Always There Read online

  "Aye, Sir Lyon."

  Nodding, Lyon returned to the gatehouse and passed through the right guard tower to stand over the gatehouse itself, bracing his hands on the central embrasure as the riders sped toward them. Looking up, he motioned to the guards atop the towers, who would convey his unspoken orders to the other six. He glowered at the riders as they drew up short at the moat. Never had he appreciated the defense more; it was one of the few things he had approved of upon their arrival. The length of three men across and to their best estimates, at least four men deep, it was fed by water diverted from the nearby river.

  "Ho, there," he called down.

  "We come at the bidding of His Majesty, the King," roared the foremost of the six riders. "We seek Sir Lyon Sauveterre."

  Lyon leapt atop the short embrasure running the length of the gatehouse between the two guard towers, that they might seem him more clearly. "I am Lyon Sauveterre. What business have you with me?"

  "You know the business we have," the soldier bellowed. "Open the gates at once, Sauveterre."

  Rage sparked through him and Lyon glared nastily down at them, his own roar making the soldier's seem feeble. "You will address me properly or feel my steel, knave. If His Majesty has business with one of his knights, he would fare better to send men rather than children."

  "Open the gates, in the name of the king!" The soldier replied, drawing his sword.

  Lyon rolled his eyes and leapt neatly back off the embrasure, stooping to retrieve the rope always kept there. "Lower the bridge," he called. One of the first things he and Chastaine had changed upon arrival was to make the drawbridge and gates separate functions, rather than the simultaneous action they had been before.

  Giving one last final order to the soldiers, Lyon secured the rope and swiftly dropped down to the drawbridge below. He drew his sword and beckoned the soldier forward. "If it is with me you have business, then here we shall conduct it. No one enters the keep, least of all such rude swine."

  The lead rider dismounted, drawing his sword and meeting Lyon halfway across the drawbridge.

  Lyon regarded him coldly. "State your business."

  "You are condemned for failing to protect Her Highness, Princess Winifred."

  "Aye, I am aware of that," Lyon replied. "I would know why such swine as you have been sent to inform me of this. Where are the knights to take me into custody?

  The soldier smirked, his companions jeering behind him. "His Majesty saw no reason to waste time or cause fuss. You are asked to surrender yourself quietly and let the matter end. Her Highness is even now at Castle Brae, to be escorted home."

  Lyon frowned. "What of Sir Chastaine Delacroix?"

  "Sir Delacroix was to be executed, but the noble captain asked a boon that his life be spared. He is even now receiving new orders to journey to the fortress at Hael."

  Fury filled Lyon that they would be so callously treated. He to be executed like a common wastrel, Chastaine to be so ignominiously banished. They were knights: they had served well as knights and they deserved to die as honorably.

  "You may tell His Majesty that I refuse to die like a brigand. Knaves such as you are not fit to clean my boots, never mind take my head. Be off ere you find yourself going for a swim, unless you are foolish enough to think you might best me."

  He waited as the soldier retreated, mounted, and turned away before spinning and striding back toward the closed gates.

  "Sir Lyon!" a guard roared, but it was the flash of movement in the corner of his eye which Lyon noted first, then the guard's cry stuck him and he turned in time to just barely dodge the arrow which likely would have killed him had it not gone slightly astray—because the treacherous soldier who had fired the arrow had an arrow lodged in his throat. He toppled from his horse as Lyon roared a command to fire. Even as the rest of the soldiers fell, Lyon was sprinting across the bridge to greet the man who had fired the arrow that saved his life. "Brice, what do you here?"

  "Sir Lyon, they were going to kill you—I conveyed your message and they sent me off. I learned by chance what they intended and struggled to get here in time. I—" Brice faltered suddenly as his gaze fell upon the man he had slain. His face turned ashen. "I never actually—that is—only rabbits—deer—but he was going to—"

  Lyon grasped Brice's arm and tugged him close, wrapping an arm around his shoulders as Brice clutched his tunic as though for dear life, shaking hard in Lyon's loose embrace.

  "You saved my life," Lyon said quietly. "I thank you for it and am sorry you had to do such a thing."

