Chapter Two #3
“I would be honored to take you myself,” he moved for the door before she could deny him. “It is only a short way.”
In truth, Avalyn had no intention of denying his escort.
She was rather grateful for it. Silently, she followed the old man from the chamber and back down the dark corridor.
He was a big man, gone mostly to fat, and filled up most of the hall.
But when they reached the stairs, he suddenly stopped and she smacked into the back of him.
She could hear his voice lifted in greeting.
“Ah,” he said loudly, perhaps too loudly. “Brogan, what a surprise. See who has come to return the garment you borrowed from Thel.”
St. Alban stepped aside about the same time as Brogan mounted the top of the stairs.
Immediately, his deep blue eyes zeroed in on her golden ones and, for a moment, Avalyn’s breath caught in her throat.
He would have been less shocking had he reached out to grab her, for the heat from those eyes was jolting enough.
“My lady,” Brogan’s mouth twitched with the beginnings of an unexpected smile. “I trust you are well this morning after your difficult night?”
She nodded, her heart thumping painfully against her ribs at the sudden sight of him. “I am excellent, my lord. I’ve come to return the dress and again extend my thanks to you for saving my life.”
“We were going to take the dress to Thel,” St. Alban’s interjected, his manner rushed as if he was anxious to leave Brogan’s presence. “We shall be but a moment. I know you must be tired and wish to rest.”
For the first time, Avalyn looked away from his eyes to notice the state of the rest of him; Brogan was in heavy leather breeches, a rough tunic, and heavy boots that were covered with grime.
His hair, dark blond curls that were dark with sweat, was also dirty.
It was, in fact, rather intriguing. Most of the men she knew, knights included, were somewhat fine living and not prone to dirty themselves with mundane things like raw training.
A few of them would – genuine knights and not those men more inclined to politics than warring – but for the most part, a genuinely dirty and exhausted man was, in her world, an anomaly.
Upon further consideration, she thought it was oddly attractive.
“Of course you do not need to trouble yourself with me, my lord,” she said to Brogan. “I am sure you have many other pressing duties to attend.”
With the shadow of a grin still lingering on his lips, Brogan shook his head. “I have no other pressing duties.” He turned around and headed back down the stairs, pausing after a few steps to make sure the lady was following him. “Come along, my lady. I will take you to the Sirens’ lair.”
Avalyn’s brow furrowed as St. Alban, knowing the indelicate subject, closed his eyes and shook his head. “The Sirens’ lair?” she repeated. “What is that?”
“Where the whores live,” Brogan wasn’t a man of tact. He simply told the truth. “The men call that reeking hole the Sirens’ lair. It is downstairs. I will take you.”
With a somewhat appalled glance at St. Alban, she followed the massive soldier down the steps.
St. Alban, thinking perhaps he should, also attended simply to keep Brogan from following through on interest from last night and brought up the rear.
He simply did not think the lady was healthy for Brogan, in more ways than one.
At the bottom of the steps, Brogan took the lead.
St. Alban, being the gentle knight that he was, took the lady’s hand into his elbow and properly escorted her down the dim hall.
Halfway down, Brogan turned around to make sure she was behind him and saw that St. Alban had her well in hand.
A bolt of jealously shot through him, such a surprise that he almost grunted with the force of it.
Then he cursed himself for being so stupid.
Had he been a knight with fine manners, he would have thought of taking the lady’s hand himself.
But he had not. Still, that did not stop him from retracing his steps and visibly challenging St. Alban’s for the lady’s companionship.
“I will take her.”
His massive hand was extended. St. Alban looked at it, understood the meaning, and backed off graciously.
The expression on Brogan’s face turned astonishingly gentle as he tucked they lady’s hand into the crook of his elbow, covered by the grimy tunic.
St. Alban could only shake his head, following behind the pair as the filthy, dirty soldier escorted the very elegant lady down the corridor.
He would not have believed it had he not seen it.
But now that he was seeing it, he could do no more at the moment.
Remember your manners, lad, he thought. Remember what I’ve taught you.
Brogan, in fact, hardly remembered a thing at the moment.
