A Vow Made Twice (The Barden/14th Century Oxfordshire #3)

Prologue

France

Steel striking against wood. Horses whinnying. The dull roar of a hundred men.

Three men – three knights – stood alone in a tiny clearing, the rising sun casting their shadows in long, strange shapes across the grass. Little flowers, which surely had a French name that none of them knew, bloomed amongst the blades.

Soon they would be trampled.

War was upon them. Not their war, but their battle all the same.

Two of the men stood a little away from the third. Their hands were linked.

‘You did not need to come,’ the blond one said. ‘You should have stayed in England. You should have gone home.’

‘I go where you go,’ the other replied. He had dark hair, dark eyes. A sombre expression. ‘You are my home.’

‘Ash—’ The blond shot a look towards their companion, who was looking away. He pulled the other man into a kiss.

‘Olly …’

‘No one else is here.’ He kissed him again. ‘And I do not know how many days I have left where I can do that.’

Ash’s sombre expression did not change. ‘Do not say that,’ he muttered. ‘Do not jest about such things, Olly.’

Olly gave him a half-smile. It didn’t quite reach his eyes, too clouded were they with fear.

‘Father knows I am useless,’ he said. ‘He and Hal will ride at the front. We will be positioned at the rear of the charge. The men say it is only a small scuffle. A few days rolling in the mud …’ He rubbed at Ash’s hands. ‘And then we will be home.’

‘You stand by what you said?’ Ash wore a pleading expression. ‘You will come home with me? To Dunlyn?’

‘Where else would I go? All we must do is see this out, and then …’

‘Then we can go home.’ Ash smiled, finishing the sentence.

‘What a grand future it will be.’

‘You are not the one destined to be an earl.’ Ash scowled.

‘But think of the things you will be able to do! The people you can help, the lives you will better … and you will make them better. I know you will.’

Ash looked doubtful. ‘Only with you by my side.’

‘I will be.’ Olly gripped his hands tighter. ‘Forever.’

There was a polite cough from the other side of the clearing.

‘Are you ready?’ the third man said, looking between them.

Ash glanced back at Olly. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Of course I am. I have been ready since the day I met you.’

‘I hated you, the day I met you.’

Olly grinned. ‘Not for long.’

The third man approached. ‘Well?’

‘I believe so, Sir Everich,’ Olly said. ‘Thank you for … for this.’

‘It is not my first, lad,’ Everich said. ‘Nor will it be my last. Now, take hands …’

Ash clasped Olly’s right hand, holding it tight. Everich laid his palm down too, pressing their hands together. The ceremony was ancient: older, some said, than the bonds of marriage between man and woman. A trothplight – a sworn oath of brotherhood and fidelity, a vow of eternal devotion. Of love.

‘Unions of brotherhood and kin,’ Everich began, ‘bless us in these times of strife and war. Two knights, pledged to each other above all else, a bond unlike any other. Ashwy Barden, Oliver Coppard, I ask you both: will you become one, sharing with one another all your worldly possessions, living with each other as one?’

‘Yes,’ Olly said, so eager he nearly spoke over Everich’s final words.

‘I will,’ Ash said, swallowing.

‘And will you remain at the other’s side until the end of your days, in prosperity and poorness?’

‘I will.’

‘Always.’

‘And will you love each other for all that time?’

‘Yes.’ They spoke together, voices mingling.

‘Then I bless this union, and from hereon you shall be called brothers. You will share all your goods, and live as one, and never be parted from one another. Seal this bond, and mark your agreement, with the kiss of peace.’

Ash’s face reddened. The kiss of peace. It was traditional, after all. Many men – most men, Ash assumed – who pledged themselves to their kin did so as just brothers. But not all. Perhaps Everich did not know the truth of what spurred Ash and Olly to vow themselves to each other.

Judging by the glint in his eye, he did.

Ash allowed Olly to pull him into a kiss. For a brief, blissful moment, the sound of battle preparations died away.

Marshal Everich left them, his skills needed in the lord’s tent as he readied for battle. They were alone at last.

‘I had something made,’ Ash said. ‘For you. For us.’

He reached into his gambeson and under the tunic beneath, pulling out a tiny leather pouch. He tipped the contents onto his palm. Two simple gold rings, both marked with an inscription within: blocky Latin punched into the metal.

The rings were far from traditional. It had taken much thought from Ash before he chose them: tokens to be worn upon their persons, not easily lost, not easily stolen. Quickly hidden, should circumstances demand it. Sturdy and shining and infinite.

Olly peered at the inscriptions.

‘Tˉu et non alius,’ he read aloud.

‘You,’ Ash translated, ‘and no one else. I cannot be – we cannot be all I would want, but this …’ Ash looked down at the shining rings. ‘This could be enough?’

Olly grabbed his hand and slid one of the rings onto Ash’s finger. He pressed the second back into Ash’s hand so he could do the same.

They glinted in the sunlight like twin stars.

‘This could be enough.’