Prince of Darkness

CHAPTER 24

March 1194

PARIS, FRANCE

Master Justin, come quick!” Yann tumbled out of the stair well into the great hall. “Hurry,” he pleaded. “They are fighting!”

“Easy, lad.” Justin grasped the boy by the shoulders. “Who?”

“Morgan and the other one-” For a confused moment, Yann could not recall the name of the man he privately called the Cock for the way he strutted around. “Simon,” he gasped, “Simon!”

Justin plunged into the stairwell, as did Durand and Garnier. Other men would have followed, too, for a fight was always a popular form of entertainment, but Emma halted their rush. “They can deal with it,” she said, and after the others dispersed in disappointment, she indulged her own curiosity and started up the stairs, with Claudine right behind her.

They heard the sounds of conflict before they reached Morgan and Simon’s small chamber under the roof eaves. Bursting into the room, they halted in surprise. They’d taken it for granted that Simon was the instigator, but it was obvious from the first glance that he was defending himself. Blood trickling from a torn lip, he was trying to keep Morgan at bay. “Hell and furies,” he insisted, “I do not want to fight with you!”

Morgan paid him no heed and drove his fist into Simon’s stomach. He cried out in pain and fury and grabbed for the closest weapon at hand, a wine flagon, which he swung at Morgan’s head. Morgan ducked under it and tackled Simon, who went crashing into one of the overturned pallets. Rolling around in the floor rushes, they were cursing and pummeling each other as Justin and Durand intervened.

“Stop it, you fools!” Durand bellowed, laboring to separate the two men. Morgan proved harder to convince than Simon, and continued to struggle until Justin and Garnier pinned him down. Shoving Simon into a corner, Durand glowered at Morgan. “If we let you up, will you cease acting like a crazy man?”

“Yes-” Morgan was breathing as heavily as a foundering horse, his face darkly flushed, but his fury had yet to diminish. “I found that hellspawn going through my belongings!”

Leaning against the wall, Simon daubed at his bleeding mouth with the sleeve of his tunic, clutching his bandaged ribs with his free hand. “You would not let me explain, you idiot,” he complained. “I was not stealing!”

“The Devil you weren’t! I caught you right in the act!”

“I am no thief!”

“Two Bretons who’re missing horses might dispute that,” Durand said, very dryly.

“That was different and you know it! Any man would take a horse if his life were in danger. Even you, Durand-especially you!”

“Suppose you tell us, then,” Justin suggested, “what you were doing, if not stealing.”

Simon opened his mouth, shut it again as he considered his plight. “Ah, shit,” he muttered. “I guess I have no choice now. I was merely doing Lord John’s bidding.”

Morgan looked shocked. “Lord John told you to steal from me?”

“No, he told me to find out what you were hiding, who you really were. He said if I did, he might take me into his service.”

“Over my dead body!” Durand sputtered. Garnier was no less horrified. But Emma, standing in the doorway, burst out laughing, and so did Claudine. Justin could not help grinning, too, at the sight of the other men’s consternation. Never one to miss an opportunity, Simon moved swiftly to take advantage of this one.

“That is all I was doing, I swear,” he said earnestly. “And Lord John was right to be suspicious. I like you, Morgan, wish you no misfortune. But how do you explain those?” He pointed dramatically toward the floor rushes.

Justin stooped and picked up the items. Morgan stiffened, but he seemed to realize protest was useless, and he said nothing as Justin showed the others what he’d recovered: a handsome gold ring set with a glittering emerald, and a small leather-bound Psalter.

Emma had a good eye for the value of jewels, and her eyebrows rose as she studied the ring. “This is very costly, Morgan. How would a groom come by it?”

“I did not steal it,” Morgan said hotly. “It was a gift!”

“You need to do better than that, Morgan,” Simon said, with a smile that somehow managed to be both sympathetic and condescending. “And what about the book of prayers? How do you explain that?”

“I do not owe you any explanations!”

But Simon saw that the others were swinging over to his side. “How many grooms know how to read?”

“There are surely some,” Justin objected, but even he sounded halfhearted, and Simon moved in for the kill.

“Grooms who read Latin?” he asked incredulously, and when Justin flipped the psalter open, he saw that the prayers were indeed inscribed in Latin.

Morgan scowled, feeling the weight of their eyes upon him. “You win,” he said at last. “I’ll tell you what you want to know. But I am only telling it once, so I’ll not be saying a word until Lord John gets back.”

