This Scepter'd Isle by Mercedes Lackey, Roberta Gellis Page B

he would be surprised at FitzRoy's understanding of his uncle's temper, and grateful that the child was so perceptive as well as brave enough to risk the duke's anger. If Norfolk had seen him arrive bound and disarmed, the duke would have assumed him guilty, and once Norfolk assumed something only the king's command could change his mind. And Norfolk exploded when he heard the true cause of their request for audience, bellowing at the steward and everyone else that his business with Inigo de Mendoza had been trivial compared with an attempt on his ward's life.
    When Norfolk calmed, it was Henry Howard who told his part of the tale first, how he and Mary had gone to summon FitzRoy to tea. "You know how he is, Father," the boy said, smiling rather fondly at FitzRoy. "When he starts sailing that boat of his on the pond, he seems to forget everything else."
    Norfolk chuckled. "We'll have to get him appointed Lord High Admiral," he said.
    Henry Howard frowned as if the mild jest did not please him, but did not respond overtly. He said, "Mary was first. She went through the gate, and then I realized there wasn't any guard and I started to call her and say that Harry must have gone back to the house—but she screamed, and when I rushed over to her she pointed and said she'd seen a foot under the bush. Then the bush shook, and I shouted, and the next thing we knew Lord Denno was pelting along the path carrying Harry in one arm and a sword in his other hand."
    "Was Richmond struggling?" Norfolk asked.
    "No, sir, not at all, and anyway, as soon as he saw us, Lord Denno put Harry down and sheathed his sword. Then Harry started to tell us about being pushed into the pond and Lord Denno saving him, and the bushes started to shake again. Lord Denno told us to go out on the lawn to the people who were running from the house and he went to look behind the bush."
    "How long was he there, Henry?"
    Henry Howard considered. "Scarcely a moment?" he said doubtfully. "He shouted almost at once that he had found the gate guards."
    Norfolk looked at the steward and the guard who had followed him. "Could Lord Denno have tied up the guards in the time he was behind the bushes?"
    "No, Your Grace," the steward said, reluctantly. It was clear that in his mind, this Lord Denno was a foreigner and therefore untrustworthy and likely to do unorthodox or even evil things. Nevertheless, he was an honest man, and could hardly deny the testament of his own eyes. "I could see him the whole time," the steward admitted. "He was standing up behind the bush. He never bent down at all, and he had his sword out in one hand. The guards were lying on the ground, bound and gagged. I don't see any way he could have done that."
    Norfolk turned his eyes to FitzRoy's guards, who recoiled slightly at the expression upon the duke's face. Denoriel felt a little sorry for them; Norfolk was no easy master, and he did not accept excuses for failure. "And how, may I ask, did you get into that condition? Did either of you see Lord Denno today?"
    "N-not till he found us, Your Grace," one man answered.
    "I don't know how it happened," the other man said, his voice shaking. "I don't remember anything except standing by the gate. I'd been looking over the hedge, watching the boy . . . I mean His Grace of Richmond . . . getting ready to put that boat of his in the water. Then Dickson said to look, and I turned around and did, and saw a party coming up the long drive and then. . . . then . . . I don't remember anything."
    The man sounded desperately frightened. It was entirely possible he was frightened of the punishment Norfolk would mete out for his dereliction of duty, but Denoriel did not think so. He suspected the man was fighting a deeper and more elemental fear, having looked into his own memory, and finding there—nothing.
    Now, a blow to the head could cause such memory loss, but surely the men would not have been so easily taken unawares. Not with two of them