Beneath scattered clouds on a mild August day, Achilles and Alexander escorted Susanna into this extensive ancestral home. She led the way, eager to see her brother and clearly happy to be home again, as Achilles and Alexander followed a dozen paces behind her.
“It is little wonder that The Marshal is nervous that de Tiegh is ambiguous about his loyalties,” Achilles muttered. “Look at the size of this place.”
Alexander was, indeed, drinking it in. “Size, aye, but protection measures seem to be lacking,” he said. “Did you notice the training field as we rode in? There have to be close to a thousand men down there and not one of them English.”
“How could you tell?”
“The round, wooden shields gave them away and not a recognizable tunic among them.”
“You are certain?”
“I have seen shields of that type in Thuringia.”
It was a surprising observation. Achilles found himself looking over to the unusual numbers of blacksmith stalls towards the south side of the outer ward. “Why so many smithies?” he wondered aloud. “There are at least a half-dozen of them.”
Alexander was looking there, too. “More smithies to make more weapons,” he murmured. “Clearly, there is some kind of build up going on here. The Marshal will want to know about this.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“If you are thinking de Tiegh has himself a mercenary army, then I am most definitely thinking what you are thinking.”
Those were ominous words. By this time, they were heading across the wooden bridge and over the sizeable moat. The second gatehouse was ahead, a two-storied structure that was sparingly manned. Just past that was an incline up the motte to the shell keep above and there was someone waiting for them. Susanna spurred her horse up the slope and as they watched, she practically jumped from her mount to greet the man standing at the keep entrance.
“That must be her brother,” Achilles said, his gaze on Susanna.
Alexander was watching the reunion as well. “Whatever happens, do not anger the man or offend him. Be polite and respectful. We need to get out of here and back to The Marshal as quickly as possible. In fact, I should like to leave immediately.”
Achilles looked at him. “Immediately?” he repeated. “As in now?”
“Now.”
“But… but I was hoping to feast here tonight and then leave on the morrow.”
Alexander sighed heavily. “I am not comfortable remaining here,” he said. “De Tiegh knows we serve William Marshal; we are both wearing his tunic, for Christ’s sake. If the man is doing something that he does not wish The Marshal to know about, then the sooner we leave, the better. My fear is that he will toss us in the vault so we cannot report what we have seen.”
Achilles knew that. At least, the logical side of him knew that. The dedicated knight knew that. But the man who was reluctant to leave Susanna was trying to deny that logic. It was a struggle to keep the disappointment from his voice.
“You are right, of course,” he said. “I was just hoping… I was hoping we could at least stay the night.”
Alexander looked at him. He knew why Achilles wanted to stay the night and he wished that remaining would be a comforting choice, but he simply couldn’t agree. Though he’d never said a word to Achilles about Susanna and the obvious attraction between the pair, he was going to have to break that stance.
The time had come.
“Achilles, I know you do not want to leave Susanna,” he said. “I understand you wish to remain close to her for as long as you can before we have to meet up with de Lohr and return to London, but look around you. It is not safe for us here. I am not even sure it is safe for Susanna here, given her brother’s obvious activities.”
Achilles was gearing up to become defensive, to even deny what Alexander was suggesting, but he couldn’t muster it. He and Alexander had been friends for a very long time and he wouldn’t lie to the man.
Perhaps it was better if he didn’t.
“She said it has been two years since she has been to Aysgarth,” he finally said. “It looks as if her brother has been busy during that time. If you do not think it is safe to leave her here, then mayhap we should suggest it to her. She can come back to Chester with us, though the thought of her riding all the way back to London while recovering from her wound is not… ideal.”
Alexander’s black gaze lingered on him. “When did you figure this all out?”
“Figure what out?”
“That you were attracted to the bodyguard? Christ, Achilles, I have had to pull you two apart more than once so you would not kill one another. And now you are attracted to the woman?”
Achilles cleared his throat nervously and looked away. “She was attracted to me first. She forced herself upon me.”
“Is that the truth?”
“For you, it is.”
Alexander grinned. With his dark beard and big, white teeth, he had a rather brilliant smile. “You could have fooled me,” he said. “Tell me this isn’t some ploy to cause her to lower her guard so that you can win a fight with her.”
Achilles turned to him, scowling. “If I wanted to win a fight with her, I would not need her to lower her guard in order to do it.”
Alexander started laughing. “She is tough, that one. A Blackchurch-trained knight? You are lucky you survived any skirmish with her.”
Achilles was still scowling at him. “Stop hooting,” he said. “You sound like an idiot. Susanna’s brother is looking at you and wondering what kind of fool his sister has been traveling with.”
Alexander sobered instantly, looking to the keep and seeing a tall, auburn-haired man speaking with Susanna. “A fool who knows the build up of a mercenary army when he sees one,” he said. “Achilles, I am sorry, but we will have to cut this very short. I want out of this place.”
They were nearly to the keep. Achilles’ gaze was on Susanna as she turned to him as he approached. He didn’t have time to reply to Alexander, but he knew what that answer had to be.