By the time John returned to the house, darkness was obscuring the city skyline and curiosity was at fever pitch. At first John dismayed them by insisting that Morgan’s revelations could wait until after supper, but he was joking, and soon led them abovestairs to the solar. Morgan faced a small, select audience; John permitted only Justin, Durand, Emma, and Claudine to join him, much to the disappointment of Simon and Garnier. Once a fire had been lit in the hearth and wine fetched, John regarded Morgan with narrowed, speculative eyes and then said bluntly, “Who are you?”

“I’d prefer to sit,” Morgan said, “for this will take a while.” With John’s permission, he seated himself on a wooden bench. Usually he was one for lounging or sprawling, but now he sat bolt upright, arms tightly folded across his chest, a very defensive pose. “My name is Morgan Bloet; I did not lie about that. My father is Sir Ralph Bloet, Lord of Lackham. He is liegeman to the Earl of Pembroke, and holds lands in Gloucestershire, Hampshire, and Wiltshire. His brother is the Lord of Raglan-”

“There is no need to give us your family history since Adam,” John cut in impatiently, but Morgan was not intimidated.

“I must do this my way, my lord,” he said stubbornly, “or I’ll not do it at all.” After a pause to make sure he’d won this clash of wills, he continued. “My mother is the Lady Nesta, daughter of Iorwerth ab Owain, the Lord of Caerleon in Gwent. I am their firstborn son, but I was told as far back as I can remember that I was meant for the Church.” His eyes flicked toward the others, coming to rest upon Emma. “So yes, my lady, I can read.” Adding, “Fronti nulla fides,” warning her, in excellent Latin, that a book should not be judged by its cover, a gibe that was wasted upon Emma, whose Latin did not go beyond the responses to the Mass.

John had leaned back in his seat, his expression enigmatic. “I think I see where this road is going,” he said softly. If so, he had the advantage over the others, who were listening in varying degrees of perplexity and amazement.

Emma was gazing at Morgan coldly, for an insult that was too cerebral to be understood was especially offensive. “So why is the son of the Earl of Pembroke’s vassal disguised as my groom?”

Morgan returned the look; he’d shed his humble servant’s demeanor when he’d walked through the solar doorway. “If you listen, my lady, you’ll know. Last year I overheard something I was not meant to hear. My father and uncle were quarreling and my uncle said… He called me a…” It was the first time any of them had seen the loquacious Morgan fumbling for words. “He said I was not of my father’s blood.” Taking refuge again in Latin, he said, his voice barely audible, “Nullius filius.”

Justin drew in his breath, for that cut too close to the bone. Nullius filius meant “no man’s son,” and that was how he’d felt for his entire life. “Did you believe that, Morgan?”

“Oddly enough, I did. I had no reason to, for I’d never lacked for love. But somehow I knew that my uncle had spoken true. So, I went off and got drunk, and when I sobered up, I sought out my mother and asked for the truth. She did not deny it, saying that she’d wed my father whilst pregnant with another man’s child.” This was turning out to be more painful than Morgan had anticipated. Reaching blindly for his wine cup, he drank deeply. “She did not deceive Sir Ralph. He knew from the first, offering marriage to spare her shame.”

Justin glanced involuntarily toward Claudine; she’d gone pale and one hand was clasping her throat. Durand and John were inscrutable, but Emma looked skeptical. “The Welsh have queer ideas of morality,” she said. “To bear a child out of wedlock is not the shame it would be in a more Christian country.”

“My mother had been a handmaiden to the Lady Gwenllian, the wife of the prince of South Wales, the Lord Rhys. She could not turn to her family, for the man was her father’s sworn enemy. She loved her father, could not bear to hurt him so.”

“That explains her reason for wanting the marriage,” Durand said, and now he sounded no less skeptical than Emma. “But what of Sir Ralph

… Bloet, was it? Why would he take on another man’s whelp?”

Morgan bristled at the tone, but he held his temper. Looking toward John, he said succinctly, “My mother was highborn, and very beautiful.”

“I do not doubt it.” John sipped his wine, gestured for Morgan to continue. “Did your mother tell you the name of the man who’d sired you?”

“Yes, my lord, she did. The same man who sired you. Henry Fitz Empress, the English king.”

Emma choked on her wine, seemed in danger of strangling for several moments. Claudine gasped and Justin’s mouth dropped open. Even Durand looked startled. Only John seemed to take this amazing revelation with equanimity. “Indeed? When did they have this… tryst?”

“September of God’s Year 1171. Lord Rhys came to the English king at Pembroke, where he was planning to sail for Ireland. He brought his court, and my mother was amongst them. She was young, and Henry was the king,” Morgan said, with a slight shrug, as if that explained it all and, to his audience, it did. “She was flattered, bedazzled, easily seduced. But when she learned she was with child, she was panic-stricken. The king had taken Caerleon from her father that summer, and he’d declared war upon the English Crown. She feared her father would never have forgiven her had he known she’d lain with Henry. She knew Sir Ralph, and when he found her in tears, she confided in him. You know the rest of the story.”

