Prince of Darkness

CHAPTER 19

March 1194

LAVAL, MAINE

By the time Laval’s great stronghold came into view, the men were tired, hungry, and still angry with the women they hoped to find behind those castle walls. Their anger could be measured in miles, more than ninety of them. After retrieving their men at the Earl of Chester’s castle of St James, Justin and Durand had ridden north to Genets, only to learn that the Ladies Emma and Claudine were no longer there.

Brother Andrev could tell them only that he thought they were heading for Laval. The Earl of Chester’s men had been instructed to escort them to Genets, no farther, and so they were traveling with a meager escort, especially in light of Lupescar’s presence at Avranches. Nor had the Lady Emma taken Yann with them. Brother Andrev recounted sorrowfully that she’d dismissed the suggestion out of hand and he’d had no luck in changing her mind. He did have better luck with Justin, for when they rode out of Genets, Yann was perched upon the back of Morgan’s horse, clinging tightly to the man’s belt, looking both fearful and excited.

Three days later they’d reached Laval, having failed to overtake the women on the road. They were admitted at once into the castle bailey, and Durand was soon stalking into the great hall with Justin on his heels. There they found the objects of their wrath seated at the high table enjoying a Lenten supper made tolerable by the free-flowing wine. Guy de Laval welcomed them nervously, looking like a man in need of allies, and Claudine’s smile was dazzling, but Justin and Durand had eyes for no one but the Lady Emma, who greeted them with a nonchalance they found infuriating.

“Into the solar,” Durand rasped. “Now!” When Emma stiffened in outrage at that peremptory tone, he leaned across the table and jerked her to her feet, looking over then at Guy, as if daring him to object. Guy did not. Emma was made of sterner stuff than her son, and her hand closed upon the eating knife she’d been using to fillet her pike. But Justin now echoed Durand’s command with no less heat and she decided that submitting to their high-handedness was a lesser evil than making a scene in front of the servants. Flinging down her napkin as if it were a gauntlet, she marched across the hall toward the stairwell. Claudine followed her, and after a very conspicuous hesitation, so did Guy.

As soon as they reached the privacy of the solar, Emma turned on the men in fury. “How dare you put hands on me like that! I am not one of your kitchen wenches to be ordered about at your pleasure, Durand de Curzon! You’re fortunate I did not have my men flail you till your back was bloody.”

“First of all, Your Queenship, they are your son’s men, not yours, and I’d have liked to see them try! But if you think Sir Stoutheart there has the ballocks to give a command like that, you must believe in unicorns and barnacle geese and winged griffins!”

“I–I resent that,” Guy said, sounding more unhappy than indignant, and his flush deepened when Durand did not even deign to respond to his feeble protest.

Emma’s breath hissed through her teeth. Before she could lash out, Claudine stepped between them, speaking with an authority that reminded Justin of what he’d too often forgotten-that she was Queen Eleanor’s kinswoman. “Stop this! It serves for naught to be hurling insults at each other like brawling alewives. Why are you so wroth? No, not you, Durand. Let Justin speak; he has a far cooler head than yours.”

“By all means,” Durand said nastily, with a mocking bow toward Justin. “Go to it, de Quincy.”

“How could we not be wroth?” Justin demanded. “We reached Genets on Monday and found you gone!”

Emma blinked in surprise. “Is that what this is all about? We waited Friday night and all of Saturday, with nary a word from you, I might add. For all I knew, you’d be gone for a fortnight! How did I know how long it would take to catch de Lusignan? I made the sensible decision to await you in comfort back at Laval.”

“And of course you did not think to send us word of this decision.”

“How was I supposed to reach you, Durand?”

“The way anyone with the sense God gave a sheep would have done, by dispatching a man to Chester’s castle,” Durand said scornfully, provoking Emma into using her royal brother’s favorite oath.

“By God’s Liver, I’ve heard enough of your whinging! What difference does it make now?”

“About sixty miles,” Durand snapped. “That is how much farther we had to travel, thanks to your foolish, female whims!”

“Not to mention,” Justin said sardonically, “the pleasure of fearing that we’d be finding your bloodied bodies by the side of the road.”

