Page 77 of A Knight’s Vengeance

“Oh, milady.” Mildred bit down on her grubby hand.

“Cooking cannot be so difficult.” Elizabeth brushed clods of dirt from her bliaut, and then worked a cramp out of her back. “We must convince the rogue we can cook the meal, or we will never manage to escape.”

“True.” Worry still gleamed in the matron’s eyes. “I am glad de Lanceau will be fast asleep before he has tasted much of our fare.”

Lord Arthur Brackendale yanked off his helm and dragged his hand through his sweat-soaked hair. Frustration burned inside him like glowing embers. The journey to Tillenham had taken far longer than expected, due to the necessary repair of a splintered wagon wheel, and heavy rains that had flooded parts of the road and forced the convoy to lose a half-day’s journey.

He stared at Tillenham’s keep looming ahead, a hulking fortress outlined against the crimson twilight sky. The doubt nagging him over the last few leagues settled in his belly like a chunk of limestone. He had not ridden past charred fields or seen clouds of dense smoke. He had found no evidence of devastating fires.

Oak trees sighed along the fortress’s walls and clustered in fields as far as Arthur could see. Over the stink of his own body and sweaty horse, he smelled drying wheat, the scent as sweet as the flowers blooming along the roadside near his destrier’s hooves.

The earl’s missive was a hoax.

A dog barked in the shorn field to Arthur’s left. He turned his head, and saw peasants calling to their bedraggled children. They looked at him, curious, awed, even a little afeared.

He scowled, rage hot in his mouth. They stared at an old fool.

Aldwin rode up, his horse lathered with sweat. “What now, milord? There are no fires.”

“I know.” Setting his helm in his lap, Arthur fixed his gaze on the keep ahead. “The earl will answer for his missive.”

Nodding, Aldwin fell back and relayed the message to the other knights and foot soldiers. Over the rattle and squeal of the wagons, Arthur heard grumbles. He ignored them. His men would eat and rest when he had the answers he sought, not before.

As they rode up to the keep, a sentry on the wall walk hailed them.

“Lord Brackendale of Wode,” he shouted back. “I will speak with the Earl of Druentwode.”

After a moment, the portcullis raised enough to allow out a guard in full chain mail. He tromped across the lowered drawbridge, and Arthur spurred his horse forward.

The sentry bowed. “Milord, I regret the earl is not receiving visitors.”

Arthur’s lip curled. “I will not be refused.”

The guard tensed, and he dropped into another bow. “He is very ill. He lies near death, and has done so for almost a week.”

Arthur jerked in surprise. Murmurs ripped through the knights behind him. Leaning down, he flipped open his saddlebag, withdrew the missive, and tossed it to the guard. “I received this from him several days ago.”

The sentry glanced at the document and shook his head. “’Tis not possible.”

“Then who⁠—”

Suspicion shattered the lump in Arthur’s belly into a hundred shards. De Lanceau.

Arthur’s hands clenched around the destrier’s reins until chain mail links dug into his skin. The discomfort sharpened his anger to a lethal pitch. Why would de Lanceau create such an elaborate deception? Why did de Lanceau want him at Tillenham? There seemed no reason unless… Arthur sucked in a breath. Unless de Lanceau wanted to lure him away from Wode.

A brutal, invisible fist squeezed Arthur’s gut.

“Lord Brackendale?”

With effort, Arthur returned his attention to the guard. The man had not spoken, he realized, but the peasant lad who stood beside the destrier. His smile hesitant, the boy handed up a small bundle, a scrap of black silk bound with twine. “A man brought this for you.”

“Man?” Arthur scowled. “He knew I would come here?”

The guard’s expression turned confused and wary. “Answer the lord’s question, boy.”

The lad swallowed and looked down at the stony ground. “He told me to expect you. I did not ask questions, milord. He gave me some silver to keep silent until you arrived and”—the boy’s face turned red—“he told me ’twas very important.”

Arthur turned the object over in his mailed palm, weighing the contents. Round. Heavy. He broke the twine and parted the cloth’s frayed edges. In his palm lay a rolled piece of parchment sealed with wax, and a gold brooch.