Ellen was carrying the most exotic-looking dog Hugh had ever seen. The size of a small cat, with tufts of soft, milk-white fur, it put Hugh in mind of a walking powder-puff. As she bent down to put it on the grass, he slipped through the chapel doorway and drew back his hood from his face.
Juliana saw him first. She was the most spontaneous free spirit he’d ever known, yet now she did not even blink, turning casually and touching Ellen’s arm. Ellen’s response was equally circumspect; she gazed across at Hugh without a flicker of recognition. And then, in so smooth a maneuver it might have been choreographed between them, Juliana focused the full seductive power of her smile upon Sir Nicholas, drawing him aside, and Ellen tossed her dog’s toy up into the air.
It landed almost at Hugh’s feet, a small strand of braided rope, with the puppy in panting pursuit. Scooping them both up, he sauntered across the cloister garth. “Is this your dog, my lady?”
“Yes, thank you. She was a gift from my cousin, the King, comes from Bologna in Italy, he says…” Ellen sounded quite normal, even nochalant, but had no idea what she’d just said. From the corner of her eye, she saw that Juliana had lured Sir Nicholas out of earshot, and she expelled a shaken breath. “We thought you were dead!”
“Brian helped me to escape. Hold out your hand.”
Puzzled, she did, not comprehending until she felt something smooth and metallic hidden under the rope. Cupping it cautiously, she found herself looking at a heart-shaped topaz pendant.
“Prince Llewelyn said to tell you that there are many who think topaz guards against grief. He does not know if he believes so himself, but he said that even if it is no talisman, it is a pledge, and that you can rely upon, my lady.”
Ellen’s fingers closed around the pendant, gripping it so tightly it would leave an imprint in the palm of her hand. “You’ve seen Llewelyn?” she whispered, once she was sure she could trust her voice, and Hugh nodded.
“Yes…and Lord Amaury, too. We were able to talk briefly at Corfe.”
“Amaury? The truth, Hugh, please! How is he faring? How are they treating him?”
“His chamber is right Spartan, I’ll not deny that. But it could be far worse, my lady. He has candles for the dark and blankets for the cold and two full meals a day. Fortunately, the King has agreed to pay for his keep—”
“Oh, has he?” Ellen all but hissed the words. “How very magnanimous of him!”
“Ah, no, my lady, you do not understand. We could not take that for granted. It is customary for the Exchequer to pay for the maintenance of hostages, and sometimes, but not always, for Crown prisoners like Lord Amaury. But for other prisoners, there are no provisions. When a man is arrested, his family must pay for his food, candles, all his needs. God pity the poor soul who is friendless. It is not unheard-of for men to starve in the King’s gaols. If King Edward had not…”
But Ellen was no longer listening. Although standing in the glare of high noon, she still could not suppress a shiver. “Thank God I never knew that!” Reaching down, she cuddled the puppy in her arms, walked back and forth along the pathway, trying to regain her composure, to contain her rage.
“Ere my lord father rode out to face the King’s army at the battle of Lewes, he told his men that he’d taken an oath to reform the realm, he told them that they were fighting for Christ’s poor, for the weal of England, for the promises broken and the trust betrayed. He knew, you see, he always knew what he risked. He did not go blindly to his fate, knew what was at stake. And Guy and Bran…they must have understood the consequences of their killing. Just as I, too, understood. When I agreed to wed Llewelyn, I knew how enraged Edward would be. But I chose to risk it, I chose! Do you not see, Hugh? Each of us, in our own way, we chose…all but Amaury. He is not caged up at Corfe for anything he did, for any choice he made, and it is that which I find hardest to accept, to forgive.”
Hugh nodded somberly; he would not insult her with facile, false comfort, would not offer platitudes. He’d kept a wary eye upon Sir Nicholas, knew that their time was running out, for the knight was beginning to cast curious glances their way. “Shall I fetch you some flowers, my lady?” And without waiting for Ellen’s response, he moved into the grassy center mead.
Ellen watched, baffled and faintly irked that he should waste their last moments like this. It seemed to her that he took an eternity to pick a meagre bouquet of the first spring flowers, a handful of Lent lilies, a few yellow primroses. Holding it out to her, he smiled, said in a low voice, “There are two letters wrapped around the stems, from your brother and your husband.”
