Fatal Truths (The Anarchy Medieval Romance) (18 page)

AS KING STEPHEN EMBRACED HIM, Alex was relieved the strong soap smell had dissipated. Either that or he’d simply got used to it.

Stephen was, as Laurent had asserted months ago, a charismatic and handsome man. Upon receiving Alex’s confirmation the enemy was amassing not far from Caen, he immediately ordered soldiers to be readied to accompany the Montbryce forces. “We are indebted to you,
Comte
Alexandre, for learning of this treachery. Your family has a long history of loyalty to the monarch who wears the crown of the English. I am glad to have you as a supporter.”

Alex bowed and the King talked on, but now that the problem of an army had been resolved, all he could think of was Gallien’s
determination to find the
oubliette
where his father had been locked away. He wondered if his brothers standing behind him had already visited it.

He had to avoid
going there at all costs. Or was his cousin right? If he saw the wretched place for himself—

“What say you, Alexandre?”

“Er—
oui
, a fine plan,” he improvised.

Stephen eyed him. “You seem preoccupied
. Of course, this castle holds dark memories for you and your family.”

Stephen knew, and understood.

“It does,
Majesté
,” he admitted, “but my worry now is for the Scottish hostages. I’m afraid Maud will kill them when their true identity is uncovered.”

Stephen rubbed his finger across his top lip. “Gallien has informed me of King David’s trickery, but what are these hostages to you?
Scotland’s ruler is our enemy.”

Alex swallowed hard. “Elayne and her children are not your enemies,
Sire. She is my wife, and I guarantee her loyalty to you and your Crown.”

He wished he could turn round to
express his regret to his family, surprised not to hear gasps of outrage from behind him.

“Then we must do all we can to rescue these loyal subjects from Maud’s clutches
, and send Geoffrey packing at the same time. We’ll ride at dawn.”

