In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,36

time, giving each an equal amount of importance in his mind.”

William of Pembroke had come into the great hall just after sunset, refreshed by his bath and nap, his dusty travel garb changed for clean, richly embossed velvets and leathers. He had assured the Lady Servanne he was in no hurry to dine and would welcome a few moments of quiet conversation with her husband before he had to don the smiling face of a guest.

“I should also have known, or at least anticipated, that he would not pay off his valued mercenaries in gold—which he does not have—but in lands and titles and bribes of respectability. In this case, he is merely returning an unprofitable estate he had confiscated from the family during his time as prince regent.”

“Shall we assume your niece objects to being traded off as a reward?”

“She made use of the swiftest ship and fastest horses to bring me her opinion of the king’s meddling.”

“She crossed the Channel on her own?” Randwulf asked, mildly amused.

“Not entirely,” William said, casting an acerbic eye at the fourth man who was seated in the alcove with himself, Lord Randwulf, and Alaric FitzAthelstan. Henry de Clare reddened somewhat and fidgeted under his uncle’s fixed stare. “My nephew is as neatly and completely wrapped around his sister’s finger as a length of twine, although I have no doubt she would have found a boat and rowed it across herself if she had to. She is … a little headstrong. My own fault, I suppose, for coddling her the way I have all these years. I should have taken the flat of a sword to her rump a few times, as Isabella suggested, and perhaps she would have already been safely wed and out of the reach of an avaricious king.”

“Do we dare ask the identity of the prospective groom?”

William seemed to hesitate a moment before answering— “Reginald de Braose”—and even longer before meeting the Wolf’s eye.

Lord Randwulf and Alaric both reacted visibly to the name, leaving only Henry to glance from one rigid face to the next and wonder what ghastly secret he had not been privy to.

“Reginald de Braose,” the Wolf said with a deathlike intensity. “I have not heard that name in a long while, although it should come as no surprise to hear he is still in the king’s favour.”

“More so the father than the son,” William explained. “A routier who bears mine own name: William. He was in command of the king’s garrison in Rouen, although he and his wife Maude have both been in England these past two months, gleefully settling back into their newly restored estates at Radnor.”

“And planning the wedding of his son to the House of Pembroke?” Alaric whistled softly. “The king gives generous rewards to those who lick his spittle.”

“I warrant De Braose did a good deal more than that,” William declared. “He is a misfit brute who shares Lackland’s tastes for blood and pain. I am told he was put in charge of the knights who were captured along with Arthur at Mirebeau, and how he did make them suffer for their misguided loyalties!”

“Twenty-four of the bravest knights in Brittany,” Lord Randwulf said, staring down into his wine goblet. “I knew most of them by sight and reputation; a few have been welcomed guests at Amboise. We heard they had been transported back to England to stand trial for treason. Had I known that to be their fate, I would never have handed them over to John’s guard, but paroled them on their own honour. Have you had any news of them? Have they been released yet, or has the king decided to keep them on royal display a while longer?”

William looked shocked. “You have not heard? No. No, of course not, how could you? You have been guarding the king’s back at Blois.” He paused and gripped his own goblet tighter. “You had best brace yourself, old friend, for the knights you speak of are all dead.”

“Dead?” the Wolf gasped. “How? When?”

There was no easy way to say it, and the words came out like small gritty pellets. “They were taken to Gorfe in chains and rags, there to be thrown into cells and left to starve to death. And although they were given neither a morsel of food nor a dram of water, I am told some took upwards of sixteen days to die.”

The Wolf’s breath laboured harshly in and out of his chest. His eyes turned black as