Archangel (31 page)

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. I saw the boy last year when my brother had a meeting of his allies. Your uncle introduced the lad as the viscount and his heir.”

Gart stared at him for a long, painful moment before looking back to his hands.  Then he hissed, a long and pensive sigh, and hung his head.  His enormous hands ended up on his skull as if to hold his brains in.

“Oh… God,” he breathed. “My plans were to mend the rift with my uncle and regain what was mine, providing Emberley and the children with a suitable legacy to replace what they would leaving with Buckland. But with your news, the inheritance I was anticipating is greatly reduced.  I still have a small inheritance on my mother side, but I am not entire sure what it is or how much. I never cared until now.  I was counting on my father’s inheritance to… now, I have… nothing….”

David watched the man’s lowered head, truly feeling sorry for him.  More remarkable than that was the emotion he was exhibiting.  Gart Forbes had never been known to exhibit emotion, in any situation, which was one of the aspects that made the man so frightening. 

David made his way towards him, unsure how to comfort the man but understanding what it was like to love a woman deeply. He couldn’t imagine what would have become of him had he not been able to marry Emilie. 

“Do not despair,” he told him quietly. “My brother is due here in a few days and we will ask him for advice.  Christopher is a powerful man, Gart. If anyone can help you, it is him.”

Gart was struggling not to feel completely discouraged.  All he could think about at the moment was returning to Trelystan Castle, collecting Emberley and the children, and taking flight to France or the Teutonic countries. Perhaps it was best if they simply fled and be done with it.

“I appreciate your offer, my lord,” he said, lifting his head to look at David. “But there is something more I wish to ask of you.”

“What is it?”

“I would ask to be released from my oath of fealty.”

“Why?”

Gart shrugged. “I should think that is fairly obvious. I am no longer an honorable knight.”

David frowned. “That is not true.”

“Please release me, my lord.”

David regarded him.  Then he moved away, thoughtfully, pacing the floor until he reached his desk.  He kept glancing back at Gart as if reluctantly considering his request.

“Go and rest now,” he told him. “We will speak of this later.”

“When?”

“Later.”

Gart gazed up at him, stricken at the real possibility that de Lohr would not release him.  “But I must return to Emberley,” he stood up, weaving wearily. “I cannot remain here much longer.”

David could see how exhausted the man was, now mentally weakened with everything that was going on. He moved back in Gart’s direction.

“She is safe, is she not?” he asked. “There is nothing to worry over. You do not have to rush….”

Gart put up a hand to interrupt him. “Aye, I do,” his gaze was intense, almost imploring. “You do not understand. I cannot stomach to be away from her. Already, I have been gone from her for six days and I can hardly breathe for want of her.  My lord, I must be released from my oath because I know that I will never again be an effective knight for you. My thoughts, heart and body are with Lady Emberley and always will be. You would order me to go to France and fight for Buckland but I will not. I cannot.  That therefore makes me ineffective and worthless.”

David regarded him carefully. “You would disobey me?”

Gart shook his head even before David got the question out of his mouth. “Nay, my lord,” he said. “I would kill for you and I would die for you. But I will not go to France and fight for Buckland.”

David sighed faintly and scratched his chin. “You do not have to worry about that,” he told him. “I have already withdrawn my support. Buckland was at Bellham today because he came to demand that I turn you over to him. Somehow, he knows you have his wife.  He does not know where you have her because, presumably, if he did he would go and retrieve her. So he came here to demand you.  I struck him in the face and sent him along his way.”

Gart’s eyes widened. “You… you struck him?”

“I did.”

Gart was taken aback at the predicament David put himself in. “You did this to protect me?”

David rolled his eyes. “Christ, Gart, must we truly revisit this? You saved my life in the France. I have always owed you a debt of gratitude. I am happy to protect you.  I will also release you from your oath if that is what you truly want but I am hoping you will reconsider.  The de Lohr war machine will not be the same without you. I need you.”

“She needs me more, my lord.”

David grinned. “Nay,” he said softly. “You need
her
more.”

Gart shrugged, nodded, conceding the point. “Please, my lord,” he begged softly. “Whatever you can do for us with regards to the state of her marriage… I cannot tell you how grateful I would be.  I cannot live without her.”

David sighed again, clapping him on a broad shoulder. “You know I will do all that I can,” he said, giving him a shove towards the solar door. “You will go and rest now.  I will speak with you later.”

Gart nodded, hanging his head a moment before speaking. “I am sorry to have disappointed you, my lord.”

“You did not disappoint me.  But you did surprise me.”

Having nothing more to say, Gart wearily quit the room.  David’s gaze lingered on the doorway even after the man’s bootfalls faded away, wondering what he could possibly do to help his knight.  Any possibility he could come up with wasn’t particularly pleasant.  Perhaps his brother would have a better idea when he arrived.

