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Day One
Bronwen
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When nobody replied right away to Philippe’s comment, or his sudden appearance, he put his heels together bowed slightly at the waist, and added, “Bonsoir.”
“Hey,” David said.
They had been prepared for many things in this complicated plan of David’s to save France’s Jewish community, the Templars, Aquitaine, and maybe the world, but none of those plans had included the King of France himself emerging from within a secret passage in the wall inside their prison suite. Everybody else was staying remarkably calm, so Bronwen was too. But inside, hysterical laughter bubbled.
They’d actually known about the hidden corridors in the French palace—not because they’d been told about them by their spies but because of their knowledge of history. They’d planned to use them too, which was a large part of the reason they’d acquiesced so meekly to being incarcerated. It was convenient of Philippe to have saved them the trouble of having to find an entrance themselves.
Bronwen herself had a lot of pretty angry things to say to the King of France. The last couple of hours hadn’t exactly been a barrel of laughs, and she’d had to work very hard to keep her daughter, Catrin, who was perception incarnate, from turning into a hysterical mess. She was only six—seven in November—but many six-year-olds were a great deal smarter than adults gave them credit for. Although Bronwen and Ieuan had explained before the trip, as unemotionally and matter-of-factly as they could, what might happen, once it actually had happened, Catrin had developed a pinched look that told her mother she was worried.
But right now, with Philippe standing before them, potentially unbeknownst to his own advisers, wasn’t the time to chastise him for upsetting her daughter.
David stood a pace or two away, just studying the French king with an impassive expression and giving nothing away. David so rarely lost his temper it took Bronwen a moment to realize he was actually furious and trying not to let it show. She had a flashback to one of the few times she was allowed to watch television growing up: while babysitting at a neighbor’s house, she’d spent an evening watching reruns of The Incredible Hulk. The line had been Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.
Maybe Philippe could sense it too, because he spread his hands wide and said, “I came as soon as I thought it was safe.” For once, the French king had the grace to look sheepish instead of haughty.
Then Lili smiled in that disarming way she had and said, “Come in, Philippe. Would you like some wine?”
“Yes!” Philippe sprang forward to take Lili’s hand and kiss the back of it.
Looking bemused now, which was far better than turning into a giant green monster, David himself strolled over to the table and poured wine into a goblet.
Philippe took a long gulp and then made a face. “I apologize for the quality. I prefer to drink wine from Templar wineries, but now that Brittany is at court, he insists we drink his.” He shuddered. “The worst of it will strip rust off iron.”
None of them replied to this digression, at which point, finally, Philippe, looking rueful, gave a bow that was far deeper than he’d probably ever bowed to anyone—if he ever had—and said, “I’m here to free you, and I apologize for the way you were treated in the hall. Nogaret, Flote, Mornay—” he shook his head, seemingly at a loss for words. Then he cleared his throat. “Suffice to say, they do not speak for me.”
It was a startling admission for any king, but especially for this one. Until coming to Earth Two, Bronwen had not understood, despite doing a deep dive into regency romances as a late teen, the way the upper classes separated themselves from those perceived to be lower than they. It wasn’t just that they were richer or better educated. They were better. A servant wasn’t a servant because of circumstance but because she deserved to be so. It was the job of those in the upper classes to take care of those beneath them—but only to a point. For someone not of noble birth to take a seat amongst lords and ladies in a drawing room, for example, was shocking, if not angering.
King Philippe believed himself not only to be of that upper class, but the noble of nobles, and his role in the universe to be sacred. He was the epitome of the divine right of kings, chosen by God to rule France (and as much other territory as he could take) and his representative on earth.
And still, here Philippe was, alone, without advisers or servants, apologizing to the King of England, whose nobility might not be in question anymore, but who definitely saw nothing wrong with chatting with a servant in the kitchen.
Philippe wet his lips. “How is it you appear entirely unsurprised to see me? I thought I was fooling everyone.”
