The Rose at Twilight (12 page)

“Nay, lass, none o’ that!” he exclaimed, snatching the whip from her hand. Kicking his horse to a faster pace, he forced her palfrey to follow. Then suddenly, glancing ahead, he wrenched his mount to a halt again and released her rein, shouting at his men to look out. “’Ware riders! Get thee gone!”

The group Sir Nicholas had sent ahead with Hugh, having heard the clarion call of the trumpet, had turned back and could be seen now galloping toward them, growing clearer as the leaders emerged like ominous but substantial shadows from the mist.

No sooner did the attacker bellow his warning and release Alys’s mare than he and his men seemed to vanish into the forest, but when one of Sir Nicholas’s men wheeled his horse to follow, the Welshman snarled at him to hold. Then, giving spur to his destrier, he galloped up to her, reining in with such violence that the stallion reared, pawing the air with its sharp hooves, sending shudders of terror through her mare.

Not turning tail instantly at the sight of him had taken most of Alys’s courage, for Sir Nicholas alone, bearing down upon her out of the ragged skirts of fog, had looked more dangerous than the entire rebel force. But when her mare began to tremble, she straightened in her saddle, her anger lending color to her cheeks. “Control your mount, sir,” she snapped.

“’Tis not Black Wyvern you need fear,
Saesnes
,” he retorted, “but me. I commanded you to ride on, to take shelter in the forest, but you dared yet again to defy me. You had best learn, and right quickly, to obey when I give a command.”

“Those men would not have harmed me,” she said, hoping she sounded more sure of that than she felt.

“You know them then?”

“No,” she replied swiftly, telling herself it was so, that she had not really recognized anyone.

He looked long at her, then said, “Those rebels no doubt hoped to use you as a pawn against Harry Tudor, but they were fools to attack a larger force, or else mighty desperate. In either case, you ought never to have trusted them.”

“I did not!”

“You did not run, though I told you to do so, and I saw no sign when they approached you that you resisted them.”

“They took me by surprise!”

“They could not have done so had you obeyed me.”

“I am not such a coward as to ride away and hide!”

“You will learn,
Saesnes.
” He raised his mailed fist, and she gasped, thinking he meant to strike her, but she realized even as the fear ripped through her mind that he was merely signaling to his men.

While they regrouped and moved up behind, Alys saw by the expressions on a number of faces that they must have heard every word that flew between Sir Nicholas and herself. She grimaced but was glad to see that other than one soldier whose arm was wrapped in a bloody rag no one appeared to have been badly injured in the brief but hard-fought battle.

When Sir Nicholas gave the signal to ride, Alys scowled at him and muttered for his ears alone, “You have no right to command me, sir. I am not one of your men.”

Making no attempt to keep his voice down, he said, “I have been patient with you, Lady Alys, but you will do well to test my patience no further. You were foolish not to obey me. I will do you the courtesy to believe you did not know them, but that means only that you could not have known they meant you no harm. They might have decided that a lady’s dainty ear—or her finger or hand—sent to our Harry would encourage him to agree to any demand they might choose to make. ’Tis not unknown for rebel abductors to begin with a lock of hair and proceed from there.”

Paling, and distractedly jerking her rein so that the mare danced nervously in the road, she cried, “They would not dare!”

He grabbed her rein, halting the mare and demanding grimly, “And why would they not?”

She opened her mouth to tell him she believed that at least one or two must have known her brother, but she caught herself before the words were spoken, swallowing them, and after a long, uncomfortable moment, said only, “They would not, that ’s all.”

“Only a liar or a fool would make such a statement,” he said. “I do not know which you are, but I’ll tell you one last time that you’d best obey my orders. I have only your safety in mind, nothing more, but while I am responsible for you, you must do as I bid or suffer the consequences. Where is your whip?”

She bit her lip at the transition his thoughts had made but answered steadily enough, “That villain snatched it when I tried to strike him with it.”

His expression softened. “I see. I wronged you then, by believing you did not resist. Still,
mi geneth
, you will do as I bid next time, for your own safety. If you persist in defying me, I will have no choice but to order your hands tied and place you in charge of one of my men, who will lead your mare and, if we are attacked again, take you instantly to cover.”

