Prince of Darkness Read online

  “Poor sap,” Luke said unsympathetically. “I have to make one last sweep of the town tonight. Come with me, de Quincy, and we’d best bring your besotted hound with us ere Jezebel bites him where it will hurt the most.”

  Claudine and Aldith shared a common expression for a moment, one of dismay at the prospect of being left alone together. Justin snatched up his mantle, hoping he did not appear too eager to escape the stifling atmosphere of the cottage, and he and Shadow followed the under-sheriff out into the night.

  They ended up in a tavern on Calpe Street. As usual, Luke insisted upon being the one to order a flagon of heavily spiced red wine. An under-sheriff could run up charges indefinitely, for no alehouse or tavern owner would be foolish enough to push for payment. Justin coaxed Shadow under the table where he’d be in no danger of being stepped on and then apologized for showing up at Luke’s door with no warning.

  “What you really mean,” Luke said, “is that you’re sorry you did not want to pay for a night’s stay at a Winchester inn. The worst of our flea-ridden hovels is looking better and better when compared to the harmony and joy at Castle de Marston.”

  “You know me, anything to save a few pence. So... Aldith knows?”

  Luke nodded morosely and they drank in silence for several moments. They’d met when Justin had been investigating the death of a Winchester goldsmith the previous year. Aldith had been the man’s longtime mistress, but Luke had been willing to offer her what the goldsmith could not—marriage. When word of his intentions got out, though, he’d encountered opposition from the sheriff and the Bishop of Winchester. Marriage would elevate Aldith into the gentry, and Winchester society had far more stringent standards for an under-sheriff’s wife than for his bedmate. Unwilling to lose his office, and equally unwilling to lose Aldith, Luke had been concocting excuses for delaying the wedding while he tried to find a way out of the trap. Justin had advised him to tell Aldith the truth. Apparently that had not worked too well.

  “She blames you for not defying them?” he asked in surprise, for that did not mesh with what he knew of Aldith.

  “No, she says not. She said she understood and she chided me for not telling her sooner. But nothing has been right between us since then. We fight more and we watch what we say and...” Luke doused the rest of his words in his wine cup. When he set it down again, he signaled that he was done discussing his family woes by saying hastily, “Well, enough of that. What is the latest news about the queen and King Richard?”

  The English king had been seized by his enemies on his way home from the Crusade, and after much negotiation and scheming, he was to be freed upon payment of a vast ransom to his royal captor, Heinrich, the Holy Roman Emperor. Queen Eleanor had sailed for Germany that past November to deliver the ransom. But Richard’s release was not a foregone conclusion. The French king, Philippe, and Richard’s younger brother, John, Count of Mortain, had been doing all in their power to prolong Richard’s confinement, and they were not known for being gracious losers. Rumor had it that they’d offered Heinrich an even larger sum to keep Richard prisoner, and Luke hoped that Justin, one of the queen’s men, might be a better source than local alehouse gossip.

  He was to be disappointed, though. All Justin could tell him was that the queen had safely arrived in Germany and that John was still in France, reported to be at the French king’s court. Peering into the wine flagon, Luke motioned to the serving maid for another. He was about to recount a story about a local vintner who’d evaded the tax imposed to pay King Richard’s ransom, but remembered in time that Justin would probably not see the humor in it. The Crown had demanded that all of Richard’s subjects contribute fully a fourth of their annual income to the Exchequer, a huge burden that had eroded some of the king’s popularity, at least in Winchester. But Justin’s loyalty to his queen was absolute and Luke thought it was unlikely he’d question the exorbitant price the English were paying for the return of their king.

  “I had to make a trip to London,” he said, “the week of Michaelmas. I stopped by to see you, de Quincy, but your friends at the alehouse said you’d been gone since the summer. I assume you were off skulking and lurking on the queen’s behalf?”

  “I was in Wales,” Justin said, reaching over to pour them more wine. “Some of King Richard’s ransom had gone missing, and the queen sent me to recover it.”

  “Just another ordinary summer, then,” Luke said with a grin. “Did you get it back?”

