In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,14
had other correspondence to deliver.”
“Good,” Ariel declared, swirling to a halt. “Then we have time aplenty to lay an ambush. The forest road, methinks. It should be an easy enough task to make it look like the work of outlaws.”
“Ambush the king’s messenger?” Isabella looked up aghast. “Surely you cannot be serious.”
“What would you have me do?” Ariel asked. “Greet him at the gates? Plan a fete in his honour and actually acknowledge the charter he carries?”
“We can acknowledge it without accepting it,” the countess pointed out primly. “And perhaps, if we send him back to the king with our felicitations and gratitude for the concern he is showing in your future welfare, we might win the time needed to send a dispatch to your uncle and apprise him of the situation.”
“Think you the king will not have taken measures to guard against just such a ploy? Supposing his writ includes instructions for me to hasten at once to Radnor to take my place beside my groom? Under threat of arms if necessary!”
“Oh, I do not think—”
“Henry—” Ariel interrupted her aunt’s protest and cast a narrowed glance at her brother. “Was this harbinger alone or did he travel with an escort?”
“An escort,” he conceded grimly, lanced on the other side by Isabella’s gaze. “Six or more men-at-arms made their beds in a nearby stable.”
“Six men-at-arms,” Ariel repeated in disgust. “And there is still doubt he means to carry me away, willing or not?”
“I doubt nothing at all,” Henry declared, lifting his arms in supplication.
“And?” she demanded.
“And …” He shrugged his big shoulders and offered a crooked grin. “I would gladly, for the sake of your virtue, set upon them in their beds and throttle the lot, if you asked it of me.”
Isabella sighed and glared at her nephew. Henry had proved to be an invaluable asset in helping to oversee the vast Pembroke holdings during her husband’s prolonged absence in Normandy. He had, in the beginning, resented being left behind, although she could not see where he could complain of having spent these past eleven months sitting lax and inactive. There were constant raids from the north to be dealt with and the guilty parties caught, the stolen properties returned or recompensed; constant peacekeeping missions to mediate between the two rival Welsh warlords, Gwynwynwyn of Powys and Llywellyn of Gwynedd.
Only this past fortnight, one of Llywellyn’s vassals had taken it in his head to lift a herd of some one hundred cattle from a demesne bordering Snowdonia. The two black-haired, black-eyed princes had accompanied Henry back from his investigation in order to convey Llywellyn’s personal apologies for the affront. Not that the culprit had been caught or the cattle returned. And not that it could not be proven absolutely that Lord Rhys himself had not been responsible for the original raid.
Cows and diplomatic platitudes were the furthest thing from Lady Isabella’s thoughts at the moment. She was relieved Henry was home, relieved there was someone with whom she could share the burden of responsibility in dealing with King John’s connivings. After all, he was Ariel’s brother, and he was Lord de Clare, with estates and responsibilities of his own. All the same, “throttle the lot” was not the kind of levelheaded advice she was seeking.
“We could always hide you,” the countess suggested. “Steal you away in the middle of the night and keep you moving from castle to castle so the king’s man could not deliver his wretched charter. How quickly can a missive be sent to my lord husband?” she asked Henry, who considered his answer for a moment before replying.
“At last word, he was still in Rouen. If so, three days … four perhaps, if the tides are with us and the roads clear.”
“And if he is not in Rouen?” Ariel snapped. “Or if the tides are against us and the roads a quagmire of mud and offal? Or if we cannot keep the king’s man riding in circles for the required number of weeks it might take to return with advice from my uncle … what then? Will you all think kind thoughts of me as I am dragged away toward wedded bliss?”
“We cannot ambush the king’s messenger,” Isabella insisted calmly. “We are not murderers, nor do we wish to give the king any reason to challenge your uncle’s loyalty.”
Ariel stamped her foot and whirled to begin pacing again, but scattered only a few footfalls of dust before she found herself standing face to face with the