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king could not put off any
longer. I can’t say when he will return, but it will be as soon as
he can.” He made a dismissive gesture. “It should make no
difference. We should treat whatever is the matter here the same as
if a crisis occurred in Windsor while he was at Canterbury.”
    “He chose to leave at the Christmas feast in
hopes that it was during these few days that he would be the least
missed,” Lili said. “I suppose we can’t be surprised that something
like this would happen the moment he turns his back.”
    Geoffrey barked a laugh that held no trace
of amusement. “King David left for the same reason King Philip
chose to send Jacques and me on this journey this week of all
weeks—out of the hope that we’d be less conspicuous.”
    Lili added, for the newcomers’ benefit, “The
emissary’s name was Jacques de Molier. Geoffrey reports that he is
dead.”
    Bridget started at that. Up until now, she’d
been on the receiving end of news and information, but she hadn’t
ever encountered a situation as earth-shattering as this. She knew,
as did everyone else in the room, that the death of the emissary of
France on English soil was only a step or two from open war.
    Then Lili gestured to her brother. “Please
tell Ieuan what you remember of the attack.” Lili might be female
and pregnant, but her right to be heard in this conference was
undisputed. Goronwy, too, had moved to stand near her chair as an
indication of his support. David might be gone, but his
authority—and thus hers—remained intact.
    Geoffrey threw out a hand in a sign of
impatience. “Not enough! At Molier’s insistence, we rode in his
carriage, which I despised, mind you. With only some five miles to
go, we were looking forward to food and warmth, but then one of the
men at the head of the company shouted a warning. I stuck my head
out of the window to see what was the matter. Upwards of a dozen
men had emerged from a nearby wood. They wore black masks and no
lord’s colors.
    “I tried to hear what my guards were
shouting to each other, but Molier was babbling away about barbaric
English roads and how he’d warned King Philip not to trust King
David. Not to speak ill of the dead, but his hands were fluttering!
At the very instant I turned to tell him to be quiet, the
carriage’s horses reared and bolted. As they did, one of the rear
wheels came off entirely, which I know only because I saw the scene
afterwards. Then the carriage overturned, and I hit my head. That’s
all I remember.”
    Geoffrey raised his hands and dropped them
in a gesture of helplessness. “I awoke alone in the wreckage of the
carriage. I dragged myself from it only to find the carnage on the
road. All of my men were dead, along with Molier himself and the
three Frenchmen he’d brought with him. A surviving horse cropped
the grass in an adjacent field, still with saddle and bridle. I
mounted him and rode in haste here.”
    Ieuan had listened to Geoffrey’s story with
a finger to his lips, and now he dropped his hand. “A very bad
business. Did you check all the bodies? There were no other
survivors?”
    “That’s sort of where this gets worse,” Lili
said, with a rueful smile.
    “Worse?” Ieuan said.
    Geoffrey grunted. “We were traveling with
James Stewart, who was among the riders. I heard his voice above
the initial fray, but neither he nor his horse were in evidence
when I awoke.”
    Bridget took a step forward. “James Stewart,
the High Steward of Scotland?”
    Up until now, she hadn’t said anything. It
wasn’t her place, but the words had burst from her. Her ancestry
was Scottish, and she knew more about Scottish history than
English—or Welsh for that matter. Both in Avalon and here, James
Stewart had managed to retain his title, even though he’d supported
Robert Bruce’s claim to the Scottish throne over its current
occupant, John Balliol.
    “The same,” Lili said, with a nod in
Bridget’s direction, hopefully indicating that