Instead of cowing her, the threat, coming as it did on the heels of what amounted to an apology, helped steady her, for she could not believe he meant it. No man would treat a lady so. She smiled, looking at him from beneath her thick lashes. “I was glad to see Goorthfan Gower and his men.” She tried to match Ian’s pronunciation but clearly failed, since Sir Nicholas looked bewildered. “The one you call Hugh,” she explained. “Is Goorthfan Gower not his proper name?”

Amusement lit his eyes. “Welshmen do not have surnames as you English know them. In legend
Gwr Gwrddfan
is a strong, tall man, a giant. Tales are told in Brecknockshire, where our homes lie, and in nearby Glamorgan, of a giant called Gwrddfangawr. The men began to call our Hugh the same, because of his size. But you and I do not speak of him now, mistress, only of you.”

“Ought we not to ride on, sir?” she asked with an innocent air. “You have spoken often of your wish to travel swiftly.”

“I want your word of honor that you will defy me no more, Lady Alys, and I will have it before we ride another league.”

“My word of honor, sir? Do Welshmen believe—No,” she interjected quickly, realizing that he would only twist her words if she asked such a question. Smiling again, albeit wryly, she said, “Would you really trust my word, sir?”

“May I do so?”

She nodded, serious now, holding his gaze with her own. “If I give it, you may trust it. I know that women are not held to that same high standard by which knights abide, but—”

“In these modern times,
mi geneth
, even knights can no longer be trusted to abide by that standard.”

“That is not something about which to speak lightly, sir!”

“I do not speak lightly, mistress, but I do speak truth. I said before that the world is changing, and that manners and morals change with it. One cannot say if such changes are right, but they come to us, and the Lord does naught to hinder them; and so, though ’twas once true that the word of a knight could be trusted, your Richard found, to his misfortune, that that is no longer the case. Harry Tudor uses change to suit his own good. No doubt, when it was expedient, Richard did the same.

“That is not true! Richard was an honorable knight.”

“So honorable that none can say what became of the nephew who by rights should have sat upon the throne in his stead, or of that lad’s younger brother. So certain are men of their fate, in fact, that none do question it.”

Alys opened her mouth, then clamped it shut again.

“Well,” he prompted when she remained silent, “have you naught to say to that, mistress?”

She had much to say and much to do to keep from saying it, but the conversation had now taken a tangent too dangerous to explore, for she knew both too much and too little. In truth, she had her suspicions and little else, but since she dared not make those suspicions known to him, she could say nothing. Her thoughts tumbled over one another, without order or sense, and suddenly, for the first time since her illness, she remembered the possibility that there had been men hiding at Wolveston, and she wondered if they had been among the recent attackers.

He was watching her. She bit her lip, regarding him again from beneath her lashes, trying to read his expression, wondering if there might be any way to make him see her side of the matter. Certainly, if that was too much to hope, she ought still to be able to win his good offices by employing the same tactics that had served her before now, both with Plantagenet men and others. She looked down and said quietly, “I do not understand what you want me to say, sir, but you must not speak so to me of Richard. You are no doubt a wise man, strong and brave as a lion—”

“Such woman’s prattle does naught to soften me,” he said with sudden harshness. “Not even a wench with hair like a raven’s wing and eyes like shiny coal would move me with such simpering wiles. You will learn that I do not easily lose sight of my intent. I will have your word now.”

“I thought you liked my hair.” She was pleased with the retort, thinking she had learned to use his own device against him, to twist debate as he did himself. “You did tell me once that it is like burnished gold and prettier than Elizabeth’s.”

His stern look did not waver. “Shall I call Ian up here, Lady Alys, and tell him to bring bindings?”

Believing now that he would do it, she swallowed and said with as much dignity as she could muster, “I will not defy you again, sir, not before we reach London.”

He nodded without comment, and they rode on in silence.

