“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 the 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 head 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.”
William put his heels together, preparing to depart our little circle. “If I may suggest an additional course of action, sire, the guards at all the gates and on the walls should be doubled. What’s more, anyone or anything moving in or out should be carefully inspected.”
Ieuan frowned. “I should have ordered it done the moment we arrived.” He didn’t wait for me to approve William’s plan but pointed at my squire. “Leave this to me.”
William bowed and departed.
I suddenly felt a little nauseous, and it wasn’t only because I was tired and had spent the day with too little food and less sleep. I could easily see Lee sneaking into Dover—without even having to sneak, if he came in on the tail end of a party of workers or in a hay wagon. The man was clearly well-versed in the customs of medieval English society. He could have figured something out.
And Dover Castle was unreasonably huge. It had inner, middle, and outer wards large enough to encompass many football fields. The walls were lined with towers, and the inner ward could have fit Canterbury Castle inside it and then some. The way the stones loomed up around me gave me the feeling of being both safe and exposed at the same time, now that I knew how incredibly vulnerable we were to a single man’s evil plan. Standing in the bailey, the warm sun on my back, I bent my head.
Geoffrey had been watching me, and now he frowned, emphasizing the wrinkles on his prominent forehead and reminding me again of his age and his long relationship with the Crown. “We will keep you safe, sire.”
I looked at him carefully and then gestured with one hand that he should continue. Something about the way he’d spoken had me thinking that he had more to say. I didn’t want to press him, but I needed to know what it was.
Geoffrey breathed in deeply through his nose. “We need more men—today. We need to be prepared beyond the doubling of the guard.”
“The men of Dover have been on alert since this morning,” Ieuan said, “but Sir Stephen should speak to the Portsman again. He could start marshalling every available man tonight, or at the very least, make clear to everyone the high alert and the possible threat—not only from France, but from a traitor.”
“I agree, my lord,” Geoffrey said. “If you wish, I will see to it.”
“I would be grateful,” I said, and meant it.
Geoffrey bowed. “Of course.”
Ieuan looked at me. “Food and sleep for you, sire. Then we need to arrange armor for you. You cannot go about without it for even another hour.”
I rolled my shoulders, already feeling the weight of the mail Ieuan would put on me. I was used to it, but that didn’t mean I missed it. “Someone else’s armor, you mean,” I said, resigned to at least an hour in the armory to find something that fit me. Given my height and weight, the choices would be limited. My armor had been crafted for me personally. It fit perfectly and allowed me full freedom of movement. Anything borrowed from the armory at Dover was bound to chafe.
“We will get yours back,” Ieuan said. He knew about the Kevlar I wore as an extra layer of protection, and how naked I’d come to feel when I didn’t wear it. Wearing it also gave Lili peace of mind and meant she was less likely to worry about my misadventures. It was easier to convince her I would come to no harm with it on. “At least you have your sword.”
“I have more than my sword,” I replied, shaking off my melancholy once again. I clapped Ieuan on the shoulder. “We are alive. For the moment, that is all that matters. We can worry about our possessions another day. Do with me as you wish. I won’t complain.”
I had to focus on what would move us forward, but I hadn’t even seen my son yet. The sun had disappeared below the western horizon, meaning it might be Arthur’s bedtime soon. Perhaps I could go to sleep with him, crisis or no crisis. I didn’t need Ieuan to tell me that I would be no good to anyone if I didn’t rest.
Then I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder and turned to see my wife looking up at me. She’d come all the way from the hall in the inner bailey to find me. “You are asleep on your feet, and I imagine you haven’t eaten a bite since Canterbury. Whatever you’re doing can surely wait until morning, can’t it?”
I thought back over the last twelve hours and acknowledged that the bread and cheese I’d hastily consumed beside my horse in the courtyard of the Archbishop’s palace was the last thing I’d eaten, though I’d drunk water on the road.
I caught the nod Ieuan directed at his sister and knew I was being managed, but honestly, I was grateful for it. Arm in arm, Lili and I crunched across the outer ward to the interior gatehouse. Gravel had been mined in southern England since Roman times, and the builders of Dover Castle had taken advantage of the proximity of the mines to cover the castle grounds with loose stones. Given all the rain that had fallen this summer, without the stones we’d have been ankle-deep in mud.
