Chapter Nine
He wasn’t exactly sure why he was out in the bailey.
Essien wasn’t feeling drunk anymore, but he knew he still was. The ground moved a little whenever he lowered his head, or looked up at the sky, and that told him there was still drink in his veins.
Frankly, he found that he needed more.
He’d left Christopher and Peter and Addax in Christopher’s solar even though Addax wanted to come with him. Essien had waved his brother off. He needed some time alone after what he’d just been told.
A betrothal.
A wife.
A great title.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about it all.
He found himself becoming increasingly annoyed at his brother, who seemed to want to invoke the name of their father every chance he had.
If Addax wanted to make a point, he simply said that their father would want it so, or their father would be happy for it.
That seemed to support whatever Addax was trying to drive home at the time, and Essien was getting tired of it.
It wasn’t that he didn’t care about their father’s wants or wishes or desires for his sons, more that it simply didn’t mean a great deal to him.
As he knew, and as he’d said before, he didn’t even really remember their father, and he barely remembered the land of his birth.
The years between his departure from Kitara and their adult years were, quite frankly, a blur.
Of course, there were certain things he remembered.
He remembered working shipboard for a cruel merchant who would starve them and beat them and force them to work.
He remembered the kind woman that took care of him and his brother, a woman who was eventually sold or sent away.
He didn’t even remember her name, but he remembered her face.
He remembered her kind eyes and the fact that she was young and beautiful.
Other than their mother and their nurse, that enslaved woman had been the only one to show any measure of true affection to Essien and Addax.
And then she was gone.
The mind had a way of blocking out the unpleasant and the horrific, which was probably why he did not remember a good deal of his very young years.
What he did remember, however, was being found by English knights who had saved him.
That was when his life really began. He’d spent years with the knights on the sands of the Levant, mostly as a servant, but soon enough, the knights began to train him and his brother.
The boys received experience by attending the battles against the Muslim invaders and in helping tend the wounded knights.
It had been a baptism by fire, but both Essien and Addax had taken to it quickly. They’d lived and they’d learned.
They’d become men.
When it came time for the English to return home from the hot sands of the Holy Land, Christopher was returning to face a new marriage, among other things, and his time for them would be limited.
Not wanting to simply leave the boys behind, he’d arranged for them to continue their education with knights from Thuringia, education meant to expand their horizons beyond what the English knights had taught them, so they went off with a group of Thuringian knights and spent those years with more training and more battles.
They learned of other cultures and languages before ending up in Flanders with a great warlord.
The Duke of d’Acoz was an ally of Ajax de Velt, a great English warlord and Cassian’s father, and after a visit to de Velt’s fortress in Northern England, and becoming acquainted with Ajax’s eldest son, Cole, Addax and Essien found themselves sucked into a secret spy ring administered by William Marshal himself.
England’s greatest knight was also England’s greatest spy.
They’d taken to that easily, too. The spy game came to them intrinsically, as if they were born to it, and that was how they ended up back in England permanently.
Christopher was part of that spy game, too, and Essien was so glad to be back with the man who had essentially raised him as a child that he swore he would never leave.
England had very quickly become his home, his favorite place, but it wasn’t the same for his brother.
For him, it was a little different.
Addax remembered the land of his birth, remembered much of what had been left behind, so he was much more a man of two worlds than Essien was.
That was where they had difficulty connecting sometimes, which was tragic, considering the land of their birth no longer existed and they were probably the only two people left in the world that could connect on that level, remembering the same things, remembering the same people and places.
Unfortunately, Essien couldn’t even do that.
And that was why he became so irritated when Addax started bringing up their father, using the man as leverage to make his point or constantly reminding Essien of his ancestry.
It was different when Christopher wielded Amare’s name, because he was far more of a father figure than Addax was, and hearing Christopher speak of their father somehow wasn’t annoying.
