Part V
Copyright 2003 by Elizabeth Delayne
Percy passed a line of muttering beggars seated against the stone wall and stopped in the shadows. He took out his dagger, a gift long ago from his father, brought home from one of his many excursions to the East Indies. It had a mechanism to propel the sharpened blade from the shaft. It would not hold up against an armored fight, but against flesh it was quite deadly.
Tucking it away in his belt, he said a prayer for safety and walked into the shadowy pub. They were close enough to the waterfront that the cry of birds and the stench of fish permeated the air.
He was dressed in plain, dark clothes, as were the two knights that would come in separately behind him. He hoped it made them seem invisible. Without the proper fighting equipment they could not physically stand up to all the large, war-ready men who sat around tables on the inside.
The laughter was raucous, the smell foul.
He nodded toward the keeper of the pub, a small man who looked more rat then human. His eyes were dark, his nose small, and his face wrinkled and battle weary. He was not someone to trust, but it wasn't a time for trust.
He had a dagger at his waist and another hidden in his boot. He flexed his fingers and hoped Alex had trained him enough-but he'd never been trained for battle. Why he'd ever thought it was a lark to swing a sword…
Percy made his way toward the keeper. The man set two heavy goblets on a table so that the drink sloshed over the edges as Percy reached his side.
"I have been called to a meeting in the back room," Percy murmured to the keeper's profile, carefully watching the room.
The keeper eyed him wearily and Percy noticed one of his eyes veer to the right, unseeing, unused, "I have been told to expect you."
His voice squeaked as if barely used.
He turned without further word and left Percy with no choice but to follow. The keeper lifted a dirty, tattered red curtain. Inside a lone candle flickered in the dark and lit the edges of a man who stood with his back toward the door. Percy froze and heard the curtain lift behind him; once and then again as he was joined by the other two knights.
The keeper of the pub took the warped wooden bowls and goblets from the room, his good eye to the floor.
When he was gone, the stranger turned, his features hidden in the shadows of dim light.
"I heard that you were seeking news of William of Greenburough's betrothed."
"We are looking for information," Percy conceded carefully, reaching over to touch the handle of his dagger. "Who are you?"
"Someone who knows Galliden like his own heart."
Percy measured the man in the dim light. He was young, but there was a sense of him that was aged. His cloak was of wealth, but it was travel worn. He wore a saber on his right, so he was left handed, and the bulge of a dagger could be seen on his left. His hands, seen clearly in the light, were workers hands; dirty, strong, callused.
"Your relation to Galliden? Did you turn against his master? One of the many sent away over the course of these past years?"
The man chuckled, "You do not recognize me, Percy of Wentworth? At one time, we reveled in the court together," he stepped further into the light and Percy saw in his face the familiar eyes and nose of a young man grown old. "I am Arthur of Greenburough. William is my brother."
"You were cast out of Galliden—" Percy remembered. "Was it a year ago?"
"More so," Arthur said. "I knew then, what I know now and it was fleeing my home or loose my life. William seeks the throne."
"If you knew then what we know now, why did you not warn the king?"
"Matters may be darker then they seem. I cannot say all I know, for what I know I am not entirely sure. I can only tell you that things are hidden from the history books. William knows how to get what he wants. He got his lady Sara and got to the Lady of Arlington."
"Will William vie for ownership with the dark dragon?"
"If he does, then he knows he will loose. Does the dark dragon seek to be king? You know the betwixt of it all."
"We have heard tales."
Arthur nodded and lifted his cape. Percy held out a hand to keep the knights from drawing their own daggers. He was taking a chance in that flash of a moment.
Arthur took out folded parchment sealed with wax and handed it over. Percy reached out and in that moment looked into Arthur's eyes. If he had ever been able to judge a man, then he would judge this one honest.
"Detailed here is all I know of my brother's accounts and possible camps. I leave it with you so that the armies of mine and of yours may meet up together one day. Can you read?"
"Some, but there is a priest at Billingdor who reads very well," Percy said and nodded for one of the knights to take it. "We shall get it there. Is this all you can give us?"
"I have heard that you needed information on Sara of Feue. You seek to find her?"
"The carriage of Greenburough was attacked and the men took Billingdor's niece. We need to know what Sara knows. We need to know if she, too, is guilty of treason."