He was starting to feel apprehensive.
He didn’t want to leave her here, more than ever.
“Good knights, welcome to Aysgarth,” Susanna said, sounding surprisingly jovial. “I am honored to introduce you to my brother, Baron Coverdale. Sam, these are two of the finest knights I have ever known – Sir Achilles de Dere and Sir Alexander de Sherrington.”
She indicated the knights in order and Achilles found himself looking into a face that faintly resembled Susanna. Samuel de Tiegh was tall and lithe, with the same pale skin his sister had and nearly the same color of hair. They also had the same deep blue eyes, but where Susanna’s were warm and caring at times, Samuel simply looked hard. The pure blue color was lost on him, becoming murky and mysterious.
Achilles didn’t get a good feeling from the man from the very start.
“My lord,” he greeted. “I am honored.”
Samuel nodded in acknowledgement but his gaze moved to Alexander. “De Sherrington?” he said thoughtfully. “Do you have a brother, perchance?”
“Estienne, my lord.”
That seemed to bring a reaction from Samuel. “Estienne de Sherrington is my good and true friend,” he said and, suddenly, he was quite congenial. “He never mentioned that he had a brother.”
Alexander wasn’t quite so congenial. “That is because my brother and I have not seen one another since my father’s death,” he said. “I have been all over the known world and Estienne has remained at Broxburn Castle.”
Samuel was all but ignoring Achilles and his own sister at this point. “I have recently seen your brother,” he said. “He visits me regularly, in fact. As I said, we are very good friends.”
“That is quite a distance from Broxburn Castle to Yorkshire,” Alexander said. “You must be quite good friends for him to travel all the way from Salisbury.”
“I have made my way to Broxburn many times as well.”
“When you next see hi
m, please give him my regards.”
“I will be happy to.” Samuel reached out and clapped him on the shoulder in an unnecessary show of friendliness for a man he’d just met. “You must feast with me tonight. Allow me to show Estienne’s brother my hospitality.”
Alexander wasn’t enthusiastic about it in the least, but he went along with it. Achilles kept his eye on the man, seeing that he was bordering on displeasure with the entire situation, but something that Alexander had said to him kept coming back – whatever happens, do not anger the man or offend him.
Achilles never even knew Alexander had a brother, not in all the time he’d known him, and it was obvious that it was a sensitive subject. But Alexander was going along with his own advice – he didn’t want to offend Coverdale. Furthermore, it also meant that they were to stay for the evening’s feast, much to Achilles’ relief. As Samuel led Alexander away, Achilles turned to Susanna.
“It seems as if your brother has something in common with Sherry,” he said.
Susanna was watching the pair walk away also. After a moment, she looked at Achilles.
“Did you see the mercenaries in the field below?” she asked quietly.
Achilles grunted. “You saw that, did you?”
“They are not English, that is for certain. You must return to tell The Marshal immediately.”
“Does your brother know you serve William Marshal?”
She shook her head. “Nay,” she said, indicating her de Winter tunic. “He believes I serve the House of de Winter, which has been my home for the past ten years. Though I was at Castle Rising in the course of my duties with Cadelyn and Padraig Summerlin was my commander, the castle is part of the de Winter and de Warenne holdings. You know how close those families are; they’re all intermarried.”
“De Warenne is Surrey and Norfolk. And de Winter sides with the king.”
Susanna nodded. “I know,” she said, her gaze moving to her brother and Alexander as they neared the great hall. “Come. Let us join them.”
Achilles started to walk with her, but he wasn’t ready to let the subject drop. “I am not sure it is safe to leave you here,” he said softly. “If your brother thinks you serve de Winter, who in turn serves the king, he will not want you to return to de Winter with tales of a mercenary army at Aysgarth.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Who says I am returning to the House of de Winter?” she said, putting her hand over the wound on her gut. “I can make many excuses for this wound, you know. I can tell him that I had a disagreement with de Winter and they tried to silence me. What better way to announce I no longer serve the king?”
“Is that what you intend to do?”
They were nearing the hall. “Samuel will know what I want him to know,” she said. “He will know that my fealty is no longer with de Winter and that is all he need know. Mayhap it will make him comfortable enough to confide in me about the mercenaries in the field below. I can only imagine that this is the beginning of what must surely be something greater. Samuel is a good warrior, but he does not think on his own very well. He prefers that others take the responsibility for bigger decisions.”
They were almost at the hall and Achilles paused, looking at her. “Then he is taking his orders from someone else?”
Susanna nodded. “There has to be more to this. Something big is going on, Achilles. I can sense it.”
He eyed her with displeasure. “If that is the case, I am not certain I want you here.”
Her answer was to go inside the hall in utter defiance of his wishes. With an expression of pure frustration, he followed.
CHAPTER FOUR
The feast that evening was a loud, smoky, and sweaty affair.
