Cait would have been content to remain as such for the entire day, but . . .
“You’ve a treaty to sign.” She pulled away reluctantly.
He would not be swayed. After securing her mantle, he took her hand and kissed her once more. “Come.”
When they stepped outside, Cait startled. The others were all there, already mounted. Lance and Idalia, Guy and Sabine, Terric and Roysa . . .
“Apologies.” Conrad guided her toward them. “We had a slight delay.”
Judging from their expressions, they knew precisely what Conrad meant by “delay.” She could feel her cheeks warming.
“I did not realize you would all . . .” She let her sentence drift off. Conrad, Terric, Guy, and Lance all bore the mark of the fleur-de-lis, as did Sabine. The mark of the Order of the Broken Blade. Just yesterday Conrad had suggested that perhaps she would like to get the same mark once they returned to Licheford.
Only now did she realize what he’d truly been asking. He wanted her to join the order. She could only be an honorary member, truly, because she was no knight.
But even so . . .
“Will you come with us?” Conrad asked again.
“Of course,” she said as his squire and another page brought their horses forward. “Of course,” she mumbled again, through a throat clogged with emotion. For years, she’d felt weighed down by the guilt of what had happened. By the fact that Conrad bore a scar because of her. That he had been forced to kill a man, a king’s man, because of her. That her brother had become a man driven by revenge, because of her.
But she’d lost sight of the fact that these four men had come together, in part, because of her. By asking her to join them, Conrad was telling her that she had played a role in their victory.
Once she and Conrad were settled on their mounts, her husband nodded to the others and told them they were ready. Riding away from the tent city, Cait was lulled into a near trance. Her mind wandered back to that day, to everything that had happened since . . .
“I am one of you,” she said firmly.
“You are one of us,” Conrad confirmed. They rode at the lead, the others following behind them, two by two. “The most important one of us.”
A bird called out to them, as if signaling the way toward the king. He would be there. The king would be at this meeting. It was not an ordinary occurrence, to be sure.
“This day would have come without me, or Terric.”
Conrad shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps. Or perhaps not.”
Cait turned in her saddle, catching her brother’s eye behind them. Terric winked at her.
“I can hardly believe this is happening.” And it was true. It was as if she rode in someone else’s body.
“I will admit, I feared it would come to naught. Even yesterday one of the king’s clerics returned to the negotiations with a message from the king that could have easily sent both sides home without a treaty. Negotiations continued, thankfully, and eventually prevailed.”
Cait took in a deep breath, the crisp morning air a perfect complement to the mood among them. Hopeful, but hesitant too.
“Roysa seems particularly happy that widows will not be forced to remarry in order to keep their property,” she said.
“Your brother insisted on that particular clause.”
“And you, which are you most pleased with of them all?”
Conrad thought for a bit. Cait was content to just ride alongside him, pretending, most unsuccessfully, they were simply out for a morning ride.
“No scutage nor aid is to be imposed on the kingdom except by the common counsel of the kingdom.”
It was the article he’d fought for most this past year, and Cait was proud that such language was included in the treaty. She was proud of him.
“You are quite a man, Conrad, Earl of Licheford.”
What was once a white speck in the distance suddenly loomed before them. Unlike the rebels’ camp, there were only a few tents, one of which clearly belonged to the king. Had Cait been walking, she might have faltered. Thankfully, her mount kept moving forward.
She realized Conrad watched her. Realized they had slowed enough for the others to ride up beside them. Terric had fallen in at her left, Roysa beside him, and Lance and Idalia rode beyond them. Guy’s mount was to Conrad’s right, Sabine sitting tall and proud on her own horse, staring at King John’s tent as if she meant to tear it to the ground.
None spoke for a time, until Conrad finally broke the silence.
“Shall we finish it, then?”
In answer, they moved forward together.
The Order of the Broken Blade.
Epilogue
“He said nothing of why we are here?” Conrad asked the others. They had been back at Licheford for two days. On the morrow, his friends would leave with their wives.
Idalia was the only one among them who seemed to know why Lance had requested this gathering. When he had asked to meet privately, Conrad had surprised everyone, including himself, by asking for his father’s solar to be prepared.
The request had startled Wyot, but his face had split into a huge grin. The steward had been advising him to take up residence in it since his parents’ death, insisting the earl’s rightful place was here, in this chamber.
The servants had done their job well, for it looked just as it had the last time he’d been in here, years before. His mother’s touch was everywhere. Her affinity for weaving and bright colors was on display in every tapestry. He could hardly spy a bit of stone for the coverings.
I should have come here sooner.
Conrad realized his wife was watching him, likely knowing the direction of his thoughts. He took advantage of their position on the intricately carved bench and slid even closer to her. All but Lance and Idalia were present, sitting on a bench opposite them.
“I will be sitting on your lap soon,” she whispered.
“An intriguing thought,” he said, moving to lift her into such a position when the door opened.
The first thing he noticed was Lance’s face. A broad smile was not his friend’s typical expression. He had something planned, but Conrad could not imagine what that might be.
He noticed, then, that Lance carried a sword. Why would he have drawn his . . .
It was not just any sword. Although Lance’s hand covered the hilt, Conrad had a clear look at the guard as his friend came closer. Nondescript, he recognized it anyway. Could it be?
Nay, that sword lay at the bottom of a river.
The chamber was so silent when Lance presented it to him, Conrad could hear his friend’s breathing. He stood, accepting it, still not understanding.
“I went back,” Lance explained. “Worried it could be found, could implicate you if identified.”
