In Honor Bound Read online

  "I am not an idiot or a child, my lord, that I must be read to," Philip snapped, and Rafe moved closer to him, almost putting himself between the two of them.

  "My lord Chamberlain," he interposed, "if you will pardon me, my lord of Caladen has not been well. Such a reading would overtire him and I feel–"

  "It is an order direct from your father, my lord," Dunois said, ignoring Rafe's protest, and Philip slumped down into his chair.

  "By all means, let the royal will be carried out."

  "My lord," Dunois said with a bow and an unctuous smile, and he began to read of the cost of the crystal goblets given to the Archbishop at his investiture, and how many pairs of boots were needed for the army on the southern border; of the importance of strict control over the supply of silks brought into the country, and how many of these new ministers were spreading their heresy here in the south. Before he could finish his explanation of why a tax should be imposed on beeswax, however, Rafe noticed that Philip had fallen into an uneasy sleep.

  "My lord," he whispered to Dunois, "please, you can see he has not slept well since the trial. Another time, I beg you."

  Dunois slammed the book shut. "The king will not be pleased," he warned, and he turned on his heel and left, slamming the door shut, too.

  Looking down at Philip, Rafe shook his head. "No, I do not imagine he will."

  He lifted Philip like a child in his arms and laid him down on the bed, then drew the coverlet over him. He dared not remove his boots for fear of waking him, but the boy looked so worn out that Rafe doubted he would have felt even that.

  "Rest now, boy. Life'll not seem so cruel after a little sleep."

  He gently loosened Philip's fingers from the tight fists they had formed, then he sat down in the chair and went to sleep himself.

  ***

  It was not long before the blackness of Philip's exhaustion dissolved into dreams. He saw Katherine as she had been the morning after they married, with the dawn light shining through her shift, making a halo of her long fair hair. Her lips were curved into a sweet smile and she bent down, as she had then, to stir the fire.

  Then the dream turned nightmare. A tendril of blonde hair caught fire and in an instant the flames consumed her. With a shriek, she fell into ash and the well remembered acrid smell of burnt hair and flesh filled Philip's nose.

  Gasping, he bolted up in bed and for a long while he did not move. He forced himself to breathe slowly, reminded himself that it was only a dream. Still, the memory nauseated him. He'd been spared the sight but not the smell of her execution, and it seemed he would carry that to his grave.

  It was dark. He did not know how long he had slept, but he was determined to not let it happen again. Sleep now held for him a terror he could not control. He would have gotten up and roamed the passageways as had become his habit, but he knew he would never be able to get past Rafe unseen. Instead, he gathered up the pillows and propped himself up, prepared to spend the hours until dawn battling this new enemy– sleep.

  ***

  The following day, Philip received another royal summons. This one he obeyed.

  "Sit down, son," Robert said. "I trust today finds you well."

  Philip felt no inclination towards idle talking.

  "What would you have of me?"

  "I must command something of you, something I would not ask yet except it has become necessity. Please, sit down."

  "I rather would stand. What would you have of me?"

  "I must require your marriage now. It cannot wait any longer."

  Philip turned even paler than he was already. "You promised me."

  "As I before told you, this is no boys' game, this playing for kingdoms. Your safety and mine, Tom's, the whole realm's, could depend upon the alliance you make."

  Anger brought sudden color to Philip's cheeks. "Is this alliance so dear that you would lie and murder for it?"

  "It could mean the whole kingdom to Afton," Robert said, pricked by his son's frank accusation. "Our link with Westered could bring us victory. Without it, we can hope for nothing but defeat."

  "Westered? But Margaret–"

  "Not Margaret, but Lady Rosalynde, her sister. The grieving widow Margaret seeks yet to be queen. I've had word that she's gone to Stephen of Ellenshaw and he's married her."

  The color again dropped out of Philip's face. "Then that was her reason." He felt a knot pull tight inside his heart. "You must see now that Kate was innocent."

