The queen's man : a medieval mystery (21 page)

"Of course it would be more accurate to say he found you." Jonas gestured and caught the wineskin deftly when Justin sent it spinning toward him. Taking a deep swallow, he said, "I've been trying to decide what I ought to marvel at the most—your remarkable luck or your astounding recklessness."

That was the nastiest sort of barb, the kind that held too much truth to shrug off. "When you're tallying up my mistakes," Justin snapped, "be sure to include my listening to your advice to seek out Pepper Clem!"

"Pepper Clem can wait. Let's start with the Fleming and that bloodletting in the stable. The farrier said there were two of them. Could you identify Gilbert's murderous friend?"

"I am not sure," Justin admitted. "He was the one who slipped the noose around my neck, and I was too busy after that to get a good look at him. He was young and sturdy and he had curly brown hair. But that is about all I can tell you. At the time, I was devoting all of my attention to Gilbert's dagger."

"That description could fit half the cutthroats in London," Jonas said regretfully. "So . . . back to Gilbert. Suppose you tell me how he tracked you to that smithy."

"I'd agreed to meet Pepper Clem at a Southwark tavern, but he never came. They must have been lying in wait. Not in the tavern itself; I'd have recognized Gilbert for certes. Mayhap across the street or at the bathhouse. When I gave up on Clem, they just followed me back into London. The streets were crowded at that hour and they knew what they were about. I never saw them, not until it was too late."

"I figured as much." Jonas flipped the wineskin back toward the bed. "You were a bloody fool to let your guard down. But you already know that. In your favor, you were able to keep them from killing you straightaway, which is more than most of Gilbert's victims could say."

"What puzzles me is why they bothered with the noose." Justin's fingers crept up to his throat, tracing the bruises left by

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that leather thong. "Would it not have been easier to thrust a dagger up under my ribs?"

"I can tell you why. They wanted answers from you first, and the noose is a most effective way of getting them. Cut off a man's air until he passes out, and when he comes around, tighten the cord again until he'll beg to tell you whatever you want to know. If you miscalculate and kill him in the struggle, no matter, for you'd have killed him afterward, anyway."

"A friendly town, this London of yours," Justin said sourly, and Jonas smiled mirthlessly.

"Be thankful you had information Gilbert wanted, or you'd have been carved up like a Michaelmas goose ere you even knew what was happening. Do you know what he wanted to find out from you?"

"I was a witness to a murder he committed, and he might well have decided to make sure I'd not be able to testify against him. But first he'd want to know why I was hunting for him."

"I'd not mind knowing that myself. Your connection to that sheriff's deputy seems sort of murky to me. But I do not suppose you'll be telling me. For now, it is enough that we both want to see Gilbert hanged. So we'd best start planning how we're going to bring that about."

"You're going to help me? But what of the Lime Street fire and that aggrieved alderman?"

"There is not a sheriff in Christendom who'd heed an alderman over a queen. It seems you forgot to mention that you have friends at court. The sheriff was summoned to the queen's presence last night, and she made it very clear, indeed, that she wants Gilbert the Fleming caught as soon as possible—preferably yesterday. So ... it looks like you and I will be going a-hunting."

Justin was grateful for Eleanor's intercession. Jonas might be more prickly than a hedgehog, but he welcomed the serjeant as an ally. Send a wolf to catch a wolf. "I suggest we start this hunt by tracking down Pepper Clem."

"That is just what I had in mind." Jonas caught his wineskin

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again, took a final pull, and then got to his feet. "Whilst you are healing, I'll see what I can dig up."

"Good hunting. Pepper Clem has a lot of explaining to do."

Jonas had reached the door. Glancing back over his shoulder,

he said with chilling certainty, "If he has the answers we want,

he'll give them up." But then he chilled Justin even more by

adding, "Assuming, of course, that he is still alive."

1 H E QU BEN'S MAN

word tor it. Where are you staying now? Are you still at that farrier's cottage?"

"Yes, madame, I am. I told Gunter—the smith—that I'd not feel comfortable staying at his house unless I could pay him, and he reluctantly agreed. I had no other choice, for I did not want to go back to the alehouse, not until we've caught the Fleming."

