The Loyal Heart

by Merry Farmer

  Crispin’s scowl was hidden by a grimace of pain as sweat broke out on his forehead. “Bring the base this way,” he ordered the guards and tried not to grunt as the full weight of the Madonna scraped up over his chest and hit his long nose. He steadied the statue as best he could, hearing the clunk again when it was vertical, and took a deep breath as it settled in place. He stepped away from the altar, dabbed his bleeding nose on the back of his sleeve, sniffed, and stopped dead.

  Aubrey had entered the chapel and leaned against the wall by the door. Her blue-green eyes sparkled with mirth and her pert mouth was curved in a grin. He pretended to ignore her, heart pounding, as he strode to Buxton’s side.

  “There, you see?” Buxton slapped him on the back, causing waves of pain to radiate across his bruised ribs. Buxton leaned in closer and glowered at the statue while saying, “Never trust a woman.”

  Crispin paled and willed Buxton not to turn and see Aubrey. He leaned forward to check the base of the statue for damage, drawing Buxton’s eyes with him. Buxton’s words meant more than he wanted them to. He hadn’t been able to shake the memory of Aubrey’s behavior the day Ethan escaped. The guards in the dungeon had reported that a woman had been involved, though they were tight-lipped about what that involvement was as they nursed their bruises.

  He frowned as he made a half-circle around the Madonna, stealing a glance at Aubrey while Buxton was directing the guards to move the altar back into place. She smiled at him and waved. He sent her a warning frown. Never trust a woman.

  “Stop fussing, Crispy, will you?” Buxton interrupted his thoughts. “We’ve got better things to do. We need to do something to really drive the point of Prince John’s generous gift home.” He stepped closer and hooked a hand over Crispin’s shoulder. Crispin lowered his eyes to stare at the fingers that dug into him. “Something public … but not too flashy. Something that will draw a lot of attention but … but will have an exclusive feel. We want rumors of grandeur without having to actually pay for it.” He ended by tickling his hand down Crispin’s back and turning to step off the chancel. When he saw Aubrey his cheerful grin burst into a sour sneer. “Oh what now?”

  Aubrey shrugged as she stepped away from the wall towards them. “Just checking to see if I can help.”

  Buxton hissed out a laugh. “I’ll bet you are.”

  “Grandeur at a good price?” She raised an eyebrow. “Public but not flashy?”

  A lump caught in Crispin’s throat. Whatever game Aubrey was playing needed to stop. “Aubrey, let me take you out to the cloister. Perhaps we could-”

  “What did you have in mind?” Buxton interrupted.

  “Well, you could make a show of pardoning someone. Restoring their lands?”

  A cold wave of suspicion twisted Crispin’s stomach.

  Buxton laughed. Aubrey laughed with him. Buxton’s face fell and he glared at her. “Get out.” He pushed past her towards the door. Crispin followed, shooting Aubrey a warning glance.

  “Wait!” Aubrey jumped after them, catching up in the hall. “What about Ethan of Windale?”

  Buxton spun to face her. Crispin stopped between them. The air in the hallway sizzled. “What about him?”

  “Well….” Aubrey took half a step back. “Are you at least going to try to find him?” When Buxton just glared at her she went on. “To, um, bring him to justice I mean.”

  Crispin narrowed his eyes. As much as he would have loved to see Ethan hang for treason, hearing the suggestion from Aubrey’s lips sent a chill down his spine. The memory of her laughter as she clung to Ethan’s arm at the party assaulted him. “Aubrey, I-”

  “It just so happens,” Buxton cut him off again without so much as a glance, “that I’ve already got a doling out of justice in the works.” Crispin snapped his mouth shut and whipped his head to Buxton in surprise. Buxton indulged him with a lazy grin. “No, I don’t tell you everything, Crispy,” he answered the unasked question then shrugged as if it were inconsequential and started walking again. “That murderer who escaped, the boy who slit his lord’s throat in his sleep and slipped through your fingers last month, he’s been found. I thought we could have a trial for him. Well, I thought we could hang, draw, and quarter him really. That counts as a trial, doesn’t it?” Aubrey started to speak again but Buxton cut her off as he reached the stairs. “Get rid of her, Crispy, will you?” He didn’t wait for an answer before fixing Crispin with a flat grimace and charging up the stairs.

