soldier would not have been alarmed unless the riders posed a threat, Aimar whirled and ran for his horse, snatching up his helmet. Jamming it down upon his head, he fumbled with the chin cord as he swung up into the saddle. All around him, men were running and shouting, scrambling for weapons and horses. Whores almost inevitably turned up at an army encampment, and some of these women were screaming shrilly even before the riders came into view-clad in chain mail, swords drawn and lances leveled, mounted on horses caked in lather and dust. One glimpse was enough to tell Aimar that they were in for a fierce fight.
One of the lead knights drew Aimar’s attention, for he was spurring ahead of his companions. Encountering a campfire, he jumped his stallion neatly over the flames instead of swerving around it, an act of horsemanship that the viscount could not help admiring, even at a moment like this. The knight had caught Arnald’s eye, too. Darting forward, quick as a snake, he grabbed for the other man’s leg. It was a daring maneuver, but if successful, was guaranteed to unhorse a man. Aimar had seen Arnald drag more than one foe from the saddle this way, for the routier was a big man, as well-muscled as a blacksmith.
What happened next stopped Aimar in his tracks. The knight under attack did not pull back as men usually did; instead he leaned in, and suddenly blood was spurting everywhere, a red haze before Aimar’s eyes. Arnald reeled backward, his face contorted as he stared in shock at the stump where his hand had been. The knight’s sword was already sweeping down again, a powerful blow that all but decapitated the routier.
Aimar heard the command to retreat and was surprised that the order was coming from his throat, for he’d not made a conscious decision to withdraw. But by then he’d recognized the knight bloodied with Arnald’s blood, and his instincts for self-preservation had taken over. The awareness that they were facing Richard himself banished any desire for battle. He was no coward, but Richard was a lunatic. Would he be mad enough to execute a man of Aimar’s rank? The viscount found that hard to believe, but he knew that men could get drunk on bloodlust and he preferred not to put Richard’s sobriety to the test. Followed by those of his men lucky enough to have reached their horses, he spurred his mount toward the Limoges road, all of them riding as if the Devil were on their tails.
By the time Richard Rode back into Gorre, the trapped knights had ventured out and were quenching their thirst at the village well, easing their hunger with the meal intended for their foes. Not all of Richard’s men had followed him in pursuit of Aimar, and they’d rounded up close to a hundred prisoners, the rest of the routiers having been slain or escaped. Andre de Chauvigny grinned at the sight of his duke; he had a wineskin in one hand and bread in the other, and he waved the loaf over his head in a jubilant, joyful salute.
“I won a right goodly sum on you, my lord,” he laughed. “I wagered two marks that you’d arrive in time.”
That was indeed a handsome sum, for knights rarely earned more than a shilling a day. “How could you lose?” Richard pointed out. “You’d either win or you’d die, and in neither case would you have to pay the wager.”
Andre laughed again. “Fortunately Alan is as thick as a plank, and he never worked that out.” Coming forward as Richard slid from the saddle, he hovered by the younger man’s side, overwhelmed by the intensity of his gratitude, but not knowing how to express it, for banter and mockery were the most common coins of their realm. “Your men said you’d ridden for nigh on two days and nights to reach us.” Not having the words, he playfully offered the purloined wineskin and loaf, joking that all he had was at his lord duke’s disposal.
Richard appreciated his cousin’s insouciance, for he’d not have been comfortable with earnest protestations or lavish praise, not from Andre. “You look like you’ve been wallowing in a pigsty after an all-night carouse,” he said, which was as near as he’d come to acknowledging the harrowing ordeal Andre and the others had endured- hungry, thirsty, and fearing they were doomed. “I came so close to overtaking that whoreson, Andre,” he burst out, “so bloody close! I would have caught him, too, if my horse was not so winded and worn down…”
Some of the other rescued men had gathered around them by now, were beginning to offer their thanks with none of Andre’s nonchalance, and Richard was glad to be interrupted by one of his knights. “My lord duke, what is your wish regarding the prisoners?”