"Not against the king," Arthor paced the small room and stopped at the edge of the table where he lit a second lamp. Beside it was a pitcher and a round of goblets. He poured himself another and set the pitcher down slowly before taking a drink. "William would not have shared such goals with her; he has his own woman, tucked away from here, to plan with."
"Lord Feue would not have committed her to William if he knew of unfaithfulness."
"I see you doubt yourself or you have a higher opinion of Feue then I," Arthur responded. "But I don't think he knew. The society of London does not know of this woman."
"Who is she?"
"I do not know for sure. I have worked long over the last year trying to find both her and William at different intervals."
"But you know he has a woman?"
"I have seen her and know of a dozen messages sent to her."
"Could the messages be coded for Lord Fowler?"
"Indeed … but I have reason to believe Lord Fowler has a daughter that lives. It can not be proven as of yet, but there is a story, tied to our former king. Either William earned the dark dragon's favor or he used his daughter to lure William to him. Either situation will do."
"But Sara," Arthur continued, "she served her father as maidens are taught to do. She went to William under contract and through his lure of fancy he sought to show her. He knows how to woe the maidens and he has had many."
"Do you know where she is?"
"My information comes by way of William's servants, those loyal to him, but there are rumors in the keep that she remains at Gallidin. He keeps her locked in the tower room like a prisoner. When he's there, she cries out in fear and when he's gone, she weeps," Arthur set down the goblet and looked over to meet Percy's eyes.
Percy felt the tick at his temple. It was easier to believe Sara was guilty, easier to believe she was not suffering. If she was innocent, William had no reason to keep her for long, no reason for him to go to the efforts to control her. Few would miss the youngest girl from the family of the Feues and fewer would legally question William's family linage to wonder out loud.
She was likely alone and frightened. He paced the confines of the small, dark cavern, his hands gripped behind his back. "No one helps her."
Arthur watched Percy pace. "I do have information that Lady Sara is fine and has accompanied my brother on excursions. The same information details the trips he has made in the last week. William has loyal servants as well."
Having heard the same information from the servants at Gallidin who spoke with him, Percy stopped and faced Arthur, "You doubt that information?"
"As I have said. I doubt William. He grew up in my grandfather's shadow and spent little time with our father," Arthur stepped into the shadows and lifted a hooded cloak from a peg on the wall. "There is a maid who visits the market near the water well on the Monday morn. She lives for William only under the sword of fear. Her name is Maribell. Promise her and her family safety and she may be able to help you … or both she and Sara could turn you over to William. Make your decision wisely."
Lila awoke to the stench of horses and the sound of men disassembling camp. Her arm ached from falling in the coach, her wrists from being tied together behind her back. She slept facing down, her face turned away from the dirt. She knew exactly where she was and was thankful she had passed the horror of waking up to a feeling of safety and disillusionment. She woke prepared and alert.
Even as she hurt, she forced herself to shift until she was in a sitting position. It would be easier to remain still and slowly die. She needed to fight back until she was rescued.
She needed to remain alive until Alex could find her.
"Give us both wisdom, God. Protect us, protect my uncle, protect your servant the king."
She looked around the soiled tent where she was literally thrown each night. It barely in light, there was nothing within except for her.
The tent flap swished back and Lila blinked against the early morning light.
The man that entered was now familiar to her. He was tall, his long hair only greying at the edges. His skin was brown from riding, his eyes sunken with age. He was strong and if he had not seemed a little crazy, she would have mistaken the haunting look in his eyes for wisdom.
"Good morning, little Lila," Lord Fowler mimicked common courtesy. "I trust you slept well."
Lila said nothing as there was nothing to say.
"You shouldn't look at me with such hate, child. I would have been a hero to your father if he had not stepped in the way."
The image of her parents fight for their lives flashed and Lila pushed them back momentarily. She would focus on the later, as she had of late. If there was a clue, any clue, of how she could get out of this mess resting in her past, she would have to remember.
"You would have been no hero, Fowler."
"No? Then perhaps you won't live to see my rise on such pedestal," he reached down and gripped her arm, pulling her roughly to her feet. She bit her lip against crying out. He need not know to what extent she hurt.
"We move within the hour. Follow orders dear princess or perish along this path."