The smaller training sword had been no match for Cait’s attacker, but it had saved them in the end. It was the sharp edge of the broken blade that Conrad had used to stab him. To kill him.
“I kept it, reforged it . . .”
Conrad looked from the sword up to Lance. He nodded.
Unsheathing it, the sound reverberating through the silent chamber, Conrad gasped. A new blade, but unlike the original. Fleurs-de-lis, like the ones all eight of them in this room now bore, were engraved down its length. It was the most spectacular piece of craftsmanship Conrad had ever seen.
“You put it back together,” he said finally, not knowing what surprised him more—that Lance had recovered it and kept it a secret or that he’d somehow found the time to forge this exquisite piece.
“The sword, aye. But us?” His hands swept the room. Conrad did not dare look at Cait if he thought to keep his composure. “You did that. And I will be forever grateful to you for it.”
He hadn’t noticed Guy and Terric rising from their seats. But suddenly all four stood in a circle, looking at Lance’s work. Guy nodded, pleased.
Terric clasped him on the shoulder with one hand and extended his arm, fist clenched, into the center
of their group with the other.
Lance did not hesitate to clasp his wrist.
Then Guy.
And finally Conrad, sheathing the sword and completing their circle.
“We took a vow of silence,” Terric said. “And then another to form an order that includes more than just the four of us.”
Conrad did look back then.
Cait’s eyes glimmered with unshed tears, but she was smiling. No longer the scared young woman he had met that day, but a strong and beautiful one who had been through so much to sit here with them in this chamber.
He loved her even more than he loved these men, these brothers. He’d give his life for any of them, if necessary. Turning back to them now, he looked at each one in turn.
His brother-in-law, ever the protector.
Guy, who grinned even now, making it near impossible not to join him.
And Lance. Although he’d only been knighted this past year, he lived the code more fully than anyone who’d been raised to fulfill such a role.
“Today,” Terric finished, “we make another. To remember that all we’ve fought for means nothing without each other. Without them.”
Their wives. The women who completed each of them.
“To the order,” Guy said.
Conrad swallowed, his throat thick with love and pride. “The Order of the Broken Blade.”
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Author’s Note
I typically reserve the history behind a series for my reader group, but this time the order compelled me to share right here. Although it is always an integral part of my stories, for the Order of the Broken Blade, the history actually became a character, woven into the first chapter of book one until the very last paragraphs of The Earl. The significance of these characters’ actions carried a weight, a responsibility, I took seriously.
The Magna Carta.
When I first viewed this historical document on a visit to Salisbury Cathedral, I understood I stood in the presence of something monumental. A document that changed the course of history. As I began researching for this series, learning about twenty-five barons who had dared to rebel against a corrupt king, I wondered about the document itself and the people who had brought it about.
After all, it’s no small feat to rebel against a king.
Although not much of a rulebreaker, I did disobey my own mother on an occasion or two, a scary enough proposition that makes me shudder at the very idea of disobeying a man such as King John, or “Lackland” as he was known by his contemporaries. I could write an entire appendix just about the man himself. Brother to Richard the Lionheart, with whom he did not get along, King John was implicated in the murder of his nephew and was accused of trying to rape the daughter of one of his barons.
In short, a perfect villain.
His rule was so poorly received, twenty-five barons, as represented by the four men at the core of our story, revolted against him. It was only when they took London, as described in The Earl, that King John agreed to sign the Articles of the Barons. Unfortunately, he later reneged, asking Pope Innocent III to declare it invalid. This began a civil conflict that became known later as the First Barons’ War.
When John died in the midst of the war, our rebellious barons, led by Robert FitzWalter and a French army under the future Louis VIII of France, continued to fight. The articles signed by our order in The Earl later became what we now know as the Magna Carta. Eventually, Louis suffered multiple defeats, our barons switched sides with John now dead, and the Treaty of Lambeth was signed on 11 September 1217. The rebel barons, according to one of the provisions of the treaty, were offered amnesty.
Although the characters in the Order of the Broken Blade are all fictional, I drew inspiration for many of them from real people. Sabine’s father, for instance, was based on a man accused in 1212, alongside Lord Robert FitzWalter, of plotting against John’s life.
Terric’s mother was based on the story of Edward of Salisbury, a man who supported the rebels after the king seized his lordship. Trowbridge became Dromsley and one of Terric’s motivations to rebel against King John.
Perhaps my favorite story is the one of Robert FitzWalter, who was actually the leader of the baronial rebellion against John. One particular account gave me inspiration for Conrad’s hardheaded father.
“According to the Histoire des ducs de Normandie, Robert once sprang to the defence of his son-in-law when the latter killed a serving man in a dispute over lodgings at court and John threatened to hang him, declaring ‘By God’s body, you will not hang my son-in-law, you’ll see two hundred lanced knights in your land before you hang him!’ When the king put the case up for trial, FitzWalter appeared in court with two hundred knights.”
There are so many factual tidbits, it is impossible to share them all. But if you find this particular era as fascinating as I did, visit The Magna Carta Trust, whose website, which celebrates 800 years of Magna Carta history, was one of my most utilized resources and from which I took the quote about FitzWarren above.
Winston Churchill once described the Magna Carta as “the foundation of principles and systems of government of which neither King John or his nobles dreamed.” Little did he know it would inspire four men, friends since childhood, to find love and change the course of history, at least in this author’s fantastical mind.
The Earl: Order of the Broken Blade: Book 4 Page 16
