by Lynn Kurland
Let not all you’ve worked for be snatched away from you whilst you sleep, Grandson.
Jean de Piaget
Rhys pursed his lips and handed the letter to Montgomery. “What think you?”
Montgomery read it and looked up. “I think your grandsire wastes ink overmuch worrying about your mother’s temper.”
“You don’t know my mother.”
Montgomery smiled. “I know what you’ve told me, and she doesn’t seem a woman given overmuch to bouts of ill humor.”
Rhys folded the missive. “I’ll leave before dawn on the morrow.”
“But, Rhys,” Montgomery said, aghast, “you cannot believe this is genuine. There was no seal, no guarantee—”
“It was from my grandfather,” Rhys said, knowing it could be from no other. Not even his mother knew the combination of items and cities he and his grandfather had discussed between themselves. Trinkets from London, cloth from Paris, and fresh fish from Calais. Simple, foolish things, but a guarantee of authenticity.
As much as anything could be guaranteed.
“I’ll leave the twins behind with you,” Rhys continued.
“I’m certain they will be grateful for that,” Montgomery said dryly.
Rhys couldn’t smile. That his grandfather should have investigated enough not to only find him but to send a missive along as well could only mean there was serious trouble afoot indeed. Was the abbey near to being overrun?
“Fenwyck’s garrison should be enough to keep Gwen safe, and I’ll make certain Geoffrey knows you have the keeping of my lady,” Rhys said, pushing aside his worry. He could only ride so fast, and it wasn’t as if he made for France from Ayre. He had a good fortnight before he would even reach London, then another fortnight to reach his mother’s. This was not how he intended to pass his fall.
“Go freely, my friend,” Montgomery said. “I will keep watch over your lady.”
“I fear Geoffrey more than any ruffians.”
“As well you likely should.”
“I want you to mark every drop of spittle he leaves on her hands,” Rhys growled. “The saints preserve him should he place any in other locations.”
Montgomery laughed. “Poor man. I suspect he knows that already and is appropriately cowed. I suspect you’ll return to find your lady safely unmolested.”
“For his sake,” Rhys said with a sigh, “I certainly hope so.”
It took him all of that day to arrange matters to his liking. Gwen had demanded to come along, and it was only by threatening to bind her to a chair and leave Geoffrey with any tools of liberation that she relented and reluctantly agreed to stay behind. Rhys didn’t trust her word, and he suspected he had good reason not to based on the glint in her eye, but a quickly exchanged look with Joanna at least allowed him to rest easier knowing that Gwen’s mother would do her best to stop Gwen from following him.
He planned to take fifteen of his most ill-tempered mercenaries and leave the others behind to guard his lady. Where Joanna and the Fitzgeralds failed in convincing Gwen to remain at Fenwyck, perhaps the lads would succeed.
It was near dawn when he and his company were finally prepared and waiting in the courtyard. He surveyed whom he was leaving behind that he might call up the memory to give him courage when he needed it.
Geoffrey seemed to think that remaining at Fenwyck with Gwen might be more than his frail powers of restraint could bear. He promised to meet Rhys in London in six weeks’ time to have speech with the king. By then Rhys hoped he would have finished his business in France, rescued his mother and his gold, and returned to London prepared to haggle with the king over Gwen’s hand. Perhaps Geoffrey would have reached the king first and filled his ears full of Alain’s treachery. Rhys suspected he would need all the aid he could muster.
Joanna wished him godspeed and good fortune. Geoffrey stood next to Gwen’s mother, his hands in plain sight in front of him and a look of innocence on his face. Gwen’s guard, augmented by grim mercenaries, looked equal to the task of keeping her in line. Nicholas stood near Gwen with his hand on the hilt of the dagger Rhys had gifted him earlier. Rhys had bid him look after Gwen, and Nicholas had taken the instruction to heart, though Rhys suspected the lad knew nothing more about wielding the blade than what Robin had showed him. He would remedy that when he returned.
