It was a decision that would change their lives, more than they could ever realize.
Blackthorn Forest
Densely packed trees and an occasional clearing marked Cullen and Regal’s journey into the vast wilderness known as Blackthorn Forest.
Cullen was somewhat familiar with the area, as the House of de Winter, a great and noble family, was lord over most of the area to the east and he’d traveled to their lands a few times in the course of his duties. He knew that there was a town off to the east from their present location, but he wanted to avoid towns at the moment, especially if Rockingham men were looking for him.
They had to go north.
Cullen knew there was a long stretch of road that went all the way north to Lincoln, bypassing Nottingham and Leicester, towns he wanted to avoid because of the king’s heavy presence there. He wasn’t entirely certain about Lincoln Castle, for that was garrisoned for the king last he’d heard. But the more they plodded along on that dark road amongst the dark and lonely trees, the more he thought that, perhaps, Scotland might be a good destination for him.
It wasn’t a sudden decision, in fact. He’d been toying with it since they’d left London, pondering the reality of serving the Scottish king who didn’t like John very much. In fact, William the Lion, King of the Scots, had been in on an assassination plot against John years ago, so the Scots were always looking for English knights to help them fight against John, among others. Since John had made himself an enemy, Cullen didn’t have any reservations in fighting against the man. William Marshal might disagree, but Cullen had to make a living someway.
Perhaps Scotland was the answer.
It was growing late and he could hear the owls in the trees, searching in the night for their meals. There were three of them in different trees, hooting at each other, and he glanced back at Regal, who was riding on his warhorse, asleep even though she was sitting straight up. He had no idea how she hadn’t fallen off yet, so he took pity on the woman and directed the horse off the road and into the concealing shelter of some trees.
It was dank and icy in the forest as he reined the horse to a halt. Tying the beast off on the nearest tree, he tapped Regal on the arm, twice, before she finally stirred.
“Well?” she demanded, groggily. “Have we arrived?”
Cullen reached up and pulled the old woman off the horse. She always felt so fragile in his hands, as if he squeezed too hard that he would break a bone, but she was tougher than he gave her credit for. She’d endured quite a bit over the past three weeks. As he set her on her feet, she shuffled off, stumbling through the bramble. Cullen kept an eye on her as he removed his saddlebags and unsaddled the horse.
“Do not stray,” he told her. “It is so dark, I would not be able to find you until morning. Regal? Do you hear me?”
She was off behind a tree. “Can a body not have business to attend to that is solely her own?” she demanded. “Do you think I am stupid?”
Cullen grinned, knowing she was reliving herself over in the bushes. He put the saddle to the ground, using the saddle blanket to wipe down the horse for the night as the animal already began chomping on the thick, green grass around him. Cullen could smell water, so he assumed a stream was nearby so he could water the beast.
“I dare not start a fire, so I apologize if you are cold this night,” he said. “I have a cloak you can cover yourself with. In the morning, we’ll see if we can find a tavern and a hot meal.”
Finished with her business, Regal emerged from behind the tree, her hands out in front of her as she shuffled back in his general direction.
“I’ve known worse,” she said. “I’ve slept on dirt, grass, and in beds filled with vermin, so sleeping in the cold tonight won’t be something I haven’t done before.”
She was wandering near him and he reached out, grasping her by the wrist to pull her over in his direction. As he moved, he swiped his heavy cloak from a saddlebag.
“There is a big patch of fat grass right here,” he said, directing her over to it. “It should make a fine bed for the night.”
He put the cloak down, spreading it out, and gently pushed Regal onto it. She moved around on it, getting comfortable.
“You are a fine man to tend to an old woman so,” she said. “Whatever you may think about your failings, know that a true man shows his character in the smallest actions. In this case, it is taking care of an old woman. That shows that you are a truly noble man.”
Cullen watched her as she settled down on the cloak. “There was never any question about taking you with me,” he said. “I could not leave you behind. God only knows what would have become of you.”
Regal lay down with a sigh of contentment. “So you saddle yourself with an old crone,” she said. “Why not return me to Cerenbeau? You can, you know.”
Cullen’s mood subdued. “If you wanted to go home, you could have asked me that when we first left London. We’ve been traveling for three weeks and you’ve not mentioned a word about it.”
“That is because I think you need me right now,” she said frankly. “But I wanted you to know that if you choose to take me back to Cerenbeau, I will go quietly.”
Cullen didn’t say anything for a moment. He was pondering her statement, still feeling very strongly that he didn’t want to take her home. But he couldn’t quite figure out if she wanted to go home or if she was just telling him what he wanted to hear. He began to unstrap the sheath at his waist.
“Why do you think I need you?” he asked.
Regal’s eyes were closed now and she yawned. “Because you do,” she said quietly. “I remind you of Teddy and whilst you are grieving her loss, you’ll do what you think she would want you to do. You will take care of her grandmother.”
That wasn’t untrue. She was an astute old woman, blind or no, so there was no use denying it. Cullen flipped the end of the cloak over her, covering her up, and she settled down to sleep almost immediately. As she began to snore some decidedly loud snores, which amused Cullen, he lay his sword down next to her on the cloak and turned back to his horse with the intention of finding a stream for the animal to drink.