  "It may well be so," Robert said gravely.

  "You know it is so!"

  "I did not know it when she was condemned. What was I to think in the face of the evidence? But that is past. We must think of the future now and, to keep that safe, we need Westered. I must have you marry Lady Rosalynde at once. If her father throws his support to Margaret and Ellenshaw, we are lost." He picked up a ring from the table, the one that Philip had not worn since he had hung it around Katherine's neck, a token of the vows they had exchanged. "Put this on. It is time you remembered that you are a royal prince."

  A fresh fury boiled up in him. "I'll not wear your cursed ring anymore!"

  "Be reasonable."

  Philip snatched the ring out of his hand and hurled it at him. "You and your Rosalynde be hanged together! Yes, and I, too, if ever I marry her!"

  Robert flinched away from the bright metal that whizzed past his ear and made a ringing bounce off the stone wall behind him.

  "Philip–"

  "Murderer!"

  Robert's face turned hard. "You've used that word to me often enough, boy."

  "Truth speeds best in plain terms," Philip spat.

  "Very well, my young lord, if we are to use plain terms, who was I to believe? My son's widow or my son's harlot?"

  "Before God, you'll not speak so of her."

  "Who shall say I may not? Do you think merely because you dared shame me with flaunting your trull before my court that you may now tell me what I may and may not do? I suppose with Richard's child gone, I was to accept her first brat as heir to the throne after you, and see you stand insolently by, having put so much of your pure Chastelayne blood into such a bastard that you'd not have enough left yourself to color a blush of shame."

  "Kate would never have shamed our name. She was the only pure thing I ever found in this place. But I'll not defend her to you. You deserve your ignorance. God grant you may die in it."

  Tears came back into his eyes and his father sought to console him.

  "Philip, son–"

  Philip wrenched away from him, unable to endure his touch, unable to endure the pain that wracked him again and still.

  "Send me away from here," he pled once more, his voice ragged and grating. "Send me away."

  "Where would you go?" Robert asked, a touch of hollow regret in his tone.

  "Someplace where there is much work to be done. I care not where."

  "You know with Ellenshaw's rebellion, Grenaver thinks now is the time to reopen the dispute over the Riverlands. We must make ready for them."

  "Where?"

  "Maughn has yet to be garrisoned and fortified. It will take the winter in hard labor. Would you go there?"

  "If I may go at once."

  "Believe me, son, I am sorry for your grief, but for my kingdom's sake, you left me no other choice."

  Robert tried again to reach out to him but again Philip backed away.

  "Do not force me," Philip warned, his voice rising as taut as his strained nerves. "Let me away from here. I cannot bear any more from you."

  Robert took a step back himself, looking a little afraid of what he saw in his son's bitter eyes.

  "Go then. But withhold your judgment of me until you have yourself lived awhile as king."

  "God send that day may never come."

  ***

  The ride to Maughn was weary and slow and Philip was relieved when the colorless little town finally came into sight. Perhaps here in a place that held none of Katherine's memories he could escape some of
the pain and maybe even sleep without fear. There was little more to hope now. She was gone and not to be resurrected until that final day when even the sea would give up its dead. There was not even a grave at which he could mourn, only a handful of ashes lost to the wind and a charred pyre that had seen and would see other such executions.

  The long golden rope of her hair was all that was left of her, all he had to bind his memories together. He blessed and cursed Palmer for bringing it to him. It drove an iron spike of pain through him to look on it, yet he clung to it as if it were the hope of his salvation. He had nothing else.

  The chamber that had been prepared for him here in Maughn was smaller than the one he had at Winton, the bed narrower and harder. Everything here seemed that way. Maughn was not a pretty place, nor was it a place of ease, and he was glad. He had, just now, no eye for beauty, no taste for comfort. He wanted only work to busy his hands and dull his mind until God in His mercy ended the life remaining to him.