“You intend to accompany us, Sire?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

~~~

ALEX TURNED TO FACE HIS BROTHERS and cousin as they left the interview with the King. Instead of the censure he expected, three broad grins flashed as they embraced him.

“I suspected,” Romain admitted, “and I’m happy for you.”

“I could tell how you felt about her every time I mentioned my possible interest,” Laurent added, poking him in the ribs with his elbow.

Gallien slapped him on the back. “I’ve yet to meet this woman you’ve married, but from what your brothers have told me—”

Alex gripped the hilt of his sword. “But we committed adultery. Her husband is dead now, but he wasn’t when we—”

Gallien put his hands on Alex’s shoulders and looked him in the eye. “Did she know he was still alive?”

Alex recalled with intense regret that his first thought on learning of Dugald’s resurrection was that Elayne had lied. “
Non
, she believed him dead.”

“Did he ever have any intention of returning to his family in Scotland, or did he prefer to be dead to them?”

Alex nodded.

“Fine,” Gallien declared, his jaw clenched. “Now we’ve settled that, let’s go find this cursed
oubliette
.”

The broad smiles disappeared from Romain and Laurent’s faces.

They dread this as much as I.

He could refuse, walk out of the castle into the bright warmth of the sun
instead of descending to the depths of hell.

H
e was Robert de Montbryce’s eldest son and heir, but he’d done nothing to merit either honor. He had to follow Gallien or he would never be able to look his siblings in the eye again.

He turned to his brothers. “If we do this, life will never be the same. It will change all of us.” He stretched out his fisted hand. “Are we of one mind?”

Romain and Laurent looked like two small boys, pale and uncertain, but first Romain, then Laurent lay their hands atop Alex’s fist.

Gallien added his hand briefly,
then beckoned to the shadows nearby. A burly guard emerged, holding an unlit torch. “This man will be our guide.”

Alex studied the man. “You’ve been to this cell before?”

The soldier clenched his jaw. “
Oui, milord
, many times.”

“You’re a
jailer?”

The man nodded.

“Is there a prisoner in this
oubliette
now?”

To his relief, the man shook his bald head.
“Not for many a year,
milord
.”

“You seem glad of that.”

“I am,
milord
,” the guard admitted. “’Tis not a place fit to keep a dog, never mind a man, no matter what he be guilty of. Better for him to be dead.”

It would be every bit as horrific as he’d feared. But the die was cast. “Lead on,” he rasped.

They walked in silence through the castle’s cavernous hallways, eventually descending a winding flight of ten stone steps, timeworn by the boots of a thousand jailers.

They
gripped the cold, damp stone wall to avoid slipping. Their bootsteps echoed into the dark hollow space somewhere beneath them. Breathing became more difficult in the fetid air.

Their guide knelt to spark life into the torch he carried, raising the flame high once it caught. Faint rustling noises and grunts reached their ears.

“Rats?” Alex asked the jailer.

“Men,” he replied.

They peered through the gloom. Ahead of them were cells, five on each side of a narrow passageway.

“Prisoners in all these,” the guard explained, “but you can look through the grate if you’ve a mind.”

Alex was relieved when Gallien took the lead because he couldn’t make his legs work. His cousin peered through the small grate in the solid iron door of one cell. “Five in here,” he said.

Alex stole a glance at Laurent and Romain. In the eerie light of the torch, his brothers looked like white marble statues.

“Come, brothers,” he said, “we must look.”

Alex peered into a cell. It was similar to
the ones at Montbryce, a small, cramped space for the three filthy men lying chained to the floor, one of whom made an obscene gesture at him. He wondered how long they’d been held there.

“This way,
mes seigneurs
,” the jailer rasped, handing them bits of dirty rags. “You’ll need these. Though there’s been no prisoners down there for years, the stench clings. Can’t get rid of it.”

The moldy smell of the rag alone was enough to bring bile up Alex’s throat, but he held it over his nose as the guard led them
along narrow, dark, sloping corridors. After many long minutes of walking on slick stone with shoulders hunched as the ceiling got lower and lower, their escort declared, “Here’s the stairway.”

Alex hadn’t thought they could descend any deeper into the earth but ahead he saw
a narrow black opening barely wide enough for a man. Without a guide, he’d probably never have noticed it. They descended the steep slippery steps, the jailer holding the torch high to illuminate the narrow walls.

Once at the bottom
he lit two more flares fixed to the wall, then pointed. Alex narrowed his eyes, and peered into the darkness, gradually making out a small barred door with an open grate at the bottom. He gripped the bars with trembling hands, swung open the door and stepped inside.

He
entered the hell their father had endured for months. Romain and Laurent followed, though there was barely room for one man, let alone three.

The stench
turned his stomach. They were in a tiny, windowless cell. One man could lie down, two could not. There was a hole in the corner which he surmised went straight to the drains. This was the source of the foul odor. He could barely stand upright before his head touched the ceiling. Damp straw covered the stone floor.

“The first thing
oncle
Robert did was retch into the drain hole.”

Alex scowled at Gallien, still standing at the open door. It seemed wrong to speak. He didn’t want words.
He wanted to be his father, to feel what he had felt, the despair, the fear, the anguish, the uncertainty, the blackness. It all swept over him, and for the first time he truly understood the strength of will it had taken to survive in this stinking tomb for months.

Robert de Montbryce had not only survived, he’d prospered and become a great leader. He’d also fathered two more children, the brothers who clung to Alex now in the dark silence.

Without a word they put their arms around each other’s shoulders and wept unashamedly.

ALEX STEPPED OUT OF THE OUBLIETTE a changed man, sure in his heart that it was no coincidence this chance at redemption had come just as Elayne had filled his life with purpose.

Epiphany indeed!

He was certain too that his relationship with his brothers had been irrevocably altered as well. No matter the future, they would never forget the long minutes they had spent together reliving their father’s torment.

He
offered a hand to his cousin as he exited. “I thank you, Gallien, for bringing us here.”

Gallien
accepted the handshake and drew Alex into his embrace. “I hoped it was the right thing to do. I’ve heard the story many times, but I’ve never seen it for myself either. Your father was an incredible man.”

“And I am ready to hear the story now.”

“Here?”

Alex looked around. “If my father bore this for as long as he did, we can spend a little more time here. Tell me.”

Gallien laid a hand on the barred door. “
Oncle
Caedmon smashed the lock with the hilt of his sword.”

Alex closed his eyes, hearing
the clang of metal on metal, sensing the desperation of his
oncles
Caedmon and Baudoin as they searched for Robert.

“They could see a man lying on the straw, but they didn’t know it was Robert until they heard him whisper your mother’s name.”

Dorianne, Dorianne
.

“
A cat scurried by and was swallowed up by the blackness. My father’s fury intensified when he saw his brother had been recently flogged. They’d beaten him when they realized the castle was about to fall to King Henry.”

Laurent sobbed quietly.

Alex put his arm around his brother’s shoulder. “It was then my father asked about the cat—
Espérance—
and they misunderstood, not knowing about the creature and how it kept his hopes alive?”

“
Oui
,” Gallien murmured. “They lifted
oncle
Robert onto my father’s shoulder. You can imagine how difficult it was for them to carry him up those steps. He cried out when they got him outdoors. The light blinded him. Papa tore a strip from the tattered prison shirt and tied it around his head.”

Gallien
paused, rubbing his forehead. “He asked right away about
tante
Dorianne. Caedmon told him he had a son.”

A son who’d been born safely
a mile away only thanks to the immense bravery of his mother. A son who’d grown up to be the man he was because of the care, pride and attention lavished on him by his father.

Alex entered the
oubliette
again. “
Merci
, Papa,” he whispered hoarsely, “for everything.”