Claudine deflected Emma’s angry retort. “I would never fault a man for caring about my welfare or safety, but we had an escort, Justin. Surely Brother Andrev told you that?”

“As if Rufus and Crispin would have been a match for Lupescar’s cutthroats!”

Claudine lost color. “Lupescar was nigh?” When Justin nodded grimly, she made the sign of the Cross. “We did not know.”

Emma was not cowed. “The Wolf is presently in John’s hire, so I rather doubt I had anything to fear from him. He’d not dare to molest his lord’s aunt.”

“There is a reason why shepherds use dogs and not tame wolves to guard their flocks,” Durand sneered. “A wolf is a wild creature, impossible to trust, for it can slip its leash at any time.”

“Moreover,” Justin said grimly, “the men riding with Lupescar are Hell’s dregs. If he’d sent some of them out scouting and they ran across two beautiful, rich, poorly guarded women, you truly think they’d humbly wish you ‘Good morrow’ and ride on by?”

Emma scowled, for she sensed that she was being outmaneuvered. “You exaggerate the risk. We had three good men with us. If we were in such danger, we’d have been in danger, too, when we first left Paris, for we had only seven then. Four more men could not make that much of a difference!”

“They could as long as I’m one of them,” Durand drawled, and Emma tartly called him an “insufferable, preening peacock.” But she tacitly conceded defeat by abruptly changing the subject, demanding to know the whereabouts of Simon de Lusignan.

“I did not see him being dragged in shackles into the great hall. So I assume he got away from the both of you, then.”

Neither Justin nor Durand cared for that implicit accusation, that they’d been bested by de Lusignan. “We tracked him to Fougeres Castle,” Justin said coolly. “But I’ll let Morgan be the one to tell you.” He half expected Emma to object, but she’d obviously done some reassessment of her hired man, who was constantly revealing talents above and beyond a groom’s skills at mucking out stalls or soothing spooked horses, and she said nothing as Justin moved toward the door.

Morgan responded so swiftly that Justin wondered if he’d been eavesdropping out in the stairwell. He showed no nervousness at being summoned into his lady’s solar, acting as comfortable as if they’d been meeting in the stables, and when Emma sent for a servant to fetch wine, Morgan took it for granted that one of the cups was for him. “You want me to tell them about Fougeres?” he asked Justin, and needed no further encouragement to launch into a vivid account that was quite polished by now, after much repetition.

“Simon de Lusignan rode his horse right into the great hall, just like King Henry used to do when he came to dine with Thomas Becket ere he became God’s man instead of the king’s. But Simon had murder in mind, not feasting. He leapt from his mount onto that canon from Toulouse and was making good progress toward strangling him ere they dragged him off.”

Guy gasped. “Why would Simon try to kill Canon Robert?” He was about to make an ill-advised defense of his friend, but he caught his mother’s eye and thought better of it.

“From what I was told,” Morgan resumed smoothly, “the people in the hall did not understand that, either, and concluded that Simon was roaring drunk. That was not unreasonable, as Simon had bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, and was stinking of wine. But we know he’d been awake for nigh on a day and a night, most likely had nothing to eat, and I’d guess he was drenched in wine from diving across that table. They decided to put him where he’d do no harm till he sobered up and so they confined him to a storeroom out in the bailey. Interesting that they did not toss him into the dungeon, is it not?”

Emma regarded him thoughtfully. “You are saying, then,” she said, “that Simon de Lusignan was accorded special treatment?”

Morgan beamed approvingly. “Exactly, my lady. It was like a signed confession from the duchess and her barons that they were up to their necks in this plot with Simon. Canon Robert insisted he had no idea why Simon had attacked him, and adroitly played the role of injured innocent. Apparently the others honestly did not know what had provoked Simon’s attack. We do, of course.”

“What-that the canon killed the Lady Arzhela?”

Morgan nodded so vigorously that Justin felt the need to interject a cautionary note. “Well, all we can say for certes is that Simon thinks he did.”

“I’m with Simon,” Morgan insisted. “That canon was always too slick for a man of God. And you told me yourself, Justin, that the Lady Arzhela never trusted him a whit.”

“And we know both Simon and Arzhela had judgment as infallible as the Holy Father’s.”