  Brice slowly pulled away, nodding awkwardly, not quite looking at him. "Y-you said it was no shameful thing to be a cook, m-my lord. Nor did you seem quite to hate me, although you had every right, given that I am naught but a vexation to all."

  "Nay," Lyon said dryly. "Vexation is a word I reserve solely for her Highness. Get into the keep, Brice; we shall get you some food and drink, and then I shall hear the full of your tale."

  "We must go soon to Castle Brae, my lord," Brice said, carefully not looking at the body as he obediently headed for the keep.

  Lyon motioned him to keep going when he paused. "I shall follow in a moment. Let me finish tending matters here."

  Brice nodded and shortly vanished into the keep.

  Grimly, Lyon drew his sword once more and approached the dead soldier slain by Brice. Around him, his men stood silent and comprehending as he bent and buried his sword in the man's throat. Wiping the blade clean on the dead man's tunic, Lyon sheathed it as he stood. "I killed him when he tried to attack me from behind."

  "Yes, Sir Lyon," his men all said.

  Lyon motioned them back into the keep. "Make ready to depart; we go to rescue our lady and Sir Chastaine."

  An hour later, they were well on their way and Lyon did not call a halt to their hard riding until the encroaching dark forced his hand. He could not stop fuming over all that Brice had told him: Lady Winifred to be taken back home, alone, her new husband likely to be killed. Chastaine to be shunted off to a derelict fortress in the mountains, wholly unworthy of him, and himself to have been slaughtered like a filthy mongrel.

  Lyon was pulled from his thoughts as a few of the guards shifted to put Brice right in the center of them. "I say, lad," one of them said, "did you mean for your shot to land as it did?"

  Although Brice looked ill at thoughts of the man he had killed only hours ago, his brows drew together in annoyance at the question. "Of course I did."

  "Impressive for a youth," another soldier said. "On horseback even."

  Brice shrugged. "'Twas merely part of my training."

  "Never seen a bow like yours," said a third soldier, eyeing the bow Brice had kept near to hand. Against the crossbows and heavy swords carried by the soldiers, it seemed remarkably unassuming.

  "Longbow," Brice replied tersely. "They are becoming common in the region where I was born, in the foothills of Meyan. My father taught me everything I know."

  Lyon regarded him thoughtfully. "How is your swordsmanship?"

  "I come away from practice heavily bruised, but not quite dead," Brice grimaced.

  Chuckling, Lyon finally dug into the food he had been neglecting. "Then we shall be certain to include extra hours of sword training to your daily schedule. If you can use a bow so well, we might have you giving instruction to the rest of this lot."

  Good-natured protests and jeers filled the clearing briefly; for all those who had seen the shot had not wasted a moment in spreading word of it to the rest of the keep. Even the preparations for departure had not staunched the flow of castle gossip. Brice had saved his life with a masterful shot—he might not know it, but Castle Triad had laid claim to him.

  "My … daily schedule?"

  Lyon smiled briefly. "Unless you had plans to return to the royal palace after all of this?"

  "I had not thought upon it," Brice said, shrugging in an effort to appear nonchalant. The sudden brightness to his eyes, the way he relaxed ever so slightly,
and the flush to his cheeks belied the words and gesture, however.

  "Of course this all presumes I shall be alive to give you instruction and His Majesty does not raze our castle in a fit of temper," Lyon continued. "However, with every passing hour I am increasingly disinclined toward peacefully accepting my death."

  A soldier snorted. "Without you and Sir Chastaine, my lord, I fear what would become of Her Highness. Beyond that, who would scowl bargains from the merchants and shop keeps? Who would see that the finest ales in the kingdom continued to be brewed?"

  "Indeed," Lyon replied, hiding a smile. He pulled his cloak around him and stretched out on the ground, sorely missing his bed. "Sleep. We ride ere the sun rises. Castle Brae is three days away. We will arrive in two."

  "Aye, Sir Lyon!"

  *~*~*

  They arrived at Castle Brae on a gloomy day, spring showers far off in the distance and drawing ever nearer.

  It did nothing to improve Lyon's mood.