Cullen’s thoughts shifted from the old woman to the horse. Phaethon had been a gift from his father when he’d received his spurs, meaning that he and the horse had spent fourteen years together. It was a friendship in the truest sense of the word, and Cullen loved the beast more than most men loved their mothers. Cullen slapped the horse affectionately on the neck and untied him from the tree. He turned for a thick cluster of growth off to the north that could have been the stream from the way the trees grew in a line, but he didn’t get that far.
Suddenly, the bushes were alive with men.
Having left his sword next to Regal, there wasn’t much Cullen could do except grab the dagger he still had on his belt and use it as best he could. He was genuinely startled by the charge of men from the foliage because he hadn’t heard anything at all. He had excellent senses, and so did Phaethon, and neither he nor the horse had sensed any danger but, clearly, they’d been wrong. As he yanked out his dagger, Phaethon reared back, jerking the reins from his hand. The horse, having at least thirteen years of battle training and experience, responded to the attack.
The first men that charged at Cullen were the recipients of a giant horse’s head to their faces as the enormous warhorse swung his head around. Anyone else who happened to be too close received a kick from those muscular back legs and, already, Cullen could see that men were down. He realized very quickly that sticking next to the horse was his best chance for survival, and he vaulted onto the beast’s back as Phaethon snapped, kicked, and swished that big tail around. Above it all, Cullen began to hear a man shouting.
“Stop!” he bellowed. “The horse will kill you if you get any closer and I’ll cut the man who injures that horse. Do you hear me?”
Cullen couldn’t see who was calling out commands, but he could see the men around him, for the most part. They were covered
in leaves and branches, blending in with their surroundings, which was more than likely the reason he never saw or heard anything. They were well aware of their environment and used it accordingly. A few of them had bows and arrows, but more than one man had a broadsword because he could see the long blades reflecting the moonlight. With Phaethon agitated, Cullen tried to back the horse away from the men who were swarming around them.
“He is trained for battle,” Cullen said loudly. “He will kill you, have no doubt. Back away so I can calm him down or he will panic and kill us all.”
The men seemed to slow their movements, clearly concerned with the movements of the skilled warhorse. As they backed away, uncertain and edgy, another man pushed through the crowd.
Because of the half-moon in the sky, Cullen couldn’t really make out the man’s features. Everything was dark and dim but, oddly enough, he could see the man’s eyes glimmer from the angle of the moon. That was how Cullen knew the man was looking at him. And Cullen saw, clearly, that the man had a big sword in his hand.
It took him a minute to realize that it was his sword.
“Greetings, my lord,” the man said rather formally. “Welcome to Blackthorn Forest. ’Tis a fine animal you have there, which leads me to believe you are a knight of the highest order. Would you tell me your name?”
Cullen wasn’t about to tell the man his name. “You first.”
That brought a snort from the man. “You must not be from these parts.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because if you were, you would already know who I was.”
“And who are you?”
The man didn’t say anything, but there was a smile on his lips. Using Cullen’s sword, he pointed back to the encampment were Regal was.
“That old woman slept through me taking this beautiful sword,” he said, now holding it up for all to see. “If she is your sentry, she has done a terrible job.”
“She is not my sentry.”
“Your wife, then?”
That brought a few snorts of humor from the group. In spite of the tense situation, the humor wasn’t lost on him. He thought it might be best to respond in kind because he didn’t need these men charging him again if he was combative. At the moment, things were calm.
He wanted to keep it that way.
“Don’t you think I can do any better than that old woman?” he asked.
The man lifted his shoulders. “What I can see of you shows me a handsome and strong man,” he said. “But I thought, mayhap, the woman with you was a great heiress and you were just waiting for her to die so you could claim her fortune. Men have been known to do that, you know.”
Cullen shook his head again. “She is not my wife,” he said. “If you must know, she is the grandmother of the woman I love, a woman who was killed a few weeks ago. I am taking care of her grandmother because I know that is what she would want me to do.”
That brought a good deal of instant sobriety to the group of men, who seemed to be looking at each other rather regretfully now. It threw a measure of humanity into their victim. Their leader took a step closer, all of the humor gone from his face.
“Is this true?”
“I would not lie to you.”
There was a brief pause. “Then you have my sympathy,” he said. “How did it happen?”
“Why should you care? Not a moment ago, you were trying to kill me and my horse.”
But the man shook his head. “We were not trying to kill you, only steal your possessions,” he said. “Tell me, you mountain of a man, what happened to your lady?”
Cullen wasn’t sure he should tell them, given that he had no idea who they were other than they were trying to rob him. He wasn’t inclined to confess to men he didn’t know, in any case. But if his confession might make them more sympathetic toward him and leave him alone, he was willing to try.
He didn’t have much choice.
“My lady was in the custody of the king’s men,” he said. “She resisted the arrest and ended up falling down a flight of stairs. When I discovered what had happened, I took her grandmother and fled London. It was not safe for us there.”
