Emma Campion - A Triple Knot (26 page)

Will gripped her elbow. “No. Come back inside. Safety in the crowd. Ned’s planning something unpleasant, I’m sure.”

Having lost sight of Thomas’s brother, Joan let herself be led back into the nave, where she and Will were teased for attempting to escape betimes.

That night in bed, she curled up in a little ball while the Montagu girls whispered excitedly about their conquests at the feast, examining in her mind’s eye the features of the man at
the church door. He had Thomas’s hair, his eyes, and there was something about his cheekbones, but she’d spied no dimples, no cleft in the chin. He might be anyone but for his expression of disgust, disappointment.

Efa said that only Thomas could heal her. But how could he believe in her love now? One night. She had been happy for one night. Mother in heaven, she had made a colossal mess of it. Secrets layered upon secrets—she would be wise to take a vow of silence.

W
hen King Edward slipped through the hands of his greedy allies in the Low Countries, he left a considerable cohort of English soldiers to find their own way home, Thomas among them, despite being one of the men in charge of the royals’ nighttime escapes. He had hoped to spend Christmas with Joan and his family, celebrating his marriage, but it was not to be, for he could not afford the price of the journey. A letter to his family must suffice, and even that was difficult to arrange and quite costly. Once it was known that both the king and the queen were gone, the remaining English troops were charged exorbitantly for everything, particularly sea passage but even letters home. Praying that Joan was safe, Thomas found a courier to carry a letter to his brother, in which he’d enclosed a letter to Joan. Then he joined a company of his fellows heading east to seek their fortunes fighting alongside the Teutonic Knights against the Lithuanian infidel.

He soon regretted his choice. He found the Teutonic Knights to be so poisoned by hatred for the Lithuanians that it seemed to him they were the true enemies of Christ, not those they called pagans. They reveled in butchering the women, children, elderly, and infirm villagers they came upon—after raping the women. Their commanders made halfhearted speeches
about chivalry and Christian charity, but most left the perpetrators unpunished even when those not of the order bore horrifled witness. In the ashes of their villages, Thomas and his comrades often found crucifixes and paternosters. Rather than purging the infidel from Christian lands, the Northern Crusade was a brutal campaign to clear land the order coveted. Thomas doubted that God would count this as a holy pilgrimage that erased his sins and those of his father. And, as for making his fortune, the Knights were so greedy that they cheated their fellow crusaders out of booty and ransoms. For the sake of honor, he must quit the crusade.

On what he’d intended to be his final foray for the order, Thomas found a way to beat the Knights at their own greedy game and perhaps salvage some of his soul. On a long midsummer evening, he and three of his men came upon an enemy camp tucked under a rocky outcrop, the soldiers heavily armed. He guessed they were guarding a cave in which they’d hidden treasure or someone of importance. Retreating to where Hugh and other squires waited with the horses, he discovered Raoul de Brienne, son of the Count of Eu, Constable of France, taking his ease with several of his men.

Thomas cursed himself for being so easily tracked.

“We followed you from the Knights’ camp,” said Raoul. “Not the same as tracking, which you do so well. I have a proposition, for our mutual benefit.” He offered Thomas a wineskin. “Will you hear me out?”

Thomas nodded as he took a swig, then handed back the skin.

“If we combine forces, we don’t need the Knights to attack. We take whatever it is they so closely guard, keep the booty for ourselves, and no one the wiser.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Trust?” Raoul shrugged. “That will take time. For now, I hold out the promise of a fair split of the booty, and less carnage.
Those who surrender can walk away—disarmed, disgraced, but alive.”

“The Knights will eventually discover our deception.”

“We shall ensure that they profit just enough to look the other way. Eh? Is this to your liking?”

It was. And, by late summer, as the order prepared to withdraw for the winter, having pushed the Lithuanians back far enough to satisfy them for the moment, Thomas looked forward to going home. Raoul urged Thomas to return with him to France as a captain in his retinue. “I will be constable of France when my father dies, and count of Eu. A powerful patron. We shall send for your betrothed. I will provide you a fine country house with a vineyard.”

