Chapter Fifteen
He had caught the knight when he’d been alone, and somewhat drunk in the middle of the day, as he went to collect his horse.
The dark French knight had been hiding in the loft over a livery on the west side of town, buried in the hay, watching everything that was going on in the street beyond.
He knew that men were hunting for him after he’d made his attempt on the fine and beautiful lady-friend of Hage, but he still had no answers – who she was or what she meant to Hage.
All he knew was that there was some kind of connection between them and, based on the conversation he overheard, he suspected that it was an intimate connection.
But he’d had to flee before receiving any answers when people, alerted by the lady, had come running to help her.
He’d had no choice but to jump from the window of her chamber and run off.
He was quite fortunate he’d not broken a leg in his jump and, other than a sore foot, he was perfectly fine.
But he had to remain hidden at least until the hunt for him died down.
And then he’d seen the drunken knight heading for the livery to collect his horse.
After the failure to secure the lady, he was looking for another opportunity to get close to Hage and in the inebriated knight, he found it.
His mind, cunning and wily, began to formulate a plan.
He realized that he couldn’t wait until the hunt for him died down because he was entered in a mass competition that would take place shortly.
Hage would be there and he had to ensure he made that appointment.
He’d been thinking on selling his steed since he’d entered the tournament, knowing that Hage would recognize the beast, as well as trying to sell his armor or at least steal something he could wear that would disguise him, but the event of the drunk and vulnerable knight solved all of his problems. Again, the Fates were smiling at him and he was grateful.
The drunken knight was tall but with the slender build of a youth.
As the young warrior entered the livery and headed for his steed, boxed up in one of the rear stalls, the dark French knight put his plan into action and slipped down from the loft.
The stable was empty but for animals because the stable boys were outside shoveling horse dung out of the small corral and the livery proprietor was across the street speaking with a smithy.
The French knight had been able to see all of that from his vantage point in the loft.
As the young knight went to put his saddle on his horse, the dark French knight slipped up behind him and, in utter silence, cleanly slit his throat.
The young knight bled out quickly and the French knight covered up the pool of blood with a pile of hay.
It wouldn’t absorb it but it would keep it hidden long enough for him to finish his plan and slip away.
Silently, he managed to drag the young knight’s body into the very rear of the livery and strip him of his armor.
As the boys began to play in the dung outside, now trying to throw shovelfuls of the stuff at each other, their horseplay provided the French knight with the valuable gift of time in order to don the armor taken from his victim. It was tight but it fit.
Shoving the body into another stall under the manger and concealing it with hay, the French knight pushed the dead man’s helm on his head, partially lowered the visor to better cover his features, and finished putting the tack on the horse.
He did everything very quickly, fearful that he would be interrupted, so the result was a saddle that was barely secured and the croupier, or hindquarter protection, which was really just a drape of green and yellow fabric, was not secured to the saddle.
It simply blew in the breeze. But the French knight was anxious to leave the livery; the longer he remained, the more chance of his victim being discovered.
He would secure the saddle and the croupier when he had the time to do it.
With haste in mind, the dark French knight left the livery quite casually, leading the cream colored horse, and even waving at the stable boys when they looked at him.
At a nonchalant pace, he led the horse from the livery, leaving a dead knight in his wake.
Even as he traveled down the street, he kept waiting to hear cries of alarm that his victim had been discovered, but the further away he got, the less fear he had of that occurrence.
Clad in a dead knight’s armor, and with the man’s fine horse and an array of high grade weapons at his disposal, the dark French knight was more than ready for what was to come.
When he was far enough away from the livery, he lost himself in the numerous alleyways of the town. Now, he had to plan for his coming task.
The Scorpion would be dead by sunset.
*
“What are you thinking, Victor?” William scolded softly. “Do you truly think to attend the mass competition without your wife? Do you plan to keep her bottled up in a tent while you enjoy yourself?”
There was great rebuke in that question. Lying on a bed of pillows arranged on the cold ground of the tent, Victor had a rather petulant look about him. But William could no longer refrain from saying anything to Victor about the way the man was treating his new wife.
William had kept his mouth shut when a panicked messenger had come from the Cock and Bull with stories of an attack against the duchess and Victor had sent Hage to investigate instead of going himself.
All afternoon, any mention of the duchess had seen Victor either change the subject or straight-out dismiss the woman.
Even her safety seemed to mean nothing to him.
Now, as Victor spoke of attending the mass competition and made it quite clear his wife was not invited, nor was she a consideration, William could keep silent no longer.
Victor’s hatred of his new wife was becoming more and more apparent.
“You will not lecture me,” Victor said unhappily. “I never wanted this woman. Surely she cannot expect to become part of my life. I will do what I please and my activities do not include her.”
William drew in a long, disapproving breath.
“I realize you did not want her,” he said, “but the fact remains that she belongs to you. She is your wife. Must I really tell you that you should at least put up a front for your vassals even if you do not want her? If your men see you treating your wife with such disrespect, they will follow suit. Is that want you want? A wife who is no more to you than a dog in the street?”
Victor frowned. “She is being taken care of,” he said. “She has a new wardrobe. She is fed and she is warm. She has protection in the form of Hage. What more do you want from me?”
William cocked an eyebrow. “And that is another thing,” he said. “Hage is with her constantly and the men are starting to talk. It does not look good, Victor. You allow Hage too much close access to her.”
Victor rolled his eyes and sat up. “That is because it is his duty,” he said, his voice considerably quieter. “I have ordered her to tend the woman.”
“What, exactly, does that mean?”