“Yes,” John agreed, “we do. It is not that uncommon a tale, is it?”

“I suppose not. But this one ended better than most, I daresay. My mother and Sir Ralph have been very content in this marriage, and he always treated me as if I were his own.”

“But you have brothers, do you not?” John said, with certainty. “That would explain why they steered you toward the Church, even though you were the firstborn. It is only natural that he’d want his demesnes to pass to his blood kindred.”

Morgan nodded. His shoulders slumped, as if the truth had been a burden he’d carried too long. “So now you know.”

“Why,” John asked, “did my father not provide for you? Say what you will about him, he always took care of his own. Jesu, he even brought a few of his bastards to his court for my mother to raise!”

“My mother never told him. He’d sailed for Ireland by the time she realized her plight. After she wed Sir Ralph, they agreed that no one need know. People would assume that Sir Ralph had sampled the cream ere he bought it, and I daresay most did, for I remember no whispers, no sidelong looks from neighbors. My mother named me Morgan, after her favorite uncle, and Sir Ralph gave me his name, his protection, and his affection. I have no complaints. They did the best they could under the circumstances. Nor can I blame the English king. He did not reject me, never knew about me.”

Justin flinched, wondering if Morgan realized how lucky he was to be able to say that. He started at the touch of a hand on his shoulder, for he’d not heard Claudine’s soft footsteps in the rushes. She said nothing, merely squeezed his arm in silent understanding.

“So why did you come to me under false pretenses?” Emma was obviously having difficulty accepting that her stable groom might also be her nephew. “What did you want?”

“From you, nothing. After I learned the truth, I was confused,” Morgan said, with a faint smile at such a vast understatement. “It took time for me to come to terms with it. I was angry at first, and I was no longer sure that I wanted a vocation in the Church. It is an unsettling thing, learning that your identity is false, your life a lie.”

“And then you sought us out,” John said.

“Yes. I am not truly sure why,” Morgan admitted. “I suppose I was curious. To find I had another family…”

“A royal family,” Emma said tartly, making it clear that she had no intention of welcoming this newfound kinsman with open arms. “You saw a chance to enrich yourself at my brother’s expense, for Harry was no longer alive to deny your claims!”

“How did I enrich myself by grooming your horses and mucking out your stalls?” Morgan shot back. “I admit I was curious, and I have a right to be! The same blood that flows in your veins, Lady Emma, also flows in mine!”

“So you say. But you have no proof of any of this, do you?”

“No,” Morgan said reluctantly. “I have the emerald ring that the king gave my mother and I have her word. I need no more than that, for she would not lie to me.”

Emma found an unexpected ally now in Durand, who laughed. “Did I miss something? It was my understanding, lad, that she’d been lying to you since the day you were born!”

Morgan glared at Durand. “She had no choice, not whilst her father still lived. They agreed that they’d not lie to me should I ever ask, and they did not.” When Durand did not respond, he swung back toward Emma. “That is why I came to you under ‘false pretenses. ’ Had I come to you with the truth, you’d have turned me away at once. I knew I had no proof that would satisfy you.”

“I disagree.” All heads turned toward John. “You do have proof, Morgan. You showed it to me in the cemetery of the Holy Innocents.”

Once again, Morgan seemed at a loss for words. Emma was not. “Since when have you become as trusting and guileless as a cloistered nun? I thought you had more sense, John!”

John shrugged. “A man,” he said, “can never have too many brothers.”

Morgan ate supper that evening at the high table, a magnet for all eyes. Petronilla looked bewildered by his sudden elevation from groom to high-ranking guest; Emma was smoldering; most of John’s household avidly curious. Justin was astonished, but very pleased by the outcome. “I wish Morgan well,” he said quietly to Claudine. “I never expected, though, that John would accept him so easily or so wholeheartedly.”

“It does not surprise me,” she confided. “What did John say, that his father looked after his own? Well, so does John. He is very good about acknowledging his bastard children, sees that they want for nothing. And of all his brothers, the only one he seems truly fond of is Will Longsword.”

At the mention of John’s baseborn half brother, Justin suddenly realized why Morgan had seemed vaguely familiar from their first meeting. “That is who he reminds me of-Will! They do not have the same coloring, but there is a resemblance for certes.”

