Page 24 of The Captive Knight
Chapter Seven
He might have stood there for hours, snared by the way her lower lip quivered, entranced by the blush stealing up her jaw. He might have stood for days, captivated by the way her shoulders shuddered with the swiftness of her breath. He might have stood there for weeks, on the faintest hope that she might allow him, with the slightest encouragement, to lower his head and press his lips against her mouth.
He would have happily stood there forever, indeed, if a shout hadn’t come from the ramparts.
Shout followed shout and they were no longer the center of attention as the courtyard erupted in activity. Women hurried out of the goat and chicken pens, grain baskets on their hips, splattering mud as they flooded into the courtyard to see what was happening. Men-at-arms rose from their ease, emerging from the kitchens, the stables, and flooding through the door of the donjon.
Aliénor gave him a startled look before turning on a heel and all but flying away from him. He watched the slim curve of her back as she shot toward the mews and slipped inside. He stared at the mews’ door, as fixated as her hounds, until she reemerged. He watched as she brushed paw prints off her kirtle and headed toward the stairs to the donjon. Only as she stepped up did Jehan notice her father descending the stairs to await the rider whose horse’s hooves now clattered on the wooden drawbridge.
The messenger yanked his steed to a stop and all but fell out of the saddle, as drenched with sweat and mud as his mount. The man swayed as he made his bow. “My lord, mademoiselle,” he said, heaving out a breath. “The Prince of Wales and his army are in Seissan.”
Seissan.
Jehan’s blood thundered in his ears. The walled village was less than a half-day’s ride to the east.
His liege lord had come.
Jehan turned his face to the viscount, feeling the brightness of his own triumph, but the viscount didn’t spare a look his way. The nobleman tossed a leg of fowl to the ground with such fury even the hounds hesitated to leap for it. Jehan stepped forward, determined that the murdering fool would see him and knowhewas the cause of the army soon to arrive at the gate—but then his gaze fell upon the woman by the viscount’s side.
Unease tempered the heat of his triumph. As much as he wanted the prince to rain fire and arrows upon her father, he didn’t want Aliénor in the midst of it.
Jehan jerked as a guard seized his arm. He dug his feet into the stones when the guard yanked him back, no doubt toward the door to the northwest tower. Jehan then did what he should have been doing since he’d been released into the courtyard: He took a swift inventory of the barrels of arrows and oil and stones lying about, as well as the number of fighting men climbing to the ramparts.
“Rudel,” Sir Rostand shouted, striding toward them from the stables. “Leave Sir Jehan to me. You’ll take the first shift on the wall-walk.”
His guard said, “I’ll put him in his cell first—”
“I’ll escort the prisoner to the cell.” Rostand waved his hand toward the ramparts. “Now go.”
As Rudel headed for the stairs, Jehan eyed the thick-bearded Sir Rostand with sudden, but cautious, interest. The burly knight cast an emotionless gaze over his shoulder at the courtyard—made chaotic as servants raced out the portal to gather their families and possessions from the village below. Once Aliénor’s father had climbed the stairs to the ramparts and was out of sight, Sir Rostand casually walked past the door to the northwest tower and continued to walk on a path paralleling the main rampart wall.
Curious, Jehan followed Sir Rostand to the far side of the central tower, an isolated place under an arched awning. As the knight turned, his sword clattered against the plate armor. Jehan crouched into a fighting stance, his heart leaping.
“Standdown,” Sir Rostand hissed. “Our time is brief.”
Jehan didn’t lower his fists. He wouldn’t put it past Tournan to have him murdered and make it look like an escape attempt to save his tattered honor. But Sir Rostand made no move for his sword. Instead the black-bearded knight glanced around the narrow area with unease.
“I represent myself and two others,” he said. “Sir Geoffrey of Garrigas and Sir David de Bourreu. They, like me, took no part in what happened the day you were captured.”
His thoughts darkened. “Yet my squire and three of my men are dead.”
“I can do nothing for your dead now except pray for their souls.”
This knight had told him as much when he’d arrived in the cell with a jug of new wine and a troubled brow. “You bring me words, Sir Rostand, but your mistress showed more courage than all of you.”
“Yon maiden is the only living creature who can tame the beast of her father. Do you want to hear our offer or don’t you?”
“Speak.”
“Tournan is our liege lord. We cannot openly defy him lest we lose our land and be branded traitors.”
Jehan nodded. He understood the importance of vows of fealty better than Sir Rostand would ever know.
“If the prince comes,” the knight continued, “we will fight him, according to our sacred oath.”
“If the prince comes, you will lose.”
“Perhaps that is true,” Rostand said, and the skin above his beard darkened. “And perhaps it’s not. We have high walls, enough men, and time on our side. But I don’t relish the prospect of a long, hard siege.”
