“Leeton,” Christopher groaned, grabbing at him.
“Aye, Chris, I am here,” he said, grasping Christopher’s hand and holding it tightly.
Christopher could barely speak. “Take….take my wedding ring,” he whispered. “Take it back to my wife. Tell her….tell her what happened and tell her my last thoughts were of her. And tell her I love her, Leeton. I love her with all my heart.”
Leeton, a seasoned veteran, found himself choking back tears. “Chris, I….”
“Take it!” Christopher tried to yell, but he had not the strength to press his point. His life was fading away and his strength with it.
He held up his left hand. Leeton hesitated for a tormented moment before ripping off the gauntlet and pulling off the ring. He did not know who was the more miserable; him or Christopher. He wanted to scream, to yell, to demand that God show pity and take him instead, but he could only focus on his liege with tears in his eyes. Christopher, satisfied that his last wish would be carried out, let his hand fall to the ground. His blue eyes closed and there was a faint smile on his lips.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Leeton heard a horn and turned his head in the direction of the battle. “Chris, they have got the mercenaries boxed in. I have got to go, but I swear I shall be back. Do you hear me? I shall be back. I shall find Burwell and return. He will save you.”
Christopher weakly grasped his wrist. “No one can save me, Leeton,” Christopher murmured. “You and I both know this is the end of me. One more thing….find David and tell him that I am sorry for everything. Tell my brother that I love him and ask him to take care of Dustin and Christin for me.”
Leeton could not stop the strangled sob, but he nodded his head furiously. “Aye, anything you say,” he said tearfully, grasping Christopher’s shoulders with his big hands. “Just… please hold on. Burwell ought to have something to patch up that hole.”
Christopher did not reply; he had already slipped into unconsciousness and his breathing was slowing. Swallowing hard, Leeton took one last look at his liege, his grief overflowing, wishing he was not the one charged with the horrible duty of informing Lady de Lohr of her husband’s passing. Already, he felt the agony to his bones.
But he would do what had been asked of him in one last show of obedience. He would have much rather stayed with Christopher as he breathed his last, but more pressing duties were calling and he answered reluctantly. Leaving Christopher lying beneath the trees to protect him from the rain, he put the wedding ring on his left hand for safekeeping and mounted Zephyr. His own destrier, suffering a huge gash to the chest, was left grazing on the edge of the forest.
Leeton reined Zephyr in the direction of the battle, taking one last glance at Christopher’s still form under the trees. Dear God, it wasn’t fair. Christopher was The Defender, entitled to immortality, deserving of divine grace. To die fighting the bastard prince was unworthy of such a great man, and Leeton felt a great surge of anger wash over him.
Leeton swore to himself that he would find Ralph and Dennis and John and run each one of them through on Christopher’s behalf. If it took him the rest of his life, he would do it. Every one of those bastards would pay for what they had done to his beloved liege and friend. And with each stroke of the sword into their flesh, he would be sure to mention Dustin’s name.
He made it several hundred yards from the wall, fighting alongside other knights in the blinding rain. Aboard Zephyr, the men thought he was Christopher and the fighting was furious. They were inspired by him. Yet they were not the only ones who thought he was Christopher; a barrage of crossbows unleashed arrows as plentiful as rain, and Zephyr went down in a scream of agony. Leeton tried to bolt free, but the horse fell quickly and with all of his armor, he was weighted severely. There was no chance for him to escape.
Twenty-five hundred pounds of horseflesh buried him face-first in the mud, and in Leeton’s last wild thoughts, he never imagined he would actually drown on the field of battle.
*
The battle for Gowergrove was over.
Crown troops victoriously let Richard’s pennant fly from the walls and took to killing any remaining mercenary soldiers. Word of The Defender’s death hit everyone hard, as hard as if their own beloved father had been taken from them, and they were committed to doing everything they could to make John’s army pay. As the men moved slowly and lethargically about their duties, as exhausted men usually do, disbelief filled every face.
