But when he saw Eiselle and Bric head to the garden on this bright morning, he wanted to see for himself how Bric was feeling. He’d not seen Eiselle enough to have a decent conversation with her, as she had remained in the master’s chamber with Bric since their arrival, so now was his chance to sate his curiosity.
“My lord, I promise I will not be a burden,” he said. “But I thought I would come in case I could be of service. You may want a man to play games with, you know. There is a chess set in the hall and I shall be more than willing to challenge you for supremacy.”
Bric eyed the man as he came near. “Chess,” he muttered. “I’ve not played that in years.”
“Good,” Manducor said firmly. “Then I shall triumph over you.”
“I did not say I’d forgotten how to play, old man. Be careful who you challenge.”
Manducor grinned. “I am very bold now, but ask me again when we actually start playing. You frighten me, MacRohan.”
Bric couldn’t help but snort at the man. “If that is true, then you are the only one.”
His smile rapidly faded as he turned away, wandering in the direction of a stone sundial in the middle of the garden. Manducor and Eiselle exchanged glances, hearing the struggle in Bric’s voice again. Eiselle sensed that perhaps this time, Bric didn’t want to hear her tell him how great he still was or how much she loved him. He’d been hearing that enough. Perhaps this time, he needed to hear something from another man, someone who, perhaps, understood more of what he was going through.
It was time for Manducor to earn his keep.
Manducor understood Eiselle’s pleading expression, though he was hesitant. He wasn’t a peer of MacRohan’s, but he had been a knight, once. He understood the profession. As Eiselle pretended to turn back to the flowers, Manducor followed Bric as the man wandered towards the sundial.
“Have you thought about what there is for you if you do not return to the knighthood?” he asked, watching Bric turn to look at him. “I did not and look what became of me. You are better than me, MacRohan, a thousand-fold. What would you do if you were not a knight?”
Bric’s brow furrowed. “Who says I will no longer be a knight?”
Manducor shrugged. “No one,” he said. “But it must have crossed your mind.”
Bric’s gaze lingered on him a moment before turning back to the sundial. It seemed to be leaning to him, so he kicked at it, trying to level it.
“It has not crossed my mind,” he said. “There is nothing else for me. I was raised as a knight and it is what I know.”
“Then you will return to the battlefield.”
Bric sighed sharply. “I am sure I will, at some point.”
“Then why do you say no one is afraid of you?”
Bric was becoming more agitated as he moved the sundial around. “I do not wish to discuss this with you.”
Manducor didn’t want to upset the man; he was simply trying to get him to think a little. “Do you remember when we first met?”
“Regretfully, I do.”
“You slapped me and called me a drunkard.”
“Your point being?”
Manducor grinned as he leaned in Bric’s direction. “You do not even have to try to be frightening, MacRohan,” he muttered. “All you need do is look at a man and he is terrified. You have that gift and it is not something everyone has. Even now, the gift is apparent. It is not something you will ever lose, no matter how damaged your confidence.”
With that, he turned away, heading towards the smaller garden gate, looking at the flowers as he went.
Bric watched him go, realizing that, in some very small way, he felt better. He was still capable of frightening Manducor, so that had to be a boost to his pride. He remembered slapping the man around when they’d first met and, strangely, he felt rather sorry he had. But not sorry enough to tell him.
As Manducor headed out of the gate, Bric caught movement off to his left again, seeing that the bushes were moving once more. There was so much lush undergrowth in the garden that it was easy for his stalkers to conceal themselves. He was growing more curious now so he moved away from the sundial, his focus on the shuddering bushes several feet away. It was some kind of a yellow flower bush and since he didn’t know a flower from a weed, all he knew was that it was a big bush with big, yellow blooms. But it was shaking so hard that some of the yellow petals were falling off. Just as he neared the bush, a young boy jumped out at him.
“Halt!” the child cried, holding a small switch in his right hand. “You may not pass!”
Dutifully, Bric came to a halt. The boy couldn’t have been more than four or five years in age, dressed in simple peasant clothing, but having a fairly fierce expression for a servant. He was brave, this one. Behind him, a little girl with golden curls bolted out of the bushes and ran for the wall of the garden, pressing herself against the stone beneath a creeping vine of purple flowers as if fearful of Bric.
“Who are you?” Bric asked the lad. “What are you doing here?”
The boy swished the stick back and forth, quickly enough to make it sing. “I am Sir Royce,” he declared. “You are the wicked knight and I must vanish you!”
“Do you mean vanquish?”
“Nay!” the child barked. “Vanish! You must go!”
Bric put a hand up to his face, hiding the smile that threatened. “I see,” he said. “Tell me, Sir Royce – where do you live?”
Royce pointed at the manor house, briefly, with his stick before returning it to a defensive position. “There,” he said. “Now, will you fight me?”
“I will not.”
Royce lost his aggressiveness. The stick came down and he frowned. “But why not?”
Before Bric could answer, he heard a voice behind him.
“I agree – why not?”
He turned to see Eiselle standing behind him, grinning. Lifting her hand, she extended a stick to him about the same size as the one the little boy held.
“Well?” she said. “You have been challenged, MacRohan. Since when do you refuse a challenge?”
