Authors: Madeline Hunter
“Can you see anything?”
“Nay. Not yet. If he's going to come it will have to be soon though. The last messenger said the queen is only a half day away now.”
“Perhaps the king does not know his danger.”
“He knows. He's got spies and messengers same as us.”
“Maybe he will fight at the castle.”
The archer grinned. “With whom? Them that works in the town say as soon as word of the queen's landing reached us, the courtiers began bleeding out of Westminster as if the buildings were on fire. Hardly anyone left with him now and there's no army waiting for his command. Nay, he'll try to find sanctuary in this city.”
She gazed down on the raven head of the tall man standing patiently beside the mayor. He had not worn armor and his only weapon was the ancient sword of Barrowburgh strapped to his body.
“Will the mayor and others be safe, do you think?”
He shrugged and patted his crossbow. “The gates don't open no matter what happens down below. Us up here are the best the city has, my lady, and we've orders to take down all of them except the king if the mayor and lords are attacked.”
Knowing that Addis would be promptly avenged did not reassure her much. She knew why the mayor wanted him down there. It had less to do with the fact that he commanded two hundred men who helped protect the city walls, and more to do with the fact that he was the son of Patrick de Valence and kinsman to the late Earl of Pembroke, both high nobles with holdings directly from the crown. His blood made him a formidable presence in any confrontation with King Edward. Still, she wished he had not been at the house when the summons came and that he now monitored developments at some other gate besides this one.
“There they be, my lady. Coming slow like, as if the devil wasn't on their tails the way he is.”
She did not bother to correct the way he kept addressing her. She had looked the part of a lady for over a week now because Addis had commanded that she wear the silks and velvets folded inside his mother's chest. She squinted at the entourage in the distance.
The group outside the gate had noticed the riders. Addis twisted and looked up, found her amidst the crowd, and made a motion instructing her to move back from the battlements.
She ignored him. She did not plan to lose sight of him for one instant. Her heart swelled with love and worry while she watched the king and his richly adorned councillors come.
It had been a beautiful week of love before the city began to disrupt. For two days it had just been the two of them, before Richard began sending the men over from Southwark. Even then they had time together, enjoying the lengthening cool nights in each other's arms, squeezing a lifetime of passion and talk into the precious time allotted them.
Certain memories made her blush and smile. Those
nights had been filled with incredible pleasure as Addis indeed sought to know her every way a man could have a woman. Sometimes courtly, sometimes primitive. Frequently astonishing. Always careful. He never hurt her but he made no requests either as he commanded her body and her passion and explored the rights ceded to him during this temporary possession.
She had missed him the last two days. She would miss him much more very soon. Even as she stood here, Richard made the preparations for the army to leave the city.
She could see the king now. He rode between the Despensers, resplendent in a long jeweled robe the color of sapphires. He held himself straight on his mount but even from a distance one could practically see the fear and outrage quivering through him.
The whole wall silenced. Maybe fifty riders stopped twenty feet from Addis. Word spread and in the streets behind her the din of celebration noticeably dulled. Beside her the archer pushed for elbow room and sighted his weapon.
A herald hailed the mayor. “The king demands entry to the city.”
“I do not advise it,” the mayor replied. “Disorder has broken out. His person might not be safe.”
“Within your house he will be safe enough.”
“I cannot guarantee that. A mob killed his friend the Bishop of Exeter yesterday. Dragged him from his horse and beheaded him with a butcher knife. I fear that no house is secure enough, not even mine.”
Edward paled at this news. The elder Despenser became furious. “Open the gates! Your king commands it! I'll find and deal with the murderers of Exeter!”
“The city will deal with them,” the mayor said
smoothly. “And these gates do not open. If a war must be fought, let it be fought elsewhere.”
Hugh Despenser scanned the walls. “There's soldiers within. I see some,” he said to the king. He examined the lords arrayed before him and his gaze settled on Addis. “Your men?”
“My men.”
“You dare to raise an army without the king's permission?”
