Chapter Twenty-Four
Alys ignored the uproar from the assembled nobility behind them and at last turned to Piers. God, he looked terrible, pale, haggard—his appearance reminded her of how he’d looked at the height of his illness, before they had traveled to Ira’s treetop village.
Nonetheless, he would be held accountable.
“Traveling companion?” she said through her teeth.
“Alys,” Piers said in a choked whisper, and Alys liked the way his eyes seemed to be devouring her face. “I—I …”
“I am your traveling companion, Piers? Really?”
“Alys, I—”
Piers’s explanation—which Alys very much wanted to hear—was cut short by the king, whom Alys had very nearly forgotten was present.
“Lady Alys Foxe,” Edward said, in a tone that was neither pleased nor impressed.
Alys turned and bowed once again, taking that spare instant to compose her face. What she wanted to do was to throw herself upon Piers and kiss him, over and over. Gillwick is not more valuable to me. There is naught more important to me …
“I heartily beg your pardon for my unannounced appearance in your court, your majesty,” Alys said, hoping that her tone conveyed the proper deference and humility of a loyal servant. “I mean you no disrespect.”
“I will have a private audience with you when this business concludes—ken you my meaning?”
Alys swallowed and nodded, and Edward, placated momentarily by her meek cooperation, continued. “Is what this man—Piers Mallory—says true? Were you abducted and held against your will by Lady Mallory?”
Alys curtsied again. “Yes, my liege. All of what he claims is true. We were en route to London when I was abducted from our camp by Judith Angwedd and her son. They carried me to London, and I was kept prisoner in their suite here, in your home.”
Judith Angwedd screeched with rage. “I’ve never laid eyes upon you in my life!”
“They held me locked in the wardrobe, Sire,” Alys continued, as if Judith Angwedd had never spoken.
“You need only bid a servant check the lock—Piers’s grandfather had need to break it in order to free me.
And there is a basket within where they caged my girl, here.
” Alys jostled her shoulder to indicate Layla.
Edward’s eyes flicked to Piers’s hand. “The purveyor of the bite, I assume?”
Piers bowed.
“If what you say is true, the charges of kidnapping a peer of the realm are serious enough,” Edward mused. “But you also said you have proof of this man’s claim to Gillwick Manor?”
“I do, my liege,” Alys said, and then at last turned to face Judith Angwedd and Bevan boldly. “At least, I know why Bevan Mallory is not entitled to one blade of grass belonging to Gillwick. He is not Warin Mallory’s son, as evidenced by a birthmark he bears upon his chest.”
“Shut up, you bitch,” Bevan growled at her.
“Such a mark can mean anything, nothing,” Edward said mildly. “It is ambiguous at best.”
“Not this mark, your majesty,” Alys offered. “It is quite unique, so I’ve been told, to the man who bears its twin, as well as a descriptive surname.”
“Shut up!” Bevan insisted again.
Alys smiled at Bevan. “Bevan’s true sire is alive and well and in this very chamber. Judith Angwedd dined with him only last night.”
“Take care with your claims, littlest Foxe,” Edward warned sternly. “I will not have a peer maligned by gossip or hearsay.”
“As my presence must assure you, I am willing to stake my family name on what I know, my lord. Bevan Mallory’s true sire is Lord John Hart.”
Alys would have never dreamed that a man would be foolish enough to attack a woman before the very king, but Bevan charged at her in that moment, his face a swollen mask of hate and rage. His meaty fingers reached for her, and Alys screamed, several nobles shouted, the court agent called out—
And Layla lunged at Bevan, her hands circling in a blur, her teeth bared in a primal and very deadly scream. The monkey landed on his face, clawing, biting, and Bevan grabbed Layla, tried to push her off while he screamed and screamed.
“My face! My face!”
Alys rushed forward, feeling more than seeing Piers at her back.
She beat Bevan’s hands away while Piers seized his arms, and then Alys was pulling at Layla, who clung to Bevan’s tunic.
Alys at last succeeded in separating the monkey from the man with the sound of rending fabric, and the left side of Bevan’s chest was laid bare to the sunlight filtering through the high windows of the chamber.
Barely touching the inside of Bevan’s left nipple, and as big as a fist, a raspberry colored patch stained his skin. Two rounded humps at the top, a tapering point at the bottom.
The shape of a heart. And Alys thought in that moment that it was the only one the evil man would ever possess.
She gasped and held the trembling Layla to her breast as she stepped back and watched the guards separate Piers from Bevan. Alys looked down and saw that Judith Angwedd had collapsed to her knees on the floor, her face frozen in shock and fear. Her bulging eyes blinked repeatedly.
“You fucking pig,” Bevan shouted at Piers. “I had you bested. I had you!”
“You’ve never bested anyone in your life,” Piers spat as the guards shoved him away and stood as barriers between the two men. “You and your mother are naught but scavengers.”
One guard lay hand to the hilt of his sword, and nodded at Piers in warning. Piers lifted his chin in answer and came to Alys’s side, and when his forearm braced against her lower back, Alys wanted to melt into him and weep.