Anguish and grief were hand in hand among the men, and especially the knights. But none were harder hit than Christopher’s personal stable, and they set about their tasks mechanically, although each and every one of them had taken the time to view the body in the mud, half-burled underneath his destrier. Seeing had to be believing, yet none wanted to believe.
“We lost Leeton, too,” Max mumbled, gazing down on the body of their great liege. “Has anyone even seen him?”
“Nay,” Sean de Lara, another allied knight, replied and turned away from the rotting corpse underneath the horse. Sean was a knight sworn to Richard and had remained in London when Christopher had gone to Lioncross last year, but then rejoined Christopher when the man had come to London to collect the crown troops. He had been by the baron’s side for weeks. “He is probably buried underneath this muck, somewhere. I saw his horse three days ago, over by the line of trees.”
Anthony de Velt had shown an amazing amount of responsibility in the past three days. A rotting hand, a wedding ring around the left finger, was jutting up out of the rancid mud and he reached down and plucked the gold band free. “For Lady de Lohr,” he said softly. “She will want to keep it. Now, we must bury the body.”
“We are not returning him to Lioncross?” Max stood up from his crouch and faced his brother. “To be buried on his soil?”
“Max, if we bring this sickening corpse back to Lioncross, you know Lady Dustin is going to want to view her husband,” Anthony said pointedly. “We will try to prevent her, but you know she will gain her way. Do you truly want her to see Chris in this state? It will drive her insane.”
Max glanced down at the corpse, so bloated and unrecognizable that the skin was splitting on the head where the helmet was restraining it. The only thing of any recognition was the blond hair, and the ring.
“Nay,” he said after a moment, crossing himself and uttering a prayer. “God, no.”
Anthony nodded curtly. “Then set up a detail to dig Chris a grave. Leeton one, too, if we can find his body. Pick a nice place, perhaps on that little rise up there.”
Max tore his gaze away from the body and motioned to Guy de la Rosa. “Come on,” he muttered. “Let’s get to it.”
Sean and Anthony were left gazing down at the grisly scene. “What in the world happened?” Walter asked. “I mean, look at the way the horse has fallen. Impaled through the heart, he is. Is it possible it fell on Chris and he drowned in the mud?”
Anthony shrugged. “Mayhap we shall know after we free the body. Meanwhile, we have a whole keep to clean up.” He glanced over at the men-at-arms who were beginning a funeral pyre and he stomped off in their direction. “Hey! You men over there! Do not burn bodies so close to the keep unless you want to render everyone in the castle ill!”
He was off shouting, leaving Sean standing a depressing watch over the remains of his liege. The thought that The Defender was gone was so overwhelmingly bleak that the man hesitated to believe another day would dawn over England.
He glanced at the sky above, bleak and gray. That was the world to him at the moment without his liege, bleak and gray and colorless. He could not stand to look at the body anymore; with a sting to his eyes, he went to help the others dig graves.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Word of the Defender’s passing spread through England like wildfire. Ralph and John, having been at Nottingham when Sir Dennis had brought them the news, partied for three days.
Richard disembarked at the Tower to be met by the jus
tices, welcoming him home to English soil with one breath and notifying him of the current situation with the next. John held fourteen castles and Christopher de Lohr was dead, killed in battle at Gowergrove Castle. Deeply distressed and seriously exhausted, Richard had shed public tears at his brave friend’s passing. Sir Philip de Lohr, disembarking with Richard, crossed himself and went immediately to Winchester Abbey where he prayed for two straight days.
David, now betrothed to Emilie Hampton and serving Lyle Hampton, heard from the earl of his brother’s passing. His pain was so great that Lyle ordered David locked in his room with a constant guard on his person, terrified his future son-in-law would take his own life. He knew of Christopher and David’s falling-out, and he furthermore feared David would never be the same.
