Dragon's Lair

Chapter 8

August 1193

Chester, England

On the following morning, Justin rode away from Rhuddlan Castle, and two days later, he was within sight of the walls of Chester. It had been an uneventful trip and a safe one, for William Fitz Alan had decided to depart with him, and he had a sizable escort. While Justin was glad that he need not worry about outlaws, he was soon weary of fending off the Shropshire sheriff's heavy-handed queries, and his spirits rose as the estuary's blue waters darkened with the mud, silt, and mire of the River Dee.

Entering the city from the south, they continued up Bridge Street until they reached the cross, where their paths diverged, to Justin's relief. Fitz Alan and his men headed on toward the abbey precincts of St Werburgh, and Justin turned off to find a cook shop. After eating, he rode back out of the city, because the Bishop of Chester's palace was located just beyond the town walls. He'd originally intended to seek out the Earl of Chester first, but with Fitz Alan on the loose in the city, he owed his father some advance warning.

Justin had been half-hoping that his father would be away; much of a bishop's time was taken up with official visitations to the monasteries within his diocese. Not only would that have avoided a meeting with Fitz Alan, it would have postponed his own reckoning with the bishop. Luck was not with him, however. As soon as he was announced, Aubrey came hastening into the great hall to greet him.

"Justin, you are well?"

Justin blinked in surprise. "Yes, I am fine. Why would I not be?" Aubrey's brows drew together in a familiar frown. "Why, indeed? Mayhap because the Earl of Chester told me that you'd vanished without a trace. He said the knight he'd sent with you returned yesterday, claiming that you'd gone missing like the ransom."

"I was trying to find out what really happened to the ransom. What did you think, that I was off carousing or drinking myself sodden in some Welsh alehouse? They do not have alehouses in Wales," Justin said sharply and Aubrey's scowl deepened.

"No, you young fool, I thought you might be lying dead in a ditch with a Welsh lance in your chest!"

Justin opened his mouth to retort, then stopped, not knowing what to say, and the bishop remembered that their quarrel was taking place in a public setting, his own great hall. "Come with me," he said and strode off without waiting to see if Justin was following or not.

He led Justin upstairs to the greater privacy of his solar, neither one speaking until they could close the door upon the rest of In world. Gesturing for Justin to sit, Aubrey began to pace. Justin sat down on a bench, taking longer than necessary to readjust his scabbard. He still did not know what to say, and as the silence lengthened, he wondered if Aubrey did not, either.

"You said you were trying to find out what really happened to the ransom." The bishop halted his pacing and turned abruptly toward Justin, as if finally realizing the import of those words. "The earl led me to believe that you already know what happened, that it was stolen by Davydd's nephew, Llewelyn ab Iorwerth."

"So everyone wants to believe. The only problem is that it is not true."

"No?" Aubrey sounded surprised, but not skeptical, and Justin realized that his father had no cock in this fight, no preconceived notions about Llewelyn's guilt or innocence. "You seem very sure of that, Justin. What do you know that the earl does not?"

"Quite a lot, actually," Justin admitted, making up his mind then and there to confide in his father, at least as much as he was able.. If his idea was a daft one, Aubrey would tell him so. That he did not doubt. "I must ask you to keep whatever I say in confidence. Is that acceptable to you?"

Aubrey was beginning to look curious, even intrigued. "Of course." Settling himself in his high-backed chair, he said, "What makes you think that Llewelyn is not guilty?"

"Because I've learned who the robbers were and they were not Welsh. Nor were they English or Norman-French. I was told that they spoke a foreign tongue. I know it was not Irish or Breton, for they are somewhat akin to Welsh. One of the men may have I been named 'Joder,' and that sounds to me like it might be German or Flemish.

Aubrey nodded thoughtfully. "I agree. I suppose you'd rather I not ask how you came into this bit of interesting information. Are you sure that you can trust your source?"

"Yes."

Aubrey smiled faintly. "If words were coins, you'd be the despair of beggars everywhere. Assuming, then, that your source is correct, what next? How would you even begin to hunt for these men?"

