The Centurion

by Kathryn Le Veque

  Alyx had heard that the man became even more eccentric when his grandfather died, followed by his mother shortly thereafter. That eccentricity began to show signs of downright weirdness when Lionel took to wearing Roman-style togas and insisted his knights wear Roman-style armor and protection until his captain at the time, a seasoned man named Collin de Lara, resisted and explained that Roman armor and protection simply wasn’t comfortable to wear, nor was it practical. That had disappointed Lionel, but he allowed his knights the freedom to wear what they were comfortable with. What he would not change was what his form of address to his captain –

  The Centurion.

  It was now a title that, several years after de Lara’s death, Torston now held.

  It was all quite strange to Alyx, and a little sad even. Every time she visited The Lyceum, she thought of the tales of Lionel Harringham and his rise to madness. In the north, it was common knowledge, a madman who believed himself to be Caesar. As Alyx stood at one of the long, lancet windows overlooking the bailey and felt the cool morning air on her face, her thoughts shifted from Lionel’s legend to Torston, and she smiled as she thought of their conversation yesterday.

  To her, it had been pivotal.

  Torston was such a stiff, unbending, and serious knight that it did her heart good to break through all of that knightly pomp. It had taken her almost every day of the nine years she’d pined for him to see a response in his eyes when she spoke of her longing for him – before she came of age, he would never consider such a thing. But since the event of her day of birth three months earlier, the man was finally letting his guard down.

  But not enough.

  She wanted more.

  Intent on finding him to continue yesterday’s conversation, Alyx called for warmed water, washing quickly before donning the clothes she’d worn yesterday since it was all she had. Over her shift she wore a surcoat made of linen, snug on her breasts, a garment that was simple to wear and fairly simple to clean even though the entire bottom of it was dirty from tramping through the woods. She didn’t much care because tramping through the woods searching for flowers and roots and herbs was her greatest pleasure.

  Next to Torston, that is.

  After breaking her fast with warm bread and a sauce made from cheese and butter and milk, poured over the bread like a gravy, Alyx headed downstairs to the great hall below in search of Torston.

  The hall, however, was empty at this time in the morning. It was a big place, two stories in height with a minstrel gallery overhead. It took up the entire entry level of The Lyceum and had the unusual feature of having several enormous doors that, when opened, gave the impression that revelers were dining on an open terrace like the ancient Romans would. There were feasting tables for the men, but there were also cushioned couches to dine upon for the more important guests. The eastern side of the hall opened up to a stone-paved yard that had steps down to a fishpond with a statue of a naked Roman god in the middle of it.

  It was the keep that had been built by Lionel, wanting it to look like the open palaces he had seen in Rome. From a military standpoint, however, it was foolishly exposed and not at all favorable to protection, but Lionel and his builders had seen to unique features because of that – the stairwells leading up into the living quarters of the keep, where Alyx had just spent the night, had massive iron doors on them, impossible to breach once bolted with an ingenious locking system.

  Even if the enemy made it into the hall, there was no way to breach the stairwells or even the minstrel gallery because it was constructed as an overhang – there was no way to scale the walls or secure a ladder. Defenders of the keep could throw things down on the attackers from above and they had little protection.

  Lionel may have been eccentric in his building, but he wasn’t stupid.

  Alyx stood in that unconventional, empty hall for a moment, grossly disappointed that Torston hadn’t been waiting for her to appear. Truthfully, she shouldn’t have been disappointed by his lack of presence and she knew it, but there was still a part of her that was saddened that he wasn’t eager to see her first thing in the morning just as she was eager to see him.

  But perhaps she could change that.

  Perhaps he would come looking for her if she wandered away again.

  A devilish grin creased Alyx’s lips as she headed to the east side of the hall, to the stone yard with the naked statue. There was a postern gate by the kitchens leading out of the castle that she intended to use. She hadn’t quite left the hall when someone called out to her.

