“And you are waiting, in a sense. You are simply staying close by so that the lady will not have to look far for you when she sends word.”
Brogan looked at the old man. “Of course,” he said quietly, looking over at the girls on the bed. He fixed on Thel. “The lady told you to go to her before dawn?”
Thel stood up. “Aye,” she said. “She said that she would tell her betrothed that she would take us as her servants. For all he will know, we are simply local serving women.”
“Good,” Brogan nodded; at least that part of the plan was seeming to go well. He looked back at St. Alban. “What about the rest of us? What will we do on the morrow?”
St. Alban turned and moved back to his fire; his old bones were feeling their age tonight as a result of travel and Brogan’s emotional tumult. “I have been thinking of just that,” he said as he sat. “As far as I can deduce, Inglesbatch is the only knight who knows you on sight. Correct?”
“Correct.”
St. Alban leaned back in the fragile chair, ignoring the creaking of the wood. His expression was reflective. “You already have a charger,” he said as if he was thinking aloud. “What… what if we were to commission armor for you? A sword, a shield and weapons. What if you were to ride into Guerdley Cross posing as a bachelor knight and swear fealty to Aubrey? The man wouldn’t know who you truly are, and I doubt Inglesbatch would give you away.” He suddenly sat forward, his old yellow eyes glittering. “What if you were to become another knight in Aubrey’s arsenal? You could stay close to the lady and her betrothed would be none the wiser.”
Brogan should have scoffed at the ridiculous idea, but instead, he was actually intrigued. “It will take money to do what you have suggested.”
“I have money,” St. Alban said flatly.
“You do?”
“An inheritance from my father. He owned a small piece of land in Kent that was quite rich. The land came to me upon his death.”
“How come you never told me of this?”
“You never asked.”
Brogan simply shook his head, awed at the possibilities. “You would do this for me?”
“Would you do it for me?”
“You are my only friend. I would kill for you. I would also die for you.”
The old man’s eyes twinkled with warmth. “And I for you.”
“Brogan,” Mama Starke’s soft voice filled the air. “You do not need to have armor commissioned.”
Brogan and St. Alban looked over at the round lady in the corner, cuddling a sleeping child. “What do you mean, Mama?” Brogan asked.
Mama Starke shifted Lake and the child whimpered in her sleep. The woman waited a moment as the child settled down again. “You have your father’s armor,” she said softly. “It is back at the shop. I saved it for you all of these years. You are bigger than your father was, but it should fit you.”
Brogan’s expression moved from curiosity to recognition; he remembered, as a lad, packing his father’s armor away after the man died. He further remembered taking it with them when they came to live in England, though he’d not given it another thought since that time. Mostly because it brought sad memories of the bear of a man with long hair he kept in a long braid down his back. Tygor d’Aurilliac had been much loved, and much missed, by his son.
Lost in thought, Brogan didn’t realize that St. Alban was staring at him, watching the emotions fluctuate across his face. The old man leaned in his direction.
“Brogan?” he said tentatively. “If this is true, then you must return and claim your father’s armor. In fact, you should assume your father’s identity. He was a knight, as you should have been. No man has ever lived that was more worthy to carry the title than you.”
Brogan scowled at him. “You are mad. I am to become my father?”
“Assume his name, his lineage. Surely you know it. Where did your father foster?”
“Schwalenberg Castle.”
“Who was his liege?”
“Volkwin, Count of Hesse.”
“Do you know the rest of your father’s history?”
“Of course I do. He was a great knight in Saxony.”