Having the small, lovely lady on his arm filled his head with fog; a delirious, lovely fog.
It was kind of like walking on air, as if his whole being was being lifted and floating free.
He hardly even remembered where he was going, only that he was walking with her on his arm; he could have kept walking like that forever.
“You look as if you’ve been very busy this morning,” Avalyn’s soft voice wafted up to him.
He gazed down at her, drinking in that lovely face. “We have two hundred new recruits,” he told her. “It is my job to train them to be soldiers.”
“That must be difficult.”
He shrugged. “I do not think so. I have been doing it for many years.”
“Did you do it in Germania?”
“Nay.” That is almost where he ended the conversation but realized he should probably explain. As always, dialogue did not come particularly easy to him. “I grew up as a child in Germania and came to England after my father died. I was ten years old at the time.”
“When did you become a soldier for the crown?”
“Almost as soon as I arrived. My mother married an English merchant who decided I should become English, too. He said that the only true way to do that was to fight for my new country. So he pledged me to the barracks of the Tower as a runner.”
It explained a little bit about him, she thought. The runners were the small boys who worked with the soldiers, literally ‘running’ from post to post, carrying messages or weapons or food. “But you eventually became more than a runner. You did not become a servant. You learned a skill.”
He nodded. “My father had been a great knight in Germania. I was raised on stories of valor. But he died before he could complete my training as a knight. When I became a runner, I already had some education in warfare thanks to my father.”
“Then why did you not become a knight?”
He looked at her again, a half-smile on his lips. “You know as well as I do that knighthood in England is only reserved for the English nobles. I am not one of them.”
She knew that, but her mind worked in a more detailed manner.
Surely there had to be a way, a loophole, for him to gain his knighthood, even if his father was a foreign nobleman.
Avalyn did not like dead-ends; if there was a solution, she would wrack her brain to try and find it.
She was curious why Brogan might have given up so easily.
“Did you never try to find a sponsor who would support you for the knighthood?”
He shook his head, his eyes fixing straight ahead.
“I believe that the king’s knights want me right where I am.
They have put me in a position of trust and power training recruits, and when the king’s troops are pulled into battle, I lead the infantry.
I am big and I am loud, and the men follow me. ”
Avalyn gazed up at him, imagining how the knights might be intimidated by him.
Why would they want to compete against someone like him?
Naturally they would rather keep him in a position of submission.
That was how the upper nobility tended to think; better to control him than to have him as a potential adversary. Jealously was a nasty thing.
With that thought, she was coming to think that perhaps this man might have been greatly mistreated by his adopted country. There was a bitterness to him she had sensed from the start. Perhaps this was part of it.
“I think you would make a fine knight,” she said simply, not knowing what else to say.
They had apparently reached their destination, for he came to a halt in front of a nondescript door. He faced her in the dim torch light.
“I am contented to be where I am,” he replied without emotion.
“Aye, but are you happy?”
His brow rippled with confusion. “I exist. Happiness is not a part of that existence.”
His reply shocked, even concerned, her. She opened her mouth to respond when the door they stood in front of suddenly flew open. Three women, one of whom she recognized as the lady she sought, were clustered in a writhing group in the doorway. A short, red-haired woman spoke in a shrill voice.
“Brogan,” she gasped happily. “I thought I heard your voice. We rarely see you, and suddenly we have the pleasure of seeing you two times in two days.”
Avalyn looked at Brogan, her mouth unconsciously gaping as thoughts of him visiting the whores suddenly crossed her mind. Brogan, however, was focused only on the three women in front of him. His expression, so relaxed moments before, was frighteningly hard.
“The lady has come to return Thel’s garment,” he said gruffly.
The three women looked at Avalyn as if just noticing her for the first time.
Their eyes were wide with surprise, then disappointment, then suspicion.
Thel, standing slightly behind the other two, pushed forward and lowered herself in an awkward curtsy.
She could feel the heated, envious gazes of the women behind her; any new female in the barracks, no matter who she was, was cause for instant jealousy.
“My lady,” Thel said, somewhat hesitantly. “You… you look much better this morning.”