Sword of Justice (White Knight Series) (16 page)

“A little bird. An anonymous little bird.”

“As you said before, how convenient.”

Rand let out a sigh. “One of the reasons I’m letting you go.”

“And the others?”

“Too numerous to list, but one in particular.”

“I’m dying to know.” Drake dropped a weary head onto a wearier fist. “Sorry. Bad choice of words.”

“So you can lead me to the proof of your guilt, sparing me the trouble.”

Rising unsteadily to his feet, Drake said, “You must be a patient man.”

“One of my character flaws.”

* * *

Aveline was waiting for him outside the castle gatehouse. She put a supportive arm around his waist, and they walked back to the alehouse together.

She fed him one of the potages she always had at the ready. As hungry as he was, his stomach protested after the first few mouthfuls. He sat forlornly at the trestle table, his untethered hair falling into his eyes, his body giving out, and his mind having retired long before.

Aveline dragged a tub to the middle of the floor and started filling it with boiling hot water. Drake balked. Handily barring escape by bolting both doors, front and rear, she sat him down with a firm hand and undressed him with a gentler one. By now he was used to being around her, no matter how naked he or how handsome she. In truth, the nearness of her body was more than he could stand, but he knew her to be off-limits, especially when he considered her brothers, who stood guard just outside the doors of her kitchen.

She dunked him into the soothing waters and treated his abused body like one of her kitchen utensils, scrubbing it down using the heavy-duty soap a scullery maid reserves for floors. Grunting and protesting garnered no mercy. She turned her attention to his hair, applying a fragrant French soap that reminded him of her. The massaging action of her fingers nearly lulled him asleep. His head bobbed to wakefulness just before submersion. One steady hand held his face above the waterline; the other rinsed away soap bubbles with gentle splashing motions. His head floated lazily in the womb Aveline had devised. He nearly fell asleep once again, until she put the edge of a razor against his throat. His skin was baby smooth afterwards, not a nick to be had.

She toweled him off and led him above stairs. Much as it was still daylight, it was as good as the end of the day for him. She tucked him in and gave him a chaste goodnight kiss. They hadn’t spoken a word to each other from the moment she took him home.

Browbeating and berating came morning. Drake again sat morosely at Aveline’s spotless trestle, ruminating on his sad lot when she held out her hand. “Pay up,” she said, her pert nose thrust haughtily forward.

Not understanding her meaning, he cocked his head.

“The wager I won. You lost the tunic off your back
and
your braies off your nether parts, both in a single night.” She slid thumb against fingers, waiting expectantly for the coin of the realm. “Not to say I told you so, but let this be a lesson.”

His pockets empty, Drake flipped up equally empty palms.

Her eyes crimped at the corners. “You owe me double, then, when you have the means.” She set before him girdle bread, three poached eggs, a slab of cheese, a mug of ale, a bowl of potage, a slather of bacon fat, and greens from her garden. “Eat,” she ordered, and returned to her work, energetically scrubbing caldrons and skillets.

Drake regarded the food with little appetite, his stomach sore from thrashings and a malady that went past hunger. He bit into the bread. “You’re like quicksilver,” he said to her back.

She turned to look at him. “Am I?” Clearly, she was flustered by his comment.

“It wasn’t meant as praise.”

“I’ll take it as such anyway, thank you kindly.” She went back to her cleaning.

“You led me to believe Mat was an invention. How was I to know he was a she and as real as you and me?”

“No excuse.”

“Are you the voice of my conscience? I needn’t listen to everything you say. God’s blood, woman, even if you were the archbishop of Canterbury, I needn’t listen to everything you say.”

She pounded toward the table, cleared away his meal, and tossed it into the slop bucket.

“Fine,” he said, bolting to his feet. “I’ll find company that
will
feed me. And not just food.”

“Men are damnable fools, thinking no more of a lady than does the sword fit the scabbard.”

Peeved, he stopped short of walking through the open postern door. “I’d like to think I’m more mindful than most.”

She grunted. “Hear me, Drake fitzAlan, and hear me well. I don’t need to be rescued, not from the likes of you or any other ill-mannered lord of the manor.”

“Oh, aye, a woman who rents out bedchambers by the half night doesn’t invite gallantry at her threshold.”

She came upon him like an ill wind from the north and slapped him across his already bruised face. It stung like hell. “This is a respectable establishment, as if you didn’t know already. I rent out bedchambers by the day.”

“And if they’ve been vacated after a half night or less?”

“Is that not what a woman is reduced to, given her place as either chattel or plaything, even when she has a mind of her own and needs to satisfy?”

“And what of
your
bedchamber?”

“Mine is for me alone.”

“Unless it’s for my brother a half night a throw.”

She delivered another smack across his cheekbone, not with an open palm this time but with a closed fist. Aveline had sharp knuckles and sharper wits.

“That hurt.” He rubbed his throbbing face while his upper teeth repositioned themselves.

Her pursed mouth and livid eyes said all, but she had more to say and said it. “Know this, Drake fitzAlan. I’m a woman who knows her own mind and minds her own business. And I don’t like it when either are insulted by a coarse sot the likes of you.” 

Aveline slammed shut the door, and lowering her voice, said, “There’s not a pennyworth of difference twixt you and Stephen.
He
has no respect for me either.”

“At least he’s enjoyed you.” She smacked him a third time. He backed up to the trestle bench and sat, the wind knocked out of him.

“Not all people are born with silver spoons and knives in their mouths like the fitzAlan brothers, but they do deserve the same respect.”

“I would think,” he said, rubbing his throbbing cheek, “Stephen and you would marry since—”

“Stephen needs a woman with a dower and a reputation that doesn’t include renting bedchambers by the half night.”