A violent argument between two brothers would now never be resolved, and David was inconsolable. Even Emilie could not bring him out of his depression. But David was made of strong blood, and after his initial shock and pain dulled, he kissed Emilie good-bye and set out for London to see Richard. He knew the king would want to see him, but his stay in London would be short. After that, he vowed to continue to Lioncross and beg Dustin’s forgiveness, hoping she would allow him to comfort her.
And mayhap, she could comfort him as well. He could not deal with the fact that Christopher had gone to his grave hating him.
*
Canterbury Castle
March Year of our Lord 1194 A.D.
The rains had been miserable for days and days, overflowing creeks and rivers and washing away some of the poorly-constructed homes in the town of Canterbury. Nearly everyone was flooded out to a certain extent and that included the keep at Canterbury, whose lower level – a storage level – was seeing several inches of water. As a result, the servants and soldiers had been forced to move a good deal out of the storage vault and it now cluttered the corners of the small hall and into Lyle’s solar.
More rain poured that night from a storm that lit up the sky brilliantly for miles, thunder and lightning that created a spectacular show. Because part of the town nearest the river had been inundated, several dozen villiens had come to the castle seeking shelter, something that Emilie was in charge of providing. Between her, Lillibet, Nathalie, and even Elise, they were able to settle many people into the great hall comfortably. The servants kept a fire blazing in the hearth as families settled in, drying out their clothing near the fire and supping on bowls of gruel with dried currants and apricots in it. Everyone was warm, drying out, and fed.
Meanwhile, David had been in the town with about fifty of his men, saving lives because part of the river bank had eroded away and many homes had collapsed into the raging waters. David and his soldiers had been pulling people out of the mud and water for most of the evening, ever since the storm had rolled in, and now as things had settled, Emilie went to the gatehouse, wrapped up against the weather, to anxiously await David. Their wedding was finally scheduled for the following Sunday and she was very concerned for her soon-to-be-husband. When the call for help had come to the castle, he had fearlessly led his men out into the town, which was an admirable quality, but Emilie was terrified the man was going to end up down the river.
Fortunately, he returned to her after the crisis passed, covered in mud and soaked through to the skin. Emilie had taken him into the keep to help him clean off, and dry off, as Lyle, who had remained warm and cozy and out of danger for most of the crisis, went to the gatehouse to keep watch until David was in a better position to resume his duties. It was a night of chaos with the storms and flooding, and Lyle remained vigilant on the second floor of the gatehouse, monitoring the town from that position. It was also from that position that he saw the first signs of his returning army.
Like phantoms through the mist, they came in wet and weary groups. Sentries on the walls were the first to see the army between lightning bursts as they entered the town from the north. A sentry called out the sighting to his sergeant, who then waited for the next lightning strike to confirm the sighting before rushing to Lyle with the news. Lyle assumed it was his army returning from battle, for certainly, no army would be out in this weather to lay siege to Canterbury Castle. Moreover, he didn’t even know anyone who would want to try, for he had no real enemies as far as he knew. So Lyle wait with great excitement as his army drew closer, illuminated by the lightning rolling through the sky.
But it took time. The roads were terrible and the army, mostly on foot, was moving slowly. As the first of the men began to trickle in, Lyle directed them to the great hall where there was still room for them to get out of the weather and dry out. The rest of them would have to go into the small hall in the keep, and Lyle ordered the hearth in the small hall stoked. Quickly, the room became cloyingly, and welcomingly, hot.
More men trickled in, dead tired and soaked to the bone, and Lyle found himself directing the disbandment with a few of the battle-weary sergeants. Finally, he spied a knight astride a charger towards the rear of the column and recognized Brickley’s animal. He had to admit that he was glad to see the man. When Brickley passed beneath the iron-fanged portcullis, Lyle was there to greet him.
“Brick!” he said. “Why did you not send word that you were soon to be arriving? I’ve not heard from you in weeks!”