Bric looked at her. Then, he looked at the stick. Suddenly, his heart began to pound and his palms began to sweat. He was coming to feel agitated and angry, something he didn’t like in the least. He didn’t want to be angry and agitated at Eiselle, but he couldn’t help himself. At that moment, all he wanted to do was run.
He couldn’t get away fast enough.
“I won’t do it,” he muttered.
Turning on his heel, he blew past her, knocking the stick out of her hand as he went. It was an accident; he hadn’t meant to do it, but he’d been moving so swiftly that he’d recklessly hit it.
But it was a small stick and even as it popped out of Eiselle’s grip, it hardly made a sound. Truthfully, she didn’t even care – she was more concerned about Bric as he practically ran away. She watched him go, her smile fading, feeling bad that she’d tried to coerce him into something he wasn’t willing to do. It had only been a game, from her perspective, and she thought it might do him good. But Bric hadn’t viewed it as a game at all. Perhaps in that little boy’s stick, he saw another sword.
He saw a battle.
He wasn’t ready to fight.
Eiselle thought that he simply needed some time to be alone. She had been with him every second of every day since his injury, the only time that they were separated being when he had gone to Castle Acre. Perhaps, in this instance, the man just needed some time away from her, to ponder his thoughts and clear his mind without her constant presence. The thought brought tears to her eyes, thinking that maybe she’d been too attentive, and now pushing him to do something he clearly wasn’t ready to do. Playing with a child, even with a pretend-sword, had upset him.
She had upset him.
As the main gate slammed when Bric passed through it, Eiselle didn’t follow. She made her way over to a stone bench that was lodged near the smaller gate, one that was situated beneath the shade of a big poplar tree.
As young Royce and his curly-haired playmate found excitement elsewhere, Eiselle plopped down on the stone bench and wept.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ramsbury Castle
Wiltshire
Dashiell was sitting in the very large solar of Ramsbury Castle, one used by the Dukes of Savernake for generations. Presently, it belonged to the current duke, Bentley de Vaston, and the man was seated at one end of a very large, cluttered table whilst Dashiell was seated at the other.
Dogs milled about the solar, looking for any scraps of food left over from the night before, while two servants tried to unblock the hearth that was billowing clouds of smoke into the chamber.
But Dashiell and Bentley weren’t paying attention to the distractions; they were both working on tasks, with Bentley scribing a missive to William Marshal and Dashiell studying a map that showed the entire southern portion of England. He was studying it with a purpose because the day before, they’d received a message from William Marshal that was about to shape the course of their next few months.
Another battle was on the horizon.
It would seem the rebels, still reeling from the defeat at Lincoln, had moved south and were starting to converge near Dover in Kent, shores that could easily receive supply ships from France. It was serious news because it meant they weren’t defeated, or even finished as far as that went. It meant the French intended to stay. As Dashiell studied the map and the roads that would become the Savernake army’s path into Kent, another figure entered the solar.
Enormous, with dark blond hair and eyes of the clearest blue, Sir Sean de Lara was the man who had brought the news of the rebel movements from William Marshal. Sean was part of the de Lara family, the Lords of the Trilateral castles along the Welsh Marches, but Sean’s status in the annals of England’s politics went far beyond being a mere member of a prestigious family.
He was one of William Marshal’s most trusted spies.
A spy who had been placed with King John for many years, earning the king’s trust and becoming the man known as Lord of the Shadows – the bodyguard for the king, whom all men feared. Sean had earned himself a terrible reputation during his tenure as John’s bodyguard, becoming known as someone who would do anything the king told him to do – kill, abduct, or anything else that came from John’s twisted mind.
It had been a horrific assignment for the moral and ethical de Lara, who’d had to put all of that aside in order to earn that terrible reputation so he could spy on the king for William Marshal. The information he’d killed, begged, or stolen to obtain had saved the rebel cause against John too many times to count. His position had been invaluable and he knew it, but the personal cost to him had been great.
Sean de Lara had become a monster.
But that monster had been slain two years ago when his true identity had been discovered and he’d nearly been killed by John’s assassins because of it. Yet, for a man as strong and seasoned as de Lara, it hadn’t ended him. He’d come back into William Marshal’s fold as the Marshal’s greatest spy and advisor, only now he was actually working with those he was allied with rather than pretending he was against them.
“So you have finally decided to rise this morning,” Dashiell said as the man approached the table. “You’ve become lazy in your old age.”
Sean snorted. “And you’ve become foolish in yours,” he returned. “It was not you who rode forty-three miles yesterday. I have earned my rest, du Reims.”
Dashiell pulled up a stool for the man. “So you have,” he said. “Bent is writing a missive to Marshal as we speak, but I did not ask you last night how soon you will be returning to the Marshal. Will you be leaving today so that you may take the missive with you?”
Sean sat down on the stool but not before sending the nearest manservant for food and drink. He grunted wearily as he planted his backside on the wooden seat, his gaze moving to the map Dashiell had laid out on the table.