Lila looked him in the eye until he moved on through the mass of horses. Two knights appeared at her side. She had long stood the humiliation of their guard, but it was better to have their company and her wrists unbound so that she could relieve herself and partake in breaking of the fast.
She would survive.
"The information enclosed was given to me by a source I will name upon seeing you. Use the information with care. I will make my own move within the week. Please send Ashton to me if she is able to travel. She would be of great assistance in this matter and would be under the care of those predetermined people left to me by me commander."
Brock lifted his head at those words and stared at Father Bryan. Percy could not be serious. She had stayed away from him, he knew. Even in the moments he'd gone absolutely mad and started looking for her, she'd remained hidden from his sight.
Still, Brock clearly remembered the way she'd walked in, limping, trembling as she'd tried to pick up the bowls he'd thrown against the wall in disgust—disgust at himself, at his injuries, at his own lack of ability to protect as he'd been called to protect.
Ashton had been harmed and he had not been able to stop it. Beyond Lila's abduction, beyond the coach's attack, this was what bothered him the most.
"His commander—Alex would love that," Blakely of Billingdor chuckled and sighed with relief. It did feel good to laugh. He had such a lack of it in his life with Lila gone.
He turned to Father Bryan who was reading the message. "Sorry, go on."
"That's all. It is signed by the order of the Father of Peasants Cathedral, but only those in the priesthood understand those markings."
Billingdor turned to Brock and then toward one of his own knights, "Find a maid to send Ashton to me. Then take a troop North and ride to find Alex. Bring him back here shortly. We need to plan."
With a slight bow, the young knight left. When his eyes dropped to the map stretched across the table in the war room, he was suddenly the black knight again, fierce and proud, plotting and planning.
Brock took a deep breath, "Sir, I don't think Ashton should—"
When the Black Knight lifted his head, Brock fumbled. "She's not ready. She's still hurting."
"I'm sure Percy will see to her comfort."
"But sir—"
"I can't ask her to stay," the elder knight said. "Like a daughter or not, she will go, just as you will dawn your armor and fight before you're fully ready."
Brock swallowed and prepared to unleash a dozen reasons when the wooden door opened and Ashton slipped in. She took his breath away and he stood there, immobile.
She was such a slight girl, beautiful, with a classic elegance about her even in servitude. She was pale and thin from her illness and when her eyes glanced at him he saw, for a brief moment, the pain she felt. The pain he'd caused.
He hadn't been able to protect her.
He had not been able to protect those from which he was called.
Ashton walked across the room, her gait steady, but still slow. She stopped at the table before the Black Knight. "I am here, sir."
"I have a mission for you, but I will only tell you of it if you promise to inform me if you are physically unable to do it. I will not have you," he said, and glanced at Brock momentarily, "or any of my men leaving for battle unfit and hurt."
"Yes, sir."
"Percy of Wentworth has requested that you join him in London at his family estate. From what Alex has told me, he will be going after Sara and will take her there only if he finds her innocent. If she is, then I would think she would be in a dreadful state. She will need female companionship that she can trust. Will you go?"
"I will."
"Good—then I will have a coach ready for you as soon as we have a meal. You will join me at my table this time," he held up a hand as she opened her mouth to argue, her gaze shifting to Brock before she controlled herself. "A warrior does not hide from conflict, my dear Ashton. And from this moment, that's what you will be."
As soon as he was able to excuse himself from the plans, Brock went to find her. He looked in her rooms, then asked around the castle. He was about to head down to the keep itself when he thought of the little chapel with it's beautiful windows.
Despite the Sundays that had passed, he had not entered the chapel since that first day when he had gone there for her, but it was a place she would go ... a place where she looked for peace.
The doors were open when he stepped into the entrance and he saw her kneeling before the stone crucifix that hung on the front wall. In prayer, lost in ferventness, he watched her. He wasn't going to disturb her, even as he walked closer. He wasn't going to break into this moment she obviously needed, even as he was drawn to her devotion.
She looked up as he drew closer and frowned.
"Don't stop," was all he could think to say.
"You came here to stop me."
"You are not ready."
"I am not your charge," she said, and gathering up her skirts, she tried to stand.
He reached out to help her up, but once she was stable, she jerked away from him. "You wish me dead."