Victor wouldn’t tell him the depths of his orders to Kevin, mostly because he knew that William would not approve.
He might even talk about it and those rumors might get back to Edward.
He didn’t want to admit that such orders, having another man consummate his marriage, would make him look like a fool and a fiend.
Victor had always been concerned with perception so it was a great quandary he found himself in with the duchess.
Nay, he couldn’t tell William everything.
“It means simply what I told you,” he said. “I have other things to attend to and a wife is not among them. Hage has been ordered to see to the duchess in my stead.”
William didn’t like the sound of that. He really didn’t know what to make of it.
Victor was cagey and he was beyond reproach, as the king’s close cousin.
William, too, was a cousin but much further removed and without the great standing that Victor had.
Still, something about this entire situation wasn’t sitting well with William.
That upset him because he had far too much on his mind to worry about a badly behaved duke.
“I will not argue the point with you,” he said, disgust in his tone.
“If you want the men to think that Hage is involved with the new duchess, then that is your business. I have more pressing worries on my mind at the moment. As you know, we will be leaving on the morrow. I will be taking Roger home to Lacock Abbey for burial.”
Victor’s frown left him as he thought on his dear Roger, in the next tent covered with rosemary and salt to prevent him from decaying too badly before they could return him home.
He’d spent a few minutes with Roger’s corpse that afternoon and he’d said prayers for the man’s soul.
But William had watched him the entire time, the knowing eyes of a father who was looking upon a man who had sexually loved his son, so Victor had left Roger’s side purely from the discomfort he felt from William’s stares.
He couldn’t let on to William, of course, even though the man seemed to know everything.
Still, the death of Roger was something he could grieve only to himself. No one else would understand.
“You should have left today,” Victor said, rising from the pillows. “You should have taken your son directly home.”
William shrugged faintly, pouring himself a measure of watered wine.
“It would have taken me the entire day to pack our encampment and organize the men,” he said.
“Moreover, my men have been looking forward to this tournament with great anticipation. Leaving a day early for home will not bring my son back. It will only put him in the ground sooner so that I should never see him again. Nay, let my men enjoy the game they have worked so hard for. Roger would have enjoyed such a contest, too.”
Victor knew that; Roger had been quite fond of games and competitions. “Have you sent word to Lady Longespee?” he asked.
William nodded. “I have,” he said. “I could not, in good conscience, keep it from her. I will see my dear wife soon and together, we shall bury our son. I am sorry you will never know the bond of a wife, Victor. It can be a thing of beauty.”
So they were back on the subject of a wife again. Victor looked away, silently, but William would not let him get away so easily.
“Victor, for my sake, will you please escort your wife to the lists today and sit with her whilst you watch the games?” he begged quietly. “It would make for a united front and mayhap the men will stop talking. I would also like to speak with your wife; she seems as if she is a kind woman.”
Victor simply wriggled his eyebrows, feeling as if he had no choice in the matter. William was quite upset with him for the way he was behaving as a husband. He did not want to upset his old friend considering how much the man had suffered that day. Relenting, he finally nodded his head.
“Very well,” he said. “I will escort her to the lists and you may sit and speak with her. Will that satisfy you?”
William smiled happily. “It will,” he said. “Do you even know where she is?”
Victor shook his head. “This I would not know,” he said. “Send someone to find Hage. He will know.”
William did just that. They found Annavieve sitting in the armory, watching the knights prepare for the coming bout.
She was quite polite and pleasant in accompanying Victor and William to the lists while the knights finished their preparation, but when Hage tried to follow just to make sure they were properly escorted, William called him off and used an escort of Salisbury men instead.
Not approving of Victor’s directive to Hage, to keep such close company with the duchess, he didn’t want the man near her any longer.
For now, she was where she belonged – with her husband.
Although Kevin pretended not to care when a host of Salisbury men took Annavieve away, the truth was that he cared a great deal.
He kept sticking his head outside of the tent, watching the group of them walk towards the tournament field in the distance.
It wasn’t the fact that she was out of his sight but more the fact that she was in her husband’s company.
Increasingly, Kevin didn’t trust Victor.
But the fact was that he couldn’t stop the man; the duke was her legal husband.
Victor, in his experience, was nasty and unpredictable, and he didn’t want Annavieve caught up in the duke’s vitriol.
He wanted to protect her from it but the fact was that he couldn’t, not at the moment.
Victor was her husband and could do as he pleased with her.
God, Kevin hated that thought. He hated it to death.
Frustrated, and edgy, Kevin finished dressing before anyone else and made haste to the tournament field to keep an eye on Annavieve and Victor.
He knew, at some point, his behavior was going to appear somewhat suspicious, as if there was something more from him than mere concern for his liege’s wife, but the truth was that he didn’t care much.
Three days with the woman and he was deeply in love with her.
He wanted her and, God willing, he would have her.
But if Victor made a move against her, or if he upset or hurt her in any way, he wasn’t entirely sure he could control himself.
It was a twisted, dangerous mess Kevin found himself in, now with Salisbury evidently suspicious of his intentions towards the duchess. Not that he blamed the man but he wondered if Victor would tell him the truth. He doubted it.
Forcing himself to focus on the coming mass competition was difficult but necessary.
He didn’t want to be embarrassed by being captured and he realized the only way to do that was to pretend Annavieve and Victor were not in the stands.
He could not watch her and participate in the mass competition at the same time.
He could only do one or the other and since he couldn’t do anything about Annavieve and Victor, he chose to focus on the mass competition.
He suspected that men would be out to get him, anxious to say that they were the one who bagged the mighty Scorpion.
Very shortly, he would find out that he was right.