Claudine nodded. “You never met King Henry, did you? Well, as soon as Morgan’s secret was out, I could see the father in the son. The same grey eyes, the same powerful build, the freckles, even the bowed legs. And if I can see it, you may be sure that John does, too. Who would not welcome the ghost of a lost loved one?”

“Emma,” Justin countered. “Moreover, I thought John hated his father.”

“No, Richard did. Everything was always so much easier for Richard. But John was his father’s favorite.”

“But he betrayed Henry, abandoned him on his deathbed and went over to Richard and the French king.”

“Yes,” she said sadly, “he did.”

On the following day, Justin began making preparations to depart. He’d hoped to leave at cockcrow, but John had gone to see the French king, taking Morgan along to introduce him to Philippe, and Justin did not want to go without bidding farewell to the newest Plantagenet. He’d tried to coax Morgan into returning to London with him, offering to introduce him to the brother with whom he had the most in common, Will Longsword, but Morgan had declined, saying that John had asked him to stay so they could get to know each other. Justin was not happy about that, convinced that John was a corrupting influence upon everyone he encountered, but there was nothing to be done about it. It was some small consolation that Emma was so disgruntled by the turn of events.

“Are you still set upon leaving this afternoon?” Claudine gave him a sidelong, flirtatious glance, half serious, half in jest. “Are you not tempted to spend the night?”

“Good Lord, yes,” he said, with enough emotion to take any sting out of his refusal. “But I vowed to forswear any and all temptations during Lent.” Now that he and Claudine were back on friendly terms, he thought it wise to put some distance between them, for nothing had changed; he’d still be lusting after a woman he could not trust.

“Mayhap you ought to be the one considering a life in the Church, not Morgan,” she said, with mockery but no malice. “Do you think he’ll ever take vows, Justin? I know there can be no higher calling than to serve the Almighty, but it still seems a waste of a good man.”

She giggled, looking both pleased and shocked by her own irreverence, and Justin laughed, too. “You ought to hear Durand on that subject,” he said, remembering the knight’s diatribe about “the madness that drives a man to renounce the pleasures of the female flesh.” “And if I needed more proof that it was time for me to leave, starting to quote Durand is surely it!”

“I think you showed great forbearance in not murdering the man and disposing of the body in some Breton bog. Care to wager how long it takes for Durand and Simon to be at each other’s throats?” When he shook his head, grinning, she glanced around the hall before saying confidentially, “I hear that Yann asked you to take him with you to England, and you mustered up enough fortitude to refuse.”

“How did you know that? Ah, Claudine, that was so hard to do. But I had no choice. I could not look after him, not as long as I serve the queen.”

“Well, what about that tavern maid… Belle? She could keep him when you were away. Though I suppose she is not the motherly sort.”

Justin was surprised by that sudden flash of claws. “You mean Nell, and I could not ask her to do that. She has enough on her plate, taking care of her daughter and running the alehouse. Why do you not like her, Claudine?”

“Are you going to claim that she speaks well of me?” she demanded, and he conceded defeat with a smile and a shrug. It was then that Yann appeared at his elbow, startling them both.

“I promise,” he said, before Justin could say anything, “that I’d be no trouble. I do not eat much and I could take care of your dog and run errands-”

“Yann, we’ve been over this already. I am rarely in London, and that is not a city for a Breton lad to be roaming about on the loose. You’d not have to go looking for trouble. It would come looking for you.”

Yann ducked his head, as if blinking back tears. “The Lady Arzhela would want you to take me,” he said, so disingenuously that Justin and Claudine were both touched and amused, in equal measure.

“Yann, you scare me sometimes,” Justin said wryly. “Lad, listen to me. A city like Paris or London is not where you belong. If only I knew someone who could find a place for you on a country manor, the way Lady Petronilla can-”

“Justin, you do,” Claudine interrupted. Leaning over, she whispered a name in his ear. When he shook his head vehemently, she looked at him challengingly. “Why not? Who better to do a good deed than a man of God? Or are you too proud to ask him for a favor?”

“If you want to learn how to get people to do what you want, Yann, you need only watch the Lady Claudine in action,” Justin said, more sharply than he’d intended. “This is what I can do, lad: I will ask the Bishop of Chester if he can take you into his household or find a place for you on one of his manors. It is likely he will agree, but you must remain here until I get word that he does. Then, I will come back for you. Agreed?”

“How do I know you are not just saying this? That you will come back for me?”

“You have my sworn word. If the bishop agrees, I will return and take you to Chester. But you must promise to stay here in Paris until you hear from me. Fair enough?”

Yann was not happy with the bargain they’d just struck. But at least it offered a glimmer of hope, and he’d learned to settle for much less. “I promise,” he said, fingers crossed behind his back.

