Chapter IV

 

GRIFFITH WAS brought before Hubert de Burgh. His wrists were untied and the sack covering his head was removed.

“Where is the Lady Elspeth?”

“Safe. She is being held in the tower room overlooking the sea. A maid attends to her. She will be shown every courtesy. Do not trouble yourself, Captain.”

“I do trouble myself when it is my trouble that has brought this about.” Griffith raised his eyes to de Burgh. “This is not what we discussed, Hubert. Abducting Lady Elspeth was never the plan. You have unleashed a firestorm.”

“Obviously, the plan changed. Her ladyship escaped and as you were most likely with her, I had to seize you both. I could not risk another delay. Unless you had a plan to reach Dover Castle without raising her ladyship’s suspicions, abducting her was the only way.”

“You did not give me time to handle the girl and bring her round. Now she knows you are involved in this calumny. You have delivered her right to your door and you cannot let her go without exposing the resistance to the French.” Griffith rubbed his hands over his face. “I would have thought of something to tell her. I would have got a message to you somehow.”

“And I was to know this—how? By what means? What happened?” Hubert demanded. “My man arrived with the carriage and the girl was not inside. The plan was to separate you, to send her on to Canterbury and to bring you here. Lady Elspeth would report the attack and your capture and that would be the end of it. Your cover would be safe and you could return to Dorset in due course to continue the mission.”

Griffith flung himself into a seat near the open casement window.

“For the world I could not have foreseen the lady would do naught but stay in the carriage when it was overtaken. She is a chattering brainless female who takes no interest in politics or war or … well … much of anything.”

“She obviously took more of an interest than you believed. Perhaps she played the double with you as you did with her. She was alert enough to get out of the carriage at the crucial moment. You were out all night before I could rouse another team to send after you. Does she know who you are?” Hubert’s sharp eyes were on him.

“You are asking if her ladyship suspects me of working against her father. The answer is no. She believes I am loyal to the Earl and that French fool he help set on the English throne. But she has no predisposition for either cause. Ellie would rather talk about plants than war. I could get no useful intelligence out of her. She has no interest in the conflict as I said.”

Hubert nodded but his finger was pressed to his mouth as though considering Griffith’s description of the Earl’s daughter. “What is her attitude toward Tyndale?”

“She is not adverse to the marriage,” Griff said. “They have not spoken, nor have any messages been passed between them. It is a political union.”

“Aye, a political union. I have yet to meet a woman who can resist interfering in her husband’s campaigns. Lady Elspeth will be a very powerful woman one day. I would hazard a guess she seeks to increase Tyndale’s power and thereby her own before the nuptials. Two kingdoms for the price of one.”

Hubert’s tone made Griffith uneasy. If the commander thought Ellie was directly involved in the French campaign, he would torture her to gain information. Griffith did not fault Hubert for the vicious depths to which he would sink in this conflict. Griff had sunk to those depths himself on many occasions. But in this instance, Ellie truly was ignorant of French and English plans alike. Torturing her would deliver them nothing of use and would alienate her.

From whom? Griff wondered. What did he fear most right now?

“As I said, she takes no interest,” he offered carefully.”

“She takes an interest in you though.” Hubert lifted a brow in his direction. “That is a sign of something, surely.”

“I am her guard; that is all. She barely marks my existence.”

“Interesting, for that is not what my men report. She claimed her father would pay a ransom to get you back. I have a report that she would not go quietly without you. It appears she depends upon you to secure her release. The lady did not appeal to her captors or demand to send word to her father as was expected. It was to you she turned to for help. A lowly guardsman. Why would this be? She marks your existence rather well, I warrant.”

Griff reddened and looked away. “She is only a girl. Inexperienced and coddled her whole life. She was frightened. As I said, I am in her father’s service and in her infant mind I will protect her, though clearly I am powerless to do anything of the kind. Prior to the ambush, Lady Elspeth was happily bound for Canterbury and in ignorance of what I was about.”

Hubert sighed. “Well, as you can see that plan has now changed. We will hold her here until I can determine if she may be of some use to our cause. As long as I have your assurance she does not know you are one of the Wealden Archers, nor anything of Cassingham’s plans for Canterbury, Lady Elspeth may yet live. Now, what news do you bring me?”

Hubert sat back against the heavily carved manor seat, the seat of the King when he was at court—John’s seat. Hubert de Burgh had little love for John but a great love for England and Richard the Lionheart who had named John his successor before he died. Hubert would go to great lengths to protect that legacy. It was the lengths that de Burgh would go that made Griffith nervous for Lady Elspeth’s safety.

“I assure you the lady knows nothing, de Burgh. I need your word that she will come to no harm, or I swear, you will lose my love and my loyalty. I cannot be party to a scheme that would murder an innocent girl.”

“Innocent is she? My guess is she will prove to be as spineless as her father when she is the Countess of Dorsetshire. But you have my word. She will come to no harm until we can think of what to do with her that will not bring harm to us. Shake hands on it for I cannot do better than that and tell me what Louis is up to.”

The men shook hands though Griffith remained unsatisfied. His concerns would have to be set aside for the moment as a more pressing threat loomed that affected the safety of all.

Griff settled in a chair across from de Burgh. “The Dauphin means to take Dover Castle by siege,” he said quietly.

Hubert bolted upright. “Good God, when?”

