Kings and Bastards by Petken Jana

Author:Petken, Jana [Petken, Jana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: JCP Publishing
Published: 2020-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Troy walked along the passageway behind two guards and in front of two more. One of the guards nipped the small of Troy’s back with his sword blade, even though Troy was keeping up the pace. “Careful of the leather tunic. It’s the only one I have,” he threw calmly over his shoulder to the glaive man,

William’s guards had ordered him to surrender his sword and knife, and although he had complied, he had handed his weapons over with bad grace. Something had changed. He felt like a suspect in a crime, rather than the man who had saved the duke’s life.

Flames from torches bracketed on the walls swayed this way and that like river grass in a breeze. The long hallway with no end in sight was like a tunnel, open at both ends and allowing icy wind to rush through it. The castle was as ugly inside as it was on the exterior. It was old, half wooden, half stone, and it looked in places as if it were ready to tumble to rubble.

“Where are you taking me? Where is my servant?” Troy demanded, as the men picked up their strides. None of them had been at Valognes. They looked like house guards and probably knew nothing. He wondered if Rolf and Hugo had returned with news. Had the information he’d given the duke been solid?

The guards didn’t answer the questions, leaving Troy to consider his fate based on what had happened in the last two days – nothing – and that was troubling. He had waited in a bedchamber for his audience with William. Mute servants had brought him food and drink. He had watched the grey, watery sky turning black, then grey again, then black once more. For two days and nights he had imagined what was to come next, for no one had given him a glimmer into why one day he was sitting with Duke William at Earl Hubert’s table in Ryes and the next was a prisoner in Falaise Castle. No one would tell him if Four Fingers had arrived safely from Hubert’s castle or if the conspirators had gone there.

They’d had a hellish journey to Falaise, due in part to Hubert’s son who had taken a route of rarely used paths, where tall wet reeds had whipped their faces and were neither broken nor flattened by carts’ wheels, nor ox, horses or mules’ hooves. The ground was boggy and pitted with rocks, many hidden by mud, making it treacherous for both horses and riders. They had stuck close to the alder and willow coppices near the River Ante, a tributary of the River Dives, while avoiding the few settlements along the way. They had not stopped, talked, or sated their thirst, and when they finally rode through Falaise’ open gates, William disappeared without a word. Troy, expecting an audience with the duke, had instead been detained by William’s castle guards and thrown into the small chamber with a bed and a piss pot for company, and he had no idea why.

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