In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,2
in the name of pity to withhold the irons.”
“You will not enjoy the pleasure again, Uncle,” Arthur said through the grate of his teeth. “Take my eyes. Take my hands and my limbs. Take anything you wish piece by piece and see how quickly the tide of condemnation would turn. Kill me, aye, and you remove an enemy from power. Torture me, blind me, cripple me, and every knight in the realm would see you for the yellow cur you are.”
“You plead an increasingly good argument for death, boy.”
“By killing me, you announce to the world that you were afraid of a sixteen-year-old stripling. If my death would make such a coward out of you, then I welcome it.”
John’s hands were trembling with the fury that coursed through him. He turned and paced the length and width of the small chamber, his rage pounding in his temples, his vision blurring under sharp jolts of pain.
If he had hoped the deprivations of the past few months would humble his nephew, he had been mistaken. If anything, the boy had found new strength in his spine where there had been sinews lacking. Even worse, all of Brittany, Touraine, Poitou, and Normandy were demanding clemency for the brave, but misguided young princeling. Philip was using Arthur’s continued imprisonment as an excuse to push his army deeper into English territory. The barons were outraged at their king’s inability to drive Philip back into France, yet not so enraged that they would send another man or spare another denier to fight the French plague. John’s ancestors were Norman and had conquered the English Isles, yet here he stood, on the verge of losing all of the Norman domains to a poxy French king who had been a mere vassal himself a decade ago.
Arthur. Arthur was the root of all his troubles. Arthur had tested the loyalty of the English barons, and had incited rebels into calling for a civil war, not once, but twice! If he was allowed to go free, the arrogant young upstart would only join forces with Philip and unite the armies of France with those of Brittany, crushing Normandy between them. Even if he kept the boy in prison the rest of his life, there would always be the threat of some malcontent breaking him free and stirring up trouble all over again. Blinding him had been an inspired notion. Whether his claim was viewed as legitimate or not, the people would never rally behind a blind king. Unfortunately, however, the moment of inspiration had passed and maiming the fool now would earn only the disgust of his nobles.
What he needed was for the boy to humble himself in front of a vast audience of witnesses. He needed the boy to earn the scorn and derision of his peers, to subject himself to such public humiliation that no sane man in the kingdom would look to him again as a leader or a king.
Straightening himself, forcing his anger back under control, John walked to the cell door and yanked it open. He nodded once, brusquely, to someone waiting outside and a soft bloom of yellow light came forward, the splutter of a torch preceding the low whisper of velvet skirts dragging over the rough floor.
Arthur closed his eyes. He knew who it was without looking. He knew simply by the glow that radiated long after the torch was withdrawn, by the scent of sunlight and rosewater that not even the effect of grinding his thumb could overpower.
“Arthur? Dear God … Arthur …?”
The warmth of pure sunlight came closer and Arthur averted his face. It was a cruelty beyond belief to bring such beauty into such squalor. It was the cruelest offense of all that she should have to see him like this.
“Arthur …” Cool, gentle fingers brushed his jaw and forced him to turn back, forced him to face a torment almost greater than he could bear. He braced himself and looked down into clear blue eyes that were a mirror reflection of his own. The face itself bore a startling resemblance, with the same fine, straight nose, the same noble cheekbones and generously shaped mouth. In his sister, however, the fair complexion only added to her ethereal beauty; the spun gold hair became a cascade of luminous, rippling silk.
Eleanor was eighteen months older than Arthur, but equally as foolhardy, for she had insisted upon riding by her brother’s side when he had marched through Brittany. She had also insisted upon