“Oh, Jordan!”she wailed, her conviction unswerving.“You should never have struck him, Jordan!I shall have to linger until Dagobert awakens.We had yet to say farewell and the priest will have harsh words for me.And I still must hem my kirtle this night to be ready for the morrow.How could you have done such a deed?”
Had she lost her wits?Dagobert frowned at her when she indicated that he should speak.“As Jordan,” she mouthed, and he could not understand her meaning.The hot look she granted him while she wailed anew finally persuaded him to do as she asked.
“I meant no harm,chérie,”he said, trying to mimic Jordan.
The jailer’s chuckle and retreating footsteps revealed that he had done well enough.Alienor, however, had no words of congratulations for him, or even of explanation, so intent was she on removing Jordan’s tunic.
“Your assistance would be appreciated,” she whispered.
“Why would you disrobe him, as if we are thieves on the road?”
Alienor looked to be exasperated.She seized Dagobert’s face in her hands, leaning so close to speak to him that he could feel her breath against his own lips.
He yearned.
“We have precious little time, but ’tis simple enough,” she informed him quietly.“You will dress in Jordan’s garments, and we shall walk out of here.”
“Did he know your scheme?”he asked, and watched his wife’s eyes go cold.
“If you had not struck him, you might have asked him yourself.”She bent to tug at one of Jordan’s boots, then spared him a glance.“’Twas his own idea and it will fail unless you make haste.”
Dagobert ran a hand over his head.What madness was this?Why would the man who had betrayed him make any effort to see him freed?
Alienor must have noted his expression for she spoke with quiet intensity.“’Twas after he saw your mark.Hebelieves.”
Dagobert blinked, wonder dawning within him with each confession his wife made.
“’Tis true that he paid for my freedom and true that he meant to claim me as his wife.But he has not touched me.I swear it to you.”This was punctuated with a hot look.“I refused to do as much while you lived, though I would have found another reason afterward.And his scheme has its merits.You are much the same size, in breadth, at least.We can only hope that the guards have forgotten your height.He insisted upon bringing his helmet.’Twas his own plan and not such a bad one that you should deliberately thwart it.”
This last Dagobert understood as a plea for assistance and he crouched to help Alienor in her task.He had naught to lose and much to gain judging by the way Alienor had kissed him only moments before.She shouted and cried out as they labored, as though she were trying to awaken Dagobert.In other circumstance, he might have laughed more than once at her cleverness.This jest was deadly serious, though.
“I cannot take his hauberk,” he argued under his breath at one point, unable to bring himself to steal the armor Jordan had earned along with his spurs.“’Twould be dishonorable and unthinkably base.”
Alienor shook her head.“Consider it a gift.’Twas undoubtedly the argument used when your own mail was seized in Toulouse.”Still he hesitated, but Alienor whispered in his ear.“We have little time, my lord, and I would not have you go abroad without a hauberk.”
Dagobert saw the wisdom of her words.He might be hunted once the ruse was discovered.They had yet to get out of the palace, as well.He donned the garment, amazed that it fit as well as it did, hesitating for a minute before he added Jordan’s dagger to his belt.The jailer would merely take it for his own, should it be left behind.Though Dagobert knew as much, he could not shake the sense that he was doing the other knight a disservice.
Especially if he truly had contrived this scheme to see Dagobert saved.
When he stood dressed in the other knight’s clothing and Jordan was wrapped in his own torn garment, Alienor corrected his posture with a few pokes.He stood less straight than he did usually, in an effort to disguise the difference in their heights.He hoped he could remember all her directions and walk thus all the way out to the street.
’Twould save his life, he reminded himself, and he felt the urge to be free of the cell as soon as possible.
“Enough of your fuss, woman!”he roared in a mimic of Jordan that was improving.Dagobert donned Jordan’s helmet and rapped against the door, his heart leaping at Alienor’s approving smile.“You cannot expect me to sit aside while you coddle the man like a lover!’Tis too late to be afoot and the man shows no signs of waking.Truly you test my patience this night, woman.”
“Aye, Jordan,” Alienor conceded with a sigh.“Indeed, you have already been too kind to me this night.”
“Wait for the morrow,” Dagobert muttered, hearing the jailer’s chuckle on the other side of the door.He closed his eyes, not daring to believe their trick might work.He strove to recall Jordan’s comments to Alienor so that he might better pretend to be the other man.
When the key turned in the lock, new hope fluttered in his chest.
With a gesture that ripped at Dagobert’s heart, Alienor bent and placed a kiss on Jordan’s cheek.The other knight’s eyes flew open at her touch.Jordan smiled at her, looking over her shoulder to Dagobert and giving a minute nod.
With that gesture, Dagobert knew.The planhadbeen Jordan’s idea.And he was more a knight than Dagobert had believed, to take the place of a condemned man in a dungeon.Would Jordan declare his true identity on the morrow?What price would he pay for his aid?
Well aware that the guard watched him, Dagobert nodded curtly to Jordan.He could only hope the other knight understood the full weight of his gratitude.He hoped also that Jordan would not sacrifice his own life for his bravery.
Perhaps he would be released when they realized he was not Dagobert.He was no threat to the crown, so it was possible.