“Good girl, Layla,” Piers whispered, and scratched the monkey’s head. Alys could feel the solid rise and fall of Piers’s chest at her shoulder and for the first time since her mother had died, she felt she had come home.
After several moments, the guards had the scandalized crowd and Bevan under control, and Edward rose from his throne.
“John Hart!” the king called out. In moments, a tall, gray haired bear of a man, whose face Alys now recognized was an older, sagging replica of Bevan’s, reluctantly stepped forward at the urging of two guards. “Do you deny that this man is your son?”
John Hart’s eyes narrowed. But then perhaps thoughts of defiance left him. “I have never claimed him,” was all he would concede.
Edward ignored the strangled murmurs of the audience who were all but swooning with the excitement afoot at a simple morning court.
“Bare your chest, Lord Hart.”
The man hesitated for a long moment. “May my dead wife forgive me.” He began to slowly unlace his tunic, only far enough so that he could pull down at the neckline, revealing a faded burgundy patch, like bloody angel’s wings, beneath sparse gray chest hair.
The crowd was oddly silent, as if they were witnessing an execution. Perhaps it was only now that they realized the gravity of the situation beyond the mere sensation of gossip.
Lord Hart returned his tunic and then suddenly looked to Piers.
“I am sorry for your plight, Lord Mallory. I knew naught of you before this day, and I have had no hand in any of the wrongs done to you. I vow now before the king, it was never my intention to acknowledge this viper’s offspring as my heir.
She was trying to woo me with Gillwick as late as last evening, when she accosted me in the dining hall, but rather would I take my own life than give either of them my home or my name.
Your father was a man who lived his convictions. I regret that I have never.”
Alys knew her mouth was hanging agape when Lord Hart turned to the king, assumedly to receive Edward’s next command. She noticed with a pang of sympathy that the man had refused to meet her eyes.
“Is that all you have to witness, Hart?” the king asked.
John Hart nodded once, his mouth set, his cheeks flushed and quivering.
Alys could not help but think the man might not survive the humiliation he’d been dealt, and she was amazed at the idea that only weeks ago, this lord had been a guest at Fallstowe, with intentions of taking Alys for his own wife.
“Your wishes as to your estate have been duly recorded. You are dismissed,” Edward said mercifully.
John Hart bowed low and then turned on his heel and strode quickly down the aisle, his head up, despite the onlookers who followed his exit, gaping openly at him.
The king remained standing, and once the chamber was properly silent, he spoke.
“I have arrived at my verdict. Lady Judith Angwedd Mallory, for your perjury, kidnapping and imprisoning of a peer, and false witness in order to hold lands, I hereby strip you of your title as Lady of Gillwick, and sentence you to one year in prison.”
Judith Angwedd cried out faintly as the guards approached her.
“Bevan, son of Judith Angwedd Mallory, for your collusion and the attempted murders of two peers of the realm,” Alys gasped at this, and wondered if Piers had caught the king’s meaning. “You shall die by beheading in one week. May God have mercy on your soul.”
“I cannot be imprisoned! No!” Judith Angwedd shrieked as she was pulled to her feet. “Bevan, save me!”
Alys winced. Bevan had made no move, his eyes were trained on the floor between his feet, blood trickling down his still cheek.
“Do you understand, man?” the king demanded.
Slowly, Bevan brought his head up. He looked at the king for a moment, his face an expressionless mask. “Why wait out the week?” he asked levelly.
Then in the next moment, he had reached into his torn tunic and pulled out a short dagger. Without so much as a shout, Bevan turned and dove at Piers.
Alys was shoved aside, falling to the floor and rolling to protect Layla. She flung herself onto her back to find Piers with her eyes and screamed his name.
Bevan’s arm was raised, the blade arcing down. Piers, weaponless, threw up a blocking hand.
And then Bevan crumpled to the floor, following his clattering blade with a hoarse cry. One of the king’s guards stepped away, pulling his bloodied sword free.
Judith Angwedd gave an eerie, keening wail as she was dragged away. From somewhere in the crowd of witnesses, someone retched.
Edward looked down on the body from his dais as guards stepped quickly to remove the lifeless bulk of a very disturbed man. “Why wait out the week, indeed.”
When all that remained was a swash of bright blood, the king looked to Piers. “Piers Mallory, I dub thee, and rightly so, Lord of Gillwick Manor.” Edward held out his hand, fingers first, palm down.
Alys felt the catch of breath in Piers’s chest. He left her side to mount the dais and kneel before the king. Taking Edward’s hand, he kissed the royal symbol. When Piers rose, Edward handed him the carnelian signet ring.
“I trust you will keep close watch over this particular piece in the future?”
Piers nodded and then after another bow, returned to Alys’s side. She felt her heart would burst when he slid his fingers around hers.
Edward spoke in a low voice to his agent, who then addressed the hall. “No more audience this day. Come back on the morrow. Good day.” His face swung around. “Save the pair of you,” the man said pointedly to Alys and Piers.
Alys gulped. It was time to answer for Fallstowe, for Sybilla. And although Alys was in truth frightened of how the king might punish her in her sister’s stead, Alys was ready to face the king. For the first time, it would be Alys who would protect Sybilla.