  Crispin rounded on Aubrey, temper flaring. “What are you playing at?”

  “Who would slit their own lord’s throat?” She ignored his question.

  “Aubrey,” his voice shook with frustration.

  She smiled and laid a hand on his chest. “How are your ribs? That looked like it hurt.” Her eyes flickered to the wolf-head dagger in his belt and she flushed.

  He sighed, shoulders sinking. “They’re-” He reached to put his hand over hers. She retreated. His jaw clenched as he stared at the spot where her hand had been and he sucked in a deliberate breath. “Are you in league with Windale?”

  “Oh no,” she spun back, “I-” Her smiling mouth clamped shut and she colored. “I don’t want anything to do with him after all that treason he spoke.”

  Crispin studied her, eyes calculating. He knew when he was being lied to. “Neither do I.” He regretted how exhausted he sounded. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to go for a walk?”

  “No, I don’t think….” Her words trailed off as she stared over his shoulder at nothing, then focused on him. “Yes.” She smiled again and stepped forward to take his arm. He cradled her hand in his elbow and tried to fight the sensation that the world was tilted on its ear as he walked along the hall towards the door leading to the cloister. “So tell me about this lord-murderer.” She batted her eyelashes, causing a hopeless squeezing in his chest. “Where did it happen?”

  By the time Aubrey rode into the small clearing deep in Derbywood where Ethan, Toby, Jack, and Tom had set up camp she was brimming with excitement at everything she had managed to pump out of Crispin that morning. Whether she’d managed to catch him on a good day or whether he told her everything to get her to drop her questioning Aubrey didn’t know, but Crispin had sat with her in the cloister for a good twenty minutes. For him that was like three days.

  She grinned at the memory in spite of herself, at the way he had tried to sit straight and proud in spite of his nose bleeding. He had attempted to ignore his injury until she had to pull out a handkerchief and wipe the blood off his lip. Then he had forgotten what he had been saying. She laughed to herself then lost her grin and swallowed hard as guilt replaced mirth. Her eyes sought out Ethan.

  “You call that a straight shot?” her brother was laughing. Ethan lowered his bow and craned his neck to see where his shot had landed on the target across the clearing. Aubrey nudged her mount to stand beside her brother atop his horse. Geoffrey nodded to her and tilted his head to Ethan with a grin. Toby sat at the edge of the clearing mending one of Ethan’s shirts while Tom worked carving something that looked like a bowl nearby.

  “I hit the target, didn’t I?” Ethan complained with a bright, flashing smile and a wink for Aubrey. Aubrey blushed to her fingertips.

  “Psht!” Barely,” Geoffrey scoffed. “It’s hanging off the end!”

  “I’d like to see you do better,” Ethan challenged.

  Geoffrey exchanged a grin with Aubrey and raised his bow, turning his horse to the side with his one leg. He took aim at the distant target, forgetting everything but the bow and the bull’s-eye, senses focused. The arrow shot loose, sped across the clearing, and landed square in the center of the target with a satisfying thwack. Geoffrey lowered the bow with a smug grin and turned to Ethan.

  “Alright, alright, you won that one,” Ethan conceded.

  “You think that’s somethin’?” Jack stepped forward from the tree he had been slouched against, eyes alight and hair extra gingery in the afternoon sun. “Watch this.�
��

  Aubrey raised an eyebrow at Jack as he strode to stand in front of them, his strong legs apart in a ready position. Tom glanced up and shook his head with a frown. Jack stood ready, staring at the target as if he would set it on fire with his eyes. Then, without warning, he whipped his right hand to his belt and threw a small dagger that no one had seen on him at the target. It would have been amazing but for the fact that the handle of the dagger and not the point smacked the bull’s-eye just below Geoffrey’s arrow, bouncing to the ground.

  Jack cursed and stood straight. “I’m outta practice.” Not satisfied to leave things there, he took another concealed dagger from his belt, aimed, and threw it deep into the target several inches to the right of Geoffrey’s arrow.

  Aubrey rewarded him with applause. “Not bad,” Geoffrey shrugged.

