DAME MARTHE WAS GROWING frantic for she’d searched much of the castle without finding her mistress. While the Lady Alys was kept under discreet surveillance, she was not strictly guarded, the castellan treating her more as a guest than what she really was—a hostage. Marthe supposed she could have slipped out through a postern gate, but where would she have gone? Marthe had served Alys since she’d been sent to the English court at age nine, and could not have loved her more if she’d been Marthe’s own child. That love did not blind her to her lady’s nature, though. Alys was sweet and good-hearted and trusting, yet she lacked spirit, had nothing in her of the rebel. She would never have run away, never even have ventured out into the city on her own, no more than a bird bred in captivity would dare to leave the security of its cage.
Marthe had long known Alys would never be England’s queen, for on the few occasions when she’d actually been in Richard’s company, he’d shown her nothing more than polite indifference. She’d said nothing, though, for her lady remained convinced that the marriage would come to pass, and she realized that Alys needed that hope, needed to believe that she would have her happy ending. Alys kept faith long after another woman would have recognized the reality of her precarious position, right up until the moment when Marthe had to tell her that Richard had wed Berengaria of Navarre.
Having checked the great hall and the solar and chapel, even the kitchen, Marthe halted in the middle of the inner bailey, not knowing where else to look. She still remembered how Alys had wept, remembered trying in vain to comfort her, all the while cursing the men who’d failed her so spectacularly. But once Alys was forced to abandon her girlhood dream of a golden crown and a handsome husband renowned for his courage, she’d shown surprising resilience and embraced her new future at the French court as wholeheartedly as she’d once clung to her English destiny. She’d soon convinced herself that the brother she’d not seen since he was four years old would be her loving protector, that he would find a highborn husband for her, one worthy of a king’s daughter. Once the English king—she no longer called him Richard—came back from the Holy Land, she would return to Paris and reclaim her life.
Marthe had no more confidence in the French king than she’d had in the two English kings. As before, she’d held her peace, though, not willing to deprive Alys of her dreams. But again, nothing had gone as expected. Instead of returning to England and setting Alys free, the English king was a prisoner in Germany. Only the Blessed Almighty knew when—or if—he would regain his own freedom, and Alys, now in her thirty-third year, was trapped with him as surely as if she, too, were Heinrich’s hostage. She’d begun to despair—until a French army had appeared before the walls of Rouen.
Marthe suddenly knew where her lady was. She was no longer young and somewhat stout, and by the time she emerged onto the castle battlements, she was panting heavily. The sentries greeted her cheerfully, sharing wineskins to celebrate their town’s reprieve. She soon saw Alys, a slender figure wrapped in a blue cloak, standing as far away from the guards as she could get. She did not turn, even when Marthe called her name, continuing to stare out at the abandoned French camp. Reaching her side, Marthe entreated, “Come inside, my lamb. You will take a chill out here.”
Alys did not seem to hear. “They have gone, Marthe,” she said, her blue eyes welling with tears. “They have gone and left me here.”
AFTER RETREATING FROM ROUEN, Philippe’s army seized several important castles in quick succession, and gained some satisfaction in capturing Pacy-sur-Eure, for it belonged to the Earl of Leicester. It was not compensation, though, for his failure to take Rouen. Philippe was usually quick to anger, quick to forgive. But what he neither forgot nor forgave was being made to look like a fool, and he now bore Leicester a bitter grudge.