Of Robin there was nothing to be seen. He’d asked to come along, been flatly refused, and gone off in a temper. Rhys tucked away a thought to remind himself to glance up at the walls before he left them, just to make certain Robin wasn’t about to fling something at him in retaliation. Rhys sighed. He would bring the lad back something from London to sweeten his humor. He could do no more than that.
Amanda wept and clung to him, begging him not to leave. By the time Rhys had hugged her to her satisfaction, the neck of his cloak was drenched and he was near to weeping himself. By the saints, no one had warned him children could have such a detrimental affect on his heart.
He started to bid farewell to his lady only to find that she had flung her arms around his neck as well. She kissed him full on the mouth before the entire company, then stepped back and shooed him away.
“Off with you then,” she said with a frown. “Why are you dawdling here when there is gold to be fetched?”
He laughed and kissed her for good measure, grateful for confidence shown when she could have been continuing the berating she’d given him earlier for going without her. He mounted quickly and set off before she could change her mind and curse him yet more.
If they rode hard, they could make Dover in less than a pair of fortnights. He started to worry about how long it would take to accomplish everything else, then stopped himself. It would take as long as it took; there was little he could do to hasten things along unless he sprouted wings.
Gwen would be his before the chill of winter had fallen, surely.
Or so he prayed.
33
“Where is Robin?”
Amanda looked up from where she was digging enthusiastically in Geoffrey’s garden with Anne and smiled a toothy smile. “Gone,” she said cheerfully.
Gwen looked about frantically. She could hardly believe she’d been preoccupied enough with Rhys’s having left not to have made a more continual effort to ascertain her son’s whereabouts. She’d seen Nicholas several times the day before and assumed that he was alone only because he and Robin had had another fight. The two scrapped like puppies one moment, then were inseparable the next. Nicholas had been often out of her sight, which had led her to suppose that he’d been with Robin. It was hardly unusual for her not to have seen her son for a day or two, especially when he was at his training with the twins. He had of late gone through periods when he liked to pretend he was already a knight and that had precluded, she had come to learn, many unmanly things—such as visits with one’s mother. She trusted the twins with her life, so she had reasoned within herself that she had no need for concern.
It was, however, that morn that she realized she hadn’t seen Robin with either the twins or Nicholas in quite some time.
Gwen spotted a blond head peeking out from between a cluster of bushes and she strode over immediately.
“Nicholas?”
The blond head lifted and she was greeted by the sight of two very guilty-looking pale eyes.
“Aye, milady?” he said, his voice but a whisper.
“Where is Robin?”
He swallowed, but not very well. He looked as if he were trying to ingest a large boot.
“Is he here in the keep?”
He blinked at her and looked horribly uncomfortable, but he couldn’t seem to form words.
Gwen took him by the hand and led him over to a bench. There was trouble afoot, and she had the feeling her son was at the bottom of it. She had a fairly good idea that if she managed to catch him, she would be more than tempted to acquaint his bottom with the flat of her hand a time or two. She doubted she would do it, but it would be tempting. How Robin
managed it she wasn’t sure, but the lad could talk his way out of a scolding with nothing more than a few contrite looks and a solemn promise never to commit mischief again.
“I didn’t want to lie,” Nicholas blurted out suddenly.
Gwen looked at the lad. Obviously he had a more developed sense of guilt than her son did.
“You lied?” she asked sternly. No sense in letting him believe such behavior was permissible.
And then Nicholas broke down into such heartwrenching sobs that Gwen immediately regretted her frown. She drew the boy onto her lap and rocked him while he wept as if he’d never stop. Soon Amanda and Anne had joined the little group. Amanda kept patting Nicholas soothingly. Anne merely stood by, clutching her hands together and watching with wide eyes.
“Oh, Nicholas,” Gwen said gently, “it can’t be as bad as all that.”
“He’s gone to France!” Nicholas wailed.