It was more meaningful coming from him. Christopher spoke of Amare simply to convey his understanding of a father’s wishes, while Addax spoke of their father as if Essien should know their father’s mind and respect it. As if Essien remembered him.
And he simply didn’t.
Addax may have been a man of two countries, but Essien wasn’t.
He was England.
Now, Essien found himself out in the bailey, thinking that he should probably try to get some sleep.
He didn’t feel much like going back into the hall and filling his belly with more wine, so he began to head in the direction of the knights’ quarters, which was really part of the undercroft of Lioncross.
When the Roman temple had been converted by the Christians into an abbey, the monk cubicles remained, and they’d had many uses over the years.
Serving as a prison was one of them, but with Christopher’s expanding army, he’d moved the knights and senior soldiers into the area because it afforded them semiprivate room and some peace.
Essien was looking forward to a little peace.
But first, he headed to the gatehouse because he knew the de Lohr sons were manning the walls.
Instead of feasting with their parents and guests, they were in charge of security, something that hadn’t sat well with brothers Myles and Roi.
They wanted to eat and drink, be merry. Curtis, much more solemn as the heir to the de Lohr empire, took the job seriously.
Curtis and Roi had been known to fight from time to time because of this conflict, so Essien thought he’d make a sweep of the gatehouse to make sure the young men were being peaceful.
The duty gave him a sense of normality, as it was a task he did most nights, and focusing on it took him away from the betrothal discussion.
He was nearly to the gatehouse when a few people came in through the open gate—competitors, but walking behind them was a small female figure.
Alone.
That gave Essien pause because, sometimes, camp followers tried to sneak into the feasts, and he knew that Lady Hereford would have a fit if a prostitute made it into the great hall.
That wasn’t what she wanted around her family.
Therefore, Essien came to a halt, watching the woman walk in.
She was petite, with a dark cloak and a hood over her head.
That was about all he saw until the hood came off when a breeze lifted it.
Then he found himself looking at Lady de Barenton.
His future wife.
For a moment, he was frozen where he stood.
He didn’t know if he should run away or go to her.
Surely she knew they were to be married.
If she felt toward the marriage what he did, which was mostly confusion, then surely the sight of him would be unwelcome.
She’d already attacked him once. He wasn’t going to make himself an easy target a second time.
He very nearly turned away, hoping she wouldn’t see him, but he wasn’t fast enough.
She caught sight of him, their eyes met, and his feet were rooted to the spot.
He couldn’t leave now. He’d braced himself for her fury when something odd happened.
She actually smiled at him.
“My lord,” she said, heading in his direction. “You look as if you have not suffered any delayed effects from the shattered lance.”
Pleasant. She’s being pleasant! “Nay,” he said, rubbing at his chest. “Mayhap a little sore, but nothing unmanageable.”
“That is good.”
“Are… are you alone?”
She nodded. “My father has retired for the evening,” she said. “I was simply… walking. I am not tired enough to sleep.”
Frankly, Essien was puzzled. Either she didn’t know about the betrothal, she didn’t care, or she didn’t know it was him.
One of those three possibilities. She seemed as if there were nothing amiss in her world, a woman who was simply walking because she wasn’t ready for sleep. There was nothing unusual about that.
He wondered if he should say anything about the betrothal.
Probably not…
Truthfully, he didn’t know what to say.
“Would some wine help you?” he finally said, indicating the great hall, glowing with light and warmth through the lancet windows. “Lord Hereford has some very fine wine.”
She looked toward the hall, hearing the muffled voices, the laughter, and shook her head. “Nay,” she said. “Thank you for the offer, but strong wine usually makes me very loud and very opinionated. I do not wish that side of me on anyone.”
Essien grinned. “Why not?”
She eyed him. “Because it is embarrassing.”
“It sounds intriguing.”
She fought off a grin. “Most definitely not,” she said. “And now that you know that about me, I will never trust you not to get me drunk should the opportunity arise. I should not have told you.”