  “Eventually,” Justin said, and he grinned, too, then, imagining Luke’s reaction if he’d been able to give the deputy a candid account of his time in Wales.

  The Welsh prince, Davydd ab Owain, was fighting a civil war with his nephew, Llewelyn ab Iorwerth. He staged a false robbery of the ransom to put the blame on Llewelyn, but he was outwitted by his not-so-loving wife, Emma, the bastard sister of the old king. Emma arranged to have the ransom really stolen, with the help of a partner in crime and a dangerous spy called “the Breton.” I followed Emma to an abbey grange and discovered that her confederate was none other than the queen’s son John, who decided that the best way to protect his aunt Emma was to shut my mouth by filling it with grave-soil. Since a prince never dirties his own hands, he left it for Durand to do.

  You remember Durand, Luke? John’s henchman from Hell, who secretly serves the queen when he is not doing the Devil’s work. Durand had the grace to apologize to me first, wanting me to know there was nothing personal in his actions as he was about to spill my guts all over the chapel floor. Obviously it did not go as he expected, thanks to Llewelyn. Did I mention that Llewelyn and I had become allies of a sort? Anyway, I got the ransom back for the queen, too many men died, and John decided that Paris was healthier than Wales.

  Of course Justin could never say that. Of all he owed the queen, not the least was his silence. She wanted John’s misdeeds covered up, not exposed to the light of day. Nor was he being completely honest, not even in his own mental musings. His mocking tone softened the harsh edges of memory—trapped in that torch-lit chapel, disarmed and defenseless, hearing John say dispassionately, “Kill him.”

  “I was somewhat surprised to have you turn up with the Lady Claudine,” Luke admitted, “for I thought you ended it once you found out that she was spying for John in her spare time.”

  “I did, but...” Justin shrugged, for he could hardly explain about Aline. It got confusing at times, remembering who knew which secrets. Claudine knew that the Bishop of Chester was his father. But she did not know that her spying had been discovered by Justin and the queen. Luke knew about Justin’s connection to Claudine, but not about his blood ties to the bishop. Molly, a childhood friend and recent bedmate, had guessed the truth about his father. She did not know, though, that he served the queen. The irony was not lost upon Justin that he, who’d never cared much for secrets, should now have so many.

  Misreading his shrug, Luke laughed. “I know; when it comes to a choice between common sense and a beautiful woman, guess which one wins every time? Just be sure you sleep with one eye open, de Quincy, especially once you reach Paris. That is where John is amusing himself these days, is it not?”

  “I am not accompanying Claudine to Paris. I go no farther than the docks at Southampton.”

  Luke blinked. “You do remember that the queen is away? Why pass up a chance to see Paris? Take advantage of this free time, de Quincy. Trust me on this—of all the cities in Christendom, none offers a man as many opportunities to sin as Paris does!”

  “I daresay you’re right. But there is a town that I find even more tempting than Paris,” Justin confided, and laughed outright at the baffled expression on Luke’s face when he said, “St Albans.”

  III

  January 1194

  London, England

  A brisk wind had chased most Londoners indoors. The man shambling along Gracechurch Street encountered no other passersby, only two cats snarling and spitting at each other on the roof of an apothecary’s shop. The shop was c
losed, for customers were scarce once the winter dark had descended. Farther down the street, though, he saw light leaking from the cracked shutters of the local alehouse, and he quickened his pace. But the door did not budge when he shoved it, and as he pounded for entry, a voice from within shouted, “We are closed, so be off with you!”

  He was not easily discouraged and continued to beat upon the door for several moments, to no avail. He was finally stumbling away, cursing under his breath, when he almost collided with a younger man just turning the corner. He reeled backward, would have fallen if the other man had not caught his arm and hauled him upright, saying, “Have a care, Ned.”

  The face smiling down at him looked blearily familiar, but his brain had been marinating in wine since mid-afternoon and his memory refused to summon up a name. His new friend had a grip on his elbow and was steering him back toward the alehouse. He submitted willingly to the change of direction, although he thought it only fair to warn mournfully, “They’ll not let us in.”