“I expected to have a good use for one.”
Hugh chewed his lower lip. “How many?”
“More than enough to deal with the knightly prowess of fifty court administrators.”
“No doubt also enough to deal with a citizen guard composed of craftsmen and apprentices. Come stand by your king's side, Sir Addis, where you belong. Your army is already within the gates. Order these merchants to do their duty by their king.”
The mayor startled at that, and looked at Addis with concern.
“My king chose to have another stand by his side, but I do not see him there now,” Addis said.
Hugh made a face of disgust. “Simon is a coward. Couldn't run away fast enough. Know your blood and put a short end to this foolish pageant. Your kinsman the earl never forsook his king.”
“Nor did my father. And it is true that Aymer chose fealty when the opposition moved to rebellion, and even commanded the army that crushed them. His loyalty got him a dagger in the heart.”
“By God, man, do your duty by your king! 'Tis treason if you do not. He demands it of you!”
“I have not heard him demand anything of me.”
Edward had been silent during these negotiations for
his refuge, but now he spoke. “Barrowburgh is yours again, Sir Addis, and much more if you aid us. I know loyalty to my friends.”
“I do not doubt it. But the father and son flanking you now know loyalty only to themselves. Look what they have brought you to. Petitioning for entry to the crown's own city.” He stepped forward. “Send them away. They are dead men, but you are yet the king. Give yourself into my protection and I will see no harm befalls you. There are two hundred inside who will aid me at my order. We will escort you to the assembled barons.”
“Do not hear him,” Hugh hissed. “Men loyal to you prepare themselves. They will rise up and stop this blasphemous outrage.”
“None rise up. We receive messengers many times each day. No army musters for you to the west or the south and your queen rides with an army of her own from the north.”
“The French she-lion!” Edward yelled. “I will have her burned for such treason!”
“Give yourself into my protection. You will be safe until you see her, and I will hand you to the bishops and not the queen herself.”
Edward appeared to contemplate the offer.
“Aye, he will give you protection,” Hugh Despenser sneered. “As his kinsman Aymer protected Gaveston.”
“The king is not the one who needs to fear Gaveston's fate,” Addis said.
But Hugh had hit his mark with the reference to the king's long-dead lover, and his abduction from Aymer's protection and subsequent execution fourteen years prior. Edward's expression tightened into something that almost approached strength.
“We will leave these gates, and remember well the insult to our person by this city,” he said. “We will join with
the people and barons loyal to us and crush this rebellion like the last. Every man blocking this gate now will suffer the fate he chose with his treason.”
He turned his horse. His retinue split to permit him passage and then funneled behind him. Only when the last opulent robe had disappeared amidst the buildings flanking the Strand did the heavy portcullis of Newgate begin to rise.
Moira waited for Addis inside the gate. The mayor held him in conversation a long while before he could break free and come for her.
“He does not want us to leave, but I explained that the worst is over. The people will return to their trades now,” he explained while they walked to the house. “This day made the difference. If London had supported Edward, the queen's position would have been made more difficult. It is a foolish king who does not understand the value of this city to his power, and it is said that Edward has antagonized its citizens throughout his reign.”
“So it is over?”
“Not over, but done. It will not be over until the barons decide what to do with him.”
“Will you follow him?”
“Some suggested that we do, but there is no need. His path west can be mapped by the manors of lords in debt to him and Hugh. We can only hope that whoever finds him remembers that they deal with a man who still is the lawful king.”
They entered the courtyard. It teemed with men preparing weapons and packing belongings. In the center Sir Richard shouted orders to squires and servants regarding arrangements for carting food and equipment. The city had found beds for many of Addis's recruits, but fifty men had cramped the chambers and hall and camped in the yard these last few days.
Richard walked over. “I've sent word to the others. We can be off in a few hours.”
She turned to Addis in shock. She had known he was leaving, but had assumed it would be a day or two hence.
The arm holding her shoulders tightened in reassurance. “Call for me when all is prepared. I will be in the solar.”
