In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,1

had gone before him.

“Two years ago,” John said evenly, “when you realized the barons of England and Normandy would never support your feeble claim, you whimpered to me on bended knee, as I recall, and pledged homage … swearing your allegiance and loyalty in exchange for my not stripping you of your rights as Duke of Brittany.”

Arthur squeezed his thumb and forefinger together. In the tomblike silence of his donjon cell, he could hear the soft pat pat pat of blood dripping from the end of his thumb, but his face remained expressionless.

“For that I do thank you, Uncle,” he said calmly. “Without those rights, I should not have been able to add to my army in Brittany.”

“Army? You call that handful of ill-trained rabble you had capering about you … an army? Your own captain of the guard, M’sieur des Roches”—he spat the name with the contempt it deserved—“deserted at the first sight of armoured men along the Seine.”

Several more drips were added to the crimson stain at Arthur’s heels as his fair complexion turned ruddy. The air was dank and chilled, the stench of mold on the walls was ripened by the stench that came from the overflowed slops bucket in the corner. The cell was small, lit by a single smoky candle. It boasted the comforts of one scarred table and one x-chair— which his uncle now occupied—and a lumpy pile of months-old rushes that served as Arthur’s bed. He had not seen the sun or filled his lungs with clean air for better than three months.

“I could have you killed,” John said matter-of-factly, picking at a weal on his chin. “As a vassal rebelling against your king, your life is legally forfeit in the eyes of any court or country. I could have you killed and not a brow in the kingdom would be raised in approbation. Moreover, you attacked your own grandmother. My mother. The beloved dowager queen of England. You laid siege to an old, frail, defenseless woman— dried teat that she may be—and by doing so, earned the scorn and condemnation of every knight in Christendom.” He chuckled and flicked away the bit of pustule he had collected under his nail. “I could have you executed and not even be challenged to justify the deed.”

“Then order it and be done, Uncle, for I weary of these games.”

“Games?” John launched himself out of the chair—something he had been reluctant to do since the boy was a full head and neck taller. “You call it a game to decide your fate?”

“Uncle—” The title was used disdainfully, accompanied by a hard glint of shrewdness in the crystalline blue eyes. “You decided my fate the instant Richard drew his last breath. You decided it before the barons took their puppet vote, and long before my mother bartered a few sweaty hours in your bed for the privilege of permitting me to pledge homage.”

“I showed you mercy,” John seethed.

“You showed me arrogance, greed, and blind ambition. You showed me a man so twisted with corruption and jealousy he could barely wait until his brother’s blood had cooled before he was racing to count the coins in the royal treasury. You showed me a man with a soft sword who would pay homage to a French king instead of recognizing him as an enemy and driving him from the land with force, as your father did before you, and his father before him. Softsword … is that not what your loyal subjects call you now?”

“Traitor … is that not what your subjects would call you for making your bed under Philip’s roof?”

“There is a difference, Uncle, between cultivating an ally to pacify him, and constantly testing an enemy to invite him to destroy you.”

The king swayed slightly under a rush of hot anger. He bunched his fist and swung out sharply, catching Arthur’s cheek and tearing the flesh on the edge of one of his gold rings. The duke staggered back a step, but did not fall. He straightened immediately, his eyes burning brightly, his jaw clenched so stiffly the blood oozed from the fresh cut and ran in a jagged streak down his neck.

“Six months ago, when I threatened to have you blinded, I should not have allowed myself to be swayed by compassion. I should have had the irons heated then and there and your eyes seared from the sockets, ridding me once and for all of your insolence. You begged me then, boy. You begged me