Thomas knew it was not an empty offer. They’d developed a mutual trust watching each other’s back and working together toward a common goal. Over many a dinner they had discovered a shared humanity and a dedication to honor. In another time, he would have considered it a privilege to serve under Raoul, but not now.

“When my liege lord Edward, King of England and France, comes to claim his crown, I would go to battle against my brothers?”

Raoul shrugged. “A small matter. The war will be quick, decisive, Edward will retreat, and you will reconcile with your brothers.”

“Your offer is more tempting than you could know. I cannot depend upon my king’s patronage once he knows I’ve robbed him of his beautiful cousin.” He nodded at Raoul’s surprise. “Joan is the daughter of the late Edmund, Earl of Kent, the king’s uncle. But I must find my own way, my honor intact.”

“I offer you my patronage, and my help in securing her.”

“I cannot accept.”

“I am sorry. For both of us. But I toast your boldness in
love.” They drank. “Let us at least pledge that when we meet in battle we shall treat each other with honor.”

Thomas could agree to that, and did.

So it was that his brothers Otho and Alan found him riding in the company of Raoul de Brienne as the crusaders withdrew toward the order’s castle of Marienburg. The two Hollands had broken from their company when they heard that their brother was not far behind. From a vantage point beside the crowded road, they hailed him as his company appeared.

At first Thomas doubted his eyes, they had changed so, Otho having gained a formidable bulk and a scar across his cheek, Alan missing a piece of his left ear and some of his hair. They were no longer the boys who had followed him everywhere, eager to grow up and experience the world. They’d had their fill of experience, by the looks of them.

Alan grabbed Thomas’s arm and held it, grinning as he studied his brother’s face. “It’s been four years, Thomas, and you’ve not changed. You’ve had it soft, I see.”

“Hardly. I’m just better at ducking, you ass. Did you lose the ear here?”

“Scotland.”

“And you, Otho—God’s blood, you’re an ox.” They embraced. It was good to see them both.

He asked if they had any news of Joan.

Alan glanced at Otho, eyebrows raised. “You’ve not heard? She’s wed young Montagu, heir to the Earl of Salisbury.”

“You’re still a poor liar.”

“It’s no lie. Tell him, Otho.”

“It’s true. This past winter I went to Westminster for our writs of safe passage and stumbled upon her wedding in the abbey church. There is no mistake.” Otho punched Alan’s shoulder. “I told you we should seek him out when we first arrived.”

Thomas was shaking his head. “I wrote to Robert and
mother. They were to speak to her mother the countess on my behalf.”

“You wrote, yes, but so did Blanche of Lancaster, married to Thomas Wake, Joan’s uncle. She warned us to stay away from Joan, else we would find ourselves in court defending our land against the powerful Lancasters. She is a litigious bitch, Lady Wake. We cannot afford her as an enemy. It’s done, Thomas. No mistaking.”

Thomas stared at him, unbelieving. “We pledged our troth before God!”

“But not before a priest, or so you said in your letter,” said Alan. “Our parish priest assured Mother that you might in good conscience wed another.”

“Then I have no right to this.” Thomas pulled the white hart silk from his sleeve. It was filthy, stained with sweat and blood.

“A white hart?” Otho noticed. “From Lady Joan?”

Thomas tossed it to Hugh. “Burn this.”
And may Robert burn in hell for his betrayal
. This was his doing. It stank of his spinelessness.

Hugh caught the silk, and was turning to tuck it into his pack when he cried out, “Sir!” He pointed at a skirmish on the road below them.

It was Raoul. He must have turned back for Thomas and been set upon.

Hugh held out the silk. “You will want this.”

Thomas ignored his squire’s outstretched hand. “Bring my horse, damn you.” Without another word he mounted and flung himself into the fray, swinging his sword. He pushed toward Raoul, who was matching his sword against that of the leader of one of the companies of Lithuanians they had plundered and set free. Thomas swung, slicing down through the man’s neck to sever it from his fighting arm. Now he, too, was surrounded, and as he thrust and slashed he was joined by Otho, swinging a
mace, Alan a battle-axe. The trio cut, slashed, splintered, shouting warnings to one another.