Brickley’s face was pale, rain dripping off his face. He dismounted his charger, nearly collapsing when he hit the ground out of sheer exhaustion. Lyle steadied the man and tried to pull him away.
“Nay,” Brickley said huskily. “My horse. He must be tended.”
Lyle was already waving on the small pair of stable boys who always tended the horses. When the boys grabbed the reins and began pulling Brickley’s horse, and other horses, away, Lyle tugged Brickley towards the keep.
“Come on, man,” he said. “Let’s get you out of this rain.”
Brickley was moving, but not too easily. He was looking around, as if searching for someone. “Where is de Lohr?”
Lyle pointed to the keep. “The riverbank collapsed on the north side of town and he has been there most of the evening trying to keep people from drowning,” he said. “He has just returned and gone inside.”
Brickley came to a halt, grabbing on to Lyle so that he came to a halt, too. “Wait,” Brickley said, hanging on to Lyle. “I must tell you something before we go inside. Has David received word about his brother?”
Lyle wasn’t happy that he was standing out in the rain becoming wet. He wiped at his face. “What word?” he asked. “We have not received any word here, about anything, since you left. Why do you ask?”
Brickley fixed on Lyle. Water was pouring over his pale face as he spoke. “Christopher de Lohr was killed in battle last month,” he said. “David has not been told?”
Lyle suddenly wasn’t so concerned with the rain. His eyes widened with shock at the news. “Sweet Lord,” he exclaimed softly. “Nay… nay, we have not received any word to that regard. Are you sure, Brickley? There is no mistake?”
Brickley shook his head, so exhausted he could hardly stand. “No mistake,” he said hoarsely. “The entire country is in mourning. And David does not yet know.”
Lyle put a hand over his mouth to hide his shock and sorrow. “He does not,” he said, sounding oddly hollow. “Sweet Lord… he does not.”
Brickley resumed his walk towards the keep, only he was very nearly staggering. “You must tell him.”
Lyle was helping Brickley towards the stairs but his mind was reeling with the news; Christopher de Lohr is dead! He didn’t want to be the one to break the news to David but there was no other choice. If what Brickley said was true, then the news had to come from Lyle, as David’s liege. He turned to Brickley again.
“You are sure there is no doubt?” he asked again.
Brickley shook his head. “Although I did not see the body, one of de Lohr’s men told me,” he said. “They do not know that David is at Canterbury, you see. I told no one and no one asked. It was none of my business that David i
s here so it did not seem right to tell anyone where he was. Mayhap he did not want his brother or his brother’s knights to know. In any case, I suppose no one would know where to send a missive, but I had to ask if you had received anything to that regard. It is my understanding that Richard is personally returning the body to Lioncross Abbey.”
They had reached the keep stairs. The slippery stone was carefully climbed by the men as they made their way to the top. All the while, Lyle was struggling with what he had been told. He could hardly believe it.
“I will tell David,” he said, “but he will want to hear it from you, too, Brick. You were there. He will want to hear it from your own mouth.”
Brickley shook his head. “My lord, it is not as if David and I are close,” he pointed out. “In fact, this past year has seen us become adversaries and you know it. Although I am resigned to David’s existence here at Canterbury, surely I cannot tell him such a thing. He already dislikes me. If I tell him of his brother, I am sure my life will be measured in minutes as the bearer of such news.”
Lyle was holding on to the man as they made their way into the keep. “I told you that I will tell him,” he repeated. “I am sure he will not try to harm you in his grief. But he may have questions I cannot answer. You will stand with me when I tell him. Please, Brick. I think it is important that you do.”
Brickley didn’t argue any further. Frankly, he was too exhausted to do so. They passed through the open entry door, propped open by the servants so that the returning army could come in and dry out. There were already men in the hall, stripping off wet clothing, so Lyle pulled Brickley into his solar where another fire burned. In the chamber beyond, the small room where David was settled, they could hear the voices of David and Emilie.