Within the hour, though, John and Morgan returned, and Morgan would have none of it. “You do not want to live in England, Yann. You’d be happier in Wales, for Welsh is much easier for a Breton lad to learn than English. Stay here with me and when I go home, you can come with me. I’ve cousins about your age at Raglan and my mother’s brother Hywel is the Lord of Caerleon now, so you’ll have your pick of places. Do we have a deal?”

“Deal,” Yann said happily, and Justin, blinking at how quickly the boy switched allegiance from him to Morgan, gave his approval, not seeing what else he could do. He trusted Morgan, after all, could hardly blame the man for being John’s brother. Sending Yann off on an errand to the kitchen, Morgan looked intently from Justin to Claudine, back to Justin again.

“John learned something from the French king that disquieted him greatly. He would not tell me what, and I did not feel free to press; after all, our relationship has lasted barely a day. He went out into Lady Petronilla’s gardens, and is still there. I was hoping that you or Durand or mayhap you, Lady Claudine, might be able to find out what is troubling him. I suspect it concerns the Bretons and that damned letter.”

Justin was not thrilled at the prospect; the last place he wanted to venture was into the murky terrain of John’s mind. But Claudine and Morgan were looking expectantly at him. Getting to his feet, he started across the hall to find Durand.

John was seated on a wooden bench in the gardens, playing with one of Petronilla’s greyhounds. Seeing the men and Claudine bearing down upon him, he showed no surprise. “Passing strange how quickly people are drawn to the site of a disaster.”

“We want to help,” Morgan said, so simply that not even John could doubt his sincerity. “Why not let us?”

“I would that you could,” John conceded, “but there is naught to be done. One of Philippe’s spies at the Breton court has sent him word that Constance plans to make use of that accursed letter. I was hoping that they’d decide it was too risky after Simon and the Breton both disappeared under such strange circumstances. I ought to have known better. My luck has always been rotten.”

“But you can prove the letter is false,” Claudine said, sounding puzzled. “The Breton is dead but Simon de Lusignan is not, and he can testify that it was a scheme to cheat the Bretons at your expense.”

“And you think anyone in Christendom would give credence to a de Lusignan?” John looked at her in disbelief. “No one would believe anything he had to say. His evidence would either be dismissed out of hand because no de Lusignan has ever been on speaking terms with the truth or it would be assumed that I’d paid him to lie on my behalf.”

“The French king knows the truth,” Morgan suggested, and winced when John laughed harshly.

“God spare me, another innocent! Morgan, you have much to learn about our family. Brother Richard would sooner believe the Devil than the French king. Moreover, it is no longer in Philippe’s interest to clear me of suspicion, now, is it?”

Only Durand seemed to follow John’s thinking; the others looked so baffled that John sighed, struggling to hold onto the scraps of his patience. “Things have changed dramatically in the past fortnight, or have you not noticed? Richard is free, back in England, and most likely besieging my castles even as we speak. Once he reduces them to rubble, he’ll be heading for the closest port, eager to wreak havoc and let loose the dogs of war upon Philippe. With Richard’s fiery breath on the backs of our necks, we’re going to be hard pressed to defend our own lands, much less strike into his domains. I’d say my chances of becoming England’s king are about as good right now as yours are of becoming Pope, Morgan. And you may be sure that has not escaped Philippe’s notice.”

Morgan still did not see, but Justin did and he felt a strange pang of pity for John and Philippe and Richard, even for his queen, for all those wielding power whilst treading on shifting sands that were no less treacherous than those in the Bay of Mont St Michel. “He is saying, Morgan, that Philippe will fear he may be tempted to try to make his peace with Richard. So the more suspicion and rancor between the brothers, the better it now is for the French king.”

“Good for you, de Quincy,” John said, with a sardonic smile. “You might one day make it to wolfdom, after all.”

That was incomprehensible to Morgan and Claudine, who’d not been present for John’s little lecture about wolves and sheep. Morgan hesitated, sensing that he was stepping out onto thin ice. “What of Queen Eleanor? Could you not tell her that this letter was a forgery? She could convince Richard, then, surely?”

The others tensed, knowing from painful experience that John’s tangled, tortured relationship with his mother was a bottomless swamp, from which few emerged unscathed. John surprised them, though, by not lashing out at Morgan, giving his newfound brother something he rarely gave to anyone-the benefit of the doubt.

“That tactic-truth telling-might work with you and the Lady Nesta,” he said tersely, “but not in the bosom of our loving family. My lady mother would not believe me.”

With that, Justin heard the jaws of the trap slam shut. “Mayhap she would not,” he said wearily, “but she might believe me.”