When thy father went a-hunting,
A spear on his shoulder, a club in his hand,
He called the nimble hounds,
‘Giff, Gaff; catch, catch, fetch, fetch!’
1
Dover, June 1, 1149
The skies were blue again, streaked with wispy, white clouds that were moving too fast to cluster.
With plenty of wind to fill the sails, the harbor was bustling with last-minute preparations—supplies being hauled onto ships, deckhands inquiring after work.
Adding to the mayhem, the Maritime Market was teeming, drawing merchants and customers to the Saturday Feria after more than a sennight of storms.
Considering his best course of action, Wilhelm Fitz Richard stood chewing on a length of straw. Tall as he was—six-feet-five and weighing more than sixteen stone—it had been teasing the pate of his head, and rather than move aside, he’d wrenched the offending tuft from the awning and slid it between his lips, hoping to deceive his brain into forgetting about his complaining belly.
By now he was ravenous, and to make matters worse, the scent of fowl roasting somewhere nearby was making his mouth water and his thoughts go astray. Truth to tell, he hadn’t enjoyed a good repast since leaving Warkworth, but so much as he craved a fat, juicy bird leg, he wasn’t about to leave his post… not yet. He had a feeling in his gut that time was growing as thin as those clouds.
Two months ago, Arwyn and Seren Pendragon fled the palace in London. Best as anyone could surmise, they’d slipped away during the wee hours, very likely on the day their sister Rosalynde stole his brother’s horse.
Fate was such a trickster, twisting circumstances every which way and that. Inexplicably, they’d abandoned one Pendragon in London only to escort another one north. And then, after all was said and done, his brother forsook his intended, only to lose his heart to her sister.
Wilhelm couldn’t blame Giles, not really. Somehow, despite his bitter loathing for their mother, Wilhelm himself had developed a soft spot for Rosalynde. That was why he was here, now, searching for her bloody sisters.
Thinking it only naturally the direction they would go, he’d wasted weeks searching north. Stephen controlled nearly every port save Bristol, and so it had surprised him to learn their trail wended south instead, ending here, then going as cold as a witch’s tatty thereafter.
So, it seemed, the sisters were slippery as wet eels, and knowing Rosalynde so well as he did, he suspected Arwyn and Seren must be using magik to avoid capture—magik he didn’t particularly comprehend, though he’d witnessed firsthand what it could do. God’s truth, if aught plagued him more than the memory of his decimated kinsmen, it was the memory of the Shadow Beast they’d encountered a few months ago in the woodlot south of Whittlewood and Salcey. To this very day he hadn’t any clue how they’d defeated the hideous creature, and no matter how many times Rosalynde explained it, he couldn’t wrap his brain about the doing of it—something about binding and transmutation, things he might never have dreamt of in his worst night terrors… leastways not before seeing it. Strange as it might seem, he owed his life to a slip of a girl, and God save him if he should ever encounter another.
Nipping at the straw, considering all the ships in the harbor, his best guess was this: If he were in their shoes, he might seek sanctuary with the Empress in Rouen. And, if this be the case, as a matter of conjecture, they must be aboard one of those larger cogs—the Whitshed perhaps.
Today, there were only three ships large enough to navigate the open sea—the Whitshed, the Achéron and the Cassiopé. The largest of these, the Whitshed, was owned by a known conspirator—a man who, though he remained suspect to the crown, was well protected by the Church, else his lands would have long been forfeit by now.
On the other hand, the captains of the other two vessels—the Achéron and Cassiopé—were fiercely loyal to the Crown. Even now, the Achéron harbored an emissary en route to St. Omer to bargain with Canterbury’s exiled archbishop, Theobald of Bec. Perforce, Stephen would have Theobald crown his son though he still lived, though evidently, Theobald would rather keep his exile than put Eustace on England’s throne. That was a good thing, because Wilhelm was like to commit treason if that fool was ever confirmed. As it was, it was all he could do not to take a torch to the royal palace and burn it to the ground.
Wasn’t that what scripture ordained—an eye for an eye?
Aye, well… one day he still might.
One day he’d like to see every man and woman responsible for the slaughter of his kinsmen pay for their sins, and, aye, that included Rosalynde’s wretched mother, Morwen Pendragon.
He bloody well wasn’t afraid of her—or at least that’s what he told himself every night before closing his eyes.
I’ll see your skin turn black till it slips off your bones.
As it was with his loved ones.
All these months later, the memory threatened to purge his belly and ruin his appetite. God’s truth, no matter how many years he lived, he would never forget… that stench… seared flesh. The eye-stinging smoke and ash that turned the landscape gray. Wilhelm had been the youngest of his father’s sons, except for Giles, and in one fell swoop, he’d become the eldest, with two half-sisters gone, and an older brother as well. Only Wilhelm and Giles had survived, and only because neither were present at the time.
Pulling the straw between his teeth, he studied the Whitshed… he couldn’t very well force his way aboard. If he tried, or even if he approached the situation with candor, and he was wrong about the captain’s allegiance, it could very well alert the Crown of his intentions. Not only would he give away the sisters’ location, it could bring undue attention to Warkworth—attention they could ill afford whilst Giles was busy conspiring with Matilda.
This was delicate business, but come what may, he’d sworn to find Rosalynde’s sisters and see them safely returned to Warkworth and that’s what he meant to do. Only he would need their trust. It would serve no one for him to go barging aboard that vessel to drag them away perforce.
Watching the deckhands trek from ship to ship, he thought perhaps he could inquire about work, perhaps ask to inspect the sleeping quarters… but, nay, that wouldn’t do. There were more than enough willing and able bodies who didn’t give a bloody damn about sleeping arrangements, so long as they had a belly full of victuals and a pocket full of coin. They were far more likely to turn him away.
But perhaps he could feign business with the captain…
He knew enough about Airard’s history to know how to begin: As it so happened, his namesake and grandsire was the captain of the Mora, the flagship of The Conqueror’s invading fleet, and judging by the simple fact that he’d followed in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps (even despite that his own father also found his fate at the bottom of a salt-sea), meant that he was sure to be vain about his legacy. He could find a way to flatter the man, and then perhaps determine if the Pendragon sisters were aboard his ship. Alas, Wilhelm wasn’t as sophisticated as Giles; lies tasted bitter to his tongue.
For the past two days he’d been watching the Whitshed’s comings and goings. The only female he’d spotted was perhaps an elder sister of one of the deckhands. Arm in arm with a boy, she’d disembarked two hours past, although he didn’t believe that could be Seren. He knew what she looked like and he couldn’t imagine the sisters separating for any reason. Where one went, the other was sure to follow.