With that, he took his apple and left the chamber, leaving his father sitting in the darkness, pondering the wise, if not naïve, words of a seven-year-old boy. Out of the mouths of babes, he thought.
God cares what is in our hearts more than he cares about the prayers we give.
That left Haim wondering if he had broken one of the fundamentals of his own religion. Had he been so fixated on the cross Peter bore in his Christian faith that he failed to see the genuine and noble man beneath?
He wondered.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It was quiet before the dawn.
Liora hadn’t slept all night with thoughts of Peter rolling through her head. Her father had been right about one thing – there was peace at the house on Milk Street. There always had been. But since the introduction of Peter de Lohr, that peace had been fractured.
Badly.
But it wasn’t his fault. It was hers, completely. Now, she wasn’t satisfied with the peace if Peter couldn’t be part of her life. After the confrontation in the kitchen yard last night, Haim had brought Liora inside and she had run directly to her bedchamber. She went inside and closed the door, but when she peered into the corridor a couple of hours later, Haim was in a chair next to her door, reading by candlelight. He looked up at her, smiled, and she promptly shut the door.
Her father was on watch duty, making sure his daughter didn’t slip out to meet the Christian knight again.
Therefore, Liora went to bed, but she didn’t sleep. Clad in her night shift with a shawl around her shoulders, she sat on her bed and gazed from the window, up to the starry night above and wondered just how she was supposed to continue onward with Peter on the Marches, securing castles and fighting for a better England. He was a knight and she knew he had seen battles. It was well known that the de Lohrs were a warring tribe, but now that she was emotionally invested in one of them, the concept of battles and fighting became more real to her.
That kind of thing had never concerned her before.
But it concerned her now. If Peter was fighting, then it was possible he could become wounded. If he became wounded, how would she know? Would her father allow her to help him? Haim had been very polite and quite calm as he spoke to Peter, all things considered, but he could put his foot down if he needed to. She’d seen him do it, especially with Asa. Liora had never given her father a moment of trouble in her life until now.
Evidently, she’d been saving it all up for one major event.
About an hour before dawn, when the chickens began stirring, she finally rose and bathed in the cold rosewater in her chamber before donning a simple broadcloth dress, leather girdle that emphasized her tiny waist, and a broadcloth cloak. She braided her dark hair into two long braids, pulling her hair off her face with a kerchief and looking at herself in her polished bronze mirror, wondering if she looked as different as she felt.
In truth, she felt quite different. Life, for her, had changed drastically in the past few days. The moment she came upon Peter de Lohr in her kitchen yard was the moment her future was forever altered, and she hadn’t even been aware of it at the time. She’d never been in love; she’d never even been close. That was something she had never hoped for or expected. But love had showed up in her kitchen yard that night.
She wasn’t going to let it go.
Squaring her shoulders, Liora opened her door to see that her father was still there, still reading, and she told him that she was going out to tend the chickens. Haim permitted her to go, but he followed her, watching her from the house as she went out to the coop to gather eggs and feed the chickens.
And so, another peaceful day began on Milk Street.
The servants were up by the time she came back into the house with the basket of eggs. As they started the fire in the hearth and began the preparations for the day, Liora went back into the stable to release the goats. Feeding them in the morning was her usual task, so she opened the gate on the little corral and out they spilled into the kitchen yard. Using a large pitchfork, she shoveled some of the hay out into the yard for the goats, who provided milk to drink and also to make cheese. It was Asa who would clean up after them, and brush them, and make sure they were well tended at night.
The eastern horizon was growing lighter as the sun began to rise and Liora went about cleaning out the chicken coop. It was yet another duty she had, as the only servants her father had were those who worked for her mother, so she was well-versed in things that took place out in the yard. Both she and Asa were no strangers to work because their father insisted on it. He refused to raise useless children, as he put it. She was sweeping out the straw that the chickens roosted on during the night when the gate to the kitchen yard suddenly burst open.
Royal soldiers appeared.
At first, Liora was too surprised to be afraid. She’d never had a reason in her entire life to be afraid, and certainly not in her own home, so when the soldiers flooded into the yard, she simply set aside the broom to ask what the trouble was.
“Is something the matter?” she asked the first man who had charged in. “Can I help you?”
The man was older, wearing a dirty royal tunic with three golden lions against a scarlet background. When she came out of the coop, he fixed on her, as did the other soldiers in the yard.
They gravitated in her direction.
“Who are ye, girl?” he asked.
She looked at him curiously. “Liora, daughter of Haim,” she said. “Whom do you seek?”
A leering smile spread across the soldier’s lips. “The jeweler’s daughter?”
“Aye.”
“Someone wants a word with ye.”
“Me?” she said, shocked. “But who should want to speak with me?”
“Ye are the jeweler’s daughter, aren’t ye?”
