By Arrangement (4 page)

He entered the shop. Michael and Roger were closing
the front shutters, and Andrew came in with cloth from the back room.

“I put the tallies from Lady Idonia and Lady Joan up in the counting room,” Andrew said as he settled his burden down.

David clapped a hand on his shoulder. “So. A whole afternoon with the Fair Joan. Your friends will buy you ale for a month to hear your story.”

Andrew smiled roguishly. “I was just thinking the same thing. She
is
very fair. As is Lady Christiana Fitzwaryn. I have seen them together in the city. You might have told us about this betrothal. It was very awkward finding out from them.”

The boys stopped and listened. Sieg stood by the door.

“It was just decided.”

They all waited silently.

“Let us close and go home. I'll explain all there.”

Explain what, though? Not the truth. No one would ever learn that, not even Christiana. He would have to come up with a good story fast.

They were almost ready to leave when the sounds of a horse stopping in the lane came through the shutters. Michael ran over and peered out the door. “A King's knight,” he said. “The same one who came looking for you this morning, David.”

David knew who this would be. “All of you go back to the house. You too, Sieg. I will take care of this.”

The door opened and a tall, dark-haired young man entered. He paused in the threshold and looked around. He wore the King's livery and a long sword hung from his knight's belt. Bright black eyes, so like those others but brittle with a colder light, came to rest on David.

The apprentices filed out around the big man, clearly
impressed with his size and bearing. Sieg glanced meaningfully at David. David shook his head and Sieg left too.

“I am Christiana's brother Morvan,” the knight said when they were finally alone.

“I know who you are.”

“Do you? I thought that perhaps you mistakenly thought that she had no kin.”

David waited. He would let this brother make his objections. He would not assume that he knew what they would be, for there was much to object to.

“I thought that we should meet,” Sir Morvan said, walking down the passageway. “I wanted to see the man who buys a wife like she is some horse.”

David thought about the two hours he had spent this morning with one of the King's clerks drawing up the marriage contract. It had been impossible to keep out the terms of the supposed bride price completely, because only Edward and he knew its real purpose. Still, David had tried, and finally negotiated only a reference to its amount involving a complicated formula based on the price of last year's wool exports. Only someone very interested would ever bother to make the calculations.

Morvan must have been shown the contract for approval and not missed that particular clause.

“The King insisted on the bride price, as in the old days. I would have been happy to pay nothing.”

Morvan studied him. “If she were not my sister, I might find that amusing. You go to a lot of trouble to marry a woman whom you do not know.”

“It happens all of the time.”

“Aye. If the dowry is satisfactory.”

“I have no need of a dowry.”

“So I am told. Nor are you much in need of a woman to warm your bed, from what I hear. So why do you pay a fortune for my sister?”

David had to admit that it was a damn good question. He realized that he shouldn't underestimate this young man. Morvan had been asking about him, just as David had been asking about Morvan. Perhaps the King's proposed explanation would work.
We will put it about that you saw her and wanted her and paid a fortune to have her.
Not, he suspected, that a man lusting after his sister would appeal much to this young knight.

“I saw her several times and asked about her. The King was receptive to my inquiries.”

“So you offered for her just on seeing her?”

“I have these whims sometimes. They almost always work out. As far as the rest, the lack of dowry and the payment, things just developed as they often do in such negotiations.” It sounded almost plausible. It had better. He had nothing else to offer.

Morvan considered him. “That would make sense if you were a fool, but I do not think that you are. I think that you are an upstart who seeks to buy status among his people through this marriage, and who sees his children raised above their natural degree through their mother's nobility.”

Another plausible explanation. But if Morvan had spoken with the right people, he would know just how wrong it was.

“You are Christiana's brother, and are thus unaware of just how foolish she might make a man who is otherwise not a fool,” David said.

A fire flashed in the young man's dark eyes. Nay, he did not like the idea of a man lusting after his sister.

“I will not permit this marriage. I will not see Christiana tied to a common tradesman, no matter what his wealth. She is not a brood mare to be purchased to ennoble a bastard's bloodline. She does not want this either.”

David ignored the insults, barely, except to note that Morvan had been checking up on him quite thoroughly. “She and I have already spoken of that. She knows that I will not withdraw. I have no reason to.”

“Let me give you a reason, then. Go to the King and say that the lady has a brother who has threatened you with bodily harm unless you withdraw. Explain that you did not anticipate that when you made this offer.”

“And what of the King's displeasure with you if I say this?”

“If need be, my sword can serve another man.”

“And if I don't do this?”

“The threat is not an idle one.”

David studied his resolute expression. An intelligent man, and probably an honest one. “Do you know why your sister does not consent to this marriage?”

“That is obvious, isn't it?”

So Morvan did not know about Sir Stephen. She had claimed that he didn't, but he may have discovered it nonetheless and been planning to force things with Percy.

“Is it?”

“She is the daughter of a baron. This marriage is an insult to her.”

David fought down a sudden profound irritation. He had long ago become almost immune to such comments, and to the assumptions of superiority that they revealed. But he had accepted more from this man in the last few minutes than he normally swallowed from anyone. He leaned against the wall and folded his arms and met Morvan's fiery eyes.

“Will you withdraw?”

“I think not.”

Morvan looked him up and down. “You wear a dagger. Do you use a sword?”

“Not well.”

“Then you had best practice.”

“You plan to kill me over this?”

“I cannot stop this betrothal, but I will stop the wedding. A month hence, if you have not left London or annulled the match, we will meet.”

Anger seeped into David's head. He almost never lost control anymore, but he was in danger of it now. “Send word of when and where. I will be there.”

He knew that Morvan's own cold fury matched his own. But he also saw the surprise that the threat had been met with anger and not fear.