  "Open the gates," he roared before the guards could demand his identity. "Tell His Majesty that his goons failed to stab Sir Lyon Sauveterre in the back and he is here to demand an explanation for why such a foul deed was attempted."

  The guards were silent, clearly startled. Lyon waited, motioning his men to remain still. He was about to demand entrance again when he heard the call for the gate to be opened and they were given leave to enter Castle Brae. Inside, Lyon dismounted and ordered his men to do the same, glaring around the crowded courtyard until most of the gawking crowd fled. He turned as he saw someone coming from the keep—and stopped short.

  Chastaine immediately sought and found him, and for a moment, Lyon saw, heard, and knew nothing but those blazing blue eyes. It lasted only a second, but Lyon knew something—everything—had changed.

  "Lyon," Chastaine greeted briefly as they met halfway, reaching out to grip forearms. "Have you come to play prisoner as well?" He looked out over the men assembled around them. "Or have you come, rather, to take prisoners?"

  Slowly Lyon let his arm go, but he did not step back to a respectful distance. Neither did Chastaine. "I have come to take heads," he snarled, and explained all he knew as quickly as he could before they were roughly led away to the king's solar.

  Chastaine fisted his hands in an effort to still their angry trembling. That Lyon had been so callously treated … If they had not taken his sword, he would be taking their heads.

  He stood in stony silence, noticing Princess Winifred's arrival only from sheer habit.

  "Lyon," Winifred cried, rushing forward to embrace him. "It is good to see you alive and well. I fear the sight of you falling will haunt me for some time yet."

  "Such a trifling thing would not stop me, Highness. Not when you required rescuing."

  The king sneered, interrupting them with his rough, chilly voice. The features which on the princess looked elegant and handsome, were, on His Majesty, somehow contorted, giving him a harsh, unforgiving countenance. "My daughter should not have needed rescuing in the first place. Why are you here, Sir Sauveterre? 'Twas only your head I wanted."

  Winifred gasped, dismay and anger filling her face in equal portions, but Lyon spoke before she could. "Indeed," he said. "I have served my king and country with unfailing loyalty, Majesty. Never have I faltered in my sworn duties, nor has my allegiance to you ever wavered. Certainly my failure in keeping the princess from all harm means my life is forfeit, but I have earned the right to die as a knight, not as mongrel with a sword in my back at the hands of common soldiers."

  Chastaine kept himself silent, but only with effort. Lyon deserved far better than what he was describing, what he had related briefly outside the keep. The king was equally silent, eyes narrowed in displeasure, but the precise reason for his ire unclear.

  Lyon continued speaking. "Nor does Chastaine deserve to be so piteously treated as you have arranged, shutting him away in the Fortress of Hael.

  "What?" Chastaine said, rage flooding him as comprehension dawned. He spun furiously to his brother, standing off to the king's right. "You—you would humiliate me in this fashion? My own brother?" For he knew that was what must have occurred – Tobin had asked the King to spare his life.

  Tobin nodded, acknowledging the accusation. "I had the right to ask my king a boon; he granted your life if I agreed to send you off to Hael."

  "Filthy cur!" Chastaine roared. "I am no coward to live while my comrade dies for our mutual shame. We stand together, we die together. How dare you presume to take that final dignity from me! No brother of mine, you."

  "Watch your tongue," Tobin replied curtly. "I am doing you a kindness."

  "You can take your kindness to the devil," Chastaine replied.

  The king started to respond, but was cut off by a piercing shout that deafened them all.

  "Enough!" Winifred strode forward to stand between Chastaine and Lyon, Shad only a few steps behind her. "Father, that is enough. I have been ever obedient to your every wish all my life. I am the one who has most been wronged in this; not even you would be so arrogant as to deny that."

  "The ones who have suffered most—"

  Winifred did not let him finish. "The question which troubles me most in all of this, father, is how did the Roths know where to find me? How were they so well-acquainted with my location that they had to time to plot something so intricate as poison? None but you and the messenger upon which we agreed knew of my location. Being one of your personal messengers, he never would have permitted himself to be followed or otherwise watched. So I put to you, my honored sire—how came the Roths to know where I dwelled in supposed secret and safety?"