The sea rushed and sighed against the white cliffs of stone that lined Dover’s coast. The sun was high in the sky and the heat of early July bore down and the salt tang breeze off the ocean was welcome. The casements were flung wide admitting sun, wind and sea. The glittering blue waterway that divided England from France seemed inseparable from the sky. Griff gazed at the shades of blue and tried to believe this conflict between the two nations would end one day. Possibly this day with this act of betrayal against the man who had befriended him and trusted him with his only child’s life. Somehow it had to end—the fighting, the killing, the maiming and dismemberment of thousands of people who wanted nothing more than to eat, make love and die in peace.

“This has merit, does it not?” he asked Hubert. “We will be remembered well though we be treacherous because we bore this subterfuge for the greater good. We have taken this poison into our souls for a legitimate purpose.”

“What do you need from me, Griffith? Do you need assurance that what we do here is just? That our cause is just? Only search your heart and look you to Louis on the throne of England. Think you on the nobles who put him there, of the homage he was paid—of the English men who would barter their birthright and that of their countrymen, for mess of pottage! Think you on the news that Louis’ own father, the King of France denounces this overthrow of our sovereign. And the Pope has not given his support; the enterprise does not have God’s blessing. Consider you that King John is a tyrant? Aye, that he is. I’ll not deny it. You know I do not love the man. But are we to be treated as children who do not know how to manage our own affairs? English barons invited an alien to our shores to deal with one tyrant. How long before the alien proves to be a greater tyrant and has all of France added to his might? Nay, I will take a weak English king over a powerful French dauphin.”

Griff nodded, satisfied. This was his thinking long ago when he agreed to the enterprise. The reasoning had not changed. Louis was not a threat until he became one and then they would have the devil to pay to get rid of him. Of the two, John was more manageable.

“Now, what have you learned of this siege?” asked Hubert. “Tell me everything.”

Griffith leaned forward. “Louis means to march on the nineteenth of this month. He has informed the Earl of Dorset he will need provisions for a siege of some duration. The attack itself is planned for the twenty-fifth of July. The Earl has committed the resources of Dorchester Castle to keep Louis’s camp supplied for as long as necessary.”

“Dorchester’s resources are plentiful are they not?”

“Aye, but I have a plan. Demand a ransom for the safe return of Lady Elspeth to Tyndale. The Earl of Dorset loves his wealth. It will alarm him to see it cut in half to pay the ransom but pay it he must if this marriage is to take place. Their alliance will secure the French hold on the coast and Dorchester’s influence with Louis. His lordship will pay but the expense will stretch him. I warrant he will be less liberal in fortifying Louis’s siege.”

Hubert frowned. “Does Louis intend to join his men in camp?”

“Louis means to lead the attack himself.” Griff smiled crookedly. “The Dauphin fancies himself a soldier.”

“A fancy that works to our benefit, but I fear we will not have time to fortify our defenses and lay up enough stores and ammunition for a prolonged siege—even a weak one at that.”

“With Louis distracted by battle, Cassingham can undermine the Dauphin’s hold on Castle Rochester and Canterbury. He is amassing a guerrilla force of Wealden Archers to plague the French forces. If you can hold Dover Castle, we will make sure Louis cannot summon reinforcements from Kent. The campaign won’t be enough to break him, but you can send him back to London with his tail between his legs.”

“And buy King John some time to regroup his forces.” Hubert nodded his approval. “The loyalists are scattered far and wide but we’ll track them down. When do you leave for Kent?”

“On the morrow. Cassingham has sent word we are to parlay in Weald Forest. The French are presently using it as an access route to port. We mean to cut it off and hold it for the English.”

“Willikin of the Weald we call him. Send him my regards.” Hubert grinned. “He has been the right arm to my left. Do you think history will record the deeds of ordinary men in shaping a nation’s history? Or will those who come after us believe it was John who kept the crown on his unworthy head.” Hubert gazed out at the sea. “It matters not. One way or another we Englishmen shall have our England back.”

†

THE EARL, Ellie’s father, had sent his wife from the room when the messenger arrived from Dover with the demand for ransom. Ellie had been captured and was being held in Dover Castle by that blackguard, Hubert de Burgh.

The Earl of Dorset considered the contents of the note. His daughter had been abducted and a demand for ransom made. The Earl of Kent, Hubert de Burgh had surely lost his mind to ally himself with King John. The battle had been lost and the Barons had emerged victorious. Any nobleman who found himself on the wrong side of that conflict was in a very precarious position indeed.

Dorchester considered his answer carefully. “Inform our good Earl of Kent that a ransom will not be paid and if he values his life, he will provide escort for Lady Elspeth to Canterbury and deliver her safely into the care of her betrothed. Tell him that this act is beneath him and for that I hold him accountable as testimony to the strength of our cause against King John. I offer him this opportunity to make right his many grievous wrongs before it is too late. Tell him that and be firm in purpose and voice, good herald.”

He was not an unfeeling father; he knew what the Earl of Kent did not—that Dover Castle would soon be in the hands of Louis of France. Elspeth would be restored to Tyndale without Dorchester having to pay a farthing to make it so. Besides, she was under the protection of Captain Griffith. No harm would come to her.

With that unpleasant business out of the way, the Earl of Dorset returned to the study of his accounts.