Page 120 of Raven's Rise
Drogo said, “Perhaps some of this is true, but the last part is an invention of a lady’s overwrought mind. We know Lord Otto sent other payment, for everyone saw it at Dryton. He could not have known it would not arrive.”
Otto grunted in satisfaction at the point, sitting down in the wooden chair.
Angelet felt ready to cry, so she closed her eyes and recited a prayer, trying to remember counsel the Lady of Braecon offered that morning—a woman who cried was a woman who lost.
Then a thin, wispy voice said, “He knew.”
Everyone looked in astonishment at Lady Katherine, Otto’s usually silent wife.
“What do you say?” Drogo asked. “Stand and speak up, my lady!”
Lady Katherine stood awkwardly, uncomfortable with all the masculine authority staring at her. “He knew that the gold would not arrive, because there was no gold sent along with the cortège.”
“Katherine,” Otto began in warning, but he was quickly hushed by the king.
“Everyone has recounted seeing the gold before the cortège left,” Stephan said. “Explain what you mean.”
“First,” she said, very nervously, “I must go back much further, back to the marriage of Angelet to Hubert.”
“Well? Do so!”
She cleared her throat. “It is true that the Lady Angelet was married to Hubert Yarborough, and Hubert’s death left her a widow in our house. However, according to the terms of the contract, she wasnotto remain with the Yarboroughs.”
“How do you know this?” Drogo asked.
“I read the contract drafted by Lord d’Hiver before the marriage took place. It was in Otto’s study.”
“What were the terms of this contract?”
“Most were what one would expect of a marriage contract. Angelet’s dowry was agreed upon, and there was a list of items she would retain possession of in her own right—some household goods and jewelry, a breviary worked in ivory leather, and such.
“But d’Hiver insisted on a special clause. Because Hubert was already known to be in poor health—though we still hoped for his recovery—there was an agreement that Angeletandher dowry would be returned to the d’Hiver family if her husband died before Angelet was sixteen, which he did.”
Drogo nodded. “Because d’Hiver would have arranged another marriage for a daughter still young enough to breed. But then Angelet was kept at Dryton anyway?”
“At Otto’s wish, yes,” Katherine explained. “The baby was the excuse at first, and I kept quiet because I did not want to part mother and child. Little Henry would feed from none but his own mama.”
“He would be weaned soon enough. What happened?”
“Otto told me to forget what I read in the contract, and not to speak of it to Angelet. She was too young to truly realize the implications of the contract, even if she’d known to ask for it. Otto said the war changed everything, and he had mind to keep Angelet close. I was scared to oppose him. I am his wife; it is my duty to obey him…but I never liked it. I knew it was wrong to keep the poor child from her family.”
“Did Otto seek to marry her again, to his own advantage?”
Katherine shook her head slowly. “At first I thought that was in his mind, but he never seriously looked for other suitors. It is my belief that Otto concealed the contract and held Angelet at Dryton so he could keep her dowry for himself.”
Otto looked furious at his wife’s betrayal, and sat staring at her in hatred, his face growing red.
“Where is the dowry now?” Drogo asked Katherine.
“It is nowhere. Otto ended up spending it all, or almost all. That was part of the display at the dinner before she was sent to the nunnery. He arranged the chest with mostly false filling, and a thin layer of gold and silver at the top. It looked to everyone as if the whole chest was filled with precious stones and metal. But it was a trick. By the time the chest was chained up and lashed to the wagon, it was already emptied of all value. It was filled with only rocks and gravel for weight.”
“This would have been revealed at the end of the journey,” said the king.
“Only if the chest reached the end,” she said meekly. “You see, Otto planned to accuse the hired men of theft. His own man Dobson was to slip a little gold coin into all their purses, then empty the chest and leave it to be found. Otto’s word as lord would be enough to cast doubt on Sir Rafe and the three others. It didn’t matter to Otto if they were actually convicted or not—only that everyone believed the treasure was lost. That way, no one could demand any payment from him, whether in the form of the dowry, or the gift to the nunnery, or anything else.”
“But I woke up when he tried to get the chest out of the room while everyone else was sleeping,” said Angelet.
“And you screamed,” said Rafe. “And we all assumed Dobson was trying to steal a chest full of gold for himself. But it sounds like he never intended to kill anyone—it just got out of hand.”