"Well, I have a little more to go on. I was told that these outlaws did not seem to be experienced horsemen," Justin said and saw by his father's expression that Aubrey was not following his line of reasoning. Hoping he was not about to make an utter fool of himself, he continued cautiously, "I thought about that, and it occurred to me that men who are not used to riding horses and who speak a foreign tongue might well be sailors."

"'Sailors,'" Aubrey echoed, sounding startled. After a moment, he smiled. "That is very clever of you, Justin. I doubt that I would have thought of it. So… that is why you are here. Chester is the closest port to the Welsh border."

"That was my thinking," Justin acknowledged. "I know it is a road that may not take me anywhere. But I thought it was worth exploring."

"Does the Earl of Chester know about this?" When Justin shook his head, Aubrey said, "Well, you need to tell him straight away, lad! Surely you do not think that the earl is somehow involved in this wretched business?"

"Passing strange, for that is exactly what the Lady Emma called it, too. And no, I do not suspect the earl. But I do not want to risk exposing my source until I am sure he is out of harm's way."

"That is commendable, of course. Do not confuse your priorities, though. Nothing must matter more than recovering the ransom for the queen." The bishop was beginning to sound like a tutor instructing a well-meaning but slow pupil. As Justin was accustomed to being lectured by Aubrey — most of their past conversations had been sermons of some sort — he took no offense. Aubrey continued on in this admonitory vein for several moments and then grinned unexpectedly. "Was I not right," he demanded, "about the Lady Emma?"

Justin grinned, too. "Indeed you were." It was a strange sensation to be sharing a companionable moment like this with his father; he could not remember it ever happening before. Nor was it likely to happen again. "There is something I must tell you. When I arrived at Rhuddlan Castle, I encountered someone I had not expected to find there, and he took me by surprise." Justin exhaled his breath slowly. "It was Lord Fitz Alan."

"What?" Aubrey was on his feet, staring down at Justin in dismayed horror that was not long in giving way to outrage. "And you told him I was your father? Jesu, what a fool I was to trust you!"

"No, I did not!" Justin rose so swiftly that his scabbard banged on the edge of the bench, hard enough to leave a bruise upon his thigh. "But he heard me introduced as Justin de Quincy and naturally that aroused his curiosity."

"I cannot imagine why!" the bishop snapped. "So what did you tell him, then? What could you possibly have said?"

"Other than the truth, you mean? I told him that you and I were involved in the recovery of the ransom, and I implied that this was why I'd taken your name."

"For the love of God, could you not have done better than that? How long do you think it will take Fitz Alan to come to me with questions I cannot answer?"

Justin gave a half-shrug. "It could not be helped."

"Oh, but it could. If you had not chosen to claim a name that is not yours and will never be yours, none of this would ha happened!"

Justin flinched. "You are right. But it can also be said that none of this would have happened if you'd not broken your vows and seduced my mother!"

"Your mother was — " Aubrey cut off the rest of that sentence so abruptly that he all but choked on his own words, and Justin went cold, for his father had always refused to tell him anything at all about the woman who'd died giving him birth.

"My mother was… what?" he challenged. "Go on, say it!" But the moment was already gone. Aubrey's jaw was clenched, his the unfriendly, guarded eyes of a stranger. He shook his head and gestured toward the door. Justin had seen him dismiss servants and underlings like that over the years, waving people away when he no longer had need of them. It was easy enough to obey, far easier than it would have been to resist, to stay and demand answers he was not likely to get, answers he might even be better off not knowing.

~*~

As he entered the great hall of Chester Castle, Justin bumped into Thomas de Caldecott, quite literally. Thomas swung around with a reprimand that never left his lips. "De Quincy! Christ Jesus, man, where have you been? I told the earl that you might well be dead!"

"Well, I ant not," Justin said tersely, not wanting to deal with Thomas's interrogation, not now. His brusqueness did nothing to mollify the other man, who glowered at him with the indignation of the unfairly wronged.

"Forgive me for being fool enough to worry about you!"

