Warden of Time (The After Cilmeri Series Book 8) (22 page)

“You did have a hand in it,” Geoffrey said.

Piers waved a hand dismissively, unaffected by Jacques’ rage. “Lee came to us. We listened. That is all.”

“You gave him money,” Geoffrey said, not as a question.

“Of course,” Piers said, “and encouragement. But we had no part in what he chose to do with it. We didn’t help.”

Geoffrey smirked. “Everyone needs to be able to stand before their lord and deny all responsibility, do they not?”

Piers canted his head. “Our instructions were quite specific.”

“And what were they?”

Now that Geoffrey was their friend, Jacques was a font of information. “To find the traitor in King David’s court we’d heard about and aid him if we could.”

“I see,” Geoffrey said. “Is it in Philip’s mind that if King David were to die, the throne would be vacant but for a three-year-old boy? England needs a strong king, and Philip has as much claim to the English throne as King David does to Aquitaine.”

“Exactly,” Jacques said.

I thought about taking offense but decided not to. It wasn’t as if Philip was wrong; he had
more
right to the throne of England than I had to Aquitaine.

“We did little, in truth,” Piers said, with a glance at his more voluble companion.

“If King David were dead, what would be King Philip’s next move? Invasion?” Geoffrey said.

“Yes,” Jacques said.

Piers gripped his companion’s arm and glowered at him. Jacques seemed to think that getting on Geoffrey’s good side meant telling him everything in the most confident way possible, whereas Piers wanted to be more circumspect. A smile twitched around Geoffrey’s mouth, but he didn’t look at me. My eyes bored into his back, and perhaps he could feel them because he rolled his shoulders while the two Frenchmen warred at each other without speaking.

Finally, Piers turned back to Geoffrey. He fisted his hand and beat it into the bar of his cell. “King Philip has two thousand men who will sail on his word.”

 “When?” Geoffrey said.

“We released the pigeon before we sailed.” Piers’ upper lip lifted to form a disgruntled sneer. “He’s coming now, and nobody can stop him.”

“But David isn’t dead.”

“We told him that we didn’t know the outcome for certain. There are factions in Philip’s court who support an invasion without regard to the success of Lee’s plan. They are loath to rely upon the actions of one Englishman, and believe Philip is strong enough to overcome any opposition.”

That, to me, sounded like people were telling Philip what he wanted to hear rather than the truth. But of course, I was biased.

“Where will he land?”

Piers shrugged. “We don’t know.”

“What about Ireland?” Geoffrey said. “What’s King Philip’s interest there?”

Piers’ brow furrowed. “I don’t know. It was Guillaume who spoke with Lee in that regard.”

“Guillaume was your leader?” Geoffrey said.

Piers nodded.

The trickle of unease I’d been feeling at the back of my neck turned into a torrent as I recalled that the heretic had departed the castle after the evening meal yesterday. If Lee hadn’t left Canterbury until the next morning, the two could have met up again. They could be working together still.

And even if they weren’t, Guillaume hadn’t come to Dover and connected with his fellow spies, which meant that he, too, was roaming freely around my country. Geoffrey didn’t know that, however—and nor did Jacques or Pier—or the conversation might have been headed in a different direction.

Geoffrey said, “I want to speak to Lee. Where is he?”

“I do not know that either,” Piers said. “We offered him a place on our ship, but he declined. He said he would make his own way to the French court once his business in England was complete.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

“Surely Lee couldn’t believe any place in England would be safe for him after what he did,” Geoffrey said.

“He told us he’d made his own plans,” Piers said. “Besides, with the king dead, who was there to realize what he’d done?”

Piers had a point there. Lee would have murdered me, my immediate family, and half my advisers in one blow. It was only because of Bevyn’s arrival that we had known that Lee was dangerous. I felt a curl of satisfaction in my belly. We’d been lucky, but we’d been good too, and sometimes the good made their own luck.

“So you have no idea where he might be now?” Geoffrey said.

“No,” Piers said.

