“If you are determined, then I shall go with you,” he said quietly. “I’ve not done much for you in your life, Vesper… now that you are all I have left, I shall not let you go alone. And if I can lift my sword for Val, then mayhap I owe it to him. He has always been a good friend to me.”
Vesper watched her father’s expression, wondering if he was being truthful. “Do you mean that?” she asked. “In spite of the judgement he showed my brother?”
McCloud cleared his throat softly, speaking on an uncomfortable subject. “That is something I must reconcile,” he said. “I know in my mind that Val had no choice but my heart is a different matter. I miss my son and ever shall, but in the end… I know it was not Val’s fault. It was mine. Now, Val is in trouble. If you are going to him, then I shall go, too.”
Vesper began to realize that there might be hope between them, after all. Her father’s broken moral compass might possibly be fixed. Time would tell. But knowing he was coming with her made her feel better, somehow.
“Then wait for me,” she said. “I must gather a few things and then I will ask Lady Eynsford if we may borrow a pair of horses. I am sure she will give permission. Go back into the hall and wait for me to return. I shan’t be long.”
With that, she was off, but not before giving her father a pat on the arm. That small touch meant so much to McCloud. Perhaps his daughter would, indeed, forgive him for what he’d done. Now, they were united in their mutual support of Val and he couldn’t have felt more pleased.
Perhaps that support of Val would somehow heal what was broken between them.
McCloud could only hope.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Winchester Castle
Several days later
He wasn’t throwingthings this time, but it was clear that he was devastated.
Henry sported a full beard to go along with his dark red hair that tended to look like straw at times, unkempt and uneven. But the man didn’t give a hang about his appearance so the hair remained dirty and on end, as did the beard at times. At the moment, that scruffy beard covered up a ruddy complexion that was red with fury and distress as he listened to reports from Canterbury soldiers who had only just arrived at Winchester.
Spouting tales of murder and mayhem, the soldiers had worked their way through four different men at the castle, from the gatehouse guards to the king’s Captain of the Guard, repeating the same story until they were finally permitted to see the king.
It was a tale that no man under Henry’s command wanted to repeat to him.
Therefore, the soldiers were thrust at Henry like sacrificial lambs to take the brunt of the king’s distress for the news theybore. In the hall of Winchester and surrounded by some of his advisors, at least the ones who had gone hunting with him after Christmas and had only just returned, Henry had listened to a shocking tale of the murder of Thomas Becket. According to the soldiers from Canterbury Castle, a royal garrison for Henry, witnesses spoke of men cornering the archbishop before Vespers before proceeding to kill him. The witnesses were traumatized, naturally, but more than one swore that the archbishop was murdered by four knights before being joined by two more and about ten soldiers, most of them wearing tunics of the Itinerant Justice of Hampshire.
De Nerra.
By the time the soldiers were finished delivering their message, Henry’s face was so red that those nearest him thought he truly might burst. It wasn’t enough that the king had suffered years of long battle with Becket; what mattered was that a man who had once been as a brother to him had been murdered by an itinerant justice loyal to the king. Henry was beside himself at the news, as if he’d never had a quarrel with Canterbury in his life.
He was shattered.
“This cannot be,” he said when the soldiers finished their story. Then, louder. “This cannot be! It is not possible!”
The soldiers from Canterbury, three of them, cowered at the sound of Henry’s booming voice. The king’s tendency to rage was well-known.
“Our garrison commander, Sir Owen Hampton, interviewed many monks who claimed to have seen the murder, my lord,” the older of the three said steadily. “We were told that four knights instigated it and had killed the archbishop by the time more de Nerra men arrived. In fact, the men that arrived later stopped what could have been an utter butchering of the archbishop, so his body remained intact for burial.”
Henry was quivering with emotion, both rage and disbelief. “But he is surely dead?”
“Aye, my lord, Canterbury is dead.”
Henry just stared at them after that, unmoving, seemingly paralyzed. It was difficult to know just how the man was going to react, but everyone in the room was trying to gauge him. Such terrible news would surely have consequences. There were several senior nobles around him, watching him closely for his eventual reaction, including Tevin du Reims.
The Earl of East Anglia had gone hunting with the king when they’d arrived at Winchester right after Christmas simply to appease the man, but he had intended to return home on the morrow. He had a wife and children and grandchildren who were demanding his return. But after hearing the shocking news from the Canterbury soldiers, Tevin was quickly starting to reconsider his plans to leave.
Being one of the king’s most trusted men, he had privileges in speaking and action that others did not. Henry seemed to tolerate almost anything from him. Therefore, Tevin didn’t give thought to stepping into the conversation about something that had the entire chamber reeling.
“It makes no sense that Val de Nerra should go to Canterbury to assassinate Becket,” he said in disbelief, mostly speaking to Henry but in part to the soldiers who had accused de Nerra of precisely that. “Did anyone see de Nerra there? Can anyone place him at the scene?”
The three soldiers shrugged, shaking their heads, looking at each other in confusion. “If he was, no one has identified him, my lord,” the older soldier said. “But witnesses place his men there. They described men bearing his colors.”
Tevin didn’t like the sound of that at all. “His colors, aye, but not him,” he pointed out. “It is possible these men were acting without de Nerra’s knowledge. And you said that only some ofthe men were wearing de Nerra colors? What about the others? It is entirely possible that there are other lords involved in this… this disgrace.”
