The Angel Knight, page 3
He downed his wine quickly. He had been surprised at first that Edward chose to stay at Lanercost Abbey, holding his audiences in a small chamber there, instead of the garrisoned castle at Carlisle. But now he understood why.
Edward was clearly ill. The king had suffered for years from bouts of fever acquired in the Holy Land, and now that illness was taking its toll, aging the king since Gavin had seen him last, broad shoulders bowed lower, his graying leonine head turned a striking white, his skin thick and pallid. Even his voice, always commanding despite a lisp, was strained and tired.
The quiet of the abbey would be beneficial for an old, sick man, and the monks were clearly tending to him medically. Gavin saw the bruised cuts from recent bleedings on Edward’s long forearm, where his velvet sleeve had fallen back.
Edward rubbed his wide hand over his chest and shifted in his chair, his long legs angled awkwardly. The X-shaped design of the abbey chairs were unsuited to tall men, Gavin thought, seated in one himself, his own long legs stretched out before him. Edward Longshanks, who towered above most men, was likely quite uncomfortable.
“Have you plans to return to France?” Edward asked.
“Not as yet, sire. My castle at Fontevras runs smoothly with or without me. I thought to stay in England through the winter.”
The king nodded. “Fontevras remains yours through the tradition of curtesie, I understand.”
“Aye, your grace. When I die, ‘twill revert back to my wife’s family, since Jehanne and I had no children.”
“How long has it been since Jehanne died?”
“Two years, sire. She was but nineteen.”
“So young. A sad thing, her illness. I recall that Eleanor loved little Jehanne dearly. She would have been pleased to know that her niece grew to womanhood and married you. My first queen loved you well, Gavin. She even gave you that name of yours. Angel Knight.”
“I was devoted to Queen Eleanor, my liege.”
“Aye.” Edward frowned into his cup, his jowls deepening. “You were barely eighteen when Eleanor died, though you were already a worthy knight. And I do not forget how you rode by the side of her coffin all the way from Lincoln to London. When I wanted stone crosses erected at each place we stopped for the night, you saw that ‘twas done. Queen Eleanor’s angel, they called you.” Edward was silent for a moment. “Sixteen years have passed, and I love her still.”
“She was a gracious lady, sire.”
“I am forever indebted to you for that journey, in spite of what you did later.” Gavin watched the king down another long draught of wine, saw it dribble from the corner of his mouth. “You betrayed me at Berwick, just as Robert Bruce has betrayed me,” Edward added in a soft, low growl. Gavin saw that the king was more than half way toward sodden drunk.
“Sire,” he said. “I but spoke my honest mind to you at Berwick.”
“Only the fact that you showed such devotion to Queen Eleanor saved you from a hanging then.”
“I endured exile and dispossession for my words to you. ‘Tis past and paid for.”
Edward grinned slyly. “Well, I made you pay at the French court. A nest of vipers, eh? I needed a clever man there to arrange truces and marriages. You did well.”
“I did what I could, sire.”
“And now you have brought the French bishops here to convey the Pope’s approval for my son’s marriage. But so far the bishops only want to discuss the situation with the Scots. The Pope has sent several messages along with them. Not all of his letters are to my liking.” Edward sighed heavily and glanced at Gavin. “Do you mean to stay in England now?”
“I will stay for a while.” He looked meaningfully at the king.
“And where shall you live?” When Gavin said nothing, the king grinned. “Men shall never say of me that my memory was short. I dispossessed you, and now I owe you lands for your capable services to me since then. I might give your disinherited lands back one day, but first I mean to grant you some other holding within the English realm.”
Gavin narrowed his eyes. “The English realm?”
“Scotland,” Edward said. “You will take over the castle of Kilglassie in Galloway. Your cousin Henry had a garrison there. Now I grant those lands to you.”
Gavin was stunned. “My liege, I—”
“Go there, and help bend those stubborn Scottish rebels in Galloway to English will. I assume you have learned the proper attitude since your youthful outburst at Berwick.” Edward slid him a sharp, fast glance. “Perhaps we shall call this return to Scotland a test of your loyalty.”
