Never If Not Now - Madeline Hunter Page 0,11

him behind, wounded, to be killed by the Saracens. It was his good fortune, he thought, to be found by that Frank instead. Only that man saw a way to make a small fortune by demanding money to let him return home.”

Flames in his eyes now. She had angered him. She didn’t care.

“There are battles you win and those you lose, and we won that one because Richard changed the strategy when our position became weak. It was time to retreat and move elsewhere,” he said. “We did not leave him. I had him with me. I was taking his weight on my shoulders because his leg wound meant he could barely walk on his own. He slowed us down, but not a man there thought to leave him.”

“He would not lie. If you had him, how did he come to be alone on that field?”

“He broke away from me and turned back. We would not go back with him and could not wait. But we did not abandon him, Elinor.”

“I don’t believe you. Why would he turn back?”

He just looked down at her. Finally, he said “Perhaps, he wanted to die in God’s cause.”

Would her father do that? Think martyrdom was preferable to life, if it meant certain salvation? Some men might, but she did not believe her father would. She did not think he went on Crusade to die.

Zander’s firm statements, his anger and his manner, led her to doubt what she had learned about that day. Yet her father had been just as firm last night. Furious, in a state worse than she had ever seen before. She had to beg him not to return to the castle and throw down a gauntlet.

Zander stood before her, with that face sculpted by angels, watching her with those astonishing eyes. Either he was lying, or her father was. There was only one side for a daughter to choose in such a circumstance.

She stood. “I will make the veil for your lady, but we will not talk again. My loyalty is to Hugo of York. I am his daughter, and it is he I must believe.”

She walked away, head high.

Zander watched the competitions from the castle battlements. He had already jousted twice today, after seeing Elinor in the town. He had dispatched both knights with ease. Others would come tomorrow, both in the main competition and in personal combats.

He had said he would take all private challengers. Three already had declared themselves. They were men who wanted the fame of defeating the crusader known as The Devil’s Blade.

One of his competitors this morning had been newly dubbed. He did not keep the young knight’s arms and horse, or demand ransom for them. He looked to be a knight with much still to learn, but he had an intensity and strength that would serve him well. It was not that Zander was opposed to the spoils of tournaments, or wars. It was why he was here. He merely preferred not gaining riches from those who could ill afford the cost.

Tomorrow two of the knights he would meet would not find him so generous. They were known supporters of Prince John, and would seek to prove the skill of those on their side. His lord, Jean Fitzwarryn, would expect him to show them the opposite.

His gaze found the tents near the river. He could barely see the knights there, sitting in a circle. Did they share stories of prowess on the field, or encourage boldness in John’s name?

Hugo of York would be among them. It was a hell of a way to express displeasure with his king over that battle, and the lies he now believed regarding what had occurred. That Hugo had found a way to change his own memories did not concern Zander. That he had thrown accusations in front of hundreds of people did.

That Hugo now taught those lies to Elinor made his blood run hot.

He should have issued his own challenge then and there, the way he was taught. No knight called another coward without meeting in mortal combat soon after. Yet when he had seen Hugo walking down the high table behind the page, he had seen a man with a limp and graying hair. A man growing old. A knight still, but no longer capable of waging war. A knight who had trained him, when he was a squire and Hugo a knight in Lord Morris’s household.

He smiled to himself. No, pity and nostalgia were not