“Oh, Hugh…” Ellen yearned to fling her arms around his neck, to cover his face with kisses. With Sir Nicholas’s footsteps drawing near on the path, she dared not even touch his hand. “If I were not a married woman,” she murmured, “I’d run away with you in a trice!”
He laughed soundlessly. “We may do just that,” he promised recklessly, and saw her eyes widen as she took his meaning, filling with sunlight, with a sudden, desperate, dazzled hope.
They met again the following morning, and it went so well that they risked a third encounter two days later. By now they had worked out the basic elements of their escape. Their plan was a simple one, for there was less to go wrong that way. Ellen would lure Sir Nicholas into the empty chapel, where Hugh would be waiting. And while the knight lay, bound, gagged, and helpless, in the chapel sacristy, three Franciscan friars would be calmly making their way across the lower bailey, through the outer gate to freedom.
Ellen and Hugh both agreed that they must have allies. While Llewelyn was the natural choice, there were limits to what he could do, for a Welsh accent would betray them all. They needed invisible accomplices, English accomplices, and after some thought, Ellen came up with two names, John d’Eyvill and Baldwin Wake.
The first was a Yorkshire knight, the second a Lincolnshire baron. They’d been friends of her brothers, her father’s most steadfast supporters, and not even Evesham had reconciled them to the Crown. Moreover, Baldwin Wake was wed to her cousin, Hawise de Quincy. Hawise was Llewelyn’s kinswoman, too, for Elen, her mother, had been the daughter of Llewelyn Fawr and Joanna Plantagenet. Hawise and her sisters had been Ellen’s own playmates in childhood, often in the de Montfort household, and she felt confident that Hawise and Baldwin Wake would shelter her at one of their Lincolnshire manors until Llewelyn could get her safely into Wales.
That made sense to Hugh, for he knew all the roads into Wales would be watched; it would not take a soothsayer, after all, to guess Ellen’s destination. And so they agreed that on the morrow he would ride for the Wake manor of Bourne in Lincolnshire.
Now that action was imminent, Hugh’s brain was racing. Walking toward the gatehouse, he could have been on the moon, so preoccupied was he, so oblivious of all but the plan taking shape so promisingly. It might be a good idea if Baldwin could arrange for three Franciscan friars to serve as bait, to lead the hunt astray. But if Baldwin did agree to help, they’d have to get word first to Llewelyn. Hugh did not doubt that the Welsh Prince would be outraged if his wife’s safety was put at risk without his knowledge. He had struck Hugh as a man accustomed to command, and he’d want a say in this for certes.
At the very last moment, Hugh heard the sudden footsteps behind him and started to turn. But it was too late. There were three of them, and they hit him all at once, sending him sprawling onto the bailey ground. By the time he’d gotten his breath back, there was a sword poised at his throat.
They left Windsor Castle the next morning, in a driving rainstorm. Hugh’s guards were understandably disgruntled by the weather, and irked, too, by the timing, not relishing a separation from their families in Holy Week. They took out their frustrations upon Hugh, isolating him within a surly silence, and by the end of the second rain-drenched day, knowing neither where he had been nor where he was going, Hugh had begun to despair.
That was a new and frightening feeling for him; even during those desperate, fever-st
alked days out on the Maremma with Bran, he’d still clung to hope. But now he looked at what his future held, and it was like gazing down into an abyss.
He’d begun to wish fervently that he’d not been so stubborn. If he’d answered the Windsor constable’s questions, he might have saved himself a great deal of grief. His bruises and scratches would heal. He didn’t even blame the constable all that much; his obstinate silence might have provoked a less patient man than Geoffrey de Pychford. But had he openly admitted he was Ellen de Montfort’s sworn man, he might well be on his way now to join her other household knights at Bristol Castle. If the Church was right and pride one of the Seven Deadly Sins, he could end up paying a terrible price for that presumptuous vice. Riding—wet, miserable, and manacled—along unknown roads toward an unknown fate, he found himself haunted by his own words. “God pity the poor soul who is friendless. It is not unheard-of for men to starve in the King’s gaols.”