~~~

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Romain and Laurent, along with Gallien’s brother, Étienne, took charge of assembling the Montbryce and Ellesmere knights and soldiers while Alex and Gallien were closeted with the King in the Map Room, planning their strategy. All three men wore full armor.

“I want to avoid a pitched battle,” Stephen
reminded them after they’d settled on a course of action. “After all, Maud is my cousin, and I don’t want to make her a martyr in the eyes of her supporters.”

Gallien agreed. “A show of strength is what’s warranted. They can have no idea that we’re aware of their proximity to Caen. We must let them know an attack would be foolhardy.”

Alex related the story of the tents and the ruse Geoffrey had concocted at Montbryce. “I don’t believe he has the manpower he boasts of, and they don’t seem very bright. They almost burned down their own camp when they set fire to the orchards.”

Gallien jumped to his feet, his face contorted in a grimace. “They burned the orchards?”

Alex nodded. “
Oui
, but we’ll replant.”

“I hope you still have a good reserve of apple brandy,” Stephen said. “A taste I’ll never forget.”

Alex bowed. “
Majesté
, I vow the first cask of the next harvest will go to you, but you may have to wait awhile.”

“Excellent,” Stephen exclaimed, pulling on his leather gauntlets. “Now, our army should be assembled.”

Alex and Gallien followed their King into the bailey where they mounted their horses. Stephen led them out into the fields about a mile from the castle.

“Have I not said all along Stephen is the right choice for King?” Gallien said as they followed in the king’s wake.

Alex’s heart was at peace. He was comfortable with Stephen. The man was intelligent, jovial and not above exposing himself to the dangers of military action. “You were right. I’m just stubborn.”

“Like your father,” Gallien quipped.

Alex was about to respond, but was so astonished by what he saw before him, he completely forgot the comeback he’d had in mind.

He’d expected a decent army of three, perhaps four hundred. More than a thousand men, cavalry, bowmen and infantry,
had mustered in the fields of Caen.

“Wait till Geoffrey sees this,” Stephen called over his shoulder, grinning like an imbecile.

“How on earth—”

“Every Norman baron loyal to Stephen has garrisoned men here for months. It was obvious Geoffrey would try to take the town sooner or later,” Gallien explained.

Alex noticed his brothers with the men from Montbryce. “But why are my soldiers in the vanguard?”

“Stephen wants to reward you for your allegiance. Also, you’re the only one who knows where we are going.”

~~~

THE
CONVICTION THAT ALEX LOVED HER sustained Elayne through the long hours of uncertainty and fear. She’d heard nothing and seen no one since her children had been taken to Maud.

Faol was her only company
, though the dog hadn’t moved from his sentry post by the tent flap. Henry would be feeling very alone without his constant companion.

Was Alex still watching from somewhere in the hills, or had he gone for help? What help was there for the situation in which they found themselves?

Though their brief relationship had been adulterous, she didn’t regret a moment of it. If she died this very day, at least she’d known true love. But the fear that her children might be sacrificed filled her with indignation.

She
fingered the braid she’d made for Alex then tucked it between her breasts. It was her only connection to him.

Faol growled. His body tensed as his
long tail beat a slow tattoo on the ground. Elayne came to her feet when she heard footsteps—soldiers. If the news was dire, she would accept it with dignity.

“You’re to come with me to Her Majesty’s pavilion,” her soldier friend said, without a hint of warmth in his voice.
“Dog stays.”

She
whispered into Faol’s ear, draped the
playd
over her hair and followed the men-at-arms to her fate.