upon his honour. I know who I am. So does the impostor residing at Bloodmoor Keep.”
“That … impostor, as you call him … has ridden to war with Richard the Lionheart.”
“I do not doubt he has.”
“Prince John trusts and confides in him.”
“You would use such a recommendation to vouchsafe a man’s character?” he scoffed.
“It has even been whispered that if John ascends to the throne, he will be sufficiently indebted to the Baron de Gournay to appoint him chancellor, or marshal!”
“John Lackland does not bear up well under debts; he prefers to hire assassins to repay them. As for his ascending the throne—how do these whisperers of yours say he will overcome the annoying matter of Prince Arthur of Brittany?”
Servanne bit her lips, sensing yet another verbal trap looming before her like a snake pit. Of King Henry’s five sons, only Richard—the eldest—and John, the youngest, were still alive. Geoffrey, next to youngest, had died several years ago, but had left as his heirs, a son and a daughter. Since he would have been in line to the throne after Richard, the right of succession would naturally pass to his son Arthur upon the king’s death, and after him, his sister, Princess Eleanor.
The snakes in the pit writhed a little closer as Servanne offered lamely, “But Arthur is only a child. Prince John would never—” She stopped again, catching the treasonous thought before it took on substance.
The Wolf held no such reservations.
“John would never kill his own nephew? My dear deluded lady: Prince John of the Soft Sword would kill his mother, his wife, his own children if he thought their removal would win him the crown of England. How long do you suppose Richard would have survived poison in his cup if he were not already hell-bent on killing himself on the end of some infidel’s sword?”
“I do not believe you,” she said without much conviction. “Not about Prince Arthur, at any rate. And besides, he is quite safe with his grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, in Brittany. She would never allow any harm to befall him, most decidedly not at the hand of her own son!”
The Wolf looked away, looked up at the slivered moon for a long moment, then looked back at Servanne. “What if I were to tell you an attempt has already been made on the prince’s life? What if I told you he and his sister were kidnapped from the dowager queen’s castle at Mirebeau four months ago?”
“Kidnapped?”
“Stolen away in the middle of the night under the eyes and ears of a thousand of Eleanor’s most trusted guards. It took a full week just to discover how the kidnapping was done—a rather cleverly executed gambit, I might add. Two men shinnied up the small tower that carries the castle wastes down into the moat. Someone should have smelled the pair about their task if nothing else, but alas, no one did, and the children were smuggled out the same way.
“Luckily,” he continued with a sigh, “their escape from Brittany was not so well planned or executed, and Arthur was safely retrieved before he could be put on board a ship for England. One of the men involved in the kidnapping was taken alive and revealed quite an interesting tale to his, ah, inquisitor. The more questions that were asked, the more answers were received, and in the end, most of the pieces of the puzzle made sense once they were fit into place.”
“No! It makes no sense at all!” she cried. “Why would anyone want to kidnap the prince? He is but a child.”
“A child first in line to the throne,” the Wolf reminded her. “Keeping him prisoner, or better yet, bending his mind enough to eventually have him judged insane, or incompetent to rule … John would be the natural choice to assume the throne in his stead.”
“You are forgetting the Princess Eleanor.”
“The sister of a mad prince? Hardly a likely candidate.”
“So you think John was behind it?”
“No one else would have half so much to gain.”
Thrust and counterthrust. Talking to him was like taking a lesson in swordplay.
“Has the queen challenged John with the accusation?” she asked.
“Challenge a ferret to explain the feathers stuck to his mouth? What good would come of it, especially when the chick came to no harm?”
Servanne’s brows drew together in a frown. “You speak with a great deal of liberty and familiarity. I hope … I trust you are not daring to imply that you hold the queen’s