  The king's silence was as good a condemnation as any.

  "You told them," Winifred whispered, looking at him in horror which rapidly turned to furious disgust. "Demanding the heads of my knights when you, my sire, were the one to throw me to the wolves." She regarded him in silence a moment, then fury filled her face, drowning out all else. "You intended this all along—tossing me to Koromor, intending Rothland to kidnap me. Then you could apologize to Koromor and keep in their good standing, at the same demanding great boons and compensations of Rothland for their callous treatment of your only daughter." She laughed coldly. "Yet you have the audacity to demand the heads of the two men who have ever been true to me and the duty to which you appointed them."

  Again the king replied with only silence.

  Winifred drew herself up. "I demand of you a boon, honored sire."

  "Demand it," the king said tersely. He fought tenaciously, the King of Chieldor, but he had never been known to continue fighting once a cause was well and truly lost.

  "I am returning to Castle Triad," Winifred said quietly, but the steel in her voice was easily a match for that which usually filled the king's. "I am returning there with my husband and my knights, never to be troubled again. I would be a lady rather than a princess."

  The king grunted. "You are of little use to me now, anyway. Go then; play at country farmer if that is what you have taken into your head to do. The knights I will not give you, for my errors do not erase theirs."

  Winifred lifted her chin in challenge. "Nay, father. The knights are mine. Your actions cost me dearly. Thanks to your greed and conniving, I was wed in a poor chapel in a foreign land. The priest could not speak my language, I could not speak his. My wedding robe was the tunic and leggings of a village farm boy; my wedding night was spent in a farmhouse. Give me my knights ere my lady mother hear of this."

  What the Queen knew, especially when irate with her husband, all the kingdom knew. The king grunted again. "That is the end of your boons," he said coldly. "Very well, take your vagrants—but they are still mine to punish while they kneel before me and I will not see their actions unpunished. Knights, remove your spurs."

  Chastaine went still, fighting back the shame and dismay that filled him at the words. As the king well knew, no blow could strike deeper. He nodded and made to acknowledge the order when a voice rang out b
ehind them.

  "Nay, Majesty," Shad said softly. "I will not see men who so valiantly protect my lady wife treated in such cruel fashion. Think you I am deaf? Foolish? My sire would be displeased to know he has been deceived and manipulated in such fashion. They keep their spurs else I will spend my last breath ensuring my sire knows of your treachery."

  "Get out," the king snarled. "You should count yourselves fortunate I do not have you slain here and now. Captain, escort them beyond sight of my castle."

  "Aye, Your Majesty," Tobin said, hand settling briefly in warning on the hilt of his sword as he motioned them all from the solar.

  He did not look at Chastaine the entire time their things were gathered and their horses brought. Chastaine was content with that. He busied himself fetching the relieved and ecstatic Kodey, hugging him tightly. Outside, he quickly lifted him into the saddle and mounted behind him.

  "I see that I am not the only one to have acquired a stray in this," Lyon said briefly. "Brice I have sent ahead to announce our victorious arrival."

  Nodding, Chastaine motioned for the group to depart, waiting as they all passed him by before settling at the rear with a handful of men. Lyon took the front. They would switch on the morrow.

  Not more than two hours had passed since they were reunited in the courtyard, yet seamlessly had they fallen back into the way things had always been. It made Chastaine smile, briefly, and long to be home that all might well and truly return to the way it had always been.

  With, perhaps, a few exceptions.

  Nodding in response to Lyon's words, Chastaine was prevented from replying as Kodey came running up to him, eye bright with excitement.

  "Sir Chastaine!" he exclaimed, "Look at what—" He abruptly broke off, face flushing scarlet and mouth hanging slightly open as he stared at something just past Chastaine and Lyon's shoulders.

  Turning, Chastaine nodded a greeting to Brice. Cleaned up from his work in the kitchen and dressed for the celebratory festival finally being thrown now that all parties were properly rested and recovered, he cut a fine figure. His red hair shone brilliantly in the sun, the deep blue tunic he wore only enhancing the color. Tall and slender with pale skin, he could do well for himself as a courtier—yet even a fool could see that Brice was happier here.