Until then, he did the only thing he could think to do – he sent de Lara into London to summon the same priest who had baptized Christina. Father Jonas St. John was a priest at St. Bartholomew’s, well respected and rigidly opposed to the king and his bawdy lifestyle. David had found an odd ally in the priest back in the days when his daughter was newly born.  He held a great respect for the man’s opinion.

As Kevin rode from the heavily guarded gates of Bellham, David went in search of Gart only to find the man sleeping the sleep of the dead with his mail still on, laying haphazardly across a bed in a room just off of the kitchen.  David peered closer and noticed a half-eaten chunk of bread in the man’s hand.  He had been so exhausted he hadn’t even finished it. With a grin, David closed the door and told the cook to let no one disturb him. 

Gart would need all of his strength for the biggest battle yet to come.

Chapter Seventeen

“His name is Kevin de Lara and his father is Viscount Trelystan,” Donnell told Julian. “His father is Warden of the Trinity Castles on the Welsh Marches.”

Julian’s eyebrows lifted. “The Trinity Castles?” he repeated. Then he looked thoughtful. “I have heard of them. De Lara.
De Lara
. Where have I heard that name?”

“Sean de Lara, Kevin’s elder brother, is a personal protector to King John.”

Julian’s expression widened with both surprise and recognition. “The Shadow Lord?”

“The same, m’lord. John’s deadliest knight.”

Julian nodded his head, stroking his chin thoughtfully as he rose from his chair.  It was a bright morning the day after his beating at the hands of David de Lohr, and his face was bruised and tender.  He had tried to eat soft foods for breakfast but because of the two broken teeth he had suffered, he was too sore to eat anything.  His mood had been foul until Donnell’s early morning visit with news obtained on Kevin de Lara.

“Who gave you this information?” Julian wanted to know.

Donnell shifted wearily on his legs. He had been up most of the night finding out what he could about Kevin de Lara.   Some of his professional demeanor began to slip.

“I have spent the night moving through taverns known to be patronized by knights from Arundel, Norfolk and other allied barons,” he told Julian.  “I went to the Pig and Flute over near the docks as well as the Bloody Fist in the Kingsbury district.”

Julian nodded, interrupting him. “I know it,” he waved a hand, moving to the table laden with food he had not been able to eat. “I have been to both of those establishments.”

Donnell eyed him, irritated at having been interrupted. “I found two of Rochester’s men at the Fist, knights I have gone to battle with in the past.   As a senior sergeant for Buckland, one of the knights recognized me and showed me a measure of respect. We spoke casually for a time and I brought up the subject of de Lohr.  It was this knight who told me of Kevin de Lara and how he does not speak to his brother because the man serves the king as his personal body guard. De Lara’s family was a strong supporter of Richard before his death. The fact that the elder son has given loyalties to the prince does not please them.”

Julian was trying to chew on a piece of very soft white bread. “What else did he tell you of Kevin de Lara?”

Donnell shrugged, watching Julian as the man tried to eat.  He was hungry, too, along with being exhausted but he knew that Buckland would not offer to share his food. Julian was not a generous man.

“Nothing more than what I have told you,” he said. “De Lara’s father holds the Trinity Castles on the Marches and his brother is the Shadow Lord.”

Julian swallowed a piece of bread and gingerly took another bite. “Find out exactly where the Trinity Castles are,” he said with a piece of bread hanging out of his mouth. “I know they are on the Marches but I do not know precisely where.  Perhaps de Lara took her there.”

Donnell scratched wearily at his head. “It would be as good a place to start as any, I suppose.  Even if she is not there, perhaps his father knows something.”

“You will find out and you will go there immediately.”

“Aye, m’lord. Is there anything else?”

“Nay. Leave me.”

Donnell turned on his heel and quit the room, thinking more of sleep and food than of a trip to the Marches.  He would find out where the Trinity Castles were located and he would go there to see if he could find the errant Lady Emberley de Moyon.  Although he was detached from the situation as much as he could be, a large part of him did not blame the woman for fleeing her husband.  He had seen first-hand what Julian could do to his wife.  He was a brutal bastard when the mood struck him.  Donnell himself had been on the receiving end of a few of Julian’s mood swings so he understood Lady de Moyon’s pain well.

As he settled down in the bunkhouse of the tower, food in one hand and cheap ale in the other, he was coming to think that maybe he would simply ride in circles for the next few weeks and return to London to tell de Moyon that he could not find his wife. It was a foolish thought but one he entertained.  If Donnell thought long and hard about it, he could remember the look of terror on Lady de Moyon’s face when he had come for her at Dunster.  Donnell was coming to suspect that no knight had a hand in her disappearance – the woman had probably fled on her own out of sheer terror. 

More than likely, she was lost to the wilds of Somerset or Cornwall, victim of bandits or fodder for wild animals.  It was a better fate that coming to live with her husband in London. Still, Donnell would ride to the Marches to investigate the Trinity Castles for himself, simply because he had been ordered to and not because he had a strong inclination to find the woman. He would do his diligence in a futile effort and be done with it.