Tender is the Knight (28 page)

Miguel’s jaw ticked as he thought on his answer; he was displeased at her question, but then again, Patrizia was always the one to ask questions and he knew she would not stop until she had a satisfactory answer. His daughter could not have changed that much from the last time he saw her and he knew he had to give a little in order to gain.
But what to tell her? 

“Because her husband is in London,” he finally said.

“He’s in London because you attacked his fortress on the orders of the Earl of Cornwall,” Patrizia snapped softly. “He has no choice but to go to the king.”

Now it was Patrizia who had said too much. Miguel leaned forward, very interested in what she had to say. “So you know about the earl?” he said, an amused smile on his lips.
“What else do you know,
mija
? Why has Dennis gone to the king?”

She lowered her head, knowing that whatever she said would be used to Miguel’s advantage. Already he wanted Lady
d’ Vant and would not say why. His presence here at the Wart was a terrible coincidence, or omen, or both. Patrizia wished with all her heart that she and Ryan were back at St. Austell, safe within the red stone walls. If only she could sneak away from her father and somehow take Ryan with her, but she knew that was impossible. Miguel would never let her go now that she apparently was the link to something he wanted very badly. Ironic how he seemed to let her go very easily those years ago when he was eager to pay off a gambling debt.

“He has gone for help,” she said after a moment.

“Military help?”

Patrizia shrugged, though she knew the truth well. “I am not sure. St. Austell was damaged badly in your attack. Perhaps he seeks money.”

“But St. Austell already has money.”

She looked away from him. “I would not know anything about that.”

Miguel gazed at her; he was positive that she knew more than she was telling him, being a friend to Lady d’ Vant. The situation was growing most interesting, worthy of further exploration, but he forced himself to focus on his main objective for the moment.  He would deal with Patrizia’s secrets later.

Lady
d’ Vant chose that moment to reenter the inn. She was obviously uncomfortable around the bawdy clientele as she made her way to Miguel’s table. As Miguel rose gallantly from his chair as she approached, his mind suddenly focused on one thing; clearly, Lady d’ Vant was a beautiful creature and her husband was more than likely extremely possessive of her. Miguel could escort the lady to London and spend exhausting days hunting for her husband. In his opinion, he was making this harder than it should be. A perfect opportunity was presenting itself and he had almost been too blind to realize it. Miguel smiled inwardly. He would not take the lady to her husband; he would bring Dennis d’ Vant to him.

Ryan
was mercifully oblivious of the scheme afoot. She didn’t notice Patrizia’s pale face or Miguel’s gloating expression. All she knew was that she was positive she had found a man to escort her to Dennis, and all she could think of was her husband.

She smiled as she took the chair Miguel offered. “Well?” she asked brightly. “Do we have an agreement?”

Patrizia could only stare at her. Miguel could only smile.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“We are not angry, Lyla, but you must tell us where Lady d’ Vant is,” Clive said calmly, though he was chewing his lip furiously. “You have no idea of the danger she could place herself in.”

The morning was bright with a hint of dark clouds lingering on the horizon. Lyla turned her gaze to the landscape beyond the window of
Ryan’s bower as Clive and Charlotte interrogated her. She had known this moment would come; she had only hoped to hold them off a little longer. Ryan and Patrizia had only left yesterday, which did not give them much time at all to find an escort. But Charlotte had been wise to Lyla’s weak stalling tactics; she had demanded entrance to Ryan’s bower before dawn and when Lyla denied her, she promptly had the door rammed down.

“Do you have any idea what you have allowed to happen?” Charlotte threw her hands up in the air. “Not only is
Ryan not fully recovered from her injury, but the ruffians and cutthroats that peruse the roads to London defy description. We shall be lucky is she isn’t dead already!”

As Lyla’s face darkened, Clive held up a quelling hand to Charlotte. “Lady Lyla did not ‘allow’ anything to happen,” he said. “It is my suspicion that Lady
Ryan went very much of her own accord.”

Lyla could hardly disagree. “She must be with
Dennis,” she said frankly. “I could do nothing to stop her. In fact, I wanted to go with her, but she would not allow it.”

“Christ,” Charlotte hissed in frustration. “Did she go straight to London or did she intend to hire an escort first?”

Lyla looked at her. “In truth, I do not know. Patrizia went with her and she is very worldly.”

Charlotte pursed her lips and began to mutter furiously. Clive chewed his lip faster.  “They said nothing to you of their plans?”
he asked.

“No,” Lyla looked away.

“And if they had, would you tell me?”

Lyla stared off into space. Then, very slowly, she looked at him. “I
did not want her to go at all, you know.”

“I know.”

“But she never listens. She always does as she pleases. And usually, when she runs and exerts herself, her lungs grow congested.”