Gwen realized then that it certainly could be as bad as all that. She felt a chill steal over her.
“Did he go alone?”
“Nay,” Nicholas wept, “he went in Sir Rhys’s company!”
“Well, that isn’t as bad as it could be.” As if the thought of her son traipsing about with almost a score of mercenaries wasn’t bad enough. “Does Sir Rhys know of it?”
Nicholas stopped wailing long enough to look at her, aghast.
“Of course not, milady! He would never have agreed to such a thing.”
“True enough.”
She almost set Nicholas aside to run to the keep and send someone after Rhys to fetch Robin, then she thought better of it. He was already a day out, more than that if he’d started at dawn that morning. The company could be caught, true, but was that the best thing? The thought of Robin riding into possible war with Rhys was enough to make her wish to ride out herself to catch them, but was war what Rhys would find waiting for him? For all she knew, Rollan was behind the entire scheme and Rhys was riding off on a chase that would lead nowhere. Should Alain and his brother decide to visit Fenwyck, wouldn’t the best place for Robin be anywhere else?
The more she contemplated that, the more she began to think that might be the best plan. Rhys would care for Robin as if he’d been his own son. It wasn’t where she would have chosen to have her firstborn, but the choice apparently wasn’t hers.
“How did Robin manage this?” she asked Nicholas with a sigh.
“He bribed one of the mercenaries.”
Unsurprising. “With what?”
“Your cloak brooch, milady. I begged him not to, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“Of course not,” Gwen said, pursing her lips. Stealing and bribery. Where, by all the saints, had he come by such unwholesome ideas? Too much time listening to her mother’s minstrels, obviously.
“He made me swear I wouldn’t tell, swear it by the Holy Rood, lady,” Nicholas said. “Then he told me if I kept his secret, he would pretend we were brothers.”
Gwen watched Nicholas’s eyes well up with tears, and her heart broke at the sight of it.
“I suppose he won’t want to now,” Nicholas said, dragging his sleeve across his eyes.
Gwen gathered him close and hugged him. “Nicholas, love, by the time Rhys is through shouting at him, he will have so few wits left he will have forgotten about what he made you promise.”
“Think you, my lady?”
“Aye, lad, I do. But surely he doesn’t think to travel all the way to France undiscovered.”
“He’s very clever,” Nicholas said, his tone tinged with awe.
“Devious and disobedient are words I would more readily choose, but I suppose you have it aright.” She patted him on the back. “Come, lad, and let us seek out the shelter of the hall. Rhys will see to Robin well enough after he’s done scolding him. No doubt it will be a grand adventure for him and he’ll have many tales to tell you when he returns.”
And the first one would likely be how loudly Rhys had shouted at him for his stupidity, but that was one Gwen would gladly listen to. She knew she likely should have been sick with worry, but if there were anyone who could keep Robin safe, it would be Rhys—if he survived the pains in his chest just seeing the lad attached to some mercenary’s saddle would give him.
Gwen started to shepherd her little group back to the hall, but the girls had a different idea. Nicholas was pressed into service as a horse and he submitted willingly. Gwen suspected by the long-suffering look on his face that he thought it a just penance for the grievous sins he’d committed.
She closed her eyes and sent a prayer flying heavenward that her son would be safe and that Rhys wouldn’t strangle him when he’d found out what Robin had done.
And then she said one for herself that sometime in the near future her life would arrange itself as it should. No wars. No fighting. Nothing more to do than sit in her solar with a bit of cloth under her needle and worry about what might find its way into the stew at supper.
It was over a month later that she had finally managed to at least make herself a place in Fenwyck’s solar. The day was fine, the light was bright, and the children played at her feet. Her mother had somehow managed to unearth a minstrel from the surrounding countryside, and the lad sang skillfully. Sweet music, fine wine at her elbow, and those she loved surrounding her. The only things lacking were her son fingering his wooden sword purposefully and her love himself sitting across from her, snoring in the sunlight.
