| |
Day One
David
––––––––
From beside David, Lili caught her breath. “Nogaret holds your family hostage?”
“Yes.”
They’d been talking for maybe ten minutes, and it had been another ten since Nogaret had left. They had no idea how long they’d be left alone, but even so, David still didn’t follow Philippe into the passage, immediately distrustful again at the way Philippe was parceling out information. He seemed genuine, but David had been fooled before, and he didn’t relish being shot trying to escape.
“I thought you just said Nogaret didn’t know you weren’t with him in all things. Why then would he take your family?”
“He didn’t take them. I sent them away.” Philippe pulled a ring off his finger and showed it to David. “Give Joana this, and she will come with you, knowing that it was I who sent you.”
“I don’t understand.” David stared at the ring but didn’t take it. “If you were the one who sent them away, how can they be hostages?”
“I allowed Nogaret to convince me my wife was unfaithful. He couched it in such a way that implied her grief at the loss of our daughters had overtaken her, and it was for her own benefit and health that I put her aside for a time. The truth, however, is that he was growing concerned with her outspokenness. She does not mince words, my Joana. She does not like Nogaret in particular, and he grew concerned that she would turn me against him.”
“I assume your fear now is that if you don’t do as they say, there will be consequences,” David said.
Philippe nodded, and his eyes turned sad. “My sons are with her, since I couldn’t bear to part her from them, and they are young, like yours. With Joana gone, I lost my last ally in Paris.”
“And if you start to think for yourself, Nogaret can hold them hostage to your good behavior.” Ieuan hadn’t contributed much to this conversation, but he’d been taking it all in, and now he nodded. “As long as that’s the case, there would be nothing you wouldn’t do for them, and they know it.”
Philippe made a motion with his thumb across his throat. “They have my sons. I am expendable. Or my boys are.”
“Where is she being held?” Now David understood far better the grimness that had crept into Philippe’s voice. Lili and their boys had been held hostage by Gilbert de Clare when he’d attempted to usurp David’s throne. Clare had died on the end of Christopher’s car, but if he hadn’t, David wasn’t sure that he could have followed through on giving him a fair trial.
“At Vincennes.”
“That’s what—five miles outside the city?” Lili was feigning ignorance, since they knew all about Vincennes—not because of the palace itself, which none of them had ever been to, but because of a nearby abbey, located a mile or so to the east, the abbot of which was an old friend of Archbishop Romeyn. The friendship had allowed Andre to park the plane on abbey land. He’d remained with it, as he had done for the whole year and a half since his arrival, his primary job to ensure that it was maintained for when they needed it.
Philippe’s eyes widened. “No, not in the least! Vincennes is less than three miles from St. Antoine’s gate! What are you suggesting?”
Lili looked at him, bewildered, probably wondering if there’d been a problem in translation, though Lili’s French was excellent.
David didn’t understand Philippe’s agitation either, especially over such a small thing. “She was simply asking how far Vincennes was from the city. Why does it upset you so?”
Philippe made a disgusted sound that wasn’t quite a tsk but was very French. “We have a saying here in Paris that nothing good happens five miles outside the city. If a man wants to betray a friend, he’ll do it five miles outside the city.”
Bronwen’s expression brightened. “It’s like being beyond the Pale, which refers to the boundary of Norman occupation surrounding Dublin.”
“Exactly so.” Philippe’s eyes returned to David. “If you don’t help me, not only will France be at war with England, but eventually I will be forced to do something even worse than take Aquitaine, something irretrievable.”
David didn’t have to guess what that might be. Everyone in the room but Philippe knew what that might be, namely banishing all Jewish people from France, abolishing the Templar Order, and assassinating the pope.
And then Philippe did something no French king had ever done: he begged.
“Please help me. You are the only one who can. Please, I have thought and thought, and this is my only option. These last months I have gone along with Nogaret, praying you would actually come to France, just waiting for this one opportunity to speak to you.”
Without waiting for David to agree, his shoulders hunched as if he was afraid of being physically assaulted, Philippe picked up the lantern he’d brought, checked its low flame, and then put a finger from the other hand to his lips. “From here we must be silent.”
David couldn’t help but be moved by Philippe’s pleas. He took Alexander from Lili, who’d started to bow under his weight, and followed the King of France into the darkened passage. The three women came next, Constance still carrying Arthur, whom she refused to give up. Then Ieuan followed with Catrin, while Cador took up the rear guard.