  “My lady?” came a concerned voice. “Lady Alyx, where are you going on this fine morning?”

  Alyx turned to see Great Caesar himself coming toward her. Lionel Harringham was looking at her with a good deal of interest as he came off the same flight of stairs she’d just come down from. Behind him, his faithful majordomo, Morley, followed closely. Alyx smiled at the trim old man with a haircut that looked as if he’d put a bowl over his head and cut the hair around it, then separated it into carefully rolled curls. He insisted that was how the men represented in the status in Rome were groomed and he followed suit.

  Even if it did look rather strange.

  “Great Caesar,” she greeted amiably, for she truly did like the old man she’d known most of her life. “I was just going to walk in the garden. Will you join me?”

  Lionel shook his head. He was very quick in his movements, like a hummingbird. “I will not,” he said flatly. “I cannot go into the garden any longer.”

  “Why not, my lord?”

  He pointed a thin finger out into the lovely grounds. “Do you see that tree there?”

  Alyx turned to see what he was pointing at and came to the conclusion that it was the only big tree in the garden. “The yew tree?”

  “That is the one.”

  “It is a lovely tree.”

  “It is trying to kill me.”

  Alyx looked at him in surprise but given Lionel’s eccentricities, thinking a tree was trying to kill him wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.

  “It… it is, my lord?” she asked hesitantly, turning to look at the tree again. It had a big, twisted trunk and a big knot about eight feet up that was open and gaping. “Are you certain?”

  Lionel nodded firmly, his eyes on the tree as one would size up an enemy. “It has tried to grab me and eat me,” he said. “You can see its mouth. I have seen feathers and bits of rodents in that mouth. The tree feeds on blood and it wants to feed on me.”

  “My lord,” Morley, standing behind him, spoke evenly. “The tree does not wish to eat you and the feathers and rodents you see nest in the big knot near the branches. That is all it is.”

  “Pah!” Lionel threw up his hands. “The tree wants me dead.”

  “Then I shall have it cut down, my lord,” Morley said.

  Lionel looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “And have all of his kin after me?” he shook his head. “We cannot cut him down. We must leave him there. But I cannot go into the garden any longer.”

  Listening to the exchange between Lionel and his somewhat timid majordomo, Alyx wasn’t sure what to say. She thought it rather amusing, but she kept her composure as Lionel warned her yet again about the killer tree and excused himself.

  Alyx watched him go, meeting Morley’s eyes and watching the man lift his shoulders in resignation; nothing his liege said surprised him these days. Her smile broke through when Lionel was out of sight and, unheeding his warning, headed out into the garden.

  The postern gate awaited.

  Winding her way through the lovely garden, including the killer tree, she soon located the gate tucked back into the curtain wall and used by the kitchen servants because the kitchens were nearby, at the corner of the keep. The postern gate only had a single guard and it was open on this day as servants did business with various farmers and merchants that had come to sell their foodstuffs to the castle.

  Alyx made a point of being seen by the guard at the postern ga
te and several kitchen servants. She greeted them politely and headed back out, heading for the woods where Torston had found her yesterday, confident they would tell Torston they saw the lady heading back out to the woods and he would come rushing to save her once more. Perhaps then she could speak more on her feelings for him.

  A little stolen time with the man wasn’t such a bad thing.

  In fact, she was looking forward to it.

  The woods somehow looked differently today.

  No sounds of battle. That’s the conclusion Alyx came to as she wandered among the cool foliage, looking up into the trees and hearing the birds chirping overhead. Sunlight streamed in between the branches, illuminating the forest floor in patches.

  The wild garlic was flowering copiously this time of year, the tiny white flowers creating a carpet of white all along the forest floor. It gave off a smell of garlic, which is why it wasn’t used for pomades or perfumes, but it made a lovely bouquet and she collected the blooms until she had a great bunch of them.

