In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,118
You would do best to take my advice—and this I give free of cost— and leave now before you find yourself with hymns being sung over your head and dirt being thrown over your feet.”
“Are you saying you cannot help me get into the castle?”
Brevant looked astonished, and more than a little horrified. “Help you get in? Was that what the Lion thought I would do? Help you get in? A louse needs help to get in; a man would need aid from God. My skin is no safer than any others because there happens to be more of it. My actions are governed by Old Swill, and he answers only to the king. If he takes a notion in his head to question me on this or that, I am as good as dead—and not pleasantly so. No, no, my good man. My intention was not to spread my gizzards on the rack for this. If that was what you thought, keep your money and your ideas to yourself; I’ll have no more to do with you.”
Eduard reached out and caught his sleeve as Brevant started to walk away. “Can you at least carry a message for me?”
“A message?” The shadowed visage peered around, this way and that. “If I hear words and am expected to repeat them, I could be asked at the point of a red hot pincer to repeat them again, and would be forced to do so. If I carry these words on a piece of paper, I could be searched and the paper found and the words read, and the pincers heated again. Do you see my problem, friend?”
“Do you see this, friend?” Eduard asked, holding up a small leather pouch. He shook it once to let the sound of coins silence the heaving catacombs, then loosed the string and spilled the contents in his palm to let the black eyes catch sight of the gold.
With his other hand he tugged at the cord around his neck and snapped it free, then fished the ring up over the thickness of his clothes.
“I will put these coins into your hand tonight and an equal sum tomorrow night when you bring me proof this ring was delivered into the right hands.”
“A ring?” Brevant frowned. “By all the saints—”
“It is a small and insignificant thing. You could hide it in your cheek if you had to and simply spit it on the floor where a keen eye might find it. If it is found, an equally simple exchange would occur the next time you passed that spot. For your trouble, I will make you a very rich man.”
Brevant looked at the ring, then at the coins. “What manner of proof will I be expected to carry out?”
“Be assured, the danger is no greater to you than this.”
The captain snarled deep in his throat. Quicker than Eduard expected a man of his size to move, the ring, the coins, and the mountainous bulk disappeared along the deep crevice of shadow formed between two cottages.
He cast a sharp eye around him, wary of any sounds or movements that might indicate they had been observed or the captain followed. There was nothing. His heart was beating hard in his chest and there was still a smarting line of abraded flesh where the ring had dragged summarily through hair and skin in his haste to remove it. But it was done. Contact had been initiated. It only remained to tickle the giant’s greed long enough to come up with a plan to rescue Eleanor.
Chapter 16
“The donjons, if I recall correctly, are located in the north end of the bailey,” said Henry de Clare. “The fact that Brevant specifically mentioned a tower cell means the princess is likely being confined above ground, and for that much, at least, we can be thankful. The main donjons are beneath the Constable’s Tower, in a labyrinth of tunnels and cells carved into the solid rock. Getting someone out of there would be like … like coaxing Sedrick backways through a mouse hole.”
Henry looked at each solemn face gathered around the table, pausing over the two he had least expected to see there when the journey had begun. When FitzRandwulf had told him about Ariel’s wild accusations to do with jewel thefts, he had agreed Eduard had been left with no choice but to tell her the truth. He was not as convinced she should have accompanied them to Corfe, but what other choice did they