The heat had yet to fade from Justin's face, for he'd come to the earl directly after leaving his father. He sensed dimly that he ought to have given himself some time between confrontations, but for now, his anger ruled both his brain and his tongue, his nerves too raw to tolerate even the lightest touch. "I left you word that I was checking out something on my own. What more could I have said?

"You could have told me what you were doing, where you were, and who you were meeting!"

"No," Justin said, "I could not," and the look in Thomas's eyes belied his mien of easy affability.

"So you do not trust me? What have I done to deserve your suspicions? No… do not answer, for I do not really care. You can rest assured that I'll not fret about your safety in the future. From on, you're on your own!" Spinning on his heel, Thomas stalked off, shoving aside a man who'd inadvertently stepped into his path. Justin almost called him back — almost. But it was easier once again to take the path of least resistance, to let him go.

~*~

The earl of Chester was shorter than average and Justin topped him by at least a foot. But he showed none of the self-consciousness Justin had often encountered in other men of small stature, striding alongside his taller companion utter in difference to the disparity in their heights. They were out in the castle tiltyard, watching as the youths in the earl's household practiced their fighting skills, riding at the quintain and feinting clumsily with swords they could barely lift. Justin had undergone such raining, too, when he'd first entered Lord Fitz Alan's service. But these boys were of higher rank than Justin could ever have aspired to, for there was great prestige in learning life lessons from an earl.

"Does Thomas know yet that you are still amongst the living?"

"He does, my lord."

"So… where were you?"

"I cannot tell you that, my lord… not yet. I have suspicions and suspects, but no hard proof. I'd rather wait until I have conclusive evidence to present to you."

"You can do better than that," Chester scoffed. "You think if you give me a name, I'll pounce upon the poor wretch and haul him off to the gallows? What is the real reason you are so loath to confide in me, de Quincy?"

"I fear endangering those who are helping me, my lord earl."

Chester subjected Justin to a hard-eyed scrutiny before nodding grudgingly. "That I can accept… for now. I ask for no names. But I do want to know where you think this investigation is heading." When Justin hesitated, he said impatiently, "It is common sense, man, no more than that. What happens to your secrets if you come to grief back in Wales? I'll tell you what happens. They die with you."

Now it was Justin's turn to give ground. "You are right, my lord," he conceded. "I will tell you this much, then. Llewelyn ab Iorwerth is not the one who took the ransom. His uncle seeks to blame him falsely and may even have gone further than that. As for the actual outlaws, I think they were hirelings, men who may not have known what they were stealing. And they were not Welsh."

Chester's reactions were subtle: a tightening of the corners of his mouth, an upraised brow. He was silent for some moments and then swore softly, "Hellfire and damnation. It would have been so much easier if Llewelyn had been guilty. I am going to pay you the you the great compliment of assuming you know what you're doing. Just in case you do run into a stray arrow or get your throat cut in your sleep, are you saying I ought to look in Davydd's direction first?" When Justin nodded, the earl seemed more cheerful. "That I will do right gladly. In the meantime, I suppose you want me to keep this to myself?"

"I would be beholden to you, my lord, if you did."

"What of Thomas? Surely he ought to know…" The earl was quick enough to catch the faintest glimmer of doubt in Justin's eyes. "What? You do not trust him?"

Until that moment, Justin would have said he did. But hearing question put so baldly was a revelation. He looked across the tiltyard, where Thomas de Caldecott was showing one of the young squires how to execute a shifting cut, changing his sword's direction in mid-attack. Thomas appeared to be ignoring their presence entirely, but Justin had seen him shoot a covert glance their way from time to time. "Thomas has given me no reason not to trust hun, my lord," he said slowly, choosing his words with care.

"Men like you need no reasons, de Quincy. You breathe in suspicions like other men breathe in air."

The words themselves were sharp enough to wound, but oddly, the tone was neutral, as if the earl were making an observation, not.in accusation. "'Men like me,'" Justin echoed. "And what men are they, my lord?"