On the third day of their journey, the third of April, the sun reemerged, and the improvement in the weather brought a parallel upswing in the mood of one of Hugh’s guards. Unlike his comrades, he had no wife waiting back at Windsor, was young enough to look upon their escort duty as an adventure now that they no longer seemed in danger of drowning. He’d been impressed, moreover, by Hugh’s stoical courage, for the fiery-tempered constable of Windsor was not a man he’d have dared to defy himself. And so, as the air warmed, hinted at spring, his reticence rapidly thawed.
Riding at Hugh’s side, he was soon chatting companionably with his prisoner. Introducing himself as Henry of Dover, he volunteered that his friends called him Harry the Fleming, after the Flemish sailor who’d not hung around long enough to learn what a fine son he’d sired. Generously sharing his wine flask, he’d soon shared, as well, his entire history, at interminable length. But he’d also noticed that Hugh’s wrists had been rubbed raw and bleeding by his manacles, and when they stopped to eat, he found rags to wrap around the irons. And he ended Hugh’s suspense. They were heading north, he confided. They’d be halting that night at Leicester, again at Newark, with their final destination the royal castle at Lincoln.
Hugh was awed by his first sight of Lincoln. The city was perched upon the summit of a hill so high that the cathedral’s triple towers seemed to be scraping the clouds. As they passed through Stonebow Gate, they were nearly deafened by the sudden, pulsing sound. For the three days before Easter, church bells throughout the realm had been silenced. Now, on Easter morn, they burst forth in joyful peals, in a musical epiphany meant to echo toward Heaven itself. Hugh’s chains seemed to clink in mocking harmony as he made an awkward sign of the cross. Easter was one of the holy days upon which all Christians were expected to take Communion. This would be the first time that he would not receive the Blessed Sacrament, or be shriven of his sins. And it did not ease his conscience that his greatest regrets were not for those unconfessed sins, but that he had failed his lady by his lack of care.
The castle turrets loomed above them, crowning the crest of the hill. Hugh’s stomach muscles tightened as he gazed up at the cloud-drifted sky, for within the hour, this mild spring sunlight might be only a memory. Mushrooms thrived in the dark and damp, but how could men? So caught up was he in these morbid musings that he was taken aback when they turned suddenly onto Danesgate, heading away from the castle.
Harry the Fleming was just as surprised by the detour, and urged his horse forward to catch up with the captain of the guards. He was back within moments, looking startled and excited. “I did not know, for our captain can be as close-mouthed as any clam. He’s under orders to deliver you, not to the constable at Lincoln Castle, but to the Bishop of Lincoln’s Palace. You must have stirred up more trouble than we thought, lad, for you’re to be handed over to the King himself!”
As he followed his guards into the Bishop’s great hall, Hugh could not help thinking of the many times Simon de Montfort must have crossed this same threshold, in the years when the Bishop of Lincoln had been the saintly Robert Grosseteste. But Grosseteste was long dead, and the current Bishop was the King’s man. He repeated the words softly to himself, still unable to believe that he’d be facing the King within moments. He’d meant it when he told Isaac ben Asher that Edward was the enemy. But he was also God’s anointed. He’d never bargained upon having to confront the King of England. Given a choice, he’d rather have braved those Welsh mountain passes again, mayhap even the Alps, the touchstone by which he measured all perils.
Leaning against one of the huge marble pillars, he tried to ignore the curious stares his shackles were attracting, and watched as the captain of his guards moved down the middle aisle. There was a spacious bay window at the upper end of the hall, and he knew without being told that the tall, dark-haired man sprawled within the recess was England’s King. Beside him, Harry gave a low, wondering whistle. “I think half the peers of the realm are here! I know most of them on sight, what with the King coming so often to Windsor. But the court is rarely as gem-studded as this. I suppose they’re here for the Easter festivities.”
“Or to plan for war against the Welsh,” Hugh said, and Harry shot him a surprised look.
