Page 9 of A Knight’s Vengeance

Bertrand turned and handed her a scrap of faded linen. “Milady, for you.”

Elizabeth frowned. She was not expecting any deliveries or messages. She set the little parcel on the table and opened it.

Her ribbon!

She had thought it lost for good. Who had found it? Who had returned it? She gently brushed it free of lingering dust.

“God’s bones.”

Elizabeth had never heard her father speak in such a tone. Her sire’s lips were pressed into a line. His blue eyes blazed.

“Father?” she said, fighting rising unease.

“Fires have burned the harvest at Tillenham.” His hands shook. “The wheat, barley, and rye are destroyed.”

The meat in the baron’s fingers fell with a juicy plop.

“The message bears the Earl of Druentwode’s signature. He begs for my help. He writes that whoever started the fires made sure naught would be left but ashes.”

“Who would be so pitiless as to burn the year’s crops?” Elizabeth whispered in horror.

The baron’s eyes bulged. “You do not think⁠—”

“De Lanceau.” Arthur snarled. “For weeks, I have heard rumblings that he was spying, gathering an army, and plotting revenge against me. Now, he has issued his challenge.”

“If he wishes to stake his blood claim to Wode, why did he set fires in a town two days from hence?” Sedgewick’s chin trembled. “The man is a hero of the Crusades. He knows how to fight and win. If he wanted to defeat you in battle and reclaim Wode, he would bring an army and spit at you through the portcullis. Would he not?”

“I will wrest an explanation from him.”

A desperate wail lodged in Elizabeth’s throat.

“Do not worry, beloved,” Sedgewick crooned. “I will fight at your father’s side. I will not allow wretched de Lanceau to win.” He tried to take her hand, but she pulled away. Her stomach lurched, and she pressed her arm across her middle.

Her father’s fist slammed down on the table. Goblets and platters rattled. “I refuse to be threatened by an idiot who believes he has claim to what the crown awarded to me.” He glared at Bertrand. “Summon the knights and foot soldiers. We ride to Tillenham at dawn.”

“Father, nay.”

For a moment, tenderness softened her sire’s gaze. Then his eyes hardened with ruthless determination, and she glimpsed the battle-seasoned knight who, eighteen years ago, had besieged Wode on the king’s orders and wrested it from a traitor.

Her father was no longer a young warrior. Over two score years old, with joints that pained him on winter evenings, he had not fought in armed combat in years.

De Lanceau was a crusading hero fresh from war.

Elizabeth’s heart ached, the pain as awful as the day she lost her mother and sister. Tears pricked her eyes.

“Come, Daughter. You have not lost faith in me, have you?”

“Of course not.” She clasped her sire’s weathered hand and smiled through her anguish. “I know you will triumph.”

He nodded. “De Lanceau will realize his folly.”

Fear shivered through her. “Please. Be careful. I could not bear to lose you too.”

Her father’s gaze clouded. He withdrew his fingers and shoved his chair back from the table, the squeal of wood against wood echoing her silent scream.

“If de Lanceau believes I am a weak old man, he is very much mistaken. He wants a bloody battle. He shall have one.”

CHAPTER 3