The hall of Aysgarth was a vast place, commensurate with the size of the castle itself, with room enough for hundreds of men. It was lavishly furnished and had two enormous hearths, one at each end of the hall, constructed with stones that were varied shades of gray so they looked like they were made of gray patchwork.
In fact, the entire hall was built of patchwork gray stones. Achilles thought it was rather interesting construction, but those two hearths fired up that hall into uncomfortably warm temperatures and his thoughts weren’t lingering on the construction so much as he was thinking on what he needed to do in order to cool off.
It was becoming cloying.
Not surprisingly, it was full of men who were speaking a language Achilles had heard on the Continent when he’d returned from The Levant. During that time, he and his comrades had made a great deal of money fighting other men’s battles as mercenaries themselves, and Achilles recognized the language as something he’d heard in Saxony. That meant that Alexander had been absolutely right about these men.
They were not from England.
He sat at the dais between Alexander and Susanna. Alexander sat next to Samuel and the man had been talking a steady stream since they entered the great hall a few hours ago, but only to Alexander. It was as if no one else in the hall existed. Achilles refrained from conversation with Susanna because he wanted to listen in, catching pieces of the conversation from time to time, and it was mostly about Alexander’s brother and other men they were evidently friends with, including a man named Witton de Meynell.
He knew that name from the knights they’d faced back at The Horse’s Arse.
It was a rather interesting bit of information.
But other than that, the conversation hadn’t been very exciting, but Achilles didn’t much care. He was sitting with Susanna and that was the most predominate thing on his mind. The food was plentiful, the hall was comfortable, and the serving wenches were some of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. Surrounded by pretty girls kept the soldiers content – and a content army was an obedient army.
It was a smart tactic.
“The food is very good,” he commented to Susanna, one of just a handful of comments he’d made all evening. “Your brother puts on a fine table.”
Susanna was elbow-deep in a trencher of boiled beef and carrots, eating more ravenously than Achilles had seen since she’d been injured. “Of course he does,” she said. “He has the de Tiegh reputation to uphold.”
“And your family has a reputation for setting a fine table?”
Susanna nodded. “That is what we are known for to our friends and allies,” she said, looking at him. “When I was a child, before I went to foster, I can recall feasts like this every night. The finest food and ale to be had, the prettiest serving wenches, and my mother dressed in her very best. She dressed me in my best, too.”
He smiled faintly. “Did you dress as all little girls should? In finery and flowers?”
She fought off a smile. “Believe it or not, I did. Thanks to my mother, I had quite a wardrobe of clothing and she loved to dress me in the finest fabrics.”
“What of your parents? What became of them?”
Her expression sobered. “My mother passed away in childbirth when Samuel and I were eight years of age,” she said. “She died giving birth to another de Tiegh son. After that… after that, my father became very distant with Samuel and me. When Samuel went to foster, my father simply sent me along with him. He wanted us away from him so he could lose himself in drink and self-pity. He died several years ago, leaving the barony to my brother.”
“You were not close to him, then?”
She shook her head firmly. “Nay,” she said. “Not to him, but I was close to my mother. Her death was devastating to me. I have often wondered what she would have thought of the vocation I have chosen. Something tells me she would not have been pleased.”
“What did your father think?”
“He did not care.”
It was a sad footnote to so magnificent a woman. At least, Achilles thought so. He was coming to see that not only was she different from most other women, but beneath that strong façade, she was perhaps more vulnerable than she wanted anyone to believe.
He rather liked that side of her.
&
nbsp; “Well,” he sighed, “you are back in the place of your birth and I am sure you will enjoy your time here. Rest, eat the wonderful food Aysgarth seems to provide, and find a seamstress who will make you a few magnificent gowns.”
He whispered the last few words, causing her to flush and look away. “I will,” she said. “I wish I had Cadelyn to advise me on what to wear and how to wear it. It would be her dream come true where I am concerned, for she tried for years to convince me to dress properly. Surely, if she realized we were having this conversation, she would faint dead away.”
He laughed softly. “Someday, you will be able to tell her of this,” he said. “Someday, you will be able to show her.”
“I hope so.”
“I am sure of it.”
A pretty wench came by with a pitcher of wine, topping off their cups and throwing Achilles a rather alluring smile. In times past, he would have quite happily taken her up on her silent offer, but as it was, he ignored her until she went away, dejected.
It was an event, however, that didn’t go unnoticed by Susanna. She saw the wench, and Achilles’ reaction, and a hint of a smile played on her lips.
“Are you certain you want to pass that up?” she teased, gesturing to the wench when he looked at her, curiously. “You told me yourself that you’ve been known to pursue a pretty face. She was very pretty.”
He frowned. “Bah,” he said. “I have seen dogs with better looking faces. Moreover, my days of pursuing pretty wenches are over.”
“Then what am I? Not a pretty face?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “You are pretty,” he said. “But you are the only wench in this entire hall that I can say that about. What I mean to say is that you are the only pretty woman. You are a woman, not a wench.”
“You once called me an Amazon.”
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