“We will see if you come,” Morvan said with a slow smile. “I think that time will show that you are like most of your breed. Rich in gold but without honor.”

“And you are like too many knights these days. Rich in pompous arrogance but without land or value,” David replied sharply. It was unworthy of him, but he had had enough.

Morvan's eyes flashed dangerously. He pivoted on his heel and walked the twenty paces to the door. “My sister is not for you, merchant. You have a month to undo this.”

Something snapped. As Morvan disappeared into the street, David uncoiled himself with a fluid, tense movement. His hand went to his hip, and a long steel dagger flew down the passageway, imbedding itself into the doorjamb directly behind the spot where Morvan Fitzwaryn's neck had just been.

A blond head moved in the open door's twilight, and Sieg bent into the threshold. He glanced at David and then turned and yanked the still-quivering dagger out of its target. He came down the passageway.

“I suppose that it is still early to congratulate you on this marriage.”

David took the dagger and sheathed it. The worst of his anger had flown with the knife. “You heard.”

“Ja.”

“I told you to leave.”

“His sword and face told me to stay. I thought that I would have the chance to repay my debt today.”

David ignored him and began walking away.

“Do you want us to take care of him? The girl need never know. There be all of these rivers around. A man could fall in.”

“Nay.”

“The sword is not your weapon.”

“It will not come to that.”

“You are sure? He looked determined.”

“I am sure.”

They walked up the lane toward the house. Sieg kept looking over at him. Finally the Swede spoke. “It is an odd time to be getting married.”

“Aye.” And it was. Any number of carefully cultivated fields were awaiting harvesting in the next few months.

“It could make things harder,” Sieg said.

“I've thought of that.”

“You could put the wedding off until next winter. November maybe. All should be settled by then.”

David shook his head. He realized that he was not inclined to give her lover a whole year to come back. He also already knew that he had no intention of waiting that long to take the beautiful Christiana Fitzwaryn to his bed. “Nay. It will be safer to have her at the house.”

“And if there are problems …”

“Then the girl is doubly blessed. She gets rid of a husband whom she does not want and becomes a rich widow.”

A fine cold mist shrouded the Strand as the little party rode up its length. John Constantyn sat straight and proud on his horse, his fur-trimmed and bejeweled velvet robe barely covered by the bright blue cloak thrown back over his shoulders. He glanced at David's own unadorned and austere blue pourpoint.

“Thank God you at least wore that chain,” John said, grinning. “They might mistake you for some gentry squire otherwise. Under the circumstances you might have fancied yourself up some, just this once. It is an odd statement that you make with your garments, David.”

David would like to claim that he made no statement at all with his clothes, that their plainness merely reflected his taste, but he knew that wasn't entirely true. Refusing to compete in the nobility's game of luxury was, he supposed, a tacit repudiation of the nobleman's assumption of superior worth.

He felt the heavy gold chain on his chest, arching from shoulder to shoulder. He had even worn this with reluctance, and finally put it on only for Christiana's sake. Her friends would know its value. He would not make this day any harder for her than it promised to be already.

“You should have seen your uncle Gilbert's face when I told him what I would be doing today,” John said. “By God, it was rich. Right there outside the Guildhall, I asked him if he would attend, aware that he knew nothing of it. I made him worm the details out of me bit by bit, too. At least twenty of the wardens must have overheard.” John's hearty laugh echoed down the Strand. “ ‘Aye, Gilbert,’ I said, ‘didn't you know? The daughter of the famous Hugh Fitzwaryn. By the king's pleasure, no less. In the royal chapel with the royal family in attendance.’ His face looked the color of ash before I was done.”

David smiled at the thought of Gilbert's expression when he learned that David would marry a baron's daughter. It was the first time that this betrothal had given him any pleasure.

He hadn't spoken to any of the Abyndons since he was a youth and had fully realized what they had done to his mother. He also refused to trade with them, and never sold them any of the goods that he imported. It was a childish revenge, but the only one open to him right now. Eventually the chance would come to plant that particular field in a more appropriate way.

John smiled more soberly. “Would that my brother could see this.”

Aye
, David thought.
But it is just as well that he cannot.
He thought a moment about his dead master and partner, the man who had probably saved him from a life in the alleys. A good man, David Constantyn, whose faith in his young apprentice had made them both rich and permitted David to become the man he was today. He had loved his master more than a son does a father.

It was out of respect and love that he had bided his time and waited. Waited for his master's death before planting those fields that waited to be harvested now.
Better that he is not here, for there is much that honest man wouldn't like
, David thought.
But then, he was shrewd, and might not be so surprised. He probably knew what he had in me.

They rode through the town of Westminster to the castle and buildings that housed the court and the government. David led the way to the royal chapel.

People milled around outside its doors. The King's approach caused no commotion or even much attention. Edward and Philippa led their children and their closest retainers in for the daily mass. David had no trouble locating Christiana in the group, because she wore the red
cloak. Her eyes did not seek him out as she silently between Joan and Lady Idonia.

A page had reserved space for David behind the royal family. At the other end of his row stood the rigid form of Morvan Fitzwaryn. In front of him Christiana focused her attention on the priest at the altar, not once turning her head.

The mass was brief and after it the priest came down from the altar and called Christiana and himself forward. Christiana, her cloak still on to ward off the chill in the chapel, went to her brother, then the two of them joined David in front of the priest. He looked over at her and saw a vacant expression in her eyes as she trained her gaze on a spot somewhere in the distance. She looked noble and calm and emotionally void.

Morvan took her hand and placed it in David's. It felt incredibly small and soft. One slight tremble shook her arm, and then they listened to the priest's prayer before pledging their troth. She recited the words like a school lesson, her expressionless chant suggesting that they held no meaning, if indeed she even heard them.