“If you hold affection for each other—”

“Good Lord, you’re a romantic. You believe in Queen Eleanor’s court of love.” She laughed bitterly. “Let me tell you something. There are no happy endings. Stephen fitzAlan and I do not hold an abiding affection for each other, and never have. But if we did, the time span of three breaths removed any prospects.” It was a punch as powerful as the other three. Drake was grateful he was already sitting. “Three breaths between brothers who are exactly alike in … well, in almost every respect … except one gets the pheasant and the other, the feathers.”

“What …” He squeezed his eyes shut so he wouldn’t have to see the truth. “What are you saying?”

“As if you didn’t know. Or perhaps you mean Stephen to be a hearth son, a man with no family to serve and love but his brother’s?”

“No ….” And then more emphatically, “No!”

“As for Pippa,” she said, “she’s not Stephen’s.”

“Her eyes—”

“Not Stephen’s,” she said, stamping her foot.

Too tired to think farther than the breadcrumbs lying on the trestle, he dropped his head onto folded arms.

Aveline’s skirts stirred. “The truth hurts, I know.” Sitting beside him, she tilted his chin up and gazed into his eyes. “An arrogant man needs to be taken down a peg or two every once in a while, if only to learn by his mistakes and become better for it.”

“Can I? Become a better man?”

“Aye.” She leaned forward and discovered all the intimate parts of his mouth. The right, then left sides of his upper lip; the left, then right sides of his lower lip; and the corners between. “Oh, aye.”

He moved into her arms and kissed her in return, his hands closing around her face and neck, shoulders and arms, and drawing her nearer to him like a bouquet of wildflowers to his nose. She smelled of meadows and honey, a spring morn and leaves of green. He drank in the fragrance and then made what he deemed a respectable offer. “Your bedchamber or my brother’s?”

Holding his face between her cool palms, she gazed steadfastly into his eyes. “You and Jenna are to wed next month. Or have you forgotten?”

“I haven’t forgotten, but the way things are—”

“You think so little of her, then?”

He stammered for something clever to say. “No, but you’re the one kissing me.”

“You’re the one enjoying it.”

Aveline was seeping into his gut like sand on a beach climbs between your toes. Annoying and irritating, and something you carry around for days, weeks, and months, cursing with every step. “It’s different with men,” he said, defending all of manhood while making a jester of one man in particular.

“Oh, is it? Jenna must remain faithful to you but not you to her, while you make damnable excuses?”

Drake’s mouth opened to speak, but he had nothing virtuous to say. “Jenna needn’t find out.”

She slammed her fist into his tender belly, sharp knuckles leading. “Know this,
Sieur
fitzAlan. I’m not some trembling maiden waiting for a gallant white knight to come bed her and next day ride off in search of better sport. I’ve tried it once, thank you kindly, and a damnable fool I was at that.”

She quietly took her leave.

When Drake was able to stand, he went back to bed.

~ Middle Game ~

The stage of the game that occurs after most of the pieces have been moved into position and the earnest play begins.

Sunday, the 27
^th
of August, in the Year of Grace 1189

Chapter 14
                  
 

HOGSHEAD TAVERN HAD
NOT YET
opened for nightly trade, but that didn’t stop the brothel from engaging in brisk daytime traffic. For those who went in, angst or bravado showed in their demeanor. For those who came out, vapid grins were affixed to their faces.

An intruder lurked in the alleyway. For what he had in mind, walking boldly through the front door was not an option.

A postern door led into the kitchen. Left ajar to let out the heat of hearth fires, the interior was busy as cooks and scullery maids worked at their daily tasks. Out front a dray pulled up. Four sturdy men began to unload the wagon and bring goods in through a side door leading down to the cellar. Finding their number increased by one swordless knight, they made short work of heaving their first coffin-sized crate below. When it came time to return for the next load, their ready helper had disappeared to parts unknown.

A hallway led to a bedchamber decorated with bawdy tapestries of salacious Greek gods. In addition to the sword, dagger, and clothes left carelessly behind by a former patron, the intruder gathered up scarlet tassels.

A methodical survey of the rest of the bedchambers revealed activity of the sordid kind, including an old man humping his princess of the day and a youth losing his virginity to a whale. In neither room did the occupants hear the hushed opening and closing of the unbarred door.

At the end of the gallery and around a corner, a curtain led to a secret passageway, and the passageway, to a wheel staircase.

Tilda was lodged at a writing desk, her back to the open portal. Her private chamber reflected a rich though subdued décor with walls painted in
écru
and madder.
Furniture was abundant and master crafted. Worsted tapestries depicting the Creation, earthly Paradise, and the Deluge covered three walls, very different from the debauched decorations downstairs.

She did not hear the knight enter by stealth and hosed feet. She
did
hear the knight unsheathe his brother’s sword. When she swung around, the honed tip of the blade met the exposed hollow at the base of her throat. Tilda stopped breathing. The door closed on a whisper. The sword persuaded her to rise slowly from the chair and travel to the bed. She obediently climbed onto several layers of downy mattresses and waited for the next wordless command. Drake tossed two tassels into her lap. Her lips curled into a wicked smile. After looping each tassel around each delicate wrist, she secured her left hand to the carved bedpost. Drake grunted a warning. She repeated the effort, making sure the knots were tight this time. He nodded to her again. When she swung her shapely legs up onto the bed, the skirts fell away, revealing bare flesh. She threw up her other hand and lackadaisically reached for the opposite bedpost. Her half-shut eyelids hid pure loathing. With sword still teasing that lovely curvature leading down to further raptures, Drake checked the double knots she had tied and put in one more. He walked around to the other side, stepping over enameled tiles depicting a map of the world. He tied down her other delicate wrist, making sure the knots were secure. She gasped at the extra biting tug he put into those knots but said not a word.