The Agents of William Marshal Volume I: A Medieval Romance Bundle, page 17
The light went on in Kress’ eyes. “And then he fed the woman a meal. It must have been at the nearest tavern.”
“The King’s Gout,” they all said in unison.
Soon, they were all moving down the stairs, thinking there must be a connection between The King’s Gout and the pledge from St. Blitha. So many pieces to a puzzle that was pulling together, but all of them were thinking the same thing – there had to be a connection between the pledge and the tavern, and now someone from the tavern had come to give Maxton a message.
There wasn’t one of them that didn’t want to know the details of that message.
The mystery deepened.
Maxton recognized the messenger.
It was the son of the tavern keeper at The King’s Gout, a tall and pale young man who was half the size of his blobish father. Maxton remembered the young man because he was evidently somewhat of a loaf and when Maxton had been at the tavern earlier, the father had been yelling at the lad because he hadn’t moved fast enough for his liking. There was also a swat with a shovel involved.
But the young man appeared healthy enough, with no imprints of shovels on him. Unless he’d been hit in the head, of course, which was a possibility because he had crossed eyes, making it difficult to know where, exactly, the young man was looking. Maxton had the gate guards usher him into the shadowed courtyard.
“Well?” Maxton demanded. “Why has your father sent you?”
The young man looked at him; or, at least, one of his eyes looked at him. “Are ye Loxbeare, m’lord?”
Maxton nodded sharply. “Do you have a message for me?”
The young man looked him up and down. “I do, m’lord,” he said. “From a lady. She wants to know if ye’ll see her.”
“What lady?”
“She gives her name as Andra… Andra…”
“Andressa?”
“Aye, m’lord.”
The mere mention of the name seemed to set Maxton on fire. He reached out, grasping the young man by the arm. “Is she at the tavern?” he demanded forcefully. But just as swiftly, he let go of the young man’s arm. “I shall go with you. Let me collect my things.”
But the young man put his hands up to slow Maxton down. “She’s not at the tavern, m’lord,” he said. “Wait here. I’ll bring her.”
Maxton’s eyebrows drew together. “Bring her here?” he said. “Where is she?”
The young man kept his hands up as if to beg patience from the enormous knight who seemed quite fired up by the mention of the lady. He dashed away, heading for the fortified door where the guards were and, at Maxton’s urging, the guards opened the door and the young man ran through it.
Puzzled, Maxton was heading for the door himself to see what was going on when the young man suddenly reappeared with a figure in tow. It took Maxton less than a brief second to realize it was Andressa.
She looked frightened and a little dazed, wrapped up in her dirty woolens like a shield from the world at large. The young man had her by the arm, urging her forward, but when she saw Maxton, she needed no urging. Their eyes met and she scurried through the open door.
“My lady?” Shocked, Maxton moved quickly to her. “Are you well?”
Andressa gazed up at him with an expression that told him all he needed to know. No, she wasn’t well. Something was very wrong, and he immediately noticed that she was trembling. As she struggled for an answer to his question, he dug into the purse at his belt and gave the young man a coin. When the young man dashed off, Maxton took Andressa by the arm and gently pulling her into the courtyard.
“I… I am sorry to have come uninvited,” Andressa finally said. “You said that I could leave word for you at The King’s Gout, but… it could not wait for you to receive it. I asked the tavern keeper if he would tell me where you lived and he had his son bring me here. I am very sorry to be such trouble, but…”
Maxton interrupted her. “It is no trouble at all,” he said. “I am glad you found me. How may I be of service?”
Andressa looked around; they were in the interior courtyard of a very big manor house and there were people all around, people she didn’t know. People who could tell the Mother Abbess that she’d come to this place. Suddenly, her fear had the better of her and she began to back away.
“I should not have come,” she whispered tightly, tears filling her eyes as she tried to pull her arm from his grip. “I should go. Forgive me, please.”
There was something desperate and almost incoherent about her manner, concerning Maxton a great deal. As much as she tried to pull away from him, he would not let her.
“Do not be troubled,” he assured her calmly. “No one will hurt you, I promise. What is so important that you had to come and find me?”
Andressa was coming to realize he wasn’t about to let her go so she stopped pulling. But she didn’t want to speak in front of all of these people even though they appeared not to be paying any attention to her. She couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t overhear what she had to say. She was trying very hard not to cry.
“May we… may we speak privately, please?” she whispered. “I do not have much time, my lord. Quickly, please.”
His reply was cut off as men suddenly surrounded them. Kress, Achilles, Alexander, and William were suddenly there, all around them, and Andressa panicked at the sight of so many armed men. She shrunk back from the big knights, struggling to pull away from Maxton again, so much so that he grabbed her with both hands and pulled her against him, trying to give her some comfort.
“Have no fear, my lady,” he assured her quickly, backing away from his friends to put distance between the frantic lady and the strange knights. “They will not hurt you, I swear it. They are simply clumsy, but they mean you no harm. Please meet my close and good friends Sir Kress de Rhydian, Sir Achilles de Dere, Sir Alexander de Sherrington, and William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke. Surely you have heard of Lord William? He is a very great and important man.”