"That cutpurse you were supposed to meet ... do you think he betrayed you to the Fleming?"

Justin had been pondering that very question all week long. "I do not know, my lady. He may have. Or it may be that he was clumsy, too heavy-handed in his search for the Fleming. And if Gilbert did hear he was sniffing about and confronted him, we can be sure that he'd blurt out all he knew—and much he did not!"

"And has the sheriff been helping you to track this man down, as I instructed?"

"He was heedful of your wishes, madame, and dispatched his best man to assist in my hunt."

A frown shadowed Eleanor's brow. "Just one?"

"This particular one is more than enough, madame. He is a very—"

There had been several interruptions in the course of their conversation, but they'd been circumspect; a squeak of the door hinges, a light step in the rushes, and a retreat. This time the door banged jarringly, and without waiting to be announced, Will Longsword burst into the chamber. Will looked far more disheveled and agitated than the last time Justin had seen him, in the gardens at Westminster. His bright hair was wind whipped and dusted with melting snow, his face so reddened and chapped by the cold that his freckles seemed to have disappeared. Moving hastily toward Eleanor, he dropped to his knees before her.

"Madame, I was too late. By the time I reached Southampton, John had already sailed."

Eleanor half rose from her seat, then sank back again. "I know you did your best, Will."

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Justin glanced at Will, then at the queen. "My lady . . . where did Lord John go?"

"To France," Eleanor said, and although her voice was dispassionate, a muscle twitched faintly in her cheek. "To the court of the French king."

Justin followed Will from the queen's great chamber out into the hall. Heading for the hearth, Will began to warm his hands over the flames. "Mayhap gloves are not such a foppish, newfangled fashion, after all," he conceded. "Jesu, how I hated to bring her more bad news!"

"What happened?"

"You know about John's disappearance on Candlemas Night? Well, when we got word that he'd been spotted on the Winchester Road, I took out after him. I suppose he could have been bound for the West Country or a sojourn in Wales. But Winchester is just twelve miles from the coast, so I rode for Southampton like my horse's tail was on fire—to no avail. He was already halfway across the Channel by the time I got there."

"What did you have in mind?" Justin asked curiously, and Will gave him a rueful smile.

"Damned if I know! Try to talk some sense into him, I guess. Not that I've ever gotten him to listen in the past. I had to try, though, even if I got nothing out of it but saddle sores and frostbite."

Justin knew—along with most of Christendom—that John and Richard had a brotherly bond in the tradition of Cain and Abel. He found himself seeing John in a new light now, for if he could inspire such loyalty in a man like Will, he could not be utterly beyond redemption. "I agree with the queen," he said. "You did your best and what more can a man do than that?"

Will shrugged. "The trouble is, lad," he said, "that the French king is doing his best, too, and if he has his way, King Richard will never see England again."

Bidding Will farewell, Justin crossed the hall and entered the stairwell. It was quite dark, for a wall rush light had gone out,

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and he started down slowly. His mind upon the hunt tor the Fleming, he did not hear the footsteps below, light and hurried. He was not aware oi the woman hastening up the stairs, not until she turned the corner and they collided. When she stumbled, he reached out to steady her and breathed in a familiar perfume.

"Oh!" Her voice was low, startled. "I am so sorry!"

"I'm not."

Claudine smiled in the shadows, recognizing the voice. "Justin de Quincy, you are the most unpredictable man I've ever met. Why are you lurking out here in the stairwell?"

"Hoping to run into you, demoiselle."

"Well," she said softly, "here I am."

Justin might not have been involved with a woman like Claudine before, but he was still experienced enough to know an invitation when he heard one. Shifting so there was no longer space between them, he slid his fingers under her chin, then tilted her face so he could claim her mouth with his own. Her response w T as all he could have hoped for; her lips parted, her arms going up around his neck.

Eventually the sound of an opening door above them intruded, breaking the erotic spell, and they moved apart. "Come on," Claudine whispered. "That might be the queen's chaplain!"