"No," he said, and swallowed over the lump in his throat. "That was not what I intended. You were very brave. I should have told you, but you ... I couldn't protect you."
"I'm not a simpleton, Sir," she said and moved passed him toward the door. "You've already explained this to me once. You should have fought to the death and used your blood to spill it over those who were going after Lila. She should be safe. I wish the same, and if that means that I join the fight and sacrifice my own life—then it should have been done on that day in any case. Good day, Sir."
"Ashton—"
But she left, leaving him in the quiet calm of the church. He started to go after her, but stopped, and turned to look at the crucifix and the lifeless stone figure that hung on the cross.
"I have never prayed to You before," he said angrily, "but if You love her You will tell her not to go. It's what I would do, isn't it? I love her—"
The truth made him pause. As a knight, honor bound, he could do nothing against Truth. He sighed and dealt with it. He did, indeed, love her. If he was in battle again, it would be her life he sought to protect. Sending her away would not keep that truth from him.
And yet, this was whom she turned to in her hour of need. This was whom she had come to ask for protection. This man who had been weakened and brutalized by the forces of earth.
"I've never believed in you, so I've never talked to you. How can I ask you to protect her when I do not believe? How can I ask for the peace you claim to give when there is nothing peaceful in this world? What did you bring to us that we need amongst this brutality?"
"He brings us peace."
Brock spun around and stared at the priest who stood at the back entrance to the church. "In the Holy Book of John we find it written that Jesus said, "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."
"And you call this life abundance?" Brock asked bitterly, then stopped and reminded himself that he was standing before a priest. "I—I'm sorry. I haven't meant any disrespect."
"You have given none. Jesus calls us to honestly. He came so that we could be honest with ourselves. We will never measure up to any standard by which this world has given us. Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."
As he spoke, Father Bryan walked down the aisle until he reached Brock's side. "As a knight, the world has given you a high standard. There is nothing greater then the calling of a knight. You serve the king, you serve many masters. You, as a knight, are not given room for imperfections. Death or perfection. There's no room for failure. That's not so with God."
He looked at the crucifix, "He's not there any more."
"Not where?"
"On the cross—there, in agony. Romans 5:8, ‘But God commandeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.' He finished it and rose after three days to be with his Father. To be," Father Bryan put a hand to his heart, "here with us. He's not there anymore. Some might say He too failed in his mission. It looked like it to the priests of that time, but He had succeeded in taking the punishment for all imperfection. John 3:16 says, ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved."
"Then what could He possibly want from me?"
"He wants you to believe in Him. Romans 10:9, ‘That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."
"That's it?"
"Well, when you believe, you will come to Him. You talk to Him. You understand that He has a path for You and that He walks that path with you."
"I don't know how to do this."
"To him that knocketh it shall be opened, but to him that does nothing he shall discover nothing—those aren't quite God's words, but my own. It seems to me you were doing quite fine knocking when I came in. Just know, He's not a stone figure on a stone cross. He's listening."
By the time Brock left the chapel and made it to the castle, Ashton was already being taken to her coach. He raced through the halls, as fast as his broken body would allow, needing to talk to her, needing to tell her all that he had said to Father Bryan and then to God. If she was going, he needed her to know that he would pray for her.
But when he reached the front steps, the front gate was already open and the coach was sweeping through going on to London. Brock took a deep breath and accepted the pain. He could not protect her now.
"Go with her, God. Be with her as I can not. Protect her as I would never be able to do," he swallowed. "And ... if you would have it, bring us together again on that path you have for us."
"Bring her to me."
Percy watched the maiden come forward in the dim light. He was in another dark room, this one a room at an inn. He was growing increasingly tired of remaining indoors out of the light. The air was still, with a stench remaining from the inhabitants of the room the night before.
To be outdoors, out of London, free of the stench of crowded living and the noise of dwelling with others—he had thought that he would never long to be away from London and the excitement within.
The maiden Arthur had suggested stood before him now. She was a small woman, aging fast. Her blond hair had a trace of grey and was pulled back into a this braid.
"You sent for me, my lord?"
There was a bite to her voice, daring and resentful.
Percy studied her and prayed for wisdom. Arthur had left the decision up to him. He could only hope it was the right one.
