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Day Three
Callum
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“Lord Artois.” Callum halted at the French general’s bedside. “How are your injuries?”
“Apparently, I am to live.”
Artois was in his mid-forties, but he looked older. The years had been harder on him than on Callum, for all that they’d both been soldiers for half their lives. He put out a hand. “Help me to sit up.”
Callum gripped his hand tightly and, between the two of them, managed to get him leaning forward enough to pack a few more pillows behind his head and back. Then Artois relaxed back into them.
Callum pulled up a stool and sat.
Artois sighed deeply, his eyes closed, before turning his head to look at Callum. “What are the casualties?”
“Half your army dead or wounded, the rest scattered.” He didn’t see any point in shading the truth.
Artois’ upper lip lifted. “Good men, many of them. Not all, of course, but many.”
Callum might have said he was sorry, but that would have been conceding something he was not willing to concede. It had to come from Artois, if it came at all.
Artois licked his lips, which were chapped, and Callum helped him sip water.
“What is to become of me? Ransom?” Artois paused. “Death?”
“It’s up to David. Much depends on you.”
Artois gave a deep sigh. “I have much to live for and would prefer it. What do you want to know? I will talk if it doesn’t betray my king.”
“Are you aware that your presence in Aquitaine was not at the behest of Philippe?”
“Is that what you think?” Artois’ brow furrowed. “I would never have said so. My orders were written in his own hand.”
“We have learned that the king was under duress, being blackmailed by Nogaret.”
Artois grunted. “I heard this from your men, and that Philippe has returned Aquitaine to David.” Callum heard puzzlement in Artois’ voice. “How long had Nogaret been controlling the king?”
“Since the death of his daughters.” To a degree, Callum shared that puzzlement. Then again Nogaret’s fingers had corrupted every pie.
“I am in no position to argue against what you’ve been told, but Philippe and I spoke last Christmas about Aquitaine. He told me to be prepared for orders to invade, so I was not surprised when they came.” He snapped his fingers towards his purse, which lay on the table next to him, seemingly more concerned they thought Philippe was weak and not controlling his own destiny than that he himself might give away information he shouldn’t. “Help me with that, please.”
“Are you looking for this?” Callum unrolled the tiny letter he’d been holding, of the type carried by a homing pigeon.
Artois relaxed again with a grunt. The letter had been found in Artois’ belongings, though not by Callum. He probably wouldn’t have searched Artois’ purse unless he’d had a very good reason to do so—but the Aquitaine soldiers who’d found Artois and brought him to the hospital had gone through everything he had on him, and one of them had brought the letter to Callum.
It was dated a week earlier and carried Philippe’s personal seal. Callum read it out loud: “David arriving on schedule. Aquitaine will be ours. Attack as planned/”
Artois leaned forward to point to the slash at the end of the last sentence. “Philippe and I developed a code years ago, known only to us. The slash meant this was his true thoughts, and he wasn’t under duress. Nogaret could not have known about it unless Philippe himself told him, which he would not have done.”
Callum rolled up the scroll, thinking first that he and David should have thought of a similar arrangement, though they exchanged more words than notes these days. They had agreed that if either talked about eating potatoes, the other was to know they were in danger or captive.
His second thought was that, while there were genuine indications Philippe had been under Nogaret’s thumb, there was good reason to wonder about the true nature of Philippe’s and Nogaret’s relationship.
Who really had been manipulating whom?
