“Silence in the hall!” the man demanded.
“How do you know this?” Edward asked, his head tilted, an intrigued look on his face.
“He is a liar and a thief, your majesty!” Judith Angwedd screeched. “He threatened Bevan’s life before all who are gathered here!” She spread her arms wide and indicated the crowded chamber. “Only ask any of them!”
“I do not lie, Sire,” Piers said, his teeth aching in response to his clenched jaw. “That woman and her son attacked me just after my father died. They were looking for the ring you hold in your hand, suspecting that my father had warned me of their duplicity and knowing that its value had increased to far more than the weight of its gold. I survived their attempt on my life only in thanks to the charity of the monks at Alcester Abbey. One of them fished my body out of the River Arrow.”
“Is that how you came to bear the scars on your face and the wound upon your left hand?” Edward asked, a thoughtful expression still on his face, although his chin was propped once more.
“On my face, yes,” Piers answered.
“Not your hand though?”
“No, Sire.” Piers hesitated only an instant. “I was bitten.”
“Lady Mallory set hounds to your trail?” Edward guessed.
“No.” Piers lifted his chin. “‘Twas a monkey, sire.”
Behind him, the crowd of nobles twittered.
Edward frowned crossly. “Go on.”
“I shall say again, I do not lie. Judith Angwedd herself approached me only last eventide, while I was consulting with your man, Julian Griffin. She and Bevan had gone so far as to have kidnapped my … my traveling companion, and were holding her with my retraction of my bid for Gillwick Manor as ransom for her life.”
“That’s a lie!” Judith Angwedd nearly screamed.
“I beg you, ask your man, Sire—I would thank him myself for his generosity.” Piers reached into his tunic and withdrew the key to his borrowed quarters. Knowing better now than to approach the dais, he held it toward the court’s agent, who stepped forward and took the key. “Lord Griffin lent me his rooms last night, and he saw the proof of my companion’s captivity—a string of beads crafted with my own hands—which Judith Angwedd presented to me.” Piers now held up Alys’s bracelet with thumb and forefinger.
“Filthy liar!” Judith Angwedd’s face looked ready to explode.
“Additional outbursts of that nature, Lady Mallory, shall win you dismissal from my court,” Edward said curtly.
Judith Angwedd bowed, shallow and stiff. “Forgive me, your majesty.”
Edward turned back to Piers. “Lord Griffin is otherwise detained this morn, else I am certain he would readily support or deny your claim.” A shadow seemed to passover Edward’s face momentarily, but then he was back to the matter at hand. “This mysterious companion of yours—she is less valuable to you than a potential demesne, obviously. Where is she now? Shall I have the Mallory rooms searched for her?”
“My grandfather freed her in the night,” Piers said. “But no, Gillwick is not more valuable to me. There is naught more important to me than her safety. I was fully prepared only this morn to resign Gillwick to secure her release.”
“Hmm.” Edward sat up once more. “I must know—whoisthis companion you hold in such high esteem?”
Piers swallowed, and it felt to him as if the entire hall was holding its breath in anticipation of his answer.
“Alys Foxe, my liege.”
The audience behind him broke into roaring chatter and gasps. Before Piers, the king’s expression darkened.
“Alys Foxe?”Edward asked slowly.“LadyAlys Foxe, of Fallstowe Castle?”
“Yes, my liege.”
“I have had enough!” Edward roared, ending the rumblings of the court. He looked to Piers, leveled a long finger at him, his ire unmistakable. “I wanted to believe your tale, and until this last admission, I was for you. But now you stand before me and claim that you have traveled from the north of the land with a woman belonging to a family that even I cannot reach, with your injuries sustained from a monkey attack, and claiming to be the sole heir of a dead man! With no proof outside of a ring that is likely only stolen, as is charged against you!”
“My father swore it, my liege,” Piers said. “The truth pained him greatly.”
“Your father swore it,” Edward repeated. “Yourdeadfather, who cannot testify to your statement, swore it.”
Piers nodded. “Yes, Sire.”