Andressa was looking at all of them with big eyes, caught up in a web of men that had her rethinking her idea to seek out Maxton. It didn’t seem like a good idea any longer, but she felt like she was trapped now. She couldn’t even respond to his introductions. She looked at him, her big eyes pooling with tears.
“Please,” she begged again. “I must speak to you privately.”
Maxton simply nodded, holding a hand out to the four men hovering around them, silently pleading with them not to follow. They obeyed, but it was clear they didn’t want to. Seeing the very poorly-dressed woman in Maxton’s grip suggested this was the very pledge Maxton had been speaking of throughout the day, something that had their curiosities sharpened. She was from St. Blitha, and they all knew that St. Blitha was the key to this entire mystery.
Maxton knew that, all too well. He knew exactly what they were thinking as he put a big arm around Andressa’s shoulders and led her back into the house, into the darkened ground level. The only thing down here were armories and kitchens and servants’ rooms, so he took her up the great mural stairs and into the first chamber they came to, a smaller receiving room that was next to the massive solar.
The receiving room was generally meant for retainers of the great men who would attend The Marshal in his solar, so it was comfortable and well-appointed. It was also private, with only one door and one window that faced out over the inner courtyard. Maxton escorted Andressa inside and turned to close the door, but the moment he released her, she drifted over to the other side of the chamber and collapsed in the corner.
Distressed, Maxton watched Andressa roll herself up into a ball and sob. She had her hands over her head in a protective gesture, as if hiding from something quite horrible. With a sigh, one of great concern, Maxton made his way over to her.
“My lady,” he said gently. “What has happened? All you need to do is speak the word and I will do all in my power to help you. Please tell me what has happened.”
It took Andressa a moment to respond. In fact, her only response was to lift her head and wipe off her face with her dirty sleeves. It was all she had. She was a quivering, weeping mess and Maxton sat carefully in the chair nearest her, not wanting to startle her.
“My lady?” Maxton said again. “Please tell me – what has happened?”
She wiped at her face, furiously, before daring to look at him. When she did, he could see the tears starting all over again.
“I do not know what to do,” she murmured, her lower lip quivering. “I do not know who to ask for help. You have been kind to me and I thought mayhap…”
“Mayhap… what?”
“Mayhap you could tell me what to do.”
“About what?”
Her face threatened to crumple again but she fought it. She had little time to speak and didn’t want to spend the entire time weeping like a fool, but God, she needed to cry, just a little. It had been building up since her meeting with the Mother Abbess, an explosion waiting to happen. But the explosion was over now.
She needed to tell someone.
She took a deep breath.
“You must swear to me that you will not repeat what I tell you,” she said.
He nodded. “Of course,” he said. “What is it?”
Andressa took another deep breath. “I need your help.”
“Tell me what I can do to help you.”
“I am so frightened. I have never been so frightened in my entire life.”
“Why? Won’t you please tell me why?”
Her gaze grew intense. “You must tell the king not to go to St. Blitha for the feast day.”
Maxton never knew that one little statement could electrify him so much. His entire body began to tingle, tensing up as if he’d been wound up as tightly as he could go.
“Why is that?”
Andressa wiped at her eyes that continued to leak. “Because if he goes to St. Blitha, he will be murdered. They will murder him!”
“Who will murder him, Andressa?”
“The Mother Abbess and her attendants.”
Maxton couldn’t help his reaction; he slid out of the chair and onto the floor beside her, reaching out to pull her towards him. His big hands trapped her as his dark eyes drilled into her with white-hot intensity.
“You will tell me everything,” he said as calmly as he could manage. “From the beginning, please. How do you know this?”
Andressa felt as if she wanted to vomit as he asked that question. She’d been wanting to vomit since the moment the Mother Abbess clued her in on a plot as dark and deadly as anything she was capable of comprehending.
She’d come to Maxton because she didn’t know where else to turn and as Andressa looked at the man, she realized one thing – there was something immensely comforting about him. He was so close to her that she could feel the heat from his body, and the hands gripping her arms were the size of a man’s head. He was big, and he was powerful, and it occurred to her that never in her life had she known such safety or comfort.
Amidst all of the terror she was experiencing, the man made her feel as if nothing in the world could touch her, not even the darkness of the Mother Abbess. It was something she’d never experienced before and, in that realization, some of her terror fled. She could think more clearly now.
She had come this far. He needed to know everything.
“After you left today, I was brought before the Mother Abbess,” she said.
He grunted. “I thought so,” he said, sighing with regret. “I heard the fight. I am very sorry to have caused you trouble, Andressa. That was never my intent.”
She shook her head, calmer now. “I thought you had caused me trouble, too,” she said, a weak glimmer of mirth in her eye. “But in truth, you did not. When I was brought before the Mother Abbess, I was certain she was going to punish me for speaking to you but, instead, she said some very strange things.”
“Like what?”