“I said I was, but…”
He grabbed her by the arm and yanked her towards the gate, cutting her off. Liora’s puzzlement turned to fear when she realized their appearance hadn’t been random. They seemed to be specifically looking for her, the jeweler’s daughter, which she thought quite odd. She watched as two of them went into the house and she could hear screaming from the kitchen servants, but that was the last she saw and heard as she was dragged out into the alleyway and put onto a horse with a man who grabbed her lewdly around the chest. He had one big hand on her right breast, laughing low in his throat, as she beat his hand away so that it ended up around her waist.
Meanwhile, two of the soldiers had wrested Haim from the house and although he wasn’t putting up a fight, they were roughly dragging him. When he tripped, they thought he was resisting and someone hit him in the face. Liora screamed at the sight of her father being beaten, rousing the entire neighborhood, including her brother, who had clamored to an upstairs window to see what the fuss was about.
What Asa saw was his sister and father being taken away by armed men. Grabbing his pebble shooter, he ran down to the kitchen yard about the time the soldiers took off, and he chased them all the way down the street, screaming at them. He finally came to a halt at the corner of Milk Street and Lombard Street, watching the group of armed soldiers head west.
And just like that, his father and sister were gone.
Asa was furious and terrified. He could hear neighbors on his street raise the alarm and he could hear his mother screaming. As he stood there, several of his Maccabees came running up, watching the group of armed soldiers fade into the distance.
“What happened?” one of the boys demanded.
Asa realized he was close to tears, trying desperately not to cry and look weak. “The soldiers took my father and my sister.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know why!” Asa shouted, losing the battle against tears. “But we must go after them! We must help them!”
The older boy shook his head. “We can’t,” he said. “I know those soldiers. I’ve seen those tunics. They belong to the king!”
Asa frowned, baffled at the revelation. �
�Why did he take my father and sister?” he wanted to know. “What does the king want them for? He knows my father – Papa makes his jewelry.”
No one had an answer, but Milk Street was growing increasingly agitated as women began to wail alongside Asa’s mother. The boys could hear the weeping because some of their own mothers were joining in. Frightened, they began to look at each other.
“What do we do?” the older boy asked. “We need help, but we can’t go after them. They’ll kill us.”
Fighting other boy gangs was one thing, but fighting armed soldiers was strictly another. Even in their wild boyish ways, they knew they were no match for swords.
They only knew one other man who might be.
“Saint Peter!” Asa gasped. “We must find Saint Peter!”
“But where?” the older boy asked. “We don’t know where he lives!”
Asa nodded frantically. “I do, I do!” he said. “He told me he lives at a place called Lonsdale, to the west of London and next to the river. That’s what he said!”
“Then we’ll go to him,” the older boy said. “There is a road that goes along the river. We’ll go to every house until we find him!”
Asa was eager to move. “You have a horse, Egan,” he said. “Get your horse and I will ride with you. Hurry!”
Egan was already on the move, running back to his house as the other Maccabees followed. The boys entered the yard behind the house and pulled the old horse from the stable, all of them trying to put a saddle and bridle on the old beast. Everyone was so eager to help that it took more time than it should have but, soon enough, Egan and Asa mounted the old nag and kicked it to get it going while the other boys slapped it on the rump.
The old horse took off, heading down Lombard Street, aiming for the road the hugged the river in search of the only man they knew could help…
The man they used to shoot pebbles at.
They could only hope he didn’t hold a grudge.
*
Lonsdale
The army had been mobilizing before dawn.
Peter was among them. The bailey of Lonsdale was lit up with the flames of a hundred torches piercing the mist that had rolled in over the river during the night, and Peter had been up since well before sunrise preparing to depart to the Marches.
Lonsdale was built in such a way that the troop house was built into the wall and into the sublevel underneath the house, so it could conceivably house eight hundred to a thousand men at any given time, and that was only in the troop house. It could also house another five hundred in the bailey alone. Christopher was a warlord and everything in his life had military purpose, including a home he’d built for his wife that was supposed to be for comfort. It was comfortable, that was true, but it wasn’t only for show.
It was a fortress in disguise.
Several of his father’s friends and allies were in the bailey also, as they had been lodging at Lonsdale while the events went on in London. Caius was there, preparing to head north to Richmond, along with Maxton, Alexander, Marcus, Jax, Juston, Alastor, and David. David had come to collect the men his brother had promised him because he was departing for Canterbury that morning with the reinforcements.
The talk throughout the morning was about John’s mercenaries, now the topic of conversation whenever two or more of the men got together. The concern was in how quickly they were traveling into England and what state their properties would be in when they arrived home. Peter could hear them muttering about it as he helped Alexander muster the de Lohr army with the assistance of the master sergeants. His father and uncle were in private conversation with Jax and Juston over near the entry of the manse, but he wasn’t paying attention to them. In truth, he hadn’t spoken to his father since leaving Liora last night, mostly because he didn’t know what to say.
As the sun began to rise and poke holes through the mist with golden fingers of light, the army was starting to take shape. The quartermaster wagons were mostly loaded and ready to go and the men were properly outfitted. Peter finally stood back and watched the sergeants make the final adjustments, thinking about preparing his own horse for travel. But along with that thought came doubt.
