By Arrangement (3 page)

He had been stunned when the King had chosen the daughter of Hugh Fitzwaryn to be the bride in this
scheme, and had pointed out that she was too far above him. Even the huge bride price that everyone would think he was paying did not bridge their difference in degrees.

The King had brushed it aside.
We will put it about that you saw her and wanted her and paid me a fortune to have her
. Well, now he knew the reason for the King's choice of Christiana. A quick marriage for the girl would snuff out any flames of scandal regarding her and her lover.

It was good to know the truth. He did not like playing the pawn in another man's game. Usually he was the one who moved the pieces.

He walked across the courtyard to Sieg.

“It is done then?” the Swede asked as he turned to enter his chamber off the passageway.

“It was not them.”

“The hell you say!”

David laughed. “Go to sleep. I doubt that they will come tonight.”

“I hope not. There's more visitors here at night than the day, as it is.” Sieg paused. “What about Lady Alicia's guard?”

David glanced to the end of the building, and the glow of a candle through a window. “He knows to stay there. I will bring her to him later.”

He turned to leave, then stopped. “Sieg, tomorrow I want you to find the name of a man for me. He is a knight, and his family is from the north country. An important family.”

“Not much to go on. There be dozens …”

“He left Westminster recently. I would guess in the last day or so.”

“That makes it easier.”

“His name, Sieg. And what you can learn about him.”

CHAPTER 2

C
HRISTIANA SPENT
a desperate night trying to figure out how to save herself. By morning she could find no course of action except writing to Stephen, bribing a royal messenger to carry the letter north, and praying that he received it quickly. But the betrothal was in a week, too soon for Stephen to get that letter and come for her.

The only solution was to speak with the King. She would not refuse the marriage outright, but would let him know that she did not welcome it. Perhaps, at the very least, she could convince him to delay the betrothal.

Steeling her resolve, she left the apartment that she shared with Isabele and Joan under Idonia's watchful eyes, and made her way through the castle to the room where the King met with petitioners. When she arrived, its anteroom had already filled with people. She gave her name to the clerk who sat by the door, and hoped that her place in the household would put her ahead of some of the others.

Some benches lined one wall. An older knight gave up his place, and she settled down. The standing crowd
walled her in while she concentrated on planning her request.

As she waited and pondered, the outer door opened and a page entered, followed by her brother Morvan. She saw his dark head disappear into the King's chamber.

The King was going to tell him about the match now. What would her proud brother say? How would he react?

She had her answer very soon. Within minutes the measured rumble of a raised voice leaked through wall that separated the anteroom from the chamber. She knew that it was Edward who had lost his temper, because Morvan's worst anger always manifested itself quietly and coldly.

She had to leave immediately. With the King enraged, there could be no benefit in speaking with him today, and when Morvan left that room, she did not want him to see her sitting here.

She was rising to leave when Morvan hurried out, his black eyes flashing and his handsome face frozen into a mask of fury. He strode to the corridor like a man headed for battle.

She still needed to leave, but she dared not follow him. He might have stopped in the passageways leading here.

She glanced around the anteroom. Another door on a side wall gave out to a private corridor that connected Edward's chambers and rooms. It led to an exterior stairway, and there were rumors that secret guests, diplomats, and sometimes women came to him this way. Without it ever being formally declared off limits, everyone knew that it meant trouble to be found there. Even the Queen did not use that passageway.

She pushed through the crowd. She would slip away and no one would know that she had even come.

Opening the small door a crack, she slid through. The passageway stretched along the exterior wall of the castle lit by good-sized windows set into shallow alcoves. She scurried toward the end opposite the one with the staircase.

The sound of a door opening behind her sent her darting into one of the alcoves. Pressing into the corner, she prayed that whoever had entered the passageway would go in the other direction. She sighed with relief as she heard footsteps walking away.

Then, to her horror, more steps started coming quickly toward her from the direction in which she had been heading. Crushing herself into the alcove's shallow corner, she gritted her teeth and waited for discovery.

A shortish middle-aged man with gray hair and beard, sumptuously dressed like a diplomat, hurried by. He did not notice her, because he fixed all of his attention on the space ahead of him. It seemed that he tried to make his own footsteps fall more softly than normal.

“Pardon. Attendez,”
she heard him whisper loudly.

The other steps stopped. She heard the men meet.

They began speaking in low tones but their words carried easily to her ears. Both spoke Parisian French, the kind taught to her by the tutors, and not the corrupted dialect used casually by the English courtiers.

“If you are found here, it will go badly for you,” the other man said. His voice sounded very low, little more than a whisper, but the words reached her just the same.

“A necessary risk. I needed to know if what I had heard of you was true.”

“And what did you hear?”

“That you can help us.”

“You have the wrong man.”

“I do not think so. I followed you here. You have the access, as I was told.”

“If you want what I think you want, you have the wrong man.”

“At least hear me out.”

“Nay.”

The men began walking away. The voices receded.

“It will be worth your while,” the first man said.

“There is nothing that you have that I want.”

“How do you know if you don't listen?”

“You are a fool to speak to me of this here. I do not deal with fools.”

The voices and footsteps continued to grow fainter. Christiana listened until their sound disappeared down the stairway. Lifting her hem, she ran back to her chamber.

She was sitting on her bed in Isabele's anteroom, fretting over whether to approach the King another day, when Morvan came storming into the chamber still furious from his meeting with the King.

He stomped around and ranted with dangerous anger. Rarely had she seen him like this, and keeping him from doing something rash became her primary concern. She felt guilty calming and soothing him, since she knew that everything was her fault and he, of course, did not. Morvan laid all of the blame on the King and the merchant.