The interview was over. I refrained from standing up and calling attention to myself, even though I really wanted to. Carew, if he knew about it, would have been beside me in a flash, whispering wise and calming words in my ear. I let my own sense guide me, however, and didn’t move or say anything. If Geoffrey concluded this conversation successfully, without me giving the game away, he could continue to be a spy for me to the French. I wasn’t going to blow his cover.

Instead, he blew his own by turning to look at me. “Is there anything else you would like to ask them?”

I’d been watching my feet, and it took a moment for me to realize Geoffrey was talking to me. I looked up, saw his questioning glance, and stood to approach the cell. Geoffrey must have decided there was no danger to himself in revealing who I was and the false pretenses under which he’d questioned the Frenchmen because their lives were forfeit. I supposed he was right. I owed him now, and strangely, I didn’t mind the debt. He’d done me a considerable favor today.

 “How did you know there was a traitor in the king’s household in the first place?” I said.

“Who are you?” Piers said.

“Answer his question, and he will tell you,” Geoffrey said in a sharp voice.

Piers gave him a wary look but then answered amicably enough, “We’ve been hearing rumors about it for months.”

“But how did you know his identity?” I said.

“From one of the ladies-in-waiting to the queen,” Piers said, and named a woman I might not know to look at, though I’d heard her name. “She befriended the man and passed word to us that he held no love for King David—and that he might be interested in speaking to others who shared his disdain.”

I let out a slow breath. I would deal with the woman in due course, but for now … “We’re still talking about Lee, correct?”

Piers brows came together in puzzlement. “Was there someone else?”

That, in itself, was a huge relief. I didn’t know if I could handle any more traitors today. “What about his companions, Mike and Noah?”

“They spoke little, and no French at all,” Jacques said. “We can tell you nothing about them. They were Lee’s companions, whom he’d brought for protection, as if we could be overpowered by any brute.” He snorted his derision.

“Were you aware that all three men were from Avalon?” I said.

Jacques scoffed. “A fairy story. There’s no such place.”

“Isn’t there?” I said.

Piers folded his arms across his chest. “I’m not saying any more until you tell me who you are.”

“He’s your only hope for getting out of here in one piece,” Geoffrey said.

“Though I regret to say that the odds of that have become vanishingly small,” I said. “Continue to cooperate, and we’ll see.” I turned towards the door, gesturing that Geoffrey should come with me.

“Tell me your name!” Piers said from behind me.

My hand on the frame of the door, I stopped to look back. I wasn’t choosing to tell him because of his insistence, but because of the sheer joy of it, “David Llywelyn Arthur Pendragon, King of England. You may have heard of me.”

Chapter Twenty-one

“
I
am in your debt, as I’m sure you know,” I said to Geoffrey, who was climbing the steps behind me.

“You are my king.”

I stopped myself from commenting that up until today, I wouldn’t necessarily have known it from Geoffrey’s demeanor. Today, Geoffrey’s loyalties had broken my way. It felt like the time Humphrey de Bohun, a sworn enemy, had come to me at midnight and at great danger to himself to ask me to care for his son. Given that William had eventually become my squire—and Humphrey had become an esteemed (if still not entirely trusted) member of my inner circle—that decision had turned out well for him. If Geoffrey continued as he’d started, this would probably turn out well for him too.

Not that I wanted to develop a reputation for being easily charmed. King Stephen, who in the twelfth century fought for his throne against his cousin, Maud, had been so easy-going that he’d paid the wages of the troops his eventual successor, Henry, had led against him. Henry had then gone back to France, his tail between his legs, defeated. And yet, I could see myself doing the same thing because I thought the move quite clever: by defeating Henry militarily
and
paying his men’s wages, Stephen had shamed Henry completely. But Henry had become king anyway upon Stephen’s death, and Stephen had been reviled by his own barons (and historians) as too chivalrous for his own good. Sometimes a king couldn’t win no matter what he did.

Sir Stephen met us at the top of the stairs that led into the bailey, Carew and Ieuan beside him. Quickly, I related what we’d learned from the spies about the coming of King Philip. Stephen listened intently and then hastened away. We’d begun preparations for a possible war, but now it was really happening.

William de Bohun hovered a few feet away, and I nodded at him, indicating that it was all right for him to join us. It was better he do that than for me to have to relate the conversation to him later. The boy longed to be in the center of whatever action was going on at any given moment, and he had shown himself most times to be up to the task.