This acerbic comment came from Durand, and earned him no favor with Morgan, who showed a rare flash of irritation. But Emma was losing patience and she moved to take control of the conversation, saying swiftly, “Be that as it may, we are still waiting to hear what happened after that.”

“The next morning, they discovered the lock on the storeroom had been broken; inside there were signs of a struggle and blood, but Simon was gone.”

Morgan found the reaction of his audience quite gratifying. Guy and Claudine cried out, and even Emma looked startled. “There is more

… Canon Robert was missing, too!”

Morgan was happy to provide additional details: Simon had stolen a horse in the village and when last seen, was heading into the sunrise. The duchess and Breton lords seemed relieved to have him gone, for none of them showed any enthusiasm for pursuing the fugitive. There was some concern about the missing canon, especially after the discovery of a bloodstained rochet on the outskirts of the village. Gossip had it that Simon must have escaped and slain the cleric, although no one could explain the lack of a body.

“No one could explain, either, how Simon got himself out of a room locked from the outside,” Morgan observed. “The castle servants seemed to think he’d called upon his master, Lucifer, who cast a spell that allowed him to walk through the wall. If I were wagering, I’d put my money on one of the Breton barons sneaking down in the night and setting him free.”

“But what of the missing canon?” Emma said skeptically. “I never met the man; he was taken ill upon our arrival at Vitre. So I am not the one to pass judgment upon him. But Simon did, or at least he tried to when he attempted to throttle the man. If he were so set upon murder, would he have fled upon being freed by one of Constance’s barons, as meek as a lamb? Or would he seek to finish what he’d begun?”

“That seemed more likely to me, too” Justin admitted. “I can see Simon being freed by one of Constance’s conspirators. And I can see Simon then going in search of the canon, determined to avenge Arzhela. What I cannot understand, though, is why he would hide the body afterward, nor do I know where he’d hide it. Fougeres is a vast place, but he would not have had much time ere the castle servants would be up and about.”

“In other words,” Durand said morosely, “what we have are even more questions and few answers. Jesu, how I hate Brittany!”

“What of the canon’s horse?” Claudine asked hopefully. “Was it gone, too?” She looked deflated when Morgan said it had been found in the stables. “Well, then, I am at a loss,” she confessed. “None of this makes sense.”

“Not to me, either,” Guy ventured, but no one paid him any mind and he lapsed back into a sulky silence.

“It seems to me,” Emma commented, “that Simon de Lusignan has the answers you are seeking. Do you have any idea where he’d go? Back to Poitou, to his family’s manor in Lezay?”

Justin and Durand exchanged glances, in agreement for once that Morgan deserved to be the one to tell her. Morgan thought so, too. With an actor’s fine sense of timing, he drew a deep breath as if to speak, waiting until all eyes were upon him.

“As a matter of fact, we do know where he’s heading. He was seen riding away from the village, toward the east.”

Emma nodded. “Yes, I remember your saying that. But what of it? Half of Christendom lies to the east of Fougeres, including Laval.”

“We know that, my lady,” Morgan said patiently. “But he was not heading southeast toward Laval. He was heading due east toward Mayenne, and that is a toll road. So we detoured on our way to Laval, asked the toll collectors if they remembered a man like him, looking much the worse for wear and in a great hurry. Eventually we found one who did. He remembered Simon because he had bloodstains on his clothes, and because he’d asked a question.” Morgan paused again, theatrically. “He wanted to be sure this was the road to Paris!”

They set such a fast pace, pushing themselves and their horses to the limits of exhaustion, that they covered the 188 miles to Paris in just six days, reaching the city after dark on the ninth of March. It would have been difficult to say who was happiest as that forest of church spires came into view, for Emma and Claudine were not accustomed to hardships and the men were thoroughly sick of hearing their complaints after six demanding days on the road.

The one most affected by the sight of the city walls was Yann. Justin had told him that Paris was home to more than forty thousand souls. The boy could neither count nor even imagine numbers that high. He would never have admitted it, but his first view of the French capital was thoroughly intimidating: a maze of narrow streets and crooked alleys, most unpaved and muddy, crowded with loud, brash city folk hurrying home before curfew rang; imposing, overhanging, whitewashed houses of wood and stone towering above his head, blocking out all but the puniest slivers of moonlight; and more noise than his country-bred ears could bear.