“Well, I know naught of Wales,” he admitted, conveying by his tone that he had no interest, either. “See that man in the red tunic? That is the Lord Edmund, the King’s brother. Men say he’s a good master, easy to serve. That must be his new French wife, the Lady Blanche. I had no idea she was such a little bit of a lass! And that tall, prideful lady in velvet is the Queen. See how her skirts are swelling? When they were at Windsor in December, there were rumors that she had another loaf in the oven. Let’s hope,” he added piously, “that this one will be a lad. A king ought always to have sons to spare, and they’ve already buried two of their three boys.”
Harry was not in the least abashed by Hugh’s lack of response, so intent was he upon showing off his familiarity with the King’s court. “Now over there is the Earl of Gloucester, the one with the carrot-color hair. You might be right about war with Wales, for we do not often see so many Marcher lords this far from the border. They’re a half-wild folk, the Marchers, doubtless from living so close to the Welsh. That kind of craziness can be catching!”
Laughing at his own joke, he nudged Hugh with his elbow. “That is Roger Lestrange, one of the few Marchers who does not count his grievances like pater noster beads. Not like Roger de Mortimer; he’s the most dangerous of the lot. That’s him, the one looking lean and hungry—like a Welsh wolf! He is half Welsh, you know. The talk at Windsor is that his nerves are very much on the raw these days, for he lost a son a few months ago, his firstborn. His second son was pledged to the Church, had to be snatched back just as he was about to take his vows. Fancy, one day you’re to be a priest, the next you’re supposed to step into your dead brother’s shoes! You think he feels reprieved…or deprived?”
Hugh shrugged. He’d yet to take his eyes from the King. The captain had given Edward a letter, doubtless the Windsor constable’s indictment. He swallowed with difficulty, watched as Edward began to read.
“See that lord hovering by the King?” Harry got his attention with another elbow jab. “You are looking at the most hated baron in all of England, God’s truth. That is the Earl of Pembroke, the King’s de Lusignan uncle. A right fine gentleman, if you judge by the flaxen hair and the elegant clothes. But if he died tomorrow, there would be so many men lining up to spit into his coffin that they would not be able to bury him till Candlemas!”
Never had Hugh felt so exposed, so vulnerable, for these men had been Simon de Montfort’s most virulent enemies. They still were, for in some strange sense, they seemed to hate him even more since Evesham. Hugh raised his wrists, wincing as the shackles rubbed against his lacerated skin. What in God’s Name was he doing in this den of vipers?
Harry poked him again. “Now him I do not know, that tall one with a mustache and no beard. An odd style, for certes. He must be a foreigner.”
Hugh turned
to look, and a dim memory flickered. “He is Welsh,” he said tersely. “Prince Llewelyn’s renegade brother.” Never had he seen gathered in one place so many men deserving of damnation.
“You look greensick,” Harry said suddenly, cocking his head in a belated appraisal that was not altogether lacking in sympathy. “Not that I blame you, but try not to let the King see you are scared. He hates it when men grovel. But for Christ’s sake, do not swagger, either, for he hates that even more!”
Hugh had no chance to reply; the captain was beckoning to Harry. As they moved forward, people crowded in around them, straining to see. Hugh was not surprised, for he knew how impatient men were at the end of a hunt, how eager to be in on the kill. Kneeling before the King, he raised his head, forced himself to meet Edward’s eyes.
“Sir Geoffrey tells me you have a liking for disguises, first a friar, then a deaf-mute. I trust you will be more forthcoming with me,” Edward said, and Hugh marveled that he could invest so simple a sentence with such ominous overtones. “You may begin by telling me who you are and why you were seeking out Eleanor de Montfort.”
“I am Sir Hugh de Whitton, and she is my liege lady.”
Edward nodded, almost imperceptibly. “Well, that is a start. Go on.”
Hugh did. The story he told was essentially true; his were lies of omission. He made no mention of Brian or Isaac ben Asher, said nothing of his detours to Wales and Corfe. What emerged was a straightforward account of a knight loyal to his lady. Could he be blamed for keeping faith? A frail reed in view of Amaury’s fate, but the only defense he had.
“So you avoided confinement by claiming to be a crew member, then followed the Lady Eleanor to Windsor. What then? What were you planning?”