The Orphan King (24 page)

“I thank you for my life,” William said with a salute. “You have your destiny. I have mine.”

The drumming of the horse’s hooves remained with Thomas all of that day.

One mile past the crest of the hill that overlooked the valley of Magnus, the knight reined his horse to a halt. He hobbled its front feet and let it find grass among the heather and gorse.

Earlier it had been warm, but weather changed quickly on the moors, even as spring approached summer. The scattered clouds above him were low, heavy at the bottom with angry gray, and moved over the hills in a growing wind he felt more keenly outside the protective walls of Magnus. It would not be a good day for travel.

Still he waited.

Here, against the horizon, he would be in plain view. And here, against the horizon, none would be able to approach him without being equally plain to see.

Hawkwood did not keep the knight waiting long enough to shiver. William saw him first as a small black figure stepping out from the trees below, a figure that grew quickly as Hawkwood covered ground with long, vigorous strides.

“My friend,” the knight called, “you wear the guise of an old man but move as a puppy. Merlin himself would find it a performance sadly lacking.”

Hawkwood shook his head and raised his voice to be heard above the moor winds. “Merlin himself would rest beside a fire when the cold
begins to move across the hills. If I walked like an old man, I would soon feel like one.”

“I feel like one now,” William said. “It was no easy task to leave the young lord.”

“He does inspire affection,” Hawkwood agreed. “Katherine, too, does not want to believe he serves a different cause.”

“Katherine. She is well?” The knight could not keep sharp anxiety from his voice. “All that Gervaise could relay was that she had escaped the soldiers.”

Hawkwood nodded. “She suffered one blow, but the bandages softened the club’s impact, and she has rested well. It helped that I was able to run horses through the midst of them, and the exploding powder from Cathay accomplished the rest.”

William relaxed. “And now?”

“Now we have the luxury of time and privacy for her to be taught in our ways.”

“The luxury of time? You don’t fear the fate of Magnus?”

“Always,” Hawkwood said. The wind plucked at his hood, and he threw it back to expose his silver hair. “But I fear it will be unwise to force whatever happens next. It will serve us better to wait and watch. Gervaise, of course, is there, and I hope to continue to find ways to wander freely throughout Magnus when necessary. Over twenty years have passed. Another few months will not hurt.”

“No? If Thomas is not one of theirs, they will double their efforts. Who will protect him from an enemy he cannot see?”

Hawkwood leaned forward, both hands on the head of his cane. “If he is not one of theirs, they will assume he is ours and play the waiting game too. Besides, if they truly wanted him dead, there is naught
we could do. As you well know, dealing death is too simple. Poison, an asp beneath his bed covers, a dart from one of the passageways.”

“Your task is to wait and watch,” the knight said heavily, “while I return to exile to rely on messages that take months to receive. I do not know which is the more difficult burden.”

T
hree days later at sunrise, two soldiers escorted Isabelle into the keep of the castle.

“Thomas,” she said with a bow.

“Isabelle,” Thomas replied softly. He did not rise from his large chair in the front hall despite his flood of joy.

She stood in front of him, looking around with admiration. Tapestries hung on the walls. The fireplace crackled, for even in the summer, early mornings were cool. Two soldiers guarded the entrance, stiffly unmoving. Soon enough, as William had warned, Thomas would have to deal with officialdom outside of the territory of Magnus, but for now, it seemed the castle was his.

Seeing Isabelle, he wanted to weep with joy. Instead, he dismissed the soldiers. Too much, he was conscious of the dignity required as the man who had bloodlessly conquered the army of Magnus.

When they were alone, he whispered her name again. “Isabelle.”

She lowered her head, looked upward, and said shyly, “Yes, Thomas.”

He wanted to throw himself into her arms. He knew, watching her, that she would embrace him gladly in return.

“Isabelle,” he started again. Although he could will himself to remain in his chair, he could not keep the hushed wonder from his tone.
“Your return is a miracle. Yet I am flooded with questions. Where have you been? How is it you prospered while away?”

She straightened her shoulders and looked him directly in the eyes. “There is much to tell. Will you listen, lord?”

“Gladly.”

Her smile—a promise and a reward in one—drew from him a silent inward gasp. He managed to keep his face motionless.
She is worth as much as a kingdom
.

“I, like you, am an orphan, from a village far south of here. My parents perished in a fire when I was a baby. I am told the villagers did not think it worth their while to preserve me. But a lonely old woman, one who was truly mute and deaf, defeated them. She fought for me. The villagers, who suspected she was a witch, dared not disagree, and so she raised me. She died when I was ten. With her gone, the villagers were free to chase me away.”

Thomas nodded. His heart ached for her.
She is an outcast too
.

“Because the old lady could not hear, I learned early to speak with my hands. And when I was forced to travel from village to village, seeking food and shelter, I soon discovered the advantages of posing as mute and deaf. It earned pity. Also, I learned not to trust, and being mute and deaf put me behind walls that no person could break.” Isabelle faltered and looked down at her hands. “Not even you wanted me. You saved us all from death by hanging, but you only wanted the knight.”

“That is no longer true,” he said quickly and with some guilt.