Church bells chimed. Chains rattled as the bailiffs made ready to close the west end of the River Seine. Boatmen offered cheap passage. Street vendors shouted out their wares and often exchanged taunts as they fought over the day’s last customers. Dogs barked and geese honked and beggars cried out for alms, and from darkened doorways rouged and powdered women boldly accosted male passersby. Even the air filling his lungs seemed foreign to him. He felt as if he were inhaling smoke. Sickening stenches rose from the streets, the cesspits, the river, overwhelming the occasional appealing odor of baking bread or eel pie. Clinging to the back of Morgan’s belt, his thighs and buttocks blistered from endless hours on horseback, Yann blinked fiercely, keeping tears at bay.

He’d learned long ago that tears served for naught. But in just a month, his life had been turned topsy-turvy. The Lady Arzhela had been as close as he’d ever expected to get to a miracle. She’d teased him with winks and hints, whispering that all was not as it seemed and offering the promise of better tomorrows. He’d not understood half of what she’d said, nor had he fully believed it. It had been enough for him that this odd, fey woman had given him what he’d never gotten before: attention and even affection. And then she was dead and his dreams were drenched in blood, his peace slashed to shreds at night by a killer’s knife. Desperate to get away from Genets, for he did not believe that a sickly, kindly monk could protect him against such evil, he’d agreed to accompany these strangers back to their world, clutching his only thread of faith-that the monk had said they were the Lady’s friends.

At Laval, he’d learned that none of them truly wanted him, not like the Lady did. The woman the others called Lady Emma and he privately called the She-wolf had made it quite clear that she would not be burdened with a Breton cub, and the Weakling, her son, had only agreed because the Lady’s friends bullied him into it. Yann knew that as soon as they’d gone, he’d be cast out to beg his bread again, and so he’d stolen food from the kitchen, making sure that he was caught in the act. The Weakling had been indignant and balked at taking him in, backed by the She-wolf.

It was then that the other woman intervened, the Lady Claudine. To Yann, she was the Plum, for he still remembered his one taste of that sweet fruit. The Plum had taken the one called Justin aside, and Yann had crept closer to eavesdrop. The lad could go with them to Paris, Plum said, where her cousin would find a place for him on her estates. Justin had seemed surprised and grateful, and Plum had laughed and said they could not leave the lad to starve, after all. Yann could see no humor in that, for his whole life had been a battle against starvation.

And so he’d heeded his fear and his hunger, thinking that he might be striking a deal with the Devil, but at least the Devil was feeding him well. He’d tried to keep away from the She-wolf and the Knight, for that was how he’d christened Durand, staying close to the ones he instinctively recognized as his protectors-Justin and Morgan, the Groom. Gradually the terror knotting his stomach had begun to ease and the death dreams no longer came each night without fail. He’d even relaxed enough to admit that he knew more of their French tongue than they’d first thought, and because of the Plum’s careless kindness, he dared to hope that she really would keep to her word. But now that they were in Paris, a hive from Hell aswarm with alien bees, he was afraid that he’d made a great mistake.

They escorted the women to the town house of Claudine’s cousin Petronilla, planning to spend the night there themselves, for curfew had rung. Justin had been hoping to delay his meeting with John for one more night, but it was not to be. Petronilla had invited John to be her guest, ostensibly because his lodgings with the Templars lay beyond the city walls and a residence within the city would be more convenient, as well as more comfortable. Petronilla did not seem pleased with her coup, though, and Claudine felt a flicker of relief, for she’d warned her cousin that a dalliance with the Devil was a walk on the wild side. This prince was best left to his own dark domains. Seeing Petronilla’s discontent, Claudine was thankful that nothing had come of her cousin’s high-risk flirtation, although she was very curious why that was so. She was wondering how to find out what had gone wrong when she saw her answer framed in the doorway of the stairwell.