“We were quite surprised to see you appearing out of our wall,” Bronwen said, “but from the start we considered the idea that your public and private actions might not align.”
“You really have David to thank for that,” Lili said. “Most of us weren’t predisposed to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
Philippe looked around at the companions’ faces, a genuinely bewildered expression on his own.
At which point, David took pity on him and answered with as close to the truth as was safe to say, “When you summoned me to do homage for Aquitaine, I thought it a very real possibility that you would keep my lands once I surrendered them.”
Philippe’s brow remained furrowed. “How could you possibly know I might do that? Truly, such an action is without precedent. No ruler would ever trust me again, which I myself told my advisers.”
“Once that possibility was on the table,” Ieuan said, without explaining how they’d known, “we began to think about all of the reasons you might do exactly that.”
“At which point, Dafydd suggested you might be acting under duress,” Lili added.
Philippe shook his head. “You can’t even imagine what it’s like to be so beholden to your own advisers that you are no longer your own man, can you?”
Bronwen knew David couldn’t, though he was still affecting a sympathetic expression. Even when he was fourteen years old, he’d had choices. Sometimes he’d been backed into a corner, and certainly his own advisers had betrayed him more than once, but he’d never been held hostage in his own castle. It was unthinkable.
Bronwen thought back to that initial meeting of all their friends, family, and companions—in short, everyone close to the throne David knew he could trust. It had been the day after John Balliol had taken his own life in his cell from a poison vial his wife had smuggled into the Tower of London.
Balliol would have been given a trial, but he’d known what faced him: more humiliation, a guilty verdict, and death.
That day, David had been on fire with ideas, the most outrageous of which cooler heads had talked him out of. But they’d immediately seen the merit in heading off future threats to his throne, including thwarting the designs of the French crown on Aquitaine. Steps to infiltrate Philippe’s palace were implemented immediately. Others of them, including David, had spent months in Aquitaine, getting to know the people there, commissioning troops, and rallying allies to his cause.
The MI-5 contingent, with others like Christopher and his friends roped in, had gone to serious work as a unit for the first time, recruiting spies, agents, and officers to Y Ddraig Goch.
For example, the court guardsman who’d taken Bronwen’s elbow when they’d been escorted from the great hall was the son of a Norman trooper whose family’s lands had been confiscated by King Philippe. The maid who’d been scrubbing the floor just a little way down from their room had lost both her parents to the Aragonese Crusade. Others, particularly those of a religious minority, not just Jews, had accepted David’s overtures out of fervent necessity.
And then there were the Templars, who’d joined David’s cause out of real concern for the excesses of the French court—and David’s warning, whispered to Grand Master Molay and nobody else, of what their future might hold. Molay had believed him, in part because of who David was, and in part because of what had been happening in Paris between the Templars and the French court already. For example, up until this spring, the king’s treasury had been held at the Paris Temple, but it had been recently moved to the Louvre. In Templar circles, the sudden loss of stature was seen as a real threat to their continued wealth, power, and service in France.
In retrospect, perhaps the decision to move it had not been made by King Philippe.
All of a sudden, Bronwen was feeling remarkably more cheerful. They still had a plan. And, even if King Philippe didn’t know it, they had other ways out of the castle besides the one he was offering.
“Surely you have people in court you can trust?” David said.
“The captain of my guard died of the same fever that took the lives of my daughters. I was in mourning, so I left the appointment of his successor to Nogaret. In fact, I left far too much to him and to others. Now I am isolated in my own court.”
“I wouldn’t have said stealing Aquitaine and imprisoning us was the way to gain our trust,” Bronwen said, more than a little wryly.
Philippe continued to look at and speak directly to David. Every line of his body told of his sincerity. “At first, leaving so much to my advisers’ wisdom seemed to benefit everyone, but they have spent money beyond what we have, making decisions I don’t agree with that will affect the course of France’s future. Consequently, the debts have mounted, as I assume you know, and grow worse every day.” He snorted. “I shouldn’t be so restricted.”