“I remember.”

“I am afraid Patrizia won’t know what to do if that happens to her.”

“Does it happen often?”

“Only when she exerts herself.”

“Then perhaps we should find them before this can happen.”

A very clever way to state the obvious. It made Lyla feel less as if she had turned against her cousin. In truth, she had been having doubts since Ryan and Patrizia fled the fortress even though, for a brief moment, they had managed to convince her they were right. Lyla thought she had been doing the right and good thing though it had been difficult to hold off Charlotte and Clive, especially when she was so fearful for Ryan’s safety. Still, she understood why her cousin had to go.

“She wants to be with
Dennis,” she said quietly. “I am not going to stop her.”

Charlotte slapped her big thigh in frustration. “You would prefer to let her take her chances on the road? Then
she will surely never see Dennis and it will be your fault!”

“
She is in love with him!” Lyla snapped, raising her voice for the first time. “Do not you understand? If you find her, you shall just bring her back here and she will die for lack of him. Is that what you want?”

Charlotte came to a stop in her ranting and pacing. “Of course not,” she said, more calmly. “But she
should not be out there in the world by herself and well you know it. We must find her, Lyla, and you must help us. “

Lyla’s eyes were blazing. “If you find her, are you going to take her to
Dennis?”

Charlotte let out a sigh and looked at Clive. “
Dennis is probably already on his way to Wales. We cannot take Ryan into battle,” she said.

“But you can take her to him,” Lyla pressed. “Why not take her to a town somewhere near him, out of harm’s way, yet somewhere they can at least be together when time permits?”

Charlotte shook her head. “What you are suggesting isn’t reasonable, Lyla. Take Ryan to a strange town near the battle arena simply so she can be with Dennis when he’s not out killing Welsh? What kind of life is that for her, or for him for that matter? And what about protection? We shall have to station someone with her all of the time to watch over her. When our resources are already so badly stretched, what you are suggesting simply is not logical.”

“I
do not mean to interrupt, ladies,” Clive said, wiping at his chewed lip. “But the more we talk, the more time we waste. Lady Ryan is out there, somewhere, and each moment is precious. ”

Lyla stared at her hands. “
She will just run away again if you bring her back here.”

“Then
we shall lock her in the vault,” Charlotte said quietly. “For her own protection, we must.”

Lyla shrugged. “She
will find a way to escape. She always does.”

Charlotte resumed her
pacing, only this time it was more thoughtful than frantic. “What would you suggest, then? You know her best.”

Lyla felt defeated. She
did not know what to say; the reasonable answer would have been to find Ryan, bring her back, and lock her up until Dennis returned. But she knew that to do so would literally kill Ryan. So she told them what she felt from her heart.

“Find her and take her to
Dennis and let him decide.”

“But
Dennis already told her, repeatedly, that he did not want her with him.”

“Do you believe that?”

“For her own safety, I do.”

“Forget about safety. What about her heart?”

Charlotte knew there was only one choice unless they wanted a miserable lady on their hands. She might even become so miserable that she would become terribly sick, and Charlotte did not want that on her conscience. Moreover, she knew that Dennis had left secretly in the night and that Ryan had not forgiven him. She furthermore knew that Dennis had probably not forgiven himself either. Perhaps both Ryan and her brother needed closure on his abrupt departure and an opportunity to heal. She could only guess that it was a terrible thing to be in love and to be so cruelly, though necessarily, separated.

“Very well,” Charlotte muttered. “Perhaps that is the only way to solve this. But it clearly
will not be an easy task and Dennis, more than likely, will be furious with all of us.”

Clive nodded his head. “I
do not relish being the one to contact him.”

Charlotte looked at him sharply. “And who is to say that it will be you?
Ryan is my sister-in-law. I shall escort her.”

Clive frowned. “
Charls, be reasonable. You cannot go.”

Charlotte’s round face
pinkened. “Do you doubt my skills?”

“Indeed I do not. But with
Dennis gone, you are now Lord of St. Austell. ‘Tis only right that you should stay here to oversee the fortress while I go and find Lady d’ Vant.”

Charlotte cooled, having originally thought Clive was insulting her but now akin to his logic.
Lord of St. Austell
had a nice ring to it. 

“Take as many men as
you shall need, then, and find her,” she said. “I would suggest sending a messenger to London to find out where Dennis is so you won’t waste any time.  Then you may take Ryan directly to him.”

There was a great sense of urgency now that decisions had been made and plans forged. Clive eyed Lyla one last time. “Are you sure you
do not know where Lady Ryan has gone? You could save me quite a bit of time.”

Lyla’s instinct was to refuse again, but she knew that was foolish now. “She and Patrizia wanted to hire a traveling merchant or bachelor knight,” she said. “I think they were going to a tavern.”