Gavin straightened in the hard curve of the chair. He had not anticipated Scottish lands. And he surely did not crave involvement in the morass of problems between Scotland and England. “I still do not care for your policies in Scotland, sire,” he said, distinctly, softly. “I never will.”
“Have a care how you speak to your sovereign,” Edward warned. “You have been in France too long. They are overly sympathetic to the Scots. Surely you have greater wisdom.”
“I have not changed my opinions, sire, in that regard.”
“See that you do. You owe your fealty to me. My opinions in this matter are therefore yours.” Edward glared at him. “Hold Kilglassie and garrison it. Robert Bruce may well hide in Carrick or Galloway, and Kilglassie sits in the mountains between those lands. I want Bruce found. You are one of the few knights who can match his superb skill with weapons. Hunt him down and bring him to me. Act as my arm in that part of Galloway.”
“Sire.” Clenching a fist beneath the table, Gavin bowed his head in reluctant acceptance, knowing he had little choice in the matter. Necks, unfortunately, were fragile in nature.
Kilglassie in Galloway had been Henry’s holding. How ironic that he should come to this meeting on behalf of his cousin’s widow, and end up bestowed with her widow’s dower lands.
“Pass this test, Gavin, and I will reward you very well,” Edward said, his voice blurred with wine.
Gavin opened his mouth to speak—protest or question, he was not certain, for he was still astonished—but a loud rap sounded at the door.
“Ah,” the king said. “That will be my commander in that part of Galloway. I sent for him to join us, since he is in Carlisle. Let him in.”
Frowning, Gavin went to the oak door and pulled it open to admit a tall knight in a red surcoat. The man strode past Gavin without a greeting and advanced toward the king, dropping to one knee and bowing his head.
Even after ten years, Gavin easily recognized Oliver Hastings. He had heard that the knight had attained a post as one of Edward’s most trusted commanders in Scotland. But then, Hastings had always had a ruthless taste for the Scottish war.
“Hastings. You remember Sir Gavin Faulkener. He’s just come from Paris with those bishops sent by the pope,” the king said.
“Oliver,” Gavin said. He did not hold out his hand when Hastings rose and turned.
Narrowing his dark eyes, Hastings slowly removed his gauntlets. “Faulkener. Much time has passed since we last saw each other. Berwick, was it not?” He turned abruptly away and bent toward the king to murmur something.
Leaning against the wall, Gavin waited while the king and Hastings spoke in low tones. He remembered John’s remark about Hastings’s mistreatment o f the Scottish female prisoner. Gavin wondered what was truly at stake. He knew Hastings well enough to realize that the man would not bother with Henry’s little widow unless he wanted something very specific.
Gavin was aware that Hastings had brutalized women in the past; he had witnessed his deeds in Berwick himself. And Gavin had heard a horrifying report of his other actions on behalf of Edward’s war against Scotland.
Gavin summoned control, revealing no expression, no clue to the old rage still simmering within him. Doubtless Oliver Hastings had forgotten one Scottish nunnery among the many towns and religious houses sacked in Scotland. But Gavin’s mother had been among the women who had died when Hastings’s patrol had sacked that convent eight years ago.
He knew that the ultimate blame for that raid rested on King Edward, who had ordered the Scottish nunneries closed. At the time, Gavin had known that Hastings rarely acted on his own. Oliver Hastings had always been a very efficient sword arm, never questioning the order, and never considering the price of the destruction he caused.
Gavin had tried, these past eight years, to accept his mother’s death as a tragic casualty in a war that he, as one of Edward’s knights, was obligated to support. The raid on the convent had happened while he had been in France; he had received an official apology from King Edward regarding her death, for his mother had been the Scottish widow of an English baron. The king had made a prayerful, and probably brief, penance, and then had appointed him ambassador as a further gesture. Gavin had been told that Hastings had been fined and punished for his brutality.