But it was Raoul who called out, “To your left, Thomas!” Too late. Thomas’s head exploded with pain and his left eye went dark, unbalancing him. Shouting at the top of his lungs, he swung to the left and slashed the arm raised to strike again, then the neck above, but as he yanked loose his sword he began to fall. Otho was suddenly beside him, pushing him upright, holding his shield over him. “Be still, Thomas, let me lead.” He struggled to stay upright, but he slipped farther and farther to the left, collapsing into the pain and the roaring in his ears.

G
OLD SILK
,
THRUMMING IN A STRONG WIND
. T
HE COUNT
’
S TENT
.
Otho, the ox, frowning down at him, lips moving. Thomas opened his mouth and the pain sliced across his face, spiraling round and round his head until he sank back down into the blessed dark.

Another moment, a litter, curtains swaying, someone asking him if he could sit up to take some water. He turned away.

Again he swam up through the blood-streaked darkness, this time toward the creak of oars, the scent of tar and vomit, a gentle rocking. Raoul smiled down on him. “Awake at last, my friend? Do you think you might drink some brandywine from a bowl?” Thomas clenched his teeth against the pain as a young man helped him sit up, then stuffed cushions behind him. His head pounded, and his vision—he reached up to the bandage covering the left side of his head.

“You saved my life, Thomas. I am taking you home, where you will have the best physicians.”

“My eye?”

“If it can be saved, it will be done.” Raoul guided Thomas’s hand to a bowl of brandywine.

“My brothers?”

“They’ve hardly left your side.”

“And Joan. Did I dream that?”

Raoul shook his head. “I regret to say it is true.”

“She is better off. She would not want me so, with one eye.”

“The loss of an eye is bad for an archer, but not a knight. I’ve fought beside many a knight with such wounds and never found them lacking.”

The brandywine burned down Thomas’s throat. He held out the bowl for more.

L
ATE IN THE YEAR
, K
ING
E
DWARD SUMMONED HOME ALL
E
NGLISH
knights fighting on foreign soil. John, Duke of Brittany, had died the previous spring and the ensuing conflict over the succession was Edward’s chance to gain a foothold in Brittany from which he might invade France. He meant to make a show of strength with his own men—he was through with trying to rally the Low Countries.

When Raoul announced the news at dinner, Otho and Alan began at once to plan their route home. It was their duty as knights to obey their king’s summons.

“You will be disappointed in the spoils,” Raoul warned them. “What about you, Thomas? Will you go with them, or take up my offer?”

Through the autumn Thomas had suffered two excruciatingly painful surgeries, drunk countless potions, endured endless poultices, unguents, and even a few charms, all to no effect. His left eye remained dark, the angry scar visible beyond the silk patch over the blind eye. Where else would he now find a patron who wished him to be a captain?

“The Countess of Kent might take pity on you and hear you out,” Alan said.

“There is nothing to say. Thanks to Robert, Joan is married to young Montagu. Yet honor forbids me to take up arms against my countrymen.”

“Brittany is far west of us,” said Raoul.

“Edward will not stop there.”

“And you need to confront your brother Robert.”

“Confront? To what end? He has neither conscience nor courage. I’ve nothing to say to him.” Thomas could see by Raoul’s raised brow that he wasn’t convinced. “I doubt that I’ll see him. He’ll be in Westminster defending himself against a dozen lawsuits.”

“But if you do?”

“Then God help him.”

“Do not spill your brother’s blood, my friend.” Raoul grinned. “Or perhaps just a little.”

They parted friends, swearing once again that if they met in battle they would treat each other with honor.

A
S
T
HOMAS DISMOUNTED IN THE YARD HIS MOTHER HURRIED
forth, then stopped a few feet away, hands to her mouth. “Mother in heaven, Thomas, your eye!” She reached out to touch the scar that crossed from eye to ear. “We must send for a physician.”

He caught her up in a warm embrace. Throughout her husband’s troubles, Lady Maud Holland had kept a steady, good-natured mien, comforting to the children, and had fought hard since his death to keep an inheritance for Robert, the eldest. All her children held her in high esteem. Thomas did not blame her
for her blind spot regarding Robert. He was her firstborn, the heir, now the lord. His word was law to her. “I’ve had the care of the best physicians in Christendom. Be at ease, Mother. There’s nothing more to do.”