Never If Not Now - Madeline Hunter Page 0,4

the steps that a king would consider treason for certain.

She prayed her father would have the good sense to walk away when that turn in the conversation came. Whatever his bitterness regarding Richard, whatever he blamed the king for doing or not doing, he would not survive such a war.

“Sir Hugo is here,” Zander said.

“I know him. We had some doings when younger,” Lord Yves said. “He has a pretty wife. Katherine, I think is her name.”

“His tent is in that circle.”

Lord Yves absorbed that. They were in the Great Hall, watching while his steward tried to tame the chaos created by his guests’ retinues. Zander had dallied to speak to his host while on his way to his camp to prepare for another joust.

“Sir Alexander, you make a good spy. ‘Tis a pity you are not available to serve as one for me. Although, under the circumstances, it appears you are doing just that.”

“He blames the king’s men for his wounds and his capture. He is not friendly to Richard.”

Lord Yves appeared not to be listening, for he stayed so quiet. Zander just waited. His host revealed little of his thinking, so he did not expect to be privy to it now. As a lord Yves was the king’s man, but lords had risen against their lieges before. Richard himself had rebelled against his father.

Zander was making no wagers on Lord Yves’s loyalties. He merely counted on the man not wanting intrigues against the crown to start here at his tournament, and later get blamed on him.

“I will invite him to dine here some nights,” Lord Yves said. “It will be easier to keep an eye on him that way. There is no room left to invite him to stay here. Dining, however—there is always another spot at my board.”

“Two spots. He has brought his daughter with him.”

“A comely girl?”

“No longer a girl, but very pretty.”

“A widow?”

Zander realized he had no idea. Had Elinor indeed married while her father was gone on Crusade? Was she now back with her father as a widow? Or, something else he had not considered, did she have a husband somewhere, alive and well?

“I don’t know.”

“I prefer widows myself, but we will invite her too. If she is pretty like you say, I’ll seat her at the high table. I will send a page to Sir Hugo with my greetings.”

Zander returned to his path out of the castle but found it blocked by Lord Marcus Debar. Lord Marcus held rich lands in Essex and had come to the tournament as Lord Yves’s guest of honor. At the feast last night he sat to Lord Yves’s right, along with his wife and young daughter.

“I watched your joust this morning,” Lord Marcus said. “If they all go like that, you will be the champion.”

Zander slid onto a bench across the table from Lord Marcus. “It is early yet, and there are other knights who will be harder to defeat than the one this morning.”

“Your words are humble, but I wonder if your pride truly is. After all, none of the others are known as The Devil’s Blade.”

Zander smiled vaguely at the appellation, although he hated it. Nor had his own comrades in arms stuck it on him. An enemy army had.

Lord Marcus called a page and had another tumbler brought. Zander accepted that he would not be returning to his camp for a while. When a powerful lord demands your attendance, only a fool denied him some time.

They drank and discussed the other jousts, with Lord Marcus sharing his opinions on the skills he had thus far observed. Zander let him talk while taking his measure. Like Yves, Lord Marcus was perhaps forty years in age. Still strong in a wiry way, and tall, he possessed an amiable countenance but shrewd eyes, and his hair showed some gray.

A pause finally came, and Zander began to leave. Lord Marcus made a quelling gesture. Zander sat back down.

“You serve Jean Fitzwarryn, I’m told. Do you have land from him?”

“Some.” Not much, but he had not been a household knight long, and it was generous in that light. More importantly, he had the chance to buy more with spoils from war or tournaments like this.

“Are you betrothed?”

Zander shook his head but did not show his surprise. A negotiation had just begun. A most unexpected one.

“My daughter Matilda is here, with my wife and me. She is over there,” he tilted his head to the right. “My wife is