He was still arrogant, Bronwen could give him that.
“What role does Aquitaine play in all this?” David asked.
“The addition of Aquitaine to my kingdom would eliminate my debt entirely. Everyone wants it.” He paused. “They believe I want it too, and this was done with my full cooperation. I have been very careful not to give them any thought that I am not completely in their thrall.”
David let out a breath. “You are afraid for your personal safety?”
“Not as long as I do what they want. Occasionally, I question what they tell me, just to keep them believing I am myself and have no thought to rebel. Then I allow myself to be persuaded. They think I am stupid.” He puffed out his lips and made a very French poof to indicate his disgust. “I allow myself to be treated like a child.”
“Would annexing Aquitaine really solve all your problems, though?” Lili said. “Maybe for a time, but not if you don’t manage the duchy as well as David does.”
That was a pretty forward question, even for Lili, though it was along the lines of what Bronwen herself was thinking. Lili was basically calling him a spendthrift, which Philippe was, and a bad manager, which he also was—though the extent to which he was a product of his time and upbringing couldn’t be overstated. And a lot of that could be his advisers—though he’d allowed himself to be swayed by them, which was on him not them.
Philippe made a dismissive motion. “Believe me or don’t. Right now, all of you need to come with me.” He went to the passageway from which he’d come, looked right and left and, seeing nothing, waved them forward. “We need to go before anyone comes through that door and finds me with you.”
David’s expression gave little away, but even so, he nodded to Lili, who immediately turned on her heel. “Bronwen and I will get the children.”
“Thank you.” He bent his head respectfully towards Lili. “When I saw you’d brought them, I knew I could trust you.”
“We brought them because we trusted your honor not to harm them,” Bronwen threw the words over her shoulder as she headed for the door to the adjoining room. She didn’t say the rest of what she was thinking, which was even if you didn’t deserve our trust.
Constance and Cador had been listening from the next room and were already moving to wake the children when Lili and Bronwen appeared.
“Are you sure we should be going with him?” Constance asked Lili. “Our own plans are in motion. We don’t need him.”
“But he appears to need us,” Lili said. “Besides, David said yes, so we go.”
Constance took that at face value. It was not her place to question her king, and she never would.
They returned to the main room, Lili holding a sleeping Alexander and Bronwen with Cadwaladr. For this journey, Constance was technically the children’s nanny, and she carried Arthur asleep on her shoulder, while Cador held Catrin’s hand.
At the sight of the children, Philippe approached and put a gentle hand on the top of Alexander’s head. “He’s lovely.” Then he took in the faces of all four children, before crouching in front of Catrin.
Bronwen was a little startled by his interest, particularly in the face of his urgent desire to depart. Still, she said, “This is Philippe, the King of France, Cat. Maybe you remember him from the audience hall.” Again she didn’t add where he humiliated your uncle.
Catrin had startlingly green eyes and long dark lashes that made her look like she ought to be modeling a children’s clothing line. Philippe himself was renowned throughout France as particularly handsome, and thus his nickname, Philippe le Bel.
To Bronwen’s astonishment, as Philippe gazed at Catrin, tears welled up in the corners of his eyes. But then he wiped his cheeks with the back of his hand, and by the time he rose to his feet, she wouldn’t have said from the way he looked that he’d been weeping.
“What’s their end game, by the way?” Bronwen asked, once they were all moving towards the secret passage. “Surely Nogaret and the others can’t think you will submit to them forever.”
“Can’t they? Nogaret believes always he is more intelligent than any other man in the room. You saw the way he looked at your king.” Philippe gestured with one hand to indicate David’s being. “You dress like a peasant, therefore you must think like one.”
David’s eyes narrowed. “If that is the case, and you have carefully constructed this persona, why are you risking it all to release us?”
“Because this isn’t about money, though I do need it, and I know you have contacts which would fund me for the rest of my reign.” Philippe’s expression darkened. “My current predicament is far worse than simply needing money. I need you to rescue my family.”