Clive was already moving for the door with Charlotte on his heels. “There are four of them in the village,” Charlotte said to him. “Two near the water’s edge, one near the Avenue of the Merchants, and one….”

“Near the main road,” Clive finished for her. He was into the hall and moving for the stairs. “I shall take twenty men with me. And once I find her,
I shall go straight on to Dennis, wherever he may be. I shan’t return any time soon.”

Charlotte stopped at the top of the stairs, watching him descend the flight.  “Take twenty-five men,” she corrected him. “That should be enough to adequately protect her.  We are speaking of the Lady of St. Austell, after all.
And, Clive?”

He paused at the bottom of the stairs, gazing up at her. “Yes?”

Charlotte suddenly looked extremely uncomfortable. She fidgeted a bit before waving her hand haphazardly at him. “Be careful.”

He stared at her a moment and grinned. “
Do not you trust me?”

Charlotte gazed down at him, aware of the odd twisting of her stomach. She suddenly
could not stand the thought of Clive never returning; Riston was out of her mind altogether, but Clive… well, she’d known him for many years. She could not remember when he hadn’t been around. Maybe Dennis had been right; perhaps Clive was better for her after all.

“I trust you,” she finally said. “But
I have decided to go with you.”

Clive’s smile vanished. “But…!”

“You need me!” Charlotte boomed at him, uncomfortable with the tone of the conversation.

Clive paused and then his smile returned. He could sense her meaning, both surprised and pleased by it. He’d always been fond of Charlotte, strangely enough, but he never thought she returned the sentiment.

“Aye, lady, I suppose I do,” he said softly.

Charlotte grunted and disappeared from his view. Clive stood there a moment longer, a smile still on his lips, wondering what it would be like to someday have a wife who could best him
in a fight.

***

War was a bloody, bitter thing. Dennis had been fighting battles his entire life but here in the mist-shrouded mountains of Wales, he found himself disoriented and exhausted. Perhaps it was because he had ridden from London to Wales in three days, barely stopping to eat or rest.

Fortunately, Bucephalus was a hearty beast an
d thrived on exertion and battle, but Riston’s black charger was showing signs of wear and the horse had developed an open sore on its hip where the saddle rubbed. Though Riston tried to tend it, it was difficult given the pace they were traveling.

When they had arrived at their destination, the commander of the king’s forces wasted no time in putting them into the fray. The target, as
Dennis had been told in London, was Abergavenny Castle, where the Hastings, a noble Norman family, had spent weeks being sieged by the Welsh. The castle was still being held for England, but her grip was slipping. About four hundred English troops were battling against possibly one thousand undisciplined, poorly-armed Welsh, but there sheer numbers caused the English a great deal of trouble. A few of the southeastern castles had fallen under attack, most of them held for England, but a few of them had fallen into control of Henry’s nemesis, Llewelyn the Great. 

The scale,
Dennis had briefly learned from his commander, wasn’t so much one large siege – it was several battles all over Wales, thus dividing Henry’s forces. The commander, a knight for the Earl of Hereford named Payne St. Maur, spoke with the weary disgust of a battle-hardened soldier, as if he had had enough of the whole thing and was ready to return to his family.

Dennis
had been wrapped up in his own battles for so long that he had failed to consider that the battle for Wales wasn’t one big all-consuming battle. It was something that had gone on sporadically for years and certainly would for years to come. Within an hour of his arrival, Dennis was already wondering if he hadn’t made a terrible mistake. But a pledge was a pledge, and he intended to keep it, especially if he wanted the return of St. Austell. There was no turning back.

Abergavenny was a massive fortress surrounded by mist and foliage. It sat on the top of a rocky hilltop with massive curtain walls to prevent invasion. The ground was wet and the chargers kept slipping as they mounted the incline toward the castle. The Welsh were burrowed in near the top of the mound, though safely out of range of the arrows from the walls. Thus, the troops sent to reinforce the castle were kept at the bottom of the mound, ducking Welsh projectiles, while the occupants of the fortress continued to weaken.

It was a frustrating situation and after a day and a night of stagnation, Dennis was furiously thinking of a way to purge the Welsh. Already he was sick of the uselessness of the siege, especially when they weren’t gaining any ground. St. Maur seemed content for the troops to languish at the bottom of the hill and complain how difficult the Welsh were, but Dennis, being fresh blood into this melee, was rapidly thinking of a way to end it. He did not want to be stuck for weeks on end, deteriorating in the cold and mud like the rest of them.

“H
ow do you propose to end this siege in a day, where St. Maur hasn’t been able to end it in weeks?” Riston wanted to know on the dawn of the second day. “What are you going to do? Call down God himself to end this?”