  About that time, she came across wild honeysuckle as it just started blooming for the season. Delighted, she kept the wild garlic in her surcoat, using the skirt like a basket, as she collected a good deal of the fragrant honeysuckle. She was inhaling a rather large bunch she’d just harvested when she heard the leaves to her right crackle, as if they’d been stepped on. Startled, she turned to see a man in the bramble looking back at her.

  A man who wasn’t Torston.

  Frightened, Alyx began to back away from him but he held up a hand to her.

  “Ye dunna need tae be frightened, lass,” he said. “I willna hurt ye. But what are ye doing out here?”

  Alyx didn’t stop backing away; the man was dressed in a woolen long tunic and braies, and he spoke with a heavy Scots accent. He was rather big, in fact, with unruly red hair past his shoulders and a beard, but he wasn’t unhandsome. He was much older than she was, by as much as twenty years perhaps, and he spoke with a deep, steady voice.

  But that didn’t make her any less frightened.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  He took a step toward her. “I…”

  “Stay back! If you take another step, I’ll scream loud enough to bring the entire castle running.”

  He stopped. “I swear I’ll not harm ye,” he said. “No need tae summon the devils.”

  “What devils?”

  He gestured toward the castle, which was very much in the distance at this point. Glancing over her shoulder, Alyx realized she had walked a fair amount that morning to return to her woods.

  Now she was starting to regret it.

  But she knew one thing – that she probably couldn’t outrun the Scotsman if she tried, which concerned her. She was fast, but she suspected he was faster. He was a large man with long legs.

  Her sense of unease grew.

  “Some might say you are the devil,” she said quietly.

  He shrugged. “I’ve been called worse,” he said. Then, he eyed her curiously. “Do ye not know it’s unsafe tae wander in these woods? Especially after yesterday.”

  “You know about yesterday?”

  “I do.”

  “Were you fighting?”

  He didn’t admit to it; he simply lifted his shoulders again. “I have done a good deal of fighting in my lifetime,” he said. “Do ye live at The Lyceum? Who let ye go wandering in these woods without an escort? ’Tis not safe, lass.”

  She still wasn’t certain about him, but she wasn’t as frightened as she had been. His manner was calm and she didn’t sense an attack was on the horizon. She found herself eyeing him curiously, too.

  “I can take care of myself,” she said bravely. “I don’t need an escort.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It is.”

  He scratched at his beard. “Is that what ye told yer da before ye left the castle? From the sound of ye, I suspect ye dunna take kindly tae the attempts of men tae protect ye.”

  She shook her head. “English women are not weak fools,” she said. “Or didn’t you know that?”

  “Clearly, I dinna.”

  “Now you know. There are those of us who are not afraid of Scots, who like to wander in the woods by ourselves, and who do not have to ask permission for every little thing.”

  “Ye sound like a right brave lass.”

  Alyx felt a little more courageous, a little more sure of herself. “I am,” she insisted. “Why, someday, I’m going to travel the world and if my husband will not go with me, I shall go myself. Jerusalem, Constantinople, Tyre… all of those places I have heard of. I will go and I will see them for myself.”

  He grinned, displaying big, white teeth. “I believe ye,” he said. “But why do ye want tae go? Those are the lands of savages.”

  “Some say the same thing about Scotland.”

  He snorted. “Aye,” he said. “’Tis true. But the real savages live in the lands ye spoke of. The Levant. ’Tis a much different way of life there and not for the faint of heart.”

  “If I am traveling there alone, then I am not faint of heart.”

  His eyes glimmered at her. “That is true,” he said. “Tell me, brave lass – do ye have a name?”

  “I do.”

  He lifted his eyebrows as if expecting more of an answer. “Is it a secret or can ye tell me?”

  “It is not a secret, but I will not tell you. In fact, I must return or they will come looking for me. If they do, you should not be here.”

