Page 62 of The Captive Knight
Chapter Seventeen
This was a battle he could not win.
Jehan mounted his horse and clattered across the drawbridge, a dozen men-at-arms in his wake. He didn’t have to glance up to know Aliénor stood upon the ramparts like a carved wooden doll. When he’d left her in their tower bedroom, her soft, dark eyes had begged for hope that he couldn’t give her.
He covered the short distance across the field to where Laurent sat astride a war horse. Curious villagers had made their way up the hill to cluster at the edge of the clearing, not far from where the muddy earth gave way to the limestone cliff. Laurent remained astride his horse, his motley army arrayed behind him, his bad foot at an awkward angle in the stirrup.
Jehan walked his horse so close their mounts were snout to snout. “Ride away from this place, Laurent, and you will live.”
“My uncle said much the same thing.”
The boy’s face had grown lean, dark at the jaw with beard. A livid scar cut across one cheek. The black eyes that met his were so like the boy’s father, except the expression in them was both sad and full of grim humor.
No child anymore, indeed.
“I will pay your men.” Jehan spoke clear enough so the sell-swords would hear him. “Your debt to them will be absolved.”
“I owe them nothing but my gratitude. You can’t pay that back in the same coin.”
The boy spoke with a calm confidence, confirming Jehan’s worst fears. “So you’ve spurned the monastery.”
“The church will get me, by and by.” The boy turned his head, squinting toward the far hills. “In a long, pine box, most likely.”
Jehan tightened his grip on the reins, less to still his restless mount and more to gain time to figure out whether the boy’s flippant attitude was bravado, or something graver and more disturbing.
Jehan said, “You’re outmatched.”
“I suspect so.”
“In the face of a stronger force, there’s no shame in conceding.”
“Do you know so much about shame, Sir Jehan?”
Jehan’s jaw went tight. His mind flashed on Aliénor standing in the moonlight wearing nothing but a shift, offering herself to him with no promise of marriage. And he, taking her gift, knowing he could offer nothing honorable in return.
“Icertainly know everything about shame,” the boy continued, resting his arms on the pommel of his saddle. “My father beat it into me as often as he could.”
“Your father is not an example to follow.”
“And that’s precisely why I’m here. Because my father isnot.”
“Your cause isn’t valid. Your father disowned you long before I seized this castle.”
Laurent shrugged. “You know my real reason for being here.”
“She is in agony right now, watching this.”
The boy didn’t spare a glance toward the ramparts. “I know.”
“Ease her pain. Leave.”
“I ask the same of you.”
“Your sister,” he said, speaking through his teeth, “wants me to stay.”
“Does she wish me to leave?”
Jehan remembered her rush of relief upon recognizing her brother riding home across the fields, then bit down his growing frustration. “She will not thank you for this, Laurent.”
