A Dishonorable Knight - By Morrison, Michelle Page 0,133

brigands who had attacked us. When I came to I was surrounded by bodies you had left behind. For all I knew, everyone had been killed or taken hostage."

The men nodded, recalling the frantic flight that day. Encouraged, Gareth continued. "For all I knew, Tudor had landed in England and was attacking. For myself, I would have sought him out and fought to my death, but I did not want Lady Elena to fall into our enemy's hands. Who knows what that bastard would have done to such a beautiful lady." He glanced around to see if he was going too far. "The safest thing I could figure would be to take her to a place I knew to be safe until she recovered and I found out what had happened."

"You did well," said Sir Jasper with approval. Gareth felt a twinge of guilt at the older knight's praise. He had always looked up to Jasper and felt him to have one of the levelest heads of all of Richard's spurs. That he was deceiving this man turned his stomach sour. He removed Isrid's saddle and rubbed the warhorse down. He remembered how as a squire he had dreamed that he would be the most honest, most chivalrous, most trustworthy knight of them all. What a farce his goal had become. He would be so glad when this whole mess was over. Either Henry Tudor would win and Gareth would be given a chance to live up to his youthful ideals under a new king, or he would die on the battlefield, wherever that may be. The thought of dying did nothing to ease his nausea.

He shook his head and took a cleansing breath. If death turned out to be his destiny, he decided philosophically, at least he would die having told Elena that he loved her.

The next day Gareth found himself in front of the king in the middle of a formal court. He had been summoned midmorning and had waited these past two hours at the back of the packed main hall, waiting for the royal high chancellor to call him forward. The messenger who had brought him word of Richard's summons had no explanation for it. Nor had the two-man armed escort who had made sure he arrived in the hall in plenty of time. Though he refused to allow himself to worry over the king's desire to see him, he couldn't help but wonder if he'd been found out. How inglorious, he thought, to be caught and executed without having accomplished one thing for Henry Tudor's cause.

Gareth shook his head to clear it of such dark thoughts. That Richard could have found him out was nonsense. Who here would possibly know of his involvement or his mission? Only Elena knew that he had even attended the meeting in Aberstwyth and--a cold shiver of doubt trickled down his spine. Suppose she had told Richard about Aberstwyth? No! he told himself. Though she had not returned his words of love yesterday, he was certain she would not reveal his meetings with the rebels. The doubt lingered. Gareth craned his neck, trying to spot Elena in the crowd of richly dressed nobles sitting in the first rows of the audience. He knew that if he could but lay eyes on her, all worry would leave his mind and he could focus on what he might say to the king to convince him of his loyalty. Though he stood on tiptoe and held onto the shoulder of the man in front of him for balance, he could not make her out and had to content himself with remembering their shared nights of passion, their companionable conversations along the way to Nottingham, and every other incident in the past weeks that had made him believe she must care for him, at least a bit. At least enough not to wish to see him hung as a traitor.

What then had prompted Richard to call him forth in court, and to send an armed escort to ensure that he arrived? He could only wonder and hope for the best.

The high chancellor called forth one of Richard's influential vassals from the south and announced the marriage of the man's daughter to the son of a northern lord. Gareth wondered if it were simply another attempt to bring the more rebellious regions of southern England in line with the north which favored Richard and from which he drew his greatest political support. The crowd shifted