Andressa thought back to the conversation, organizing her thoughts against the fear that the very subject provoked. “She told me that she had been watching me,” she said. “She told me that she wanted me to take the veil and become her personal attendant. She spoke of things I did not understand at first; she said that she and her attendants, nuns she has known since childhood, have been called upon to do the bidding of our Holy Father. She said that he had entrusted them with missions, many times. I did not know what she meant until she started speaking of men who were dead. One man, in particular, was the Bishop of Leeds. He died at St. Blitha following a feast the year after I came to the order. The Mother Abbess said that our Holy Father asked her to kill him and she did. Now, she says that our Holy Father has asked her to do the same thing with King John and she wants me to participate in it so that I can learn her ways.”
Now, it was Maxton’s turn to feel sick to his stomach. He had experienced many things in life. He’d seen more than his share of sorrow, and death, and betrayal, but never in his life had he heard about nuns who killed on command. Even though he and the others had been speculating about a deadly Mother Abbess only minutes earlier, he wasn’t sure he really believed that. His money had been on Douglas, the double agent. But at the moment, a baby could have knocked him over, so stunned was he. One good push and down he’d go.
He was still trying to drink it all in.
“You are sure of this?” he managed to ask. “She told you that the Holy Father wishes for her to assassinate the king?”
Andressa nodded. “That is what she said,” she assured him. “A messenger from the Holy Father came to tell her of this command. In fact, I saw the messenger. He was at St. Blitha two days ago. I remember because he bellowed to me, wanting to know if the woman he was speaking to was, indeed, the Mother Abbess. I was afraid to answer because I could hardly understand him. I did not wish to give him the wrong answer.”
“Why was it difficult to understand him?”
“Because he was Scottish.”
Another revelation. Now, he knew what Alasdair Baird Douglas had been doing at St. Blitha – he hadn’t been praying about an assassination or asking the Mother Abbess’ advice on it. He’d been there to tell the woman it was her duty to kill the King of England, straight from the mouth of the Holy Father.
Maxton was deeply astonished with what he was hearing. It was confirmation and clarification of the great mystery they’d all been dealing with. The Holy Father had, indeed, sent more assassins to fulfill the mission that he and his Unholy brethren had refused, only the assassins were something Maxton would have never considered –
Nuns.
He never saw that coming.
As he became increasingly lost to his own thoughts, he could see Andressa looking at him anxiously. He loosened his grip on her arms and began to caress her slender limbs, comfortingly. He could see how utterly terrified she was.
In truth, he didn’t blame her in the least.
“She wants you to assist her, does she?” he asked calmly. “What did you tell her?”
Andressa drew in a long breath. She was calming a great deal, but the mere mention of the Mother Abbess made her tense up again.
“I agreed,” she said. “I did not know what else to do. She told me if I spoke to anyone about this, then I would end up in The Chaos.”
Now, it was all coming together and Maxton was starting to understand why she was so terrified. She’d been burdened with a huge weight, knowledge that would create stress and havoc with even the most seasoned man, and then her life was threatened if she spoke about it. This poor woman had been forced to endure hell over the past four years, cast off by a greedy aunt and left to the mercy of the soulless sisters of St. Blitha.
“You will not end up in The Chaos,” he said quietly, rubbing her arms in a soothing gesture without really realizing he was doing it. “I would not let them do that to you.”
Andressa was looking at his face as he spoke. In fact, the moment he started caressing her arms, discreetly but unmistakably, she found herself looking at him with increasing interest. The way he made her feel – safe and warm and comforted – was pushing aside the abject terror she’d been suffering since leaving St. Blitha, taking her back to the days at Okehampton when she was safe and warm and comfortable, living the life of a respected ward for Lady de Courtney.
Her mind drifted back to the days of feasts and knights and chivalry, days that were only distant memories to her now. Thoughts of Rhyne popped into her head again, but as she looked at Maxton, she could see that Rhyne had been a foolish boy compared to the man who now held her in his grip. She remembered seeing knights of Maxton’s caliber at Okehampton, great men with great legacies, but they were unattainable to her. At least, that’s what she believed. As she continued to gaze at Maxton, she wished with all her heart that he could see her as something other than what she was – a dirty, poor pledge.
She wished it could be otherwise.
“Will you please tell the king not to come to St. Blitha?” she asked again. “He must know of the danger should he go there. I do not know how they are planning to kill him, but they promised to teach me.”
Maxton’s dark eyes lingered on her for a moment. “They gave no indication?”
She shook her head. “Nay,” she said. “Except… except I am to assume new duties in the garden tomorrow with Sister Petronilla.”
“Who is that?”
“One of the Mother Abbess’ personal attendants,” she said. “The Mother Abbess said that Sister Petronilla would teach me what I needed to know.”
“She is one of the assassins?”
“Aye.”
Maxton considered that for a few moments, but not for long. He was still lingering on what he’d been told as a whole. He needed to speak with William, desperately, but he wanted to make sure Andressa was calm before he left her. He had much to do and more than likely little time to do it, and the pale pledge in his hands had been the key to everything. Without her, he’d still be hunting phantoms.
That poor, sweet, frightened, little rabbit.
“Surely you must be hungry,” he said to her. “I would like you to remain in this chamber and rest, and I shall have food brought up to you.”