  He simply nodded faintly in understanding and, having nothing more to say, Alyx turned away from him. In spite of the fact that she hadn’t sensed danger from him, still, he could have easily taken her prisoner. She was quite surprised he was allowing her to leave and, at one point, she even glanced over her shoulder to see if he was standing there. He was, his gaze watching her like a hawk. There was something unnerving in his gaze. Uncomfortable, she turned around and kept walking. She hadn’t taken ten steps when she heard a shout in the distance.

  “Alyx!”

  It was Torston. She knew his voice and when she turned her head to tell the Scotsman to leave, he was already gone.

  Alyx didn’t dwell on the man. She could hear the strained tone to Torston’s voice and her heart began to sing. He was concerned for her, frightened even, and he’d come to look for her just as she’d hoped he would. Torston de Royans was, if nothing else, predictable.

  She liked that.

  But what she didn’t like was his expression when she finally emerged from the trees and he saw her. Displeasure didn’t cover it; anger was more like it. But it didn’t matter; he’d come for her and that was all she cared about.

  If he was a little peeved, so be it.

  Unfortunately for Alyx, however, Torston wouldn’t speak to her the entire ride back to The Lyceum. When they finally arrived and he pulled her down from his horse, he used his trencher-sized palm to swat her, hard, on the backside.

  He intended that it should upset her, but it didn’t. With a grin, Alyx rubbed her stinging bum and looked at the man as he refused to meet her eyes.

  “Do you feel better now?” she asked.

  Torston was in the process of handing his horse off to a stable servant. “No,” he said flatly. “Shut your lips and go inside. I have a few things to say to you.”

  He was barking orders, but she still didn’t care. She wasn’t worried in the least. Obediently, Alyx did as she was told. She headed up the steps that led into the keep, turning around to make sure Torston was following her. He was, but he still wouldn’t look at her.

  For Alyx, that was simply a challenge.

  “I saw Great Caesar this morning,” she said. “He told me that the yew tree in the garden is trying to kill him.”

  Torston sighed heavily but said nothing. Alyx slowed her pace, trying to look him in the eyes. “Well? No response?”

  He still wouldn’t look at her as they entered through the great doors, open to the hall, which had some people in it at th
is hour, men who were eating a nooning meal. Refusing to be ignored any longer, Alyx came to a halt. Torston walked past her for a few strides before coming to an irritated halt himself and turning in her direction.

  “Walk,” he commanded quietly.

  She stood her ground, flowers all bunched up in her arms from where she’d carried them. “Not until you speak to me,” she said. “I realize you are angry, but ignoring any conversation with me is not the way to express that anger. You know many words, Torston; use them. Tell me how you feel.”

  He sighed heavily again and managed to look at her this time. “I am afraid to,” he said. “I am afraid that I will start shouting at you.”

  “You already spanked me.”

  “That was nothing. It was all I could do to stop from beating you senseless.”

  Before Torston could reply, a knight came up behind Alyx. He had just come in from the bailey, having seen Torston and Alyx arrive. He was tall but powerful, long arms and a tight body. With a halo of curly, blond hair, Sir Jess de Motte was young, charming, and loyal to a fault. He grinned when he saw Alyx but his words were meant for Torston.

  “So you found her, did you?” he said. “Back to the woods?”

  Torston’s jaw ticked. “Back to the woods.”

  Alyx’s good humor was fading. Certainly, she’d brought Torston to her again, but he was being rude and unfriendly. All amusement at his irritation aside, she was starting to feel foolish. Patience at an end, she turned her back on both Torston and Jess.

  “I want to return to Makendon,” she said. “Will you escort me home or must I send word to my father for an escort?”

  She was heading to the stairs, leaving Torston and Jess looking after her. “I will escort you,” Torston said, “after I have had a serious discussion with you. Go to your chamber and wait for me.”

  “You cannot order me about, Torston de Royans.”

  “I can and I will. And that was not a request.”

  She was halfway up the stairs when she turned and scowled at him. He simply lifted an eyebrow at her, removing his gloves as Jess stood next to him and smirked. When Alyx was out of his sight, Torston sighed heavily.