They fled hand in hand down the stairs and out into the bailey. It had been snowing intermittently all morning, and lacy flakes were drifting down lazily around them, so soft and gentle to the touch that it was like a shower of delicate winter flowers. When Claudine caught one on the tip of her tongue, Justin began to laugh. "Do that again and I'll not answer for the consequences!"

"I've never given a fig for consequences," she said airily, pretending to lick another snowflake from her lower lip. "I've been meaning to ask you, Justin, if you found my mantle brooch, a silver crescent? I may have lost it at your cottage, for I missed it after I visited you that night."

"I'll take a look for it," Justin said, and brought her hand up to his mouth, kissing her palm and then the inside of her wrist.

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"We'd probably have a better chance of finding it, though, if we looked for it together/'

"What are we waiting for?" When she slipped her arm through his, he decided that if Eve had a smile half as bewitching as Claudine's, no wonder Adam had been so willing to taste that forbidden fruit.

The cottage was cold, for they'd not taken the time to build a fire in the hearth, lighting one in bed, instead. Afterward, they burrowed under the covers for warmth and shared a meal Justin scrounged up from his bare larders. He apologized for the plain fare, but Claudine merely laughed, assuring him that he was an ideal host in the ways that mattered. He'd never known a woman who was so playful and provocative, too, and, watching as she ate heartily of his brown bread and goat cheese, he felt a prickling of unease. It would be so easy to fall in love with her, so dangerously easy.

She had hair as soft as silk and as dark as a summer midnight. When he wrapped a long strand around his throat, she smiled and nipped his earlobe with teeth like small, perfect pearls. Pillowing her head against his shoulder, she asked, "What are you thinking about? Me, I hope ..."

He could not very well tell her what he was really thinking— that she was far too beguiling for his own good. Instead, he said lightly, "I was thinking there ought to be a law against any woman being so beautiful. Not only is it unfair to other women, but you must be a hazard to city traffic. Men riding by are likely to watch you instead of the road, dropping their reins and losing their stirrups and getting themselves thrown into the street at your feet."

She laughed softly. "How very true. The mayor even asked me not to venture out into the city during the daytime, for they cannot cope with the chaos I cause. Will you mind if I confine my visits to those hours after dark?"

He propped himself up on his elbow. "I'll have to give that some thought. Ought I to worry that you might be a succubus? They only come out after dark, too."

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She blinked. "A what 1 "

"A succubtis—a sultry female spirit who comes in the night to steal a man's seed whilst he sleeps."

"You caught me out," she confessed. "I am indeed a succu . . . whatever, and a very successful one, too. I've stolen your seed twice already this afternoon and you did not offer even token resistance!"

Justin grinned. "The laws of war stipulate unconditional surrender to succubi. How T could you not know that, Claudine?"

"Alas," she said, "my education has been lacking. Yours, however, seems to have been very thorough. Are you sure you are not one of King Henry's out-of-wedlock sons, after all? Who are you, Justin—truly?"

"I'm a man bedazzled by your dark eyes," he parried, "a man getting thirsty again for your wine-sweet kisses." She'd been as generous with her history as she'd been with her body, talking freely of her late husband and her brothers back in Aquitaine, telling him about a sun-drenched childhood that seemed worlds aw r ay from the solitary years of his own youth. What could he tell her in return? About the taunts of "Bastard" and "Devil's whelp" and Aubrey's stubborn denial of paternity?

She twisted around so she could see his face. "You want to remain a man of mystery, then? As you wish. But I ought to warn you that I'm very good, indeed, at solving puzzles. First things first, though ..." Leaning over, she gave him a "wine-sweet" kiss. Drawing back then, she studied him pensively. "I know little of Latin," she said, "no more than the responses to the Mass and a few odd phrases . . . like 'Carpe diem/ Do you know the meaning, Justin?"

"Yes," he said slowly, "I do. 'Seize the day.''

She nodded. "It is a fine thought, is it not?" When he nodded, too, she smiled and kissed him again.

Justin understood more than the Latin translation. He comprehended what she was trying to tell him, as tactfully as possible—that they could have no future together. That he already knew. She was a child of privilege, with dower estates in Aquitaine and a distant kinship to the queen. Whereas he was a child