The answer surprised him. "Men who serve only the Crown. Spies, agents, scouts, call them what you will. I admit I was puzzled when the queen put you in charge. You seemed an unlikely choice for such a mission, lacking in years, experience, or authority. But I'm beginning to understand. Something smelled foul about this to the queen, so she sent one of her own, one of those men from the shadows, the sort who've learned to leave no footprints and cast no reflection in mirrors."

"You make it sound," Justin protested, "as if I am in league with the Devil!"

Chester's lips twitched in a sardonic smile. "No," he said, "only the queen."

~*~

There weren't that many hours of daylight remaining, but Justin did not want to waste them, and from the castle, he went directly to the waterfront. He'd known from the first what a difficult task he faced; trying to find three nameless, faceless sailors was akin to the hunt for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Even if he was right in his suspicions, the sailors could have returned to their ship and sailed for their homeport by now. Or they could have fled with their newfound wealth, and their ship could have sailed without them. He'd chosen to gamble that they would not have gone back to their old lives and that their flight would have left a hole for him to discover. But so far, he'd had no luck at all. By nightfall, he'd hunted down several ships' masters, and all he had to show for his efforts was a blister on his heel, a throat sore from asking questions that got no satisfactory answers, and a powerful desire to drown his disappointment in drink,

He was looking for a sailors' hangout and found one in a waterfront tavern. It was cleaner than most of its kind, twice as large as Nell's alehouse back in London. Half a dozen men were sprawled on benches, dicing and drinking and laughing at a curley-haired youth who was doing his best to charm the serving maid. She might have been pretty in other surroundings, another life. But in this dockside tavern, she merely looked bored and somewhat sullen, and Justin shared the majority view, that the lad was wasting both his time and his money.

Over a cup of red wine heavily spiced to hide the sour taste, Justin brooded upon the day's events. He tried not to think about that ugly scene with his father. Instead he sought to focus his thought on Thomas de Caldecott. Why was he of a sudden harboring doubts about the knight? Was it because Thomas had overreacted to his disappearance?

Why had the other man been so alarmed that he'd gone off on his own? Was it genuine concern for his safety? Or some thing more sinister? If Thomas had been the one to disappear, would he have been as worried? He thought not, not unless Thomas had vanished without a word. The message he'd left ought to have been enough to allay his misgivings, at least for a few days. Nor had Thomas seemed all that relieved to see him surface, alive and well. But would he not have been affronted if Thomas chose to withhold information about the robbery? He damned well would, so how could he blame Thomas for bristling at his secretiveness?

But he could not explain to Thomas that he was being so closemouthed out of fear for Rhun's safety, for that very revelation night put the boy at risk, even if Thomas was utterly without ulterior motives. This entire puzzle was beginning to resemble a game his dog Shadow liked to play, spinning around in circles trying to catch his own tail.

He was somewhat disquieted, too, by the Earl of Chester's jaundiced view of his employment skills. All that had been lacking in the earl's description was the scent of sulfur. It was flattering to think that the queen had indeed chosen him because she'd sensed that there was more to this robbery than met the eye. But he did not want to see himself as a creature of the shadows, a being never quite belonging anywhere. That was Durand de Curzon.

A bellowed curse drew his attention toward the dice game. The loser had sprung to his feet and was loudly accusing the winner of using weighted dice. The accused was blinking up at him in befuddlement. As young as he was, he might have been a student if he hadn't been so proper in appearance, for there was nothing about him of the hell-raiser or mischief-maker. Insisting that he'd not been cheating, he held out the dice, offering to let anyone examine them for himself. He seemed confused and scared, and when Justin studied his accuser, it was easy to see why. Not only was the burly loser taller and heavier than the winner, he bore the battle scars of a man who'd had more than his share of tavern and back-alley brawls, a man who'd fight for the fun of it, aroused by the smell of fear.