Doubt that he was doing the right thing.
Peter hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep since he’d met Liora and last night was no exception. He’d tossed and turned all night, reliving the scene in the kitchen yard over and over. He had told Liora that it would be best for them to spend some time apart, to really think about their devotion and dedication to one another even though she’d told him that she would be willing to convert religions for the sake of their marriage. At the time, he thought a separation was the right thing to do but now he was starting to wonder. He didn’t want to be away from her, now more than ever, but it wasn’t as if he had any choice in the matter. He had a job to do and she had to make sure her decision wasn’t one she was going to regret.
“Good morn, Peter.”
Jolted from his thoughts, Peter turned to see Christin standing behind him, wrapped up in a cloak against the cold morning. She smiled at him, her gray eyes just like her mother’s, as she came to stand next to him. He smiled weakly at her.
“What are you doing up so early?” he asked.
She cocked a dark eyebrow. “Surely you jest,” she said drolly. “I have a toddler son and an infant. I have not slept a full night in two years. I am always up this early.”
His grin turned genuine. “That is your fault for marrying a man you love madly and bearing his children,” he said. “Does he at least help you when the boys are up in the night, demanding attention?”
Christin nodded. “He does, actually,” she said. “But he is terrible when it comes time to put them back into their bed. He wants them to sleep between us and pouts when I will not let them. The man threatens to weep like an old beer wife.”
Peter started chuckling. “I will not tell him you said that.”
“I do not care if you do.”
“Where are my nephews now?”
“With Mama,” she said. “God bless the woman for taking charge of them in the mornings so Sherry and I can have some peace.”
Peter grunted. “She has an infant of her own,” he said. “I’ve heard her and Papa arguing about the number of babies she likes to tend to.”
Christin laughed softly. “He complains, but he does not mean a word of it,” she said. “I’ve found him dead asleep with both of my children plus our two youngest siblings in his arms. There’s Papa, passed out like a drunkard on the bed, with children sleeping all over him. He’s really a softhearted man but he does not want anyone to know.”
As she and Peter shared a giggle, Christin caught sight of her husband over near the gatehouse. “Ah,” she said. “There is my husband. I must speak to him.”
Peter could see Alexander, too, in discussion with Caius and Maxton. “Are you returning with him to Lioncross?” he asked. “I heard Mama say something about staying here because she did not want to travel with Olivia just yet.”
Olivia Charlotte was their youngest sibling, a late baby for her parents born two months earlier. She had been born at Lonsdale, not Lioncross Abbey like most of the de Lohr children had been, but Dustin wasn’t keen on traveling with a newborn even though her husband wanted to return to the Marches.
“It is difficult to travel with an infant that small,” Peter said. “Mayhap Papa should leave her here while he goes about his duties. She’ll be safe here, away from the turmoil that Papa is sure to face.”
“And you are sure to face,” Christin said, looking at him. “I hope you do not mind that Sherry told me about Liora, but I will confess that he only told me after I heard you and Papa arguing yesterday.”
He looked at her queerly. “How did you hear us? We were in his solar.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “How could I not hear you with his big voice and my big ears,” she said, grinning at her own expense. “My husband was gone all morning with you. He wasn’t even here w
hen The Marshal called his meeting and I know Papa was furious about it. Then I heard him bellowing at you and Sherry told me why. My husband says she is astonishingly beautiful.”
Peter looked at her a moment, hesitation in his manner. “I… I cannot decide if I should tell you that I do not wish to talk about it or if I really do want to talk about it,” he said. “I do not even know where to start.”
Christin smiled faintly. “Start at the beginning,” she said. “Where did you meet her?”
Peter shrugged. “I was hiding from Agnes de Quincy and ended up in an alley next to her home,” he said. “She hid me until the threat of Agnes passed.”
Christin chuckled. “Is this true?” she said. “And you told her why you were hiding?”
“I told her. She called me a coward.”
He burst into soft laughter and so did she, seeing joy in Peter’s face she’d never seen before. He looked positively giddy. But the laughter soon faded. “Sherry also told me that she is a Jewess,” she said. “I have never met one before. What is she like?”
“Like you and me,” he said. “She is witty, charming, and intelligent. I cannot take my eyes off her, Cissy. When I am around her, I feel as if I have never felt before. I am happy and joyful, as if I am walking on clouds. That’s what Papa called it and he is right. Does that sound silly?”
Christin shook her head. “It does not because I know exactly how you feel,” she said. “So does Sherry. He’s quite sympathetic to your cause, you know. We both are. But what does Papa say?”
He cast her a long look. “You mean to say that your big ears didn’t hear him?”
She grinned. “Not everything,” she said. “Surely he understands your position.”
Peter nodded, thinking of what his father had said the night before as they stood in Liora’s kitchen yard. The man had been opposed to any liaison between him and Liora until it came down to a critical moment in time.
The Splendid Hour: The Executioner Knights Book 7 Page 22