  “Not bad?” Jack shifted his weight and threw out his arms.

  “Where did you get the daggers, Jack?” Ethan arched an eyebrow.

  Jack shrugged. “Nicked ‘em from that house where we called day before yesterday.”

  Tom dropped his head in shame.

  Ethan rolled his eyes. “Lindsey is my friend, Jack. I need his support if I’m to petition the crown to get my land back.” Aubrey glanced from Ethan to Jack and chewed her lip.

  “Oy, he’s never gonna miss a couple of daggers, mate,” Jack defended his actions with a shrug.

  “I won’t have a thief as part of my retinue.” Ethan took a bold step towards him.

  “Your retinue?” Jack squared his shoulders and planted his hands on his hips.

  “You forget your place.”

  “Whenever possible.” Jack arched an eyebrow.

  “Jack!” Tom scolded, jumping to his feet.

  “Boys, boys!” Aubrey interrupted the pissing contest. “Let’s not forget why we’re here.” She fixed them each with the same flattering smile that she’d showered Crispin with that morning. Jack’s scowl broke into his usual sly grin and he turned to trot across the clearing to the target to retrieve his daggers.

  “And why are you here?” Geoffrey played along to help Aubrey break the tension. “I thought you were going to the castle today.”

  Ethan turned from Geoffrey to Aubrey with an incredulous frown. If Aubrey didn’t know better she would have thought he was jealous.

  “I was at the castle,” she announced. “And I bring news,” she added with an flicker of her eyebrow.

  “What news?” Ethan crossed his arms, bow still in one hand.

  Aubrey slid to the ground and landed in front of Ethan with a smile. His stark frown began to thaw as she left his question unanswered. When he dissolved into a flirtatious grin it was enough to make Aubrey tingle with expectation. “Getting a little practice in?”

  “You could say that,” he shrugged. “It’s just a bow.”

  “Just a bow? You’re breaking my heart!” She reached out and took the bow from him, then held out her other hand. He drew an arrow from the quiver on his back for her. “A bow is valuable weapon,” she lectured him as she turned to face the target at the far end of the field. Toby set aside his mending and came to watch. Jack had retrieved his daggers and now stood to the side in front of the target checking the blades. She still had a clear shot at the bull’s-eye. “It’s your first line of attack, your distance weapon.” She drew the string as she lifted the bow, aimed, and let the arrow fly in one smooth motion. It zipped across the clearing, ruffling Jack’s shirt as it passed within a hand of his chest, and sank home less than an inch beside Geoffrey’s arrow.

  “Oy!” Jack shouted, turning to them and throwing out his arms. “You got a thing for tryin’ to kill me?”

  Aubrey could see the twinkle in his eyes across the distance. “If I’d been trying to kill you, Jack, you’d be dead already!”

  She turned back to Ethan to find him and Geoffrey applauding while exchanging looks with each other. She smiled and bobbed a quick curtsy.

  “And now,” Ethan snatched the bow from her, “for that news.”

  For a moment there they had been having a genuinely good time. She sighed. “First of all, Buxton doesn’t have any plans to root you out and drag you to the castle for a hanging. At least not yet. I think he considers it too much trouble.”

  “I’ll just have to work harder then.” Ethan shot a wink to Geoffrey.

  “Ethan!”

  “What? If I’m not a wanted man then I’m not trying hard enough. I want my land back.”

  “So I’m told,” Aubrey huffed. His grin dropped from her eyes to her lips to her chest and a tingle raced down her spine.

  His eyes flickered to hers. “Anything else?”

  Aubrey cleared her throat. Jack closed the distance from the target and joined the conversation, ears perked. “Buxton is bringing a man in for a trial, or rather an execution.”

  “Yeah?” Jack asked, “And what did he supposedly do?”

  “Supposedly murdering his lord.”

  “Right.” Jack rolled his eyes. “Which probably means he bumped into some snooty noble in the marketplace who stubbed his bleedin’ toe.”

  Aubrey faced Ethan. “He’s from Derbyshire but he ran after he was accused and was caught a few days ago. I figure if you’re serious about this opposition and you want to set precedent for thwarting Buxton’s plans maybe you could do something about that. You know, a daring midnight rescue or something.”