Once in the inner ward, we headed for the king’s apartments, which Lili had taken for her own. We always slept in the same bed, so she generally left the queen’s apartments for other nobles. Bronwen looked up as we entered our sitting room, where she was minding Catrin and Arthur. “I sent the nannies away,” she said before Lili could ask. “They needed sleep, just like the rest of us. Catrin will sleep with Ieuan and me tonight.” Bronwen had a fierce look on her face. As if anyone was going to argue with her about that.
I stretched. “I should find Jeeves.”
“He is already preparing a bath for you,” Lili said, indicating how confident she’d been that she could get me to do what she wanted. “Somewhere around here are clean clothes he rustled up for you too.”
“Maybe Edward left something that will fit me.” I laughed at the thought of wearing the dead king’s clothes. He’d be rolling over in his grave.
“Hey.” I ruffled Arthur’s hair and then pulled him into my lap, where he curled up with his head on my chest. “How was the ride with Mommy?”
“He slept the whole way,” Lili said before Arthur could answer.
“I did not!” Arthur sat up, all indignant. “I was keeping watch.”
“I’m sure you were.” I hugged him and smiled at Lili over the top of his head. He wiggled to get down to continue his game with Catrin, which appeared to involve a complicated arrangement of beads and cups, like a medieval version of mancala.
“You need to tell me everything that has happened since we left you,” Bronwen said. “While I appreciate you bringing my husband back to me, I would rather not see him if it means you have neither found Lee nor managed to escape the pope’s clutches.”
“I’ve done neither,” I said. “I hope we haven’t simply brought danger to Dover rather than leaving it at Canterbury.”
“Do you think Lee would follow you here?” Bronwen said.
“It is something to fear,” Ieuan said from behind me. He entered the room and closed the door, coming towards his wife and leaning down to kiss the top of her head. They clasped hands briefly. “The castle is locked down tightly.”
“One man shouldn’t be able to pose such a threat,” Lili said.
“Unless that man has a bag of C-4 and knows how to use it,” I said.
“How much could he have left?” Bronwen said. “Canterbury Castle is in ruins. You don’t do that with seven or eight pounds.”
“According to Callum, twenty pounds, set in the right places, was all he needed,” I said.
Bronwen pursed her lips. “The right places being the toilets on two of the levels. With those walls blown out, the upper floors were unsupported and came crashing down.”
“That is how it appears,” I said.
“Did he actually crawl into those latrine shafts?” Lili made a face.
Regardless of latrine cleaner Tom’s love of his job, cleaning the latrines was still viewed by most as the worst form of employment in a busy castle, and you didn’t have to be modern to think so.
“It seems so.” I sat heavily in a chair near where Arthur and Catrin were playing. A tray of fruit, cold meats, and cheese lay on the table beside me, and I began to eat, too tired to really taste the food but knowing I needed it.
Lili’s hands found the knots in both of my shoulders and began to work them. My head sagged forward. I might even have fallen asleep.
A gentle knock came at the door and at Lili’s ‘enter’, William poked his head inside. “Lord Callum sends word that he is on his way.”
“Bad news?” Lili said.
William made a very French moue with his lips. “They tracked Lee to a stable where he’d paid to house a horse he bought the day we arrived at Canterbury. He told the stableman that he was returning to London at dawn today.”
“Which means he was really riding east.” Lili gave my shoulders a squeeze.
“Should I still go to Canterbury, sire?” William said.
“Yes. Peckham needs to know what Acquasparta has done. Hopefully, you will meet Callum on the road, and the two of you can confer before you continue on to Canterbury.”
William bowed. “You can depend on me, sire.”
“I know.” What could be done for Canterbury was in motion, and until Lee showed his face, we could do little more for Dover. What I hadn’t done was what I needed, which was to sleep, if I was to be ready for whatever King Philip of France—and possibly Lee—might throw at me tomorrow.