The vision was so powerful, and so disturbing, that she set aside her embroidery and rose.
“My lady?” Nicholas asked, looking up immediately.
She smiled as best she could. “I’m just a bit restless, lad.”
“A walk in the garden, love?” Joanna asked, looking up with a smile.
“Aye, Mother. It will do me good.”
“I’ll watch over the girls,” Nicholas volunteered.
“What a patient lad you are,” Joanna said with approval. “A fine, knightly virtue that is, to look after those weaker than yourself.”
Nicholas looked as if he’d just been recognized by the king himself. “Think you, my lady?”
Joanna nodded at him, then looked at Gwen. “A good lad, this one. You were fortunate to find him. I wonder if Rhys understands how fortunate.”
Gwen pursed her lips. “He’s a man, Mother, and as unobservant as they come. He’ll realize his good fortune in time. For now, though,” she said, laying her hand gently on Nicholas’s head, “I am merely grateful for a good lad who is so patient with the ladies about him.”
Nicholas smiled gamely. “The girls think of new animals for me to be each day, you know,” he admitted. “I learn to be one kind well enough to make them happy, then they change their minds.” He considered for a moment, then looked up at her. “Are all women thusly, my lady?”
Joanna laughed. “You’ve spent too much time with Robin, love. The girls are merely clever, not fickle.”
Nicholas appeared to be digesting that. Gwen smiled and bent to kiss the top of his head.
“I thank you for your goodness to the little ones. They love you for it.”
By the way he straightened his shoulders and took on a more purposeful expression, Gwen assumed that comment was enough to make him happy. She suspected he would have crawled to London and back on his hands and knees if Amanda and Anne had asked it of him. The lad was starved for any kind of affection, and Gwen was only too happy to see it given to him.
She made her way down to the great hall, wondering if perhaps the twins might be found and persuaded to train with her a bit. Rhys had absconded with her sword and replaced it with a completely useless blunted piece of steel. Fortunately the Fitzgeralds had recovered from their mal de cheval in time to discover with whom Rhys had hidden the blade and exerted their considerable charm to take possession of it. Gwen couldn’t decide if they thought she should have her sword because it was a challenge to avoid being nicked, or if it was because they thought her skill was improving enough that they no longe
r needed to worry about their tender skins. She liked to believe it was the latter.
Hisses and angry gestures drew her attention. She looked to the hearth to find Geoffrey and Montgomery quarreling fiercely, albeit quietly. The moment they saw her, they both assumed such false looks of innocence that she knew whatever they discussed involved her intimately. It was definitely something to be investigated.
She strode over to them, stopped a pace away, and put her hands on her hips. That posture always intimidated Robin. Perhaps it would work here just as well.
“What is it?” she demanded.
“Nothing,” they answered in unison.
Gwen saw a hint of parchment poking up from the neck of Geoffrey’s tunic. Without giving it further thought, she leaped upon him, wrenched it free of his clothing, and stuffed it down the front of her gown. Both men turned on her as one, their fingers flexing and their mouths working soundlessly.
“Good morrow to you,” she said, turning to walk away.
“My lady,” Geoffrey pleaded, “I beg you return that.”
She turned back around. “I think not.”
“’Tis a small thing, truly.”
“Then what does it matter if I know of it?”
Montgomery took a step backward and shook his head. “I hereby remove myself from this disaster.” He looked at Geoffrey. “The full weight of Rhys’s displeasure will rest upon you, my lord.”
Gwen didn’t wait to hear more. She pulled the missive free and managed to read the entire thing save the signature before Geoffrey ripped it from her hands.
I, Jean de Piaget, write this by mine own hand this last day of July, the Year of Our Lord, 1206, to Rhys de Piaget. Greetings to you, Grandson, and may the good graces of our Lord be upon you.
There is trouble afoot and I fear it travels about France at will. I have gathered up your treasure and will bring it to Ayre. Meet me there with all haste.