It was warm in the passage and in the stairwell that followed, though the sweat that was trickling down David’s back was from more than just heat. David was grateful Alexander remained asleep, since, when awake, he was never silent. He had started saying single words very early, at only eight months, and here at eighteen months could carry on a conversation with complete sentences—though the sentences he did say were a mashup of French, Welsh, and English. Cadwaladr, younger by several months and clearly equally bright, was much more sparing in his speech, most of the time letting Alexander do his talking for him.
They went through a narrow doorway, so anxious to stay quiet that David was afraid his heartbeat could be heard beyond the walls. Then, up ahead, Philippe missed a step, lost his balance, and banged into the wall before he could stop himself from falling. Thankfully the lantern didn’t fly from his hand and break, or they could have set the whole palace on fire. Thankfully also, Philippe had used the stone wall to his left to brace himself rather than the more flimsy wooden partition to his right. There’d been a distinctly audible thump, however.
“What was that?” The voice was loud, but thick with sleep and came from the other side of the wooden paneling. The speaker might have been all of two feet away.
The whole company froze. David didn’t recognize the voice, but Philippe did, and he mouthed, “Burgundy.”
Philippe’s Lord High Treasurer was a matter of a foot away.
Lili pressed her ear to the wall. “I don’t hear anything more but snoring.”
Sure enough, a moment later, sawing noises that might indicate a health problem reverberated from the room into the secret passage.
David raised his eyebrows at Philippe, who nodded and went on, leading them down the stairway to another corridor as dark as the first. Finally they reached a narrow door that opened into a public hallway. Like the rest of the palace, the walls here were encased in wooden paneling and then decorated, either with tapestries or paint. This doorway was hidden by a floor-to-ceiling tapestry depicting a hunt, complete with a bloody, dead boar in the right-hand corner. A few steps farther on, they came to a larger door which took them outside the palace to the garden that had been visible from their window. Like the hallway, it was unguarded.
Philippe led them silently through the garden and down stone steps set into the retaining wall, to a dock where a large rowboat waited. During the short walk, having left the lantern inside the palace, they kept to the shadows, hoping to remain hidden from the view of anyone looking down from the battlements. Without waiting to be told, Ieuan climbed into the boat to hold it steady as it rocked gently on the water. Across the river lay the right bank of the Seine.
Philippe pulled out a sack of clothing where it had been hidden behind a barrel and began passing out items to each of them: a ratty cloak to Ieuan, a kerchief to wear over her hair to Bronwen, a floppy hat for David. He gestured towards their appearance. “You look even more common now and nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Thank you,” David said simply, adjusting the hat on his head so it fell low over his forehead. They hadn’t had time to signal to the watchers in the safe house, not with Philippe in the room. He could only hope his friends were watching, but so far nobody was about. Admittedly, it was very late at night and the rain, which had let up over the course of the evening, began to fall again. David was grateful for his hat, which was large enough to shelter both him and Alexander. “Who else knows about the passages in the walls?”
“Nobody. A handful of men worked on the final construction and decoration of that wing. Everyone else was sent away and, in the end, anyone involved in the building of the passages was moved to other parts of France and sworn to secrecy.”
Or killed, David thought to himself, though he didn’t say it. Now wasn’t the time to chastise Philippe about past management of his kingdom.
“You do have at least one ally besides us, Philippe,” Bronwen said as she accepted a steadying hand from Ieuan to get into the boat. “You were able to arrange for the clothing and the boat to be here.”
“I did nothing of the sort. I accumulated the clothing a bit at a time over these last weeks, stealing from my own servants, and the boat is always here in case a member of the court fancies an afternoon float on the Seine.”
David was the last to board, having passed Alexander off to Lili, and he and Philippe looked at each other for a long moment.
“I am well aware of the changes you have made in Aquitaine. Democracy.” Philippe snorted under his breath, this time in disdain. For a moment, he seemed oblivious to the fact that he was coming to them for help.
“Yes.” David’s tone was cold. “Democracy for Aquitaine. Which you took from me.”
“Oh!” Philippe appeared genuinely upset as he pulled a parchment from inside his tunic and thrust it at David. “Take it back! I return Aquitaine to you, whole and uncontested.”
David took the parchment but didn’t unroll it.
Then, Philippe held out the ring again, the pleading look back in his eyes. “You never actually said you would help. What can I give you or say to you to convince you to save my family?”
“You don’t have to give me anything, not even Aquitaine, though I’m happy to have it back.” David took the ring and pocketed it. “I would have done it for free.”