‘Tis in the past, Gavin told himself. Such a loss was pointless to avenge. Naught could be recovered. He sighed heavily and shifted his feet, feeling the tension of long-held bitterness, as well as the keen weariness of his journey. The chain mail that he had donned for his arrival in Carlisle today suddenly hung very heavily on his shoulders.
Folding his arms over his chest, he scowled, turning his thoughts to the king’s grant to him of this obscure Gallovidian castle. For whatever reason, Edward was determined to pull him back into the Scottish dispute. Gavin was sorely tempted to refuse the grant and the order, but he knew Edward would regard that as a treasonous act.
Still, before this night was done, Gavin intended to step a little closer to treason once again. He relaxed his shoulders against the wall and waited for a moment to speak to the king about releasing the Scotswoman.
“Come with me, my lady.”
Stirred from sleep, Christian felt a hand on her shoulder. “Dominy,” she whispered, and opened her eyes to focus on a young face, round and pleasant, and a pair of deep brown eyes framed by dark braids and a linen head kerchief.
“Aye, my lady,” Dominy murmured. “Get up, now, dear.”
“Do not speak to the prisoner,” a guard snapped.
Groaning, Christian tried to sit up, but failed. The timber slats leaked cold air and light, and the cage swayed slightly as she fell back down. She drew a raspy breath; her head spun and her limbs felt wobbly. But she was alive. The warrior angel had been only a dream.
Sitting with Dominy’s help, Christian frowned, realizing her feet were warm. Surprised, she noticed a small iron brazier, filled with glowing coals, nearby. It had never been there before.
“Aye,” Dominy murmured. “Someone brought ye a brazier while ye slept. I asked several times that one be given ye, but the guard always said me nay. Who did this, and gave ye better blankets? By the saints, have the Scots sent coin for yer keep?”
“Dame, do not speak to the prisoner,” the guard barked out again.
Dominy turned. “And how am I to wake her, Thomas, d’ye suggest?”
“Well, you’re not to talk to her.”
The woman snorted in disdain and turned back. “Can ye get up, sweet? I’ve brought broth and bread. Thick with onions, the soup is, and hot.”
“Dominy,” Thomas said. “The lady gets only silence by king’s command. It is treason to disobey the king’s orders.”
“Then arrest me too, and throw me in with her,” Dominy said. “She might get better care. How can ye stand there each day while she suffers? My husband, bless his departed soul, was a king’s guard too, but he would never have let this happen beneath his very nose.”
“I only follow king’s orders,” Thomas grumbled.
“Hmph. Who ordered the brazier and the blankets?”
“A lord, just arrived today. I know not who he is.”
Christian blinked, remembering the warrior with the steady gaze and deep blue eyes. Not Saint Michael come to take her away, but a mortal man, a knight who had stood outside her cage a few hours ago. The concern she had seen in his eyes had been real.
“Well, it’s a good man who ordered that done, and brave, too, for going against king’s orders,” Dominy said as she turned to hoist Christian under the arms, helping her to stand.
Grunting with the effort of lifting Christian, she thrust out an ample hip to support her. “Get in here and help me, man,” Dominy huffed out. “She’s too weak to stand. And she’s slippery as a buttered eel in this damp plaid, though she must weigh little more than my own son.”
Christian tried to straighten her legs, but they felt not entirely hers to command. Thomas opened the door wider and reached toward them, grunting as he leaned forward and scraped his heavy mail-clad torso over the stone battlement.
The small door of the cage, hardly bigger than the hatch of a bread oven, opened into the space between two merlon blocks on the crenellated wall. Thomas gestured impatiently. “Bring her here, then, and I’ll lift her out.”
Dominy dragged Christian toward him, and the guard closed his big hands around Christian’s waist. He flopped her over his shoulder and slid backward through the door. Dominy clambered out after them.
“Carry her to the tower. She cannot walk far. And remember she is a lady, and no sack of barley grain!”
Thomas shifted Christian in his arms. She leaned her head on his shoulder and looked up at the wide, beautiful twilight sky as he carried her toward the tower door.
They went down a torchlit stair, while Dominy followed. When Thomas set Christian down by an interior door, she stood upright, although her legs trembled.