Claudine recognized the other woman at once, for John’s continuing involvement with Ursula had been a source of much court gossip. Ursula had lasted far longer than most of his bedmates, and Claudine did not understand why. She was a spectacularly beautiful, lush creature, but Claudine thought she was also a selfish, slow-witted bitch and John could do better. She was very glad, though, that it wouldn’t be with her cousin. Amused in spite of herself by John’s sheer audacity in bringing his mistress along when he accepted Petronilla’s misguided invitation, Claudine greeted Ursula with one of those brittle, fake smiles that women use to convey a social snub. Much to her annoyance, Ursula did not even seem to notice.

John had entered the hall with Ursula, and he hastened in their direction. “How did Lupescar get you out? I did not really think he’d be able to do it.”

“He did not,” Durand said, very emphatically. “We freed ourselves.” Glancing sideways at Justin, he added grudgingly, “With some help from the Earl of Chester.”

But Justin had other matters in mind than giving credit where credit was due. On the ride to Paris, he’d remembered Lupescar’s mocking words: You’d been clumsy enough to get yourself caught, bloody-handed, over some poor pilgrim’s body. It was possible that John, for whatever reason, had chosen to mislead Lupescar about the identity of the murder victim. It was also possible that the message sent by Guy de Laval had been mangled and that John himself did not know Arzhela had been slain.

“My lord John,” he said, “I think it best that we continue this conversation in a more private place.”

John agreed, but at that moment, Emma sauntered over. “Aunt Emma, what a delightful surprise. I thought you might have stayed in Laval with my cousin Guy.” John smiled, and only those in the know would have recognized his pleasantry as a sarcastic reminder of her son’s plight.

Emma parried his thrust with a sharp smile of her own. “I was sorely tempted, John, but we still have so much to discuss, do we not?” Linking her arm in his, she suggested that they retire to Petronilla’s solar. “We have much to tell you. There have been some unexpected developments since the Lady Arzhela’s death.” John stopped so abruptly that she glanced at him in surprise. “John-?”

John’s face was very still, as rigid and impassive as a sculpted death mask; only his eyes showed life. “The Lady Arzhela is dead?”

Emma nodded. “She was the pilgrim slain at the abbey. Did Guy’s messenger not tell you that?” Getting her answer when John turned away without a word.

Justin had fallen asleep almost as soon as he’d stretched out on his blankets. When he was awakened a few hours later, he fought his return to reality, had to be shaken before he could clear the cobwebs from his head. Durand was leaning over him. “Come on,” he said. “John wants you.”

All around Justin, men were rolled up in blankets, sleeping peacefully, and he yearned to be one of them. With a sigh, he sat up and tugged on his boots. He followed Durand from the hall, the two of them threading their way through the sleepers, and up into the stairwell. He had not even asked where they were going; he’d find out soon enough.

It was John’s bedchamber, so lavishly furnished that he decided Petronilla must have given him her absent lord husband’s room. Which John was now sharing with his concubine. Too tired to marvel at the morals of the highborn, Justin looked around, then saw John sitting in the shadows beyond the light cast by the hearth. He was still dressed, a wine cup in his hand, a flagon at his feet. Two other flagons had already been discarded in the floor rushes.

“Sit down. But keep your voice low lest you awaken Ursula,” John said, gesturing toward the canopied bed. “I want you to tell me what you found out in Brittany.”

“I thought we were to do this in the morning, my lord.”

“I decided I did not want to wait.” John drained his cup, refilled it with an unsteady hand. “There is wine over there. Help yourself.”

Justin made one final try to get back to his bed in the great hall. “Durand is here, my lord. He must have already told you what we learned.”

“He did. But now I want to hear it from you.”

Durand shoved a drink into Justin’s hand, saying in a low voice, “Do what the man says or we’ll be trapped here all night.”

Justin did, dropping down onto the cushions scattered about the floor, and taking a long swallow of what turned out to be a very good Gascon wine. “We confronted the Lady Emma’s son at Laval,” he began.

The hearth flames had burned low and a distinct chill had crept into the chamber, but the men were warding it off with wine. Durand was sprawled out in the floor rushes, a wine cup balanced on his chest, which rose and fell so evenly that Justin suspected he slept. John remained in the shadows. He’d killed two more flagons, adding them to the other empties, stacked, one upon the other, like a funeral bier for wine gone but not forgotten.