The leader of the bandits looked at him with disbelief. “God’s Bones,” he muttered. “That bastard of a king killed her, did he?”
Cullen lifted his eyebrows in a gesture of agreement. “She died in his custody.”
“You are not telling me a falsehood, are you?”
“Ask the old woman if you do not believe me. She will tell you the truth.”
That seemed to convince the man that Cullen’s story was true, which upset him a great deal. He began waving his men away from Cullen, shooing them off, telling them to go back into the trees. Most of them wandered off but a select few remained, including the leader. His gaze on Cullen was serious.
“I suppose you’ve been through enough as of late,” he said. “I was going to take everything you owned, but it sounds as if you have had enough taken from you. You do not need me adding insult to injury. I am sorry for your loss, man. It seems that our illustrious king has taken from many men that I know of, including me. In that, you have a fellow sufferer if it pleases you.”
Now that most of the men had slinked off, back into the trees, Cullen felt a bit more comfortable. He slid off Phaethon but he remained by the horse, hoping these men were truly going to leave him alone now. Talk of the king and his wrongdoings seemed to be common ground with them.
“It does not please me,” he said. “John is a man who has done much damage to the good men of this country, and to the good women as well.”
The man scratched at his head, a thoughtful gesture. “That is all too true,” he said. Dropping his hand, he eyed Cullen in the darkness. “Do you intend to seek vengeance against him, then?”
Cullen smiled, but it was without humor. “You would not believe who I served if I told you,” he said. “Therefore, I fear vengeance is out of the question, at least for now. But I did what damage I could. I killed one of the king’s men before fleeing London as a wanted man, so I suppose in that respect, I am not much different from you and your outlaws. Unfortunately, I am now one, too.”
The leader eyed him in the moonlight, perhaps wondering if his story was just a bit too convenient. The truth was that he’d had men try to find him, and find his lair, but this big knight came with an old woman attached, which wasn’t usual for the bounty hunters who had tried to find him in the past.
He was a wanted man, himself.
Still, he couldn’t be too careful. Lifting the sword he still held, he handed it back to Cullen, hilt-first.
“Stay clear of Corby and Peterborough,” he said, looking him over one last time. “John has men stationed in those towns. Watch yourself, big man.”
He turned away, but Cullen stopped him. “You never did tell me your name.”
The man looked at him, a smirk on his lips. “I am the Lord of Blackthorn Forest. That is all you ever need know.”
With that, he turned around and headed back toward the trees where his men had fled to. Cullen watched them go, feeling surprised and very fortunate that he’d been left intact. There had been too many outlaws and they could have easily swarmed him, as they’d tried to do. But in the end, the leader showed that he was a man of some reason.
In fact, it was a rather shocking outcome.
Strange, he thought as he began to lead Phaethon, once again, toward the small stream. The leader seemed very well spoken and had a somewhat mannerly way about him, which wasn’t usual for an outlaw. It seems that our illustrious king has taken from many men that I know of, including me, he’d said. That led Cullen to believe that the leader was, in fact, no ordinary outlaw. He was quite curious about him, but there was nothing he could do about it. The man had disappeared back into the woods and Cullen would never see him again, so it was of little matter.
He put it out of his mind.
After watering the horse, Cullen returned to the sheltered area where Rega
l was still snoring loudly. The old woman hadn’t even awoken through the whole thing. Every so often, she’d give off a wet cough but, still, she was sleeping soundly, and Cullen found himself wishing that he could sleep so well.
Using his saddlebag as a pillow, he lay down in the cold grass, staring up at the canopy of trees and the dark sky above, peppered with a million tiny pinpricks of light. If there really was a Heaven, and he wasn’t so sure there was, he wondered if Teodora was there, looking down upon him and smiling from her heavenly perch. He liked to think so. He liked to think she was watching over him every day of his life from now on, his guardian angel.
It gave him some comfort to think that.
Blowing a kiss to the heavens above, Cullen closed his eyes and hoped to get some sleep before dawn was upon them.
When he finally drifted off, it was with dreams of a leggy blonde beauty.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Rodstone House
London
“I am telling you that it is the truth, Preston,” William Marshal said. “If you choose not to believe me, that is your misfortune, but I have it from a reliable source that Hamilton Banbury and Godfrey Sudeley are sworn to John. He has bribed them soundly and they will do whatever he tells them to do, up to and including killing you. Now do you understand my urgency?”
In the small solar of Rodstone House on the zenith of a bright morning, Preston was listening to William with a good deal of shock. Or perhaps not entirely shock; perhaps there was part of him that wasn’t shocked by any of this, given the way the politics of England worked. But to have The Marshal tell him such things, a man who was sworn to the king, had Preston reeling.
In truth, they were on different sides.
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust William Marshal. The truth was that he trusted the man probably more than anyone else in England because, above all things, William was pledged to the safety of England as a country, which was what Preston was pledged to as well. The division came between them because William was loyal to the king and Preston believed John should not be upon the throne. But deep down, both men had the same goals.
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