“Nay,” he said. “I only stopped at Ramsbury because I was on my way home to see my wife. I’ve not seen her or my children in two months, so the Marshal gave me permission to see them before I am tied down to the army in Kent. God’s Bones, I would like for this to be the last time for a very long while. I am tired of spending all of my time with the army while my children grow up.”
Dashiell understood his position. With his own wife pregnant with their first child, leaving her now did not thrill him. “My wife is due to deliver our child in the next month,” he said. “I do not wish to be with the army in Kent, fighting off the damnable French, when my son is born.”
“Hopefully, you will not be.”’
“Tell me of your children, Sean. We’ve not had a chance to talk about them.”
Sean smiled faintly, a big dimple carving into his left cheek. “I have three girls,” he said. “The twins, Lorica and Lorelle, are the eldest. They were barely a year old when my third daughter was born. Her name is Evangeline and she is a holy terror. Had she been a boy, she would have made a magnificent knight.”
Dashiell grinned. “Three girls,” he said, lifting eyebrows. “Thank God you have the de Lara wealth to support the dowries you will need.”
Sean couldn’t disagree. “If you have a son, then we must speak. Evie will need a husband someday.”
Dashiell looked at him in disbelief. “Marry my son to the Holy Terror? You must be mad.”
“I will pay you handsomely.”
Dashiell started to laugh. “Then I may consider it,” he said. “But we have time enough to discuss it later. Right now, I am more concerned about moving my army into Kent. So the Marshal is very sure that Prince Louis is bringing over a fleet from his father?”
Sean sobered as he looked at the map. “Aye,” he said. “We have intercepted messages between Louis and his father. There is a fleet coming, supported by French nobles, and unless we want a massive war on English soil, we are calling all English warlords to Kent and to ensure that fleet never makes it to the shore. This is serious, Dash. I cannot stress it enough.”
It was a gloomy situation they were facing. Dashiell shook his head, disappointed.
“After the battle at Lincoln, I thought the Marshal was negotiating with Louis for peace,” he said. “What happened?”
Sean’s expression turned bitter. “They simply could not come to an agreement,” he said. “Louis has too many stipulations, too many men he wants pardoned or, worse still, given lands in England. The Marshal has denied him most of his demands, and Louis has resolved to fight on. We only recently received news about the incoming fleet and we suspect it will be docking somewhere at or near Dover.”
Dashiell was looking at the map, which included most of Kent and Dover. “I was very much hoping Lincoln would be the last of it,” he said. “It seems as if we’ve not even seen the worst of it yet if Louis is waiting for a fleet to support him. That means new and fresh men, Sean. Our warlords are exhausted from years of heavy fighting.”
Sean knew that. “We will have to take a last stand at Dover,” he muttered. “It was a chance we took inviting the French over in the first place to help us defeat John, but we have a new king and no longer any need for French support. Still, Louis cannot understand that. He wants what we have promised him and I cannot say that I blame him, but promising him the throne of England was done in desperation. We are no longer desperate and we must push the French away once and for all. If we do not, I fear we will lose our country.”
It was a terrifying thought. Bentley was listening now; he had a new son, and a new position as the Duke of Savernake, and he didn’t want to risk any of that. Bentley was a good man and the Savernake dukedom was in good hands after he married the heiress last year. The more he heard the conversation between Sean and Dashiell, the more concerned he became.
“Has the Marshal put out a call to everyone, Sean?” he asked from across the table. “I cannot imagine that he would not summon every warlord in England.”
Sean looked to the you
ng and handsome duke. “Everyone, my lord,” he said. “The de Lohr brothers, Worcester and Canterbury, are already in Kent, heading for Dover, as is Arundel and nearly everyone else from the south of England. It takes longer, of course, to send word to the far reaches of the country, which is why he asked me to stop at Ramsbury. He would like to see Savernake’s army move out within the week.”
Dashiell was looking at Bentley; the two were close friends and had served together for many years. If they couldn’t read each other’s minds these days, then they were close to it. Dashiell said what Bentley was thinking.
“We shall be ready,” he said quietly. “Have you sent word to East Anglia and Norfolk? My father should be mobilizing his army, and Norfolk has de Winter at its head. You must have their strength.”
Before Sean could reply, a Savernake soldier appeared in the doorway of the solar, knocking on the doorjamb in the open portal.
“My lord?” the soldier said. “Beg pardon for interrupting, but we received a missive from Narborough Castle. It is for Dashiell.”
Dashiell stood up and went to the door. “Speaking of de Winter,” he said ironically. He took the missive and sent the soldier away, breaking the seal as he headed back to the table. “It is probably from Bric, wanting to know when our army is departing for Kent. Surely they have already been informed.”
The seal came away and Dashiell reclaimed his seat next to Sean as he started to read. Bentley turned back to his missive and Sean accepted the food brought to him by the manservant. He plowed into the warmed-over beef and gravy, with big hunks of bread to sop up the juices. In fact, he was so involved in his meal, and Bentley was so focused on his missive, that neither one of them noticed the expression on Dashiell’s face as he read the missive twice. When he finally finished, he lowered the missive to the table and simply stared at it.
“Oh, God…” he finally muttered. “I cannot believe it.”
Bentley didn’t look up from his missive. “What?”
“Bric is in trouble.”
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