Then I laid out what Piers had said about Guillaume and their relationship with Acquasparta. When I finished, Carew looked very grave. “What do you want to do about the legate?”

“He must be contained,” Geoffrey said, surprising me with his certainty. “The man is ill, but his machinations cannot be allowed to continue.”

“I will send two men riding to Callum immediately,” Ieuan said.

“Peckham needs to know what has been going on under his nose,” Carew said. “I find it astounding that a papal legate could have been involved in a conspiracy to murder you.”

“Send me with the riders.” William broke into the conversation. “You need someone who can accurately relay to Lord Callum what has happened, and it is too sensitive a matter to put into writing.”

I studied the boy, who was no longer a boy, for a minute, and then I nodded. “You should leave within the hour. Come see me in the moments before you go. I may have more instructions for you.”

William bowed, his face lit by his new responsibility.

My mood had lifted for the first time since Canterbury Castle had fallen. “Acquasparta will deny any involvement, of course, but we can see the links in the chain now. These Frenchmen are tied to Acquasparta, Philip, and Lee.”

“We have leverage against Boniface now.” Carew bobbed his chin in agreement. “We will offer to suppress what Acquasparta has done if Boniface gives way on his demands.”

“It’s too late to stop Philip from coming, if he is coming,” Ieuan said.

“So it is,” I said. “If he lands successfully and we lose, it will hardly matter what Acquasparta has done. We need to not lose.”

“Did you learn what has become of Lee?” Ieuan said.

 I gestured to Geoffrey. “Geneville proved himself to be an exemplary questioner, but the Frenchmen do not know where Lee is now—nor Guillaume for that matter.”

“They would have told you the truth about that?” Ieuan said, his eye on Geoffrey, of whom he’d always been suspicious. The man was a privileged Norman baron, and his lands in the March had been fought over by Ieuan’s ancestors for centuries. I couldn’t blame any Welshman for instinctively holding a grudge.

I canted my head to the older man. “I believed them. Did you, Geneville?”

Geoffrey nodded. “I did, sire. It interested me that Lee hadn’t intended to sail for France with them. Does that say something about his ties with Ireland? It seems to be a part of the scheme these Frenchmen knew nothing about.”

I studied Geoffrey, again regretting the four years I’d spent holding this man at arm’s length. He was observant and had asked the right questions down there. He’d just hung two men out to dry who could have been his allies, and done it with skillful subterfuge. No matter how well I mastered a poker face—which probably wasn’t ever going to happen, though I was going to keep trying—I was never going to be that good. “If Lee had meant to flee England, there was no better time than this morning.”

“Instead, he stayed in Canterbury until he learned the outcome of the explosion,” Carew said.

“Maybe he knew something they didn’t, since we caught the Frenchmen,” Ieuan said.

Carew looked thoughtful. “I can’t see Lee having the reach to have warned the coastal patrol about the Frenchmen’s existence. Nor would I have thought he’d have a reason to do so, unless his plan was to find a different way to France, one more secret, in hopes of currying favor with King Philip without the spies’ interference.”

“Pardon me, my lord, but I don’t think that’s it,” William said. “My gut tells me that Lee is still here, in England, planning some new devilry. He could have followed us to Dover and be here even now, watching.”

As one, our eyes went to the battlements. When we brought our heads down again, all but Geoffrey, who was looking at us with something approaching consternation, laughed at our mutual paranoia.

“Trust the boy to go right to the heart of our troubles,” Carew said.

“I’m not even going to ask why Lee would choose to come here,” I said. “His reasoning is beyond me.”

“To finish what he started, sire,” William said.

“If what Bohun says is true, you should not be standing here so exposed, sire,” Geoffrey said. “If murder is Lee’s aim, he could try again. Sometimes one man has more capacity to cause great harm than an entire company of soldiers.”

“Thus we saw in Canterbury.” Ieuan gave Geoffrey a slight bow. “Geneville is right, sire. That cannot be allowed to happen. Besides, it’s growing late. We’re all dead on our feet. We must rest.”