When they were out of sight on the stairs he stopped her and cupped her face with his palms. “It will be no easier on the morrow. As it is, I could find a hundred excuses to never leave here if I permitted myself that freedom.”
She should have known he would do it this way to try and spare her the anticipation of pain. He had done the same when he took Brian away.
“You have not been here much these last two days. You have not slept a solid night, but only in bits and pieces while you helped this city. Surely it cannot hurt to wait.”
“We will ride out to join the queen today. I would have her and the prince see that Barrowburgh is with them.”
She accepted the sense of that, but still she felt miserable. He took her hand and led her up.
“Come lie with me, Moira. It has been bliss holding you while I slept my short rests these last days, but now I want to love you before I leave.”
It was a heart-wrenching loving. Sweet and slow, with the pleasure suppressed by other emotions. Her soul savored every touch and sensation as much as her body did. When they finally joined he moved as if the pleasure of connection meant more than that of the completion.
She did not find her release with him, but she did not care. She held his head to her breast when he had finished, her arms encircling his shoulders, and just absorbed the nowness of him.
He shifted and caressed her thighs but she stayed his
hand. He rose up and looked down at her. “It would be unchivalrous of me to leave you thus.”
“I only need to hold you. I am content.”
“But I am not.” He twisted her hand off his wrist and stroked her nether hair. “It would please me to watch you in your pleasure, like I did that night in the cottage and that day in Southwark.”
She opened her legs. “Well, we would not want you displeased, my lord.”
“Nor would we want you ill-pleased.”
He watched her but she did not watch him. Her eyes closed with surprise at his first touch. He did not stroke that spot of pleasure but flesh farther down, where they had joined. It still pulsed from the pressure of him. The quick ecstasy shocked her and sent her senses reeling until she was clawing a hold on him, trying to both stretch into and away from the intensity of it, gasping pleas to him and to heaven.
The release came violently, shaking through her, evoking a cry that the whole household must have heard. The extraordinary contractions echoed through her belly long after her body had relaxed.
“That was really wonderful,” she sighed, snuggling against him.
“Aye, wasn't it. I'll have to remember that for later,” he said, laughing. “Now give me the peace of your love, Moira. Perhaps I can sleep a while before I have to get in the saddle.”
He slept but she did not. She embraced his shoulders and focused on the weight of his head on her breast, never loosening her hold, trying to stretch each moment into a lifetime. And so the time passed slowly, but it passed nonetheless. Two hours later she stood by his side while men-at-arms mounted.
“Richard heard that he headed west as expected.
Nowhere else for him to go but to Wales and the Despensers' lands,” Addis said while he surveyed the horses bunched in the courtyard. His foot soldiers milled outside in the lane, waiting to march from the city. “Henry of Lancaster will anticipate that and be waiting for him.”
He spoke of practical things, as if that would make this departure less significant, but Moira saw in his eyes that he felt what she felt.
“You will follow after all?” She nestled under his arm in the threshold of the hall, wishing this leave-taking could be more private. She wanted to hang all over him and weep and give vent to the emotions screaming below the calm demeanor she tried to maintain.
“We will still ride north to the queen first but then head west to join with Lancaster. Henry hungers for vengeance because of his brother's execution. I will feel better knowing there is a calm voice present when the king is taken. We must convince Edward to abdicate. There is no precedent for executing a king, and if he is killed the whole realm will be torn by war. And while in the west I must stop at Hawkesford and Darwendon and see how things sit there.” He gazed around the buildings and smiled. “Your inn will be suddenly empty after being crammed with men. After all of the work of the last week, perhaps you should rest before letting any chambers.”
“A few good nights' sleep for a change and I should get my strength back.” She grinned weakly, trying to make light of their imminent parting. Their intimacy had left her feeling dreamy and sated but that only added poignancy to the sadness. She dreaded those nights alone without his love holding her. Lonely nights, and days empty of the sound of his boot steps.