This was such a fanciful thought that it occurred to Justin that he was not entirely sober. He’d been trying to limit his own wine intake, for John was the last man in Christendom with whom he’d want to get drunk. But he was bone-tired and there was something oddly lulling about the dying fire. If he stared into it long enough, he could make out all sorts of strange shapes, putting him in mind of summer days when he’d lain out in Cheshire meadows with Bennet and Molly, finding castles and ships under full sail and swans in the clouds floating over their heads.

“So… you truly do not think that swine Simon killed her?”

Justin started and glanced toward the sound of that voice. John remained well camouflaged in shadows, preferring the obscuring gloom to the warmth of the waning hearth. What had Claudine liked to call him-Prince of Darkness. To Justin, that seemed unusually profound, although he was not exactly sure why. He groped for this understanding but his thoughts were as elusive as minnows, impossible to catch.

“Wake up, man!” John tossed an empty flagon in his direction. “I asked you if you thought that hellspawn killed her.”

“I already told you, my lord,” Justin said testily, “that I do not. We did at first, but not now. Now I think it was that canon, though God knows why…”

“God knows why,” John repeated solemnly, and then laughed suddenly. “Indeed He does.” There was a clatter in the darkness as he fumbled for another flagon. “The last one,” he announced, in the grave tones of a man on a sinking ship, watching the spare boat drift out of reach. “I’d send you to the buttery for more, but I do not trust you to come back.”

“Send Durand,” Justin suggested, and John laughed again.

“Tell you what, I’ll share it with you,” he offered. “But you’ll have to wait till the room stops moving.”

“I do not want to share with you, my lord,” Justin said, slowly and distinctly, while the image of Claudine’s face formed behind his closed eyelids.

“All the more for me then.” John swore as he spilled some of the wine onto his tunic. “I loved her, you know,” he said softly, and Justin sat up straight, for a moment thinking he meant Claudine.

“She was my first love,” John said. “I was sixteen when she took me to her bed. It was a revelation…”

Justin thought that over. It did not seem very likely to him. “You are not saying she was the first woman you bedded, are you?”

“No, of course not.” John sounded mildly offended. “But she was the first one who showed me what sinning is like if it is done right. She taught me a lot, did that lady. She claimed that most men could pleasure a woman about as well as a dog could read.”

Justin laughed, for he could hear Arzhela saying exactly that. “She deserved better than Simon de Lusignan,” he said, not drunk enough to say that she’d deserved better than John, too.

“She always did say she had bad taste in men.” John sounded wryly amused, but he sounded sad, too, and Justin decided he’d definitely had too much to drink if he was starting to feel sorry for the queen’s son.

“To the Lady Arzhela,” he said, raising his wine cup high.

“To Arzhela,” John echoed, leaning out of the shadows to clink his cup against Justin’s. “Requiescat in pace. But not the whoreson who killed her, de Quincy. Not in this lifetime nor the next.”

The following day, Justin was suffering the aftereffects of their bizarre, drunken wake for Arzhela. It was some consolation that John was, too, but he was irked that Durand seemed to have been spared. The knight’s trencher was piled with pasties stuffed with trout and he was eating with gusto, whereas the mere sight of them was enough to chase away Justin’s appetite.

John was faring no better with his meal, and when a messenger arrived for him, he pushed away from the table with no noticeable regret. Justin made do with almond milk and bread, refusing to watch as Durand devoured yet another fish-filled pasty. Even Claudine’s good news-that she’d coaxed Petronilla into taking Yann into her household-did not raise his spirits all that much.

John soon returned, beckoning abruptly to Justin and Durand as he strode toward the stairwell. By the time they reached the solar abovestairs, he was pacing back and forth impatiently, a rolled parchment in his hand. “It seems,” he said, “that I’d have done better to keep you both here in Paris. For certes, it would have saved me a fair sum of money!”

“It is early in the day for riddles, my lord,” Durand said. “I assume yours has something to do with that letter you hold.”

“Indeed it does.” John brandished the parchment like a processional torch. “I’ve finally heard from the one man I’ve always been able to depend upon. The Breton got the last message I sent, thanks to Emma’s assistance. Not surprisingly, he took action straightaway, learning more in a fortnight than the two of you could in a twelve-month. And,” John said, triumphantly, “he has obtained what you two could not-proof that it is a forgery!”