Page 30 of The Champion

Stryder stood there, his soul screaming out at the letter and what it signified. Could one of their own have killed Cyril, or was this a Saracen playing havoc with them?

It didn’t make sense. Nay, they had made certain no one was left behind the night they escaped.

No one.

It wasn’t in his nature to trust anyone, and yet, he found himself confiding in Rowena. “It was a vow all of us made that we all would survive and go home.”

“Who was left behind?”

“No one out of our camp. We made sure of it. On the night we escaped, we sent groups to free the others.” He shook his head. “It can’t be one of us. It’s some Saracen playing with our heads. It has to be.”

“Why?”

“To punish us for leaving and for helping others escape. No doubt they have been hunting us all this time with no other purpose than to kill us off, one by one.”

“But why kill Cyril?” she asked as she folded up the note. “He didn’t strike me as the kind to help anyone save himself.”

It was true. Cyril had refused their cause and had gone home, ever forgetful of what they’d been through. Of the promises they had made to each other.

“I don’t know.”

Her face lightened as if she’d had an epiphany. “Unless, it was to frame you for it. Perhaps you were the target all along. Why else wear your cloak?”

“Those are points well taken.” It could also explain why so many attempts had been made on his life. They had been looking for someone who resented his friendship with the throne. Perhaps his enemy had nothing to do with Henry, but rather, was his past coming back to claim him.

Stryder took the note from her and placed it on his desk. “Please don’t mention this to anyone.”

“You intend to keep your Brotherhood secret?”

“Aye. No one needs know who among us were there and what we were forced to do to survive. We’ve all struggled hard to regain the lives and dignity that were taken from us.”

She inclined her head toward him as if she understood exactly what he meant. “I shall keep your secret, Stryder. Always.”

She started for the door.

“Rowena?”

She paused at his voice.

“In the future, the best time to approach me for lessons is after we sup.”

She nodded and offered him a small, almost fragile smile that played havoc with his insides...and his groin. “Then I shall see you tonight, milord. I prithee that you find no more trouble between now and then.”

One corner of his mouth lifted in wry humor. “We shall see what the day holds, shall we not?”

Rowena nodded in agreement. They would indeed.

Gathering her skirts, she swept from his tent, past the four knights who traveled with Stryder. The small group of men paused outside the tent to stare in her wake while she made her way back to her rooms in the castle.

It didn’t take long to return to her chambers inside the cool safety of the castle’s whitewashed walls.

The last thing Rowena expected was to find her women gathered together in her solar. Already word of Cyril’s death and Stryder’s possible part in it had reached them.

“What are we to do?” Bridget asked as Rowena’s ladies-in-waiting huddled in the center of the room like a small flock of chickens. Bridget was a short woman who possessed jet black hair and a small, willowy frame. “If Lord Stryder is convicted-”

“I shall never marry,” Marian whined. Barely a year older than Rowena, Marian held light-blonde hair and a lush, round body that got the lady into plenty of compromising positions whenever a handsome man came near. “We’ll all be forced back to Sussex!”

“Nay,” Joanne said, her voice every bit as upset. “I cannot abide another man coming to me and singing odes to my thighs and neck as if I’m nothing more than a succulent chicken.”