  Worn after the long journey, he gave in to Rafe's urging for him to lie down. Surely his body was too overtaxed, his brain too numbed with effort, to admit anything but oblivion tonight. Only a moment later, he was wrapped in sleep.

  The oblivion did not last long. Philip found himself thrust into a nightmare that was more felt than seen. Without warning, a wicked blade stabbed deep into his chest, plunged again and again into his heart, but it did not leave clean, merciful wounds that would kill at a stroke. Rather it made a jagged, gaping hole that widened with each hacking blow.

  At first he fought wildly for his life, struggling and clawing at his obscure assailant, but finally he lay still, hardly flinching at each clumsy, grating thrust. The agony went on and on even when he had no strength left to fight.

  "Why don't you die?" he heard his own voice saying. "Why don't you die?"

  He woke sobbing with pain, his fist over his heart, twisted into his sweat-sodden shirt.

  He began work before dawn the next morning, and for more than a month he buried himself in hard labor, working each day shoulder to shoulder with his men until darkness and exhaustion demanded that the day should end. Soon his body refused to mourn any longer, and he was forced to satisfy its demands for food and sleep. His nightmares grew less vivid and less frequent and finally ceased and almost he looked once more like the dashing, valiant prince he had been. Almost.

  Anyone who saw him now, anyone who had seen him before the trial, could not help but know that there was something gone from him. He was all soldier now, rough and hard, with not a moment to give to ease or pleasure or even thoughts of God. He lived only to do the work for which he had been sent, to acquit himself honorably in the only task he saw before him. By April, Maughn was an impressive stronghold against the enemy.

  He looked on it and tried to feel some pride in his work, but all he felt was grief and bewilderment that sometimes it was his father that he mourned more than Katherine. He had laughed at her fears and told her that the king would not harm her any more than he would his own son. He could not laugh now. He had assured King Edward, too, of his father's honorable intentions. How foolish he had been.

  Philip knew how sacred the Chastelayne bloodline was to his father. Perhaps, in truth, it was inconceivable to him that Lynaleigh's crown prince should mix his proud blood with a serving wench's and bring ignoble stock to the throne. Perhaps he had even believed her guilty of murder.

  He could not have known how deeply I loved her.

  ***

  Philip had just dismissed his men for the evening when a messenger came riding in from the southeast, from Tanglewood. John's message was brief:

  We've had intelligence of an attack from Grenaver set to come at any time. They are said to be five thousand strong against the fifteen hundred I have here. I've sent word every day to Winton, for aid from the king, but he gives me no reply. I beg you, if I have any sway in your heart and if you have any sway in his, send to him. I am already so out of favor with him now that if I lose Tanglewood I could never again face him. If you cannot persuade him, do not let it fret you or make any division between you and him. I am not afraid to do my duty.

  John

  Philip instantly ordered his men to ready themselves for battle. Tanglewood was not far, and they could be there in ample time to back John's army.

  "Go at once to my brother in Chrisdale," he told the messenger. "Tell Tom we're needed in Tanglewood."

  "What of your reply to my lord John, Your Highness?"

  "My army will be his answer."

  "And your father, my lord?" Rafe asked once the messenger had gone. "It will not please him to know you have left the post he has entrusted to you."

  "I will send to him about it."

  "He gave you orders specifically that you were to keep Maughn. What will he say if you disobey him?"

  "If John's messages have gotten through to Winton at all, then he must not realize how grave John's position is. He would not let whatever grievance he has been holding against John risk his son's life and the kingdom. We shall keep Tanglewood, and he will applaud my boldness. Come on."

  IV

  Rosalynde's eyes flew open, and she pulled her coverlet up to her chin. The night was moonless, starless, and she could see nothing as she lay there shivering, waiting for her heart to slow and her nightmare to fade. She was in Westered, in her own bed, not on a battlefield, and Philip was not lying dead at her feet.

  How vividly she had seen him, though, stumbling towards her, soaked with his own blood, both hands stretched out to her, pleading. He had fallen to his knees before her and then collapsed altogether, his cheek resting on her wet satin-shod foot. She had reached down to him, but he was cold and his wondrous eyes were empty.