“When you were arrested and before I returned to visit you in prison,” she began again, “I fled Magnus. After three days of travel, I reached the dales near the town of York. I had not eaten. I had barely slept. I threw myself at the mercy of the first passing carriage. The lady inside took pity. She fed and clothed me and arranged for me to work
as a maid in her kitchen. When word reached me of the fall of Magnus I returned. My heart could not rest until it discovered the answer.”

“Answer?”

She moved forward to where he was sitting and grabbed his hands and tightened her grip. “Yes. Answer. Did I belong to you? Or had I been fooling myself about your glances?”

“I am the only fool,” Thomas said gallantly. “Not to have searched the world for you.”

She did not hesitate. She threw her arms around him. Thomas felt her warm skin on his neck and—pressed tight as she was—the cool circle of her medallion.

“Take them with you.”
The old man’s words at the hanging.
“It will guarantee you a safe journey to Magnus.”

Even as Thomas held her, his mind raced with thoughts and questions.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he released her.

“You must answer me these further questions,” Thomas said in a pained voice. “Who are you? And who placed you among us? Was it the old man at the gallows?”

“I—I do not understand.”

“Yes,” he said. “I believe you do.”

He waited for her to speak. The silence stretched. Still he waited and said nothing.

Her voice broke upon the words. “How is it you know?”

Thomas sighed. A tiny hope had flickered that he was wrong, that he could still trust her.

“Your medallion,” he said. “What a blunder to leave it around your neck upon your return.”

She clutched it automatically.

“Do not fear,” Thomas said heavily. “I have seen it already, the day Tiny John lifted it from you on the moors. The strange symbol upon it matches the symbol engraved that I’ve been told by elders among the village is a Druid symbol. There is more to you than what appears. I want to know what it is.”

Isabelle shivered and hugged herself.

“Moreover,” Thomas continued, “there was the soldiers’ attack outside the walls of Magnus the night I was delivered on ‘the wings of an angel.’ How did they know to venture outside the walls? I had not been followed. No sentry could have seen me or Katherine. You and the knight and Tiny John were the only ones who knew I had hidden my bundle outside the castle walls.”

Isabelle turned to face him.

“And our arrest,” Thomas said. “It could not have been a coincidence. Or the fact that a spy had already been planted in the dungeon ahead of us. The knowledge of our presence in Magnus could only have come from you, the person who disappeared our first morning here to return with a few bowls of porridge to explain your absence.”

Isabelle nodded.

The implications staggered Thomas. Isabelle’s nearness had been planned before the hanging and the rescue of William. Again, it circled back to the old man and his knowledge at the gallows!

“Why? How?” Thomas said, almost quiet with despair. “My plans to conquer Magnus were a dream, kept only to myself. How did the lord know—”

“Why?” she said calmly. “Duty. I am Lord Richard Mewburn’s daughter.”

“Daughter! You were one of the three figures to escape the night of
my conquering!” Thomas stopped, puzzled. “No one recognized you when you arrived with us.”

“Do you think the lord of Magnus would dare let his daughter wander the streets among a people who hated him? No one recognized me because I spent so little time among them.”

Thomas shook his head. “And duty dictated you return and pretend love for me?”

She nodded.

“How were you to kill me?” Thomas asked with bitterness. “Poison as I drank to your health? A ladylike dagger thrust in my ribs during a long embrace?”

A half sob escaped Isabelle. “Those … those were my father’s commands. I don’t know if I could have fulfilled them.”

Thomas shrugged, although at her admission the last pieces of his heart fell into a cold black void. “No matter. I cared little for you.”

She blinked, stung.

“Go on,” Thomas said with the same lack of tone. “From the beginning. At the gallows.”

“It was arranged I would be on the gallows. My father feared a threat to his kingdom, and he did not believe the knight would die.”

That was the greatest mystery. “How did your father know? Did he instruct the old man to appear at the gallows? Or is it reversed—did the old man instruct your father of my intentions?”

“Old man?” Isabelle stared at Thomas for long moments. Then she threw her head back in laughter. When she finished and found her breath again, she said, almost with disbelief, “You truly do not know.”

Thomas gritted his teeth. “I truly do not know
what
?”

“I was not there because of you. You were not the threat my father feared. I was there because of the knight.” Isabelle kept her voice flat. “My father sometimes used cruel methods to maintain his power. I did not approve or disapprove. I am told that when my father first overthrew the lord of Magnus …”

Thomas gritted his teeth again. Sarah’s parents. His own grandparents.

“… he publicly branded each opposing soldier and knight and had them flogged to death. One escaped. The most loyal and most valiant fighter of them all.”

She let those words hang until Thomas grasped the truth.

“William!”

“Yes. William. When my father received word William had returned to this land, he paid a great sum of money to have the sacred chalices stolen and placed among William’s belongings.”

“You were sent to the hanging to be a spy should he be rescued. How did your father know it would happen?”

“He guessed it might. The hangman had instructions to release me if the knight died on the gallows.”

Thomas paced to the far side of the room. “Why? Why did he foresee a rescue?” Nothing could be more important than this.

“Thomas,” she began, “there is a great circle of conspiracy. Much larger than you and I. My father, too, acted upon the commands of another. And there is much at stake.”