  “Well I’m definitely in.” Jack nodded as if the matter were already decided.

  Tom echoed him with, “I’m with you, my lord.”

  “Here’s the thing,” Aubrey went on as Ethan tried to speak, Jack’s confidence fueling her own. “Crispin told me that aside from the guards that will be with the transport for the ‘murderer’ there are also some civilians, a couple of nuns and a merchant.”

  “Aw, I love nuns!” Jack exclaimed with a wicked grin that drew curious glances from everyone else. He defended himself with a shrug. “What?”

  “You love … nuns?” Ethan asked while Toby stifled a laugh behind his hand.

  “Don’t ask!” Tom chimed in from his place several yards away by the fire, his eyes wide and his expression warning. “Believe me, you don’t want to know.”

  “You’re just jealous cuz none of them offered to hide you in their beds,” Jack wiggled his eyebrows. Tom looked mortified.

  It was several more seconds before Aubrey remembered what she had been saying. She blinked and pressed her lips together before going on with, “OK then. Civilians. So it could get messy. We’ll have to be careful.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Ethan stopped her. “First of all, no. Second of all, NO!”

  Geoffrey sighed and rolled his eyes when he saw the indignation that crossed his little sister’s face.

  “Excuse me?” Aubrey asked, crossing her arms.

  “Haven’t you rescued enough people for one month?” Ethan asked her.

  “So you’re not going to try to rescue an innocent man condemned to die?”

  Ethan shook his head. “Where did you get this information anyhow? Crispin?”

  “Yes!”

  “And you trust what Huntingdon says?” Ethan frowned.

  “Of course I do. Crispin likes me.”

  “Yeah?” Ethan took half a step towards her. “And what did you do to get him to like you?”

  Aubrey opened her mouth to snap a come-back when Geoffrey blurted, “That’s enough! From both of you.” He nudged his horse between them, forcing each to step away from each other. He made eye-contact with the both of them like a father scolding disobedient children.

  “Aw, mate,” Jack protested, “you can’t pay for entertainment like this!”

  “Yes, well,” Geoffrey snapped, “are we here to provide entertainment for Jack Tanner? Is that why we’re here? Because if it is, I’m going home.” He proved his point by tapping his horse forward.

  “Wait, Geoff, wait!” Ethan called after his friend. Geoffrey stopped and turned back to Ethan, his sister, a
nd Jack, who was still grinning even though the other two had gone serious. He leaned forward on his saddle and raised his eyebrows, waiting for an answer. Ethan sighed. “Alright. We should rescue the man. I’ll give you that. But Aubrey-”

  “Don’t you dare, Ethan Windale,” she stopped him before he could get started.

  Ethan turned to Geoffrey but got no help there. “You saw her shoot,” he defended her.

  “Yeah, an’ you saw her nearly crack me in half!” Jack added and went further to say, “I don’t care who she is, mate, I want her watchin’ my back.”

  Aubrey rewarded Jack with a smile and a nod. Then she turned to Ethan. She didn’t have to say anything, she just crossed her arms. He seemed to be the only one who thought that she was some delicate flower that needed the boys to protect her.

  “She can take my place.” Even Toby came to her defense. Ethan swung to glare at his man and Toby glanced off at the trees as if the wind had spoken instead of him.

  Ethan sighed. He closed his eyes in defeat and said, “Alright, you can come.”

  “Thank you,” Aubrey smiled.

  They began to move in their separate directions. Geoffrey said his good-byes and started home. Toby returned to his sewing and Jack reset the daggers in his belt to continue practicing with them. Aubrey went to fetch some of the supplies she had brought, Tom helping her. She watched out of the corner of her eye as Ethan unstrung his bow and went to store it, and was surprised when he then marched over to her and took her arm. He lead her several yards away from the camp, just out of hearing of the others. She tried to fight the butterflies that filled her stomach at the sight of him looking so serious.

  “I need to talk to you,” he began, his voice low, looking her in the eyes.

  “If this is about tomorrow….”

  “It’s about Huntingdon.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Ethan, you have nothing to worry about there, believe me.”

  “I think I do.” He stared at her.