In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,117
night. There was no sound to be heard anywhere save for the dull crunch of his own bootheels over the hard-packed earth.
Eduard slowed and tilted his head slightly to one side. His hand went to the hilt of his sword and his eyes searched the shadows on either side of him. He heard it again, a breath like a mountain might make the instant before all air is expelled from its catacombs.
“Put your hand away from your sword and stand fast.”
Eduard was a split second too slow in reacting and before he could pull his blade more than an inch from its sheath, he felt a cold sliver of steel slide up beneath his chin. An arm the size of a haunch of venison circled his chest and pulled him back against something solid and armoured. His head was forced back at a critical angle, by a knife that nicked the skin, sending a warm trickle of blood down to his collar.
“Away from the sword,” the voice hissed in his ear, “or our conversation ends here.”
“Brevant?”
The knife sliced deeper. “Godstrewth! You do not know me and I do not know you, yet one of us stands bellowing a name for all the world of sin-eaters to hear!”
Since the “bellow” had comprised of little more than a pained gasp of breath, Eduard held his tongue between his teeth and waited for the knife to be taken away.
It lingered for effect then was removed on a grunted curse. Eduard relaxed the arch in his neck and ran a hand across the stinging cut as he turned to face his attacker.
The man was a mountain. Taller than Eduard by half a head and twice as broad from neck to waist to calf. The armour Eduard had felt had been the man’s chest. He wore the leather buckler of a captain and the cloak of a man who did not want to be readily identified … although how there could be two of similar size and bulk was a question Eduard did not want answered.
“You are come from the Old Lion?” Brevant asked huskily.
“You will think I am come from hell if you lift a knife to me again.”
Brevant grinned, baring two crooked teeth, like fangs, to the gloomy light. “Look about you, whelp. We are in hell already. Do I get an answer to my question?”
“Do I get an answer to mine?”
The mountain shifted in a general glint of buckles, studs, and metal clasps that adorned his surcoat. “I am Brevant, and because you could learn that much from any villager with eyes come morning, I give away no secrets.”
“I am told you do not give away much of anything.”
“The price of knowledge is not cheap,” he agreed on a deep rumble of mirth. “And since I am not the one expected to pay, I do not want to know your name, or who you are, or where you are from. If you are come from the Old Lion, that is dangerous enough to know.”
“The Old Lion recommended me to you,” Eduard acknowledged. “But how did you know I was here?”
“I know when a dog strays into this village; I know where it pisses, what it eats, how many fleas it has on its body. I know because it is my business to know and because it is healthier not to be taken by surprise.”
Eduard felt the blood oozing down his neck and saw no argument. “Do you also know why I am here?”
“I know full bloody well why you are here,” Brevant growled. “And after I tell you what you are up against, mayhap you will tuck your tail between your legs like all the others and scurry off back to where you have come from.”
“There have been others?”
“There have been others since the Devil took the throne of England and began to use this place as a means of removing faces he never wanted to see again. They have all come—the fathers, the brothers, the valiant friends, even the wives, and they have all paced the hills and walked the shores. They have hunched for hours on the Eagle’s Chair, just as you have undoubtedly done, and they have stared at the walls as if their eyes could put them through the mortar. They stay a sennight, sometimes two, then leave again, no better off than when they came, no closer to seeing who they came to see than they were when they arrived all full of fire and righteous brimstone.