  “I think they will,” Justin assured him, turning his head to avoid the wine fumes gusting from Ned’s mouth. “Nell closed the alehouse tonight for Cicily’s churching. You know Cicily—the chandler’s wife? Remember she had a baby last month?” Ned was looking up at him with such little comprehension that Justin abandoned any further explanations. Rapping sharply upon the alehouse door, he said, “It’s Justin,” and when it opened, he pulled Ned in with him.

  Nell was a tiny little thing, barely five feet tall, but when she frowned grown men cringed, for her tempers were feared the length and breadth of Gracechurch Street. She was scowling now at Ned, who instinctively shrank back behind Justin. “Passing strange, but I do not remember inviting this swill-pot to the churching!”

  “Have a heart, Nell. All they’ll find is a frozen lump in the morning if he does not get somewhere to sober up.”

  Nell grumbled, as he expected. But she also waved Ned on in, as he’d expected, too. Justin snatched an ale from Odo the barber and guided Ned over to an empty seat, where he settled down happily with the ale, utterly oblivious of the celebration going on all around him. Justin shed his mantle, exchanged greetings with those closest to the door, and went to get Odo another ale. Coming back, he acknowledged his dog’s enthusiastic if belated welcome, and wandered over to eavesdrop as Odo’s wife, Agnes, tried to explain to Nell’s young daughter, Lucy, what a churching was.

  “... and after giving birth, she is welcomed back into the Church, lass, where she is purified with holy water and blessed by the priest. Afterward, there is a gathering of her friends and family, and Cicily has so many of them that your mama insisted it be held at the alehouse.”

  “Mama said she was the baby’s...” Lucy frowned, trying to remember, her expression a mirror in miniature of her mother’s. “... the baby’s godmother!”

  Agnes, a wise woman, detected the unspoken admission of jealousy and did her best to reassure Lucy that her mother’s new goddaughter was not a rival for her affections. “It is not like having a child of your own blood, not like you, Lucy. Nonetheless, it is a great honor to be a godparent. You ought to be pleased that your mama was chosen.”

  Lucy did not seem overly impressed with the honor, but Justin felt a sudden stab of guilt. Agnes’s words reminded him that a godmother was only one of the benefits other children enjoyed and Aline would be denied. How could he and Claudine seek out godparents for a child whose very existence must be kept secret?

  At that moment, he happened to see Aldred leaning against the far wall. The young Kentishman worked for Jonas, the one-eyed sergeant who was Justin’s sometime partner and the fulltime scourge of the London underworld. Justin began to weave his way across the common room. Aldred was hoarding a pile of Nell’s savory wafers and they staged a mock struggle over possession, which ended with several wafers sliding off the platter into the floor rushes. Justin and Aldred reacted as one, hastily looking around to make sure Nell hadn’t noticed the mishap.

  Justin whistled for Shadow, who eagerly volunteered for wafer cleanup, and then followed Aldred toward a vacant space on the closest bench. Watching the revelries, Justin felt a quiet contentment, a sense of belonging that he’d rarely experienced. He knew that he did not truly belong on Gracechurch Street, but thanks to his friendship with Nell and Aldred and Gunter the blacksmith, he’d been accepted as if he did, and that was an unusual occurrence in his life. Even before he’d learned the truth about his paternity, he’d always felt like an outsider, the foundling without family in a world in which family was paramount.

  But on Gracechurch Street, he knew these people, knew their secrets and their hopes. He knew that the cartwright’s brother was smitten with the weaver’s daughter, knew that Avice, the tanner’s widow, fed her children by taking in laundry and an occasional male customer when her pantry ran bare, knew that Aldred was besotted with Nell and Gunter still mourned his dead wife, and that his neighbors no longer looked upon him with suspicion, that they’d learned to trust him enough to take pride in knowing that one of the queen’s men was living in their midst.