“Wait here, Thomas,” Dominy said, and led Christian through the door and along a narrow dark corridor, withdrawing while Christian used the small privy area. A few minutes later Dominy returned.
“Now we can talk without that man to hear us,” Dominy whispered loudly. “Can ye believe I ever thought him handsome? He has a nose like a Pascal loaf beneath that helmet, and a belly like a boar’s. Breath like one, too.”
Christian laughed, and the soft sound felt good. She leaned against the wall and relished the musty, close air in the corridor, enjoying the warmth and the torchlight, and the solid enclosure of stone walls. She was so heartily tired of wind and mist and cold. Her legs were feeble and uncertain from months of planked boards and open air beneath her feet. These brief moments in the tower, allowed a few times each day, were havens of peace and comfort to her.
“Curse old King Edward,” Dominy grumbled. “Will the Scots not ransom ye from here, my lady? I fear for yer health, I truly do, if ye stay in that foul cage longer.”
Christian began to answer, but gave in to the insistent cough that burst viciously from her raw throat.
Dominy frowned and rested a hand on Christian’s brow. “Yer cough grows worse, and ye feel a bit feverish. The broth may help. I asked the cook to add more onions and garlic to it.” She sighed. “By the saints, I wish I could help ye more.”
“You have done much for me these weeks.” Christian’s voice was strained with illness and disuse. The broth would help both her throat and her cough, she thought. She had forgotten what true appetite was, but she would force herself to eat, because now she had a small wellspring of hope inside of her. The golden knight had shown her kindness; she prayed that he was a Scottish knight, sent by her cousin Robert Bruce to ransom her freedom.
“Dominy!” Thomas called. “Bring her out!”
“A moment more! Wretched man,” Dominy added beneath her breath. “Wantin’ to take ye back there so soon.” She put an arm around Christian’s waist. “Dear saints, yer but bones and skin now. And ye must be so cold there at night, though that brazier is a blessing from heaven itself. Can I bring ye aught else, then?”
Christian shook her head in refusal. She had asked nothing of the English so far, and would not do so now.
“Nay? Then I’ll bring ye an extra bowl of broth this evening,” Dominy said, and wrapped Christian in a hug.
The embrace was so comforting that tears sprang into Christian’s eyes. But for this one friend, she had not been touched or held with love in so very long.
“Where in God’s name has he gone? The last word my commanders sent me was that Bruce was in Ireland!” the king shouted.
Leaning against the wall, Gavin straightened, his interest caught.
“Robert Bruce has surely gone west,” Hastings answered. “I think he has been hiding these last few weeks in the western Isles. Clan Donald there supports him loyally. I suspect that he will try to cross into Carrick and Galloway at first chance, perhaps from the Isle of Arran.”
“Now?” Edward barked. “In winter?”
“Aye, sire. The weather in that part of Scotland, near the Irish sea, is not so harsh as here along the border. A crossing and a campaign would be quite possible.”
The king nodded. “Bruce’s lands in Carrick—which we have rightfully taken—may contain supporters loyal to him. But if you and the rest of my host have done as I ordered, Robert Bruce will find no support wherever he goes.”
“Exactly, my liege,” Hastings said. “We hold nearly every castle in Galloway and Ayrshire now. And I have lately taken Loch Doon. When Bruce lands, he will be quickly captured.”
“Nearly every castle, you said.”
“We had Kilglassie, as you know, sire, but—”
“Aye,” Edward muttered. “I know. And I have given Kilglassie to Faulkener to hold.”
Edward beckoned to Gavin.
“Kilglassie? To this man?” Oliver asked in astonishment.
“The castle was held by his cousin,” Edward said. “Gavin, I want you to assess the situation at Kilglassie. Then request your men and supplies through Hastings at Loch Doon Castle.”
“My liege,” Oliver said, “Loch Doon is not far from Loch Kilglassie. I can easily take command of both castles.”
Edward turned a flat glare on Oliver. “Do you question my orders?”
“Sire, that castle is not yet ready to house a garrison.”
