Page 8 of The Captive Knight
“You know I can ride circles around you, uncle—”
“But not with a lance.”
“A lance is a knight’s weapon.”
“Have you noticed there’s been a war on for the last thirty years? That the English king still won’t pay homage to our own good King Jean? That the damn English king has sent his spawn, the Prince of Wales, to punish those who pay homage to our own true king? That women, children, peasants, and even monks with crippled legs won’t be spared?”
Her brother sighed. “History lessons are afternones,uncle.”
“Any man who travels, either to make war or to pray for the souls of men, must protect himself.”
“My prayers shall protect me.”
“So shall a lance.”
“Come now, uncle, a lance is a tournament toy—”
“Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn’t. Now climb on your horse or I’ll toss you on it myself.”
Laurent rolled his eyes but dutifully pushed himself up from the stairs, stowing his knife and carving in a pocket. Limping over to the horse, he climbed onto a half-cask and waved away a stable boy’s offer of aid. With practiced awkwardness, he swung his twisted leg over the horse and sat in the saddle.
“Warm him up with a few circuits,” Thibaud said. “Get him firm under your seat.”
Laurent kicked the horse and set him on his paces. Aliénor stood up from her seat on the stairs and took a place next to Thibaud.
Her uncle leaned closer. “I trust you know what you’re doing, woman?”
“Laurent can’t hide in the chapel forever. Father will summon him eventually. Best to choose the time and situation.”
“Later is usually better. Like when your father is out of his cups.”
“Such as in the morning,” she said pointedly, “after a hunt. He’s always happy after a hunt, whether he fells a deer or not. And this way, my father will see Laurent on horseback, rather than glimpsing him limping across the yard or at prayer in the chapel.”
Thibaud grunted.
“And where have you been hiding, uncle? I’ve been trying to talk to you since dawn.”
“I have more important things to do than teach your brother how to ride a horse in circles.” He gave her a sidelong look. “I wouldn’t have come here at all if I didn’t see the boy was getting the best of you.”
She raised her brows. “That’s a poor excuse for trying to avoid me.”
“So you couldn’t charm or cajole the men-at-arms into telling you anything, eh?”
“You’d think I was carrying the plague, by how quickly they turned away when I approached.”
“You’re his daughter. They know they’ll lose more than their tongues if they utter a word.”
Thibaud went silent, by all appearances focused on watching Laurent put the horse through his paces. The ends of Thibaud’s unfashionably long surcoat flapped in the breeze blowing over the toothed edge of the ramparts. In the bright sunlight, she could see every crease in his well-lined face. She waited, knowing if she remained patient for long enough, her voluble uncle wouldn’t be able to bear the silence.
“What I know I heard in pieces.” His bushy brows, as white as summer clouds, lowered over his eyes. “Your father trapped Sir Jehan and his men in a valley near the Garonne River. Sir Jehan and his men were lightly armed and not expecting an ambush. The knight had no choice but to surrender, and he did.” Thibaud’s cheek flexed under a prickly field of white stubble. “Then your father set his mercenaries upon them all.”
“Mercenaries?!”
“Picked up along the way, so Sir Rostand told me. A rough, bloody group of sell-swords. Your father wanted to present a larger force at the gates of Castétis, so he hired a dozen or so upon the road.”
Father had said something about men having died for her sake, but every knight of the household had returned. Her father must have meant some of those mercenaries, hungry creatures, men-at-arms set adrift from their liege lord between campaigns.
“At your father’s orders,” Thibaud continued, “they killed Sir Jehan’s men.”