  She had forced herself awake at that, afraid to see more, but the fear would not leave her. The reports of the war were worse than ever now. Might not such a thing happen? Perhaps it had already.

  "Oh, my Philip," she whispered into the darkness. "Be merciful to him, Lord God."

  It was dawn when she finished her prayers and finally slept again.

  ***

  Tom sat near Philip's bedside listening to his ragged breathing. He had shown no other sign of life since the battle and Tom had worn the meaning out of the single prayer that had been all night on his lips.

  "Please, God, mercy."

  He murmured the words again, hardly knowing that he did. Philip was so pale and still. He had been grazed by an arrow, high up on his left cheek, leaving that side of his face swollen and angrily red, but that wound was slight. One arm was splinted and bandaged, broken in two places, but that, too, would mend. It was the ten or twelve inches of ugly, black-stitched gash down Philip's side that worried Tom the most.

  Three of Philip's ribs had been broken in the battle and one of them had stabbed into his lung. Tom remembered having to hold him down while Livrette cut him open. Then the physician had reached blood-slicked fingers into his side, to pull the rib back into place. Tom remembered Philip weakly struggling against the pain that had clawed its way through his unconsciousness, and he remembered, too, the grim look on Livrette's face as he sewed the incision closed.

  "It is little use even closing this up, my lord. His lung is pierced. He'll likely drown in his own blood."

  Tom had prayed then as he had never prayed before and now, hours later, Philip still breathed. Tom still prayed.

  "Please, God, mercy."

  Tom and his army had come to Tanglewood as soon as he received Philip's message, but they found that the battle had already ended. The influx of Philip's men had brought Afton triumph, but the victory was grim.

  Shortly after dawn, Philip asked hoarsely for water, and Tom held the cup to his lips.

  "Give John some, too," Philip insisted. "He is hurt."

  "John is not here," Tom told him carefully, and his heart lurched when Philip moaned low and for a moment seemed not to breathe.

  Tom watched him lying there, the ashen touch of death on his face. "
Philip," he begged. "Philip, please."

  Philip's lashes fluttered, but his eyes did not open. "John. Where's John?"

  Tom glanced back at Rafe who was hovering at the foot of the bed, then went to him. "What do I answer him, Rafe?" Tom asked low. "I am afraid to tell him now."

  "Tell him Lord John is too badly hurt to come."

  Tom shook his head. "I could never lie to him. He would know"

  "You know as well as I do how he's grieved since the trial. He's hurt badly and bound to mourn once he knows about your brother. I know he's had little enough cause to love this world of late. All this at once may be too much for him to bear. He may merely let go. I've seen it before."

  "Rafe, I–"

  "John," Philip moaned again, and Rafe looked urgently to Tom.

  "Have I your permission, my lord?"

  Tom nodded and Rafe went to Philip's side.

  "My lord, hear me."

  Philip managed to open his eyes. "John?"

  "No, highness. Prince John lies in his own bed, wounded too. His physician says that the news of your loss would finish him as well. You must not disappoint him."

  Tom took a deep breath then went to his brother. "Philip, try." He took Philip's hand in both of his own. "Please, try."

  Philip looked at him unsteadily. "Hurts."

  "You must try," Tom said, squeezing his hand tighter. "You must."

  Rafe leaned closer to him. "For Lord John's sake, my lord. For your brother."

  Philip took a rasping breath. "I'll not–" He stopped, gritting his teeth, but determination shone through the pain in his eyes. "I'll not disappoint him."

  "I will get Livrette," Rafe said and Tom reluctantly nodded.

  "I will tell you plain, my lord, I am surprised to see him still alive," the physician said after he had examined Philip. "He still is very ill, but he may make it through this yet. He seems determined today to live."

  "We will see he stays in that mind," Bonnechamp said, and Tom nodded in half-hearted agreement.