Justin took a better grip upon his drink. The other tavern customers were doing the same, bracing themselves in case stools and cups and bodies began flying through the air. But even those who were anticipating some entertainment were taken aback by the brutality of the attack. Lunging forward, the instigator grabbed his opponent by the front of his tunic and smashed his head down upon the table. Before his victim could recover, the bigger man had flung him to the floor and kicked him in the ribs. Too dazed to defend himself, the youth scrabbled instinctively to get away. But before he could crawl under the table, his assailant seized him by his hair and dragged him out into the middle of the floor.

By now the tavern was in an uproar. Drunken fistfights could offer good sport, but no one wanted to watch a helpless man being beaten to death. The serving maid spun around, yelling to the youth who'd been flirting with her, "Fetch Ben!" Other voices were being raised now, too, protests coming from most of the witnesses. But only two offered more than verbal objections, Justin and a sailor with hair and beard as long and bright as a Viking's.

The sailor was closer than Justin and got there first, seeking to wrap his arms around the attacker and immobilize him in a bear hug. He was a big man and clearly he'd had success in the past with this maneuver. But his opponent broke the hold with alarming ease and kneed him in the groin. The sailor gasped and dropped like a felled oak. By then Justin was there, burying his fist in the aggressor's stomach. He'd put the full weight of his body behind that punch, but the other man only grunted. In the moment that Justin was slightly off balance, his foe shoved him backward, with enough force to send him reeling into a table. The man turned back to his victim then, kicking him in the head.

So intent was he upon his prey that he paid no heed to the entrance of another man. This one was taller than most, but lanky and rail-thin, with such long arms and legs that he looked a little like a scarecrow. There was nothing at all intimidating about his appearance, nor did he seem unduly alarmed by the bloody scene meeting his eyes. But when the drunkard drew back his foot to kick the body on the floor again, the newcomer moved with the speed of a snake, catching hold of that foot and jerking with enough force to send him sprawling. Even that fall did not seem to have slowed the man down much. His eyes, small and close-set, gleamed with the bloodshot fury of a cornered boar, and with a rumbling, wordless roar, he launched himself at this new enemy.

He barely got off the floor, though, before he was down again. The other man whipped out a lethal-looking cudgel and brought it down upon his skull with an audible thud. Two more blows followed in close order, delivered with the impersonal practiced skill of a master carpenter. The second blow had tendered the man unconscious.

Poking him with the tip of his boot, the victor said, "God's Cock, Berta, what the hell happened? I leave the place for an hour and come back to a butcher's paradise. We'll never get rid of all this blood, not unless we paint the walls red." Prodding the downed man again with his toe, he said, "Anyone know who this offal is?"

Berta edged around a pool of blood, her nose wrinkling in disgust when she saw that some of it had splattered her skirt. "I think he may be off that French cog out in the harbor. It is a good thing that Algar found you, Ben, else we'd have had a killing here for certes."

"That whoreson sheriff is looking for any excuse to close us down, too," Ben agreed. Glancing around at the tavern customers, he picked out two, told them to drag "this lump of lard" down to the docks and leave him there. His gaze raked the room, taking in the sailor still on his knees and Justin, who was untangling himself from an overturned table.

"Holy Mother Mary, it looks like we have two heroes amongst us, lads. Berta, free drinks for the Good Samaritans." Striding over to examine the youth on the floor, he winced at the sight of the damage done by the sailor's heavy clogs. Drafting another volunteer, he ordered the man to fetch Osborn the Leech and leaned over, saying, "Someone give me a hand. We'll put this one in the back room till Osborn gets here."

By now Justin was back on his feet and had determined that he'd suffered no injury except a few bruises and a spilled drink. "I'll help," he said, starting toward Ben.

The other man was bending over the inert body of the dice game winner. "You take his legs," he directed Justin, "and I'll get his shoulders — " But as he looked Justin full in the face, he stopped, almost dropping the injured man back into the floor rushes. "Christ n the Cross! Justin?"

Justin studied him in surprise. He looked to be about Justin's own age, with jet-black hair, a pirate's scruffy beard, and the bluest eyes to be found this side of Sweden. It took a moment for Justin to realize that this thin, angular face was one from his past. "Bennet?"