in the company of men.”