“This mercer did not even have the decency to speak with me first,” Morvan spat out, his black eyes flashing sparks as he strode around. He was a big man, taller than most, and he filled the space. “He went directly to the King! The presumptions of those damn merchants is ever galling, but this is an outrage.”

“Perhaps he didn't know how it is done with us,” she
said. She needed him calm and rational. If they thought about this together, they might have some ideas.

“It is the same with every degree, sister. Would this man have gone to his mayor to offer for some skinner's daughter?”

“Well, he did it this way, and the King agreed. We are stuck with that part.”

“Aye, Edward agreed.” He suddenly stopped his furious stride and stared bleakly into the hearth. “This is a bad sign, Christiana. It means that the King has indeed forgotten.”

Her heart went out to him. She walked over and embraced him and forgot her own disappointment and problems. She had been so selfishly concerned with her own pride that she hadn't seen the bigger implications of this marriage.

Fleeting, vague memories of another life filtered into her exhausted mind. Memories of Harclow and happiness. Images of war and death. The echo of gnawing hunger and relentless fear during siege. And finally, clearly and distinctly, she had the picture of Morvan, ten years old but tall already, walking bravely through the castle gate to surrender to the enemy. He had fully expected to be killed. Over the years, she came to believe that God had moved that Scottish lord to spare him so that she herself would not be totally alone.

When they had fled Harclow and gone to young King Edward and told him of Hugh Fitzwaryn's death and the loss of the estate, Edward had blamed himself for not bringing relief fast enough. Their father had been one of his friends and supporters on the Scottish marches, and in front of Morvan and their dying mother Edward had sworn to avenge his friend and return the family lands to them.

That had been eleven years ago. For a long while thereafter, Morvan had assumed that once he earned his spurs the King would fulfill that oath. But he had been a knight for two years now, and it had become clear that Edward planned no aggressive campaigns on the Scottish borders. The army sent there every year was involved in little more than a holding action. All of the King's attention had become focused on France.

And now this. Agreeing to marry her to this merchant was a tacit admission on the King's part that he would never help Morvan reclaim Harclow. The ancient nobility of the Fitzwaryn family would be meaningless in a generation.

No wonder the Percys did not want one of their young men marrying her. But Stephen's love would be stronger than such petty concerns of politics property. And once they were married, she hoped that the Percy family would help Morvan, since he would be tied to their kinship through her.

The chance of that had always increased Stephen's appeal. The redemption of their family honor should not rest entirely on Morvan's shoulders. It was her duty to marry a man who would give her brother a good alliance.

Morvan pulled away. “The King said the betrothal is to be Saturday. I do not understand the haste.”

She could hardly confide to her strict older brother that the haste was to make sure that her lover could not interfere. And maybe also to avert Morvan's anger. If he learned what had happened with Stephen, he would undoubtedly demand satisfaction through a duel. King Edward probably wanted to avoid the trouble with the Percy family that such a challenge would create.

Her attempts at soothing him failed. The storm broke in his expression again. He left as furiously as he had entered. “Do not worry, sister. I will deal with this merchant.”

David stood at the door of his shop watching his two young apprentices, Michael and Roger, carry the muslinwrapped silks and furs out to the transport wagon. A long, gaily decorated box on wheels, the wagon held seats for the ladies and had windows piercing its sides. Princess Isabele sat at one of the openings.

The arrival of Lady Idonia and Lady Joan and Princess Isabele today had amused him and awed the apprentices. The ladies ostensibly came to choose cloth for the cotehardie and surcoat that Isabele would wear at Christiana's wedding, but the princess was not his patron. The news of the betrothal had just spread at Westminster, and he knew that in reality Christiana's friends had come to inspect him.

They had almost been disappointed, since he hadn't arrived until they were preparing to leave. His business extended far beyond the walls of this shop now, and he left the daily workings of it to Andrew. He smiled at the memory of tiny Lady Idonia throwing her body between Isabele and Sieg when he and the Swede had entered the shop, as if she sought to save the girl from Viking ravishment.

The boys handed their packages in to Lady Idonia. They peered into the wagon one last time as it pulled away surrounded by five mounted guards.

They had a lot to peer at, David thought, glancing at the crowd of onlookers that had formed on the lane when the wagon drew up. A princess and the famous Lady Joan, Fair Maid of Kent, cousin to the King. Members of the royal family rarely visited the tradesmen's shops. It was customary to bring goods to them instead.

Christiana had not come, of course. He wondered what ruse she had used to avoid it. He was sending a gift back to her with Idonia, however, a red cloak lined with black fur which the tailor George who worked upstairs
had sewn at his bidding. The one that she had worn to his house four nights ago looked to be several years old and a handspan too short. Being the King's ward clearly did not mean that she lived in luxury.

She would probably feel guilty accepting his gift. In that brief time in his solar, he had learned much about her character and she had impressed him favorably. Her beauty had impressed him even more. The memory of those bright eyes and that pale skin had not been far from his mind since her visit.

She waited for her lover. How long would she wait?

Unlike most men, he liked women and understood them. He certainly understood the pain Christiana felt. After all, he had lived eighteen years near a similar anguish. Was he fated now to spend the rest of his life in its shadow again? Was that to be the price this time of Fortune's favor? This girl seemed stronger and prouder than that.

He had briefly lost awareness of the street, but its movements and colors reclaimed his attention. He pushed away from the doorjamb. As he turned to enter the building he noticed a man walking up the lane from the Cheap, wearing livery that he recognized. He waited for the man to reach him.

“David de Abyndon?” the messenger asked.

“Aye.”

A folded piece of parchment was handed over. David read the note. He had expected this letter. In fact, he had been waiting for the meeting it requested for over ten years. Better to finish it quickly. Betrothal and marriage probably had a way of complicating things like this.

He turned to the messenger. “Tell her I cannot see her this week. Next Tuesday afternoon. She should come to my house.”