Richard looked over at the routiers huddled on the ground, bound to one another by ropes, subdued and silent, all their bravado gone. He glanced around at the skeletal remains of Gorre, and his eyes took on the winter chill of the February sky. “We will take them with us to Aixe,” he said, “where other brigands will learn from their sorry fate what befalls those who ravage my lands and my people.”
Upon reaching his castle at Aixe, Richard made good on his promise to make an example of the captured routiers. Some were drowned in the River Vienne, others had their throats cut, and eighty men were blinded. Unlike his beheading of Geoffrey’s knights, this ruthless, effective means of denying the routiers’ future services to the rebel lords occasioned little comment. The prior of Vigeois Abbey even noted approvingly of the treatment meted out to these “sons of darkness.”
Entering the Great Hall at Aixe, Andre de Chauvigny soon spotted his duke and headed in Richard’s direction. Richard was conferring quietly with one of his most trusted men, a grizzled serjeant who’d been in his service since he’d been invested with the duchy at age fourteen. He smiled as Andre approached, and once they were alone, he surprised his friend by confiding that he’d instructed the serjeant to escort his young son to Poitiers for safety’s sake.
Andre knew Richard had an illegitimate son, but he knew nothing whatsoever about the child and even less about the child’s mother; Richard was as close-mouthed as a clam about such matters. Agreeing that it was wise to bring the boy to Poitiers, he confessed then that “I do not even know the lad’s name. What was he christened?”
“Philip.” Richard hesitated and then offered up another rare nugget of private information, saying, “She wanted to name him after her father.” His shoulders twitched in a why-not shrug. “I was not about to name him after mine.”
Andre knew better than to pursue that further; Richard’s troubled relationship with his father was as fraught with peril for the unwary as a walk across a thinly iced lake. He asked instead if the rumors were true that the Viscount of Turenne was bringing more routiers to join Aimar and the young king at Limoges. Richard confirmed it, and they began an intense discussion of the rebellion and Hal’s prospects until they were interrupted by the arrival of one of Richard’s knights, just back from a scouting foray.
He was not alone; his men were dragging a prisoner into the hall, a glum-looking man of middle years who was shoved forward to kneel at Richard’s feet. “We saw him galloping along the Limoges road,” the young knight explained breathlessly, “and I was curious why he was in such a tearing hurry. Most men who race the wind are either outlaws on the run or they’re bearing urgent messages. So we stopped him, searched him, and discovered the reason for his haste. He is a courier for the French king, carrying a letter for your brother, the young king.”
He beamed at Richard, his face aglow with triumph and pride, for all knew their duke put a high value upon men who were resourceful and quick-witted. Nor was he disappointed, for Richard responded with heartfelt praise. Delighted that he’d earned his lord’s favor, he produced the royal letter with a flourish. “I did not think it was my place to read it. But I recognized the seal as King Philippe’s, and after a little persuasion, our friend here admitted he was delivering it to your brother.”
“Well done, Ancel.” Richard quickly broke the seal and held the letter under a smoking rush-light. When he glanced up, his face was utterly without expression, as blank as a sepulcher’s graven image, and Andre felt a frisson of disquiet shoot up his spine. “Summon my seneschal and the other members of my council,” he instructed Andre in a voice that was toneless, so dispassionate that the other man’s unease flamed into outright alarm.
Richard had never spent much time at Aixe, a castle he’d taken from Viscount Aimar several years ago, and he’d expended little money on its upkeep. Lacking a solar, they had to gather in his bedchamber. Richard stood by the hearth, his eyes moving from face to face as if taking inventory of the men he trusted.
Robert de Montmirail was his new Seneschal of Poitou. Eleanor’s uncles were not present, for Hugh had died seven years ago and Raoul de Faye was in ailing health. But Raoul’s eldest son and namesake was there, as was Ourse de Freteval, his son-in-law. The Chauvignys were represented by Andre and his cousin Nicholas, who’d served Eleanor with such loyalty; as soon as he’d been released from his imprisonment at Loches, Nicholas had transferred his allegiance to Richard. Guillaume de Forz was, like Andre, a friend since boyhood, and Richard’s
