The Last Knight by Candice Proctor Read Free Book Online Page A

tending Olivier de Harcourt.”
Fulk's small, already protuberant eyes bugged out even further in alarm. “I didn't get close to him, I promise. I was very careful.”
Yvette waved one hand through the air. “Never mind that now. Did he say anything while you were there?”
“No. He was in a faint.”
Yvette pressed her lips together in disappointment. A tense silence descended on the chamber, during which the steady snap and crack of a whip, punctuated by a man's screams, could be heard wafting through the window on a balmy breeze.
Fulk glanced nervously toward the bailey. “What's that noise?”
“The guard at the gate was negligent,” said Yvette, her concentration devoted to picking a speck of lint off the crimson velvet sleeve of her kirtle. “He is being punished.” She lifted her gaze to her son again. “This is important, Fulk: Did Attica tell you anything the courtier might have said?”
Fulk shook his head vigorously from side to side. “No, nothing. Although Judith said he'd been asking for a breviary.” Fulk's lip curled in disdain; he didn't think much of his pretty little cousin. “The silly girl tried to give him her breviary, but he obviously wanted his own. I saw it in his saddlebags.”
Yvette stared at her son. “De Harcourt had a breviary?”
“Yes, although it was only a small, plain thing,” saidFulk, obviously disappointed. “I'd have expected it to be something magnificent, but it had only a simple green leather binding and almost no gilt.”
Yvette's gaze flew to meet Gaspard's, but it was Gaspard who said, his voice hushed, “A Sainte-Foy breviary.”
Yvette nodded. “Send someone to the guest chamber. I want all Olivier de Harcourt's things brought here to me.”
A new silence descended on the room as they waited for Gaspard to return, a silence undisturbed this time by the screams of the guard, who had presumably finished receiving his chastisement and been carried away. Yvette was relieved; his screams had given her a headache.
Gaspard was back in a moment, his handsome face slack with concern. “They're gone—his clothes, his saddlebags, everything. The servants searched everywhere.”
Yvette's hand closed into a tight, angry fist. “She's taken them.”
“But why would she take de Harcourt's clothes?” asked Fulk, his head swiveling back and forth from his mother to his father to his mother again.
Yvette shook her head. “She must have known he was carrying something, but she wasn't certain exactly where it was hidden, so she took everything.”
“I still don't understand,” said Fulk, his voice rising in a whine. “Why would Attica be interested in something Olivier de Harcourt was carrying? Carrying to whom?”
Both his mother and father ignored him.
“Where would she have taken it?” said Gaspard, his broad forehead wrinkling with the strain of thought. “To her father?”
“No, he is too far.” Yvette began to pace up and down the chamber, kicking the rushes and dogs out of her way asshe went. “She's much more likely to have taken it to her brother Stephen, at La Ferté-Bernard.”
“La Ferté-Bernard?” wailed Fulk.
“Unless …” Yvette stopped short. “That's it. She has gone to Laval. But, not to see her sick mother. She's taking the breviary to her uncle. She would trust him to deal with it from there.” She swung around so fast that Fulk jumped. “Go, quickly,” she told the boy, “and have the master of arms come to me here. I want search parties sent out immediately. In all directions, but especially toward Laval.”
“But …” Gaspard protested as Fulk hurried from the chamber. “Why would Attica take the breviary to Renouf Blissot? I mean, he's been conspiring with Richard and Philip against Henry for years. Longer even than we have.”
“We know that.” Yvette smiled as a rare ripple of amusement bubbled up from within her. “But Attica doesn't.”
She could always change her mind, Attica told herself as they wound their way down into the valley. Her decision to travel to Laval in the company of