Without conversation to distract her, Alys had to fight to keep from thinking about Jonet, no doubt dead now. She found the effort to maintain a calm demeanor was exhausting, and soon realized that she had not fully recovered from her own illness. When the fog lifted at last, and Sir Nicholas increased the pace, any inclination she might have had to initiate more conversation disappeared. But despite his continued silence and the fact that his attention seemed fixed upon the road ahead, she knew he was watching her. Determined though she was not to let him suspect her growing fatigue, she nearly exclaimed aloud in gratitude when at last he signaled to his men to slow again so that some could dismount and lead their horses for a time, to rest them. She was having all she could do by then to remain upright in her saddle.

Knowing that to occupy her mind would help her stay awake, but wanting to dwell neither upon Jonet nor upon Sir Nicholas’s preference for dark women over fair, or on the humiliation she would experience if she tumbled to the ground before all these men, she forced her thoughts ahead to London. Elizabeth would be there before her, would in fact—if the Tudor held by the vow he was said to have made at Rennes Cathedral two Christmases past—soon be Queen of England. Remembering Sir Nicholas’s suggestion as to the most likely fate of Elizabeth’s brothers, Alys realized that Elizabeth had said nothing about either of them at Sheriff Hutton. That was not so odd in itself, since Elizabeth preferred to speak only of herself, but as best Alys could remember, no one else had ever mentioned the two young princes either.

“You are silent,
mi geneth.
Art weary?”

“Aye, a little.”

“I thought it must be so, for I had expected you to speak again by now in defense of the Yorkist usurper. You have not so much as attempted to deny that he murdered his young nephews.”

It was as if he had looked into her mind, but she refused to allow him to disconcert her this time. She said calmly, “King Richard would never have harmed them, sir. He had been charged with their care and that of the realm by one whose regard he sought and to whom he owed his greatest fealty. He would have protected his brother’s sons with his very life.”

Sir Nicholas said gently, “It will perchance be better for them if that is not found to be the case, mistress. This country wants peace, but there are rebels who would rally in support of a Yorkist heir if they thought he could supplant our Harry. I doubt he would harm Edward’s sons by choice, but if the boys do live, Harry might find himself left with no other recourse.”

She said, “They can be no more of a threat to him than they were to Richard, for they cannot inherit. They are bastards.”

“I have been told that your Parliament can alter that fact.”

“So, too, might they set aside the bill of attainder that prevents Neddie—the Earl of Warwick—from inheriting. You must know he is the son of Richard’s elder brother Clarence, but Richard did not harm him. He sent him to Sheriff Hutton with Elizabeth. If you fear for Richard’s nephews, sir, you must also fear for Warwick, and verily, the Tudor has no cause to harm him. Neddie is no knightly warrior but only a soft and gentle boy.”

“Like your brother?”

“My brother?” But as she spoke, she remembered that he had described the dead youth at Wolveston in just those words. Despising herself for a fool, she kept her countenance with effort and said with another casual shrug, “I do not think them at all similar. My brother was no doubt a scholar like my father, who detested war. Neddie is … Well, not to put too fine a face on it, sir, Neddie is a bit simple.”

“What about your other brother,” Sir Nicholas asked, “the one who had already left Wolveston? Do you still insist,
mi geneth,
that you know not whither he has gone?”

Alys shot him an angry look. “I do not wish to speak of my brothers, sir, and you are unmannerly to ask me such questions. In point of fact, I scarcely know them.” That, at least, was true, and she was glad, for she found it uncomfortable to lie to him. But she truly did not know Roger well, since she had met him only on a few occasions since leaving home. Daringly, she added, “I believe you question me only because I have made you think of things you had rather not have pondered. You did not know our king and yet have you attempted to blacken his name, only to justify your own allegiance to his usurper.”

“Why must I justify my allegiance? You do little enough to justify your own, and do you not honor Richard for his unswerving fidelity to his brother, King Edward? I should think you would understand that such loyalty needs no justification.”

She was silenced for a moment, because she understood that men frequently believed such things. Her own loyalty, regardless of what he might think, was not so easily commanded. She believed in Dickon because Anne had believed in him and because she had loved Anne. But perhaps it was likewise with Sir Nicholas. After all, the Tudor was also a Welshman, though he had spent most of his life in France. Perhaps Sir Nicholas’s true loyalty was to Wales, and to the Tudor only because all Welshmen believed he might be depended upon to benefit Wales.