  The new mother, Cicily, was basking in the attention, and she’d just dramatically declared that her next child would be a boy since the first sight to fill her eyes upon leaving the church was a little lad. At that moment, there was a sudden, loud pounding at the door. Nell hastened over and slid back the latch. It was soon apparent to the others that she was arguing with the Watch, for snatches of conversation came wafting in with each blast of cold air.

  “... curfew rung at St Mary-Le-Bow!”

  “But we are closed to the public!” Nell protested. “My friends and I are celebrating Cicily’s churching.”

  “... heard that one before... hauled into the wardmoot... huge fine...”

  “Oh, Splendor of God!” Nell threw up her hands in frustration. “Justin, will you please come tell these fools that we are not open for business?” Ignoring his obvious reluctance, she swung back toward the Watch, arms akimbo, eyes snapping. “Hear it from the queen’s man if you doubt my word!”

  Knowing Nell was not to be denied, Justin got to his feet and crossed to the door. With a reproachful glance toward Nell that was utterly wasted, he stepped outside to talk to the Watch. Returning soon thereafter, he muttered that the Watch was satisfied and grabbed Nell in time to stop her from opening the door and shouting a triumphant “I told you so!”

  Conversation resumed and once it had reached a festive level again, Aldred elbowed Justin in the ribs and murmured, “So how did you ‘satisfy’ the Watch?” for he knew Justin well enough to feel confident that he’d not clubbed them over the heads with the queen’s name.

  “How do you think? I bribed them,” Justin confessed quietly, and they exchanged grins, for they’d both learned by now that the less authority men had, the more likely they were to defend it jealously. But it was then that the banging began again, even louder this time.

  “I’ll get it,” Aldred offered quickly, for Nell’s outraged expression did not bode well for a peaceful resolution. Before she could object, he darted to the door. “It is not the Watch come back,” he announced with palpable relief, and opened the door wide. “Someone is asking after you, Justin.”

  The man was a stranger. He was clad in a costly wool mantle that told Justin he was no ordinary courier; so did his self-assurance, which bordered on arrogance. “I’d been told that if you were not to be found at the cottage by the smithy, I should seek you at the alehouse,” he said, drawing out a tightly rolled parchment. “This was to be delivered into your hands and yours alone.”

  Justin had received urgent communications in the past. But the queen would not be sending him messages from Germany. For a brief moment, he wondered if it could be from his father. Almost at once, he dismissed that idea; the bishop had never bothered to learn how to reach him in London. A wax seal dangled from the scroll, its imprint unfamiliar to him. Claiming the letter, he headed into the kitchen in search of light and privacy.

>   He broke the seal and unrolled the letter as soon as he reached the hearth. The handwriting was not known to him, and his eyes flicked to the last line, seeking the identity of the sender. He caught his breath at the sight of Claudine’s name, elegantly inscribed across the bottom of the page. He read rapidly by the flickering light of the kitchen fireplace, then went back and read it a second time.

  “Justin?”

  His head coming up sharply, he saw Nell standing in the doorway. “I do not mean to pry,” she said. Not even Nell could carry that off with a straight face, and her lips were twitching. “All right, I do. But it is my experience that mysterious messages arriving in the middle of the night rarely bear good news. Does this one?”

  “No, most likely not, Nell. I shall have to leave at first light. I’d be grateful if you could care for Shadow whilst I am gone.”

  Nell grimaced and sighed and looked put-upon, but eventually agreed, as they both knew she’d do. “At least tell me where you’ll be going.”

  Justin glanced down at the letter again. “Dover,” he said, “where I’ll be taking ship for France.”

  In his twenty-one years, Justin had never set foot on shipboard, and he’d have been content to go to his grave without ever having that experience. He’d done his best to make the trip tolerable, seeking out a priest to be shriven even before booking passage, and then searching for the dockside alehouse frequented by the crew of his ship, the Holy Ghost. It was easy enough to befriend the sailors, taking no more than an offer to buy them an ale, and by the time he was ferried out to their ship, he had earned an exemption from the casual contempt that sailors worldwide bestowed upon their land-loving passengers.