Chapter Six
There were those wondering if this was such a good idea.
The day after War buried Edmund in the churchyard overlooking the sea, they were on the road for Castle Questing.
It possibly wasn’t the best course of action.
War was in pain. Grief lined his face, his jaw was hard and set, but he was riding ramrod straight and fixed on the road ahead.
He hadn’t said a word since departing Bamburgh, leaving Monty and Alexei and Clement riding behind him, watching him, wondering when the man was going to expend his grief.
So far, he’d not shed a tear. He’d simply gone on with business as usual.
That wasn’t a particularly good sign.
As it turned out, Bamburgh was shockingly close to Castle Questing, so the trip would take about a day.
They departed just before dawn and, if the weather held, they would be at Castle Questing before nightfall.
War had sent a messenger to Castle Questing the day before, the day Edmund was buried, so they had word of the impending arrival of guests.
War only brought his knights and about fifty men-at-arms simply because he didn’t want to be caught without some line of protection this far north.
As Edmund had once said, it was a wise man who knew when to be safe – and when to be cautious.
On this trip to Castle Questing, War intended to be both.
But it was a silent and uncomfortable ride with War perched like a statue upon his black and white stallion.
Surprisingly, Clement kept his mouth shut from his usual passive-aggressive conversation, mostly because he knew Monty and Alexei would throttle him if he harassed War on this day of all days.
But they didn’t quite trust him so as midday approached, Monty kept an eye on Clement while Alexei rode up beside War.
“My lord,” he said in his heavy accent. “Will you pause to rest for a moment? Mayhap your horse could use a rest? We have made good time this morning.”
War turned to the tall, very blond, and very big warrior who was from the east. The man had been born in Vilnius, but he’d spent most of his professional life fighting in Slavic states, including the fall of Kiev against the Mongols who came from the mysterious lands in the Far East. He had experienced things that knights from England could only dream of, which was why War had befriended him.
As an intensely curious man who was always interested in learning, he and Alexei had formed a fast friendship when Alexei had come to the court of Henry to swear his fealty.
And Alexei was loyal to the bone to War.
“Are you telling me that you are weary, Nevsky?” he said, smiling weakly. “I never knew such a thing was possible.”
Alexei returned his smile. “Not only possible, but probable,” he said. “We will make Castle Questing well before nightfall. Why not let me rest for a few moments before we continue along our way? I am not as strong as you.”
War broke down in soft laughter, the only laughter from the man since they’d returned home from Thropton.
Since then, he’d had nothing to smile about.
“Very well,” he said, looking around. “Find a suitable spot and call the men to a halt.”
Fighting off a grin, Alexei nodded and immediately turned for the column, calling a halt at that very moment.
They were traveling beside a burn with a stream that ran through it so it was an appropriate place as far as Alexei was concerned.
The men moved off the road and into the thick, green growth, followed by the knights.
There was plenty of laying in the grass and drinking from the brook as the men from Bamburgh took a quick rest. Even Monty found a tree and sat down beneath it, with Clement standing a few feet away, watching the men.
War was about a dozen feet away, gazing out over the meadow beyond the burn as his horse, next to him, drank from the stream.
Alexei, having pulled a bladder of watered wine out of his saddlebags, approached War and handed him the bladder.
“I grew up in Suffolk,” War said, bladder in his hand as he looked out over the rolling landscape. “It is flat ground.”
“You like this better?” Alexei asked.
War shrugged. “My father did,” he said. “He liked dramatic landscape. I think that is one of the reasons that he was so eager to come to Bamburgh with me. He loved the sea.”
Alexei looked at him, hearing the sorrow in his voice as he spoke of Edmund.
There was no use in avoiding the subject.
“I have not had the opportunity to express my sympathy for your father’s passing,” he said.
“Edmund was one of the only men I ever met who did not look at me suspiciously, as if I’d come to England to invade it. ”
“That was my father.”
“He was very accepting.”
War looked at him, a dull gleam in his eyes. “And he hounded you mercilessly with questions about your homeland.”
Alexei chuckled. “He did,” he said. “There were times when I would try to hide from him but he would always find me. He wanted to know everything.”
War smiled weakly. “He did to the point of annoyance,” he said. “You were always gracious to him, Alexei. I never thanked you for that.”
“There is no need. It was an honor.”
War’s smile faded as he returned his attention to the landscape. “I know you think we should not be traveling to Castle Questing right now,” he said. “But I have my reasons. My father would not have wanted me to sit around and grieve him. He would have wanted me to continue my life as normal.”
“Your reasons for traveling to Castle Questing are not in question, my lord,” he said. “But we are concerned for you. We know you and your father were close. It is never easy to lose a parent.”
“Is your father still alive, Alexei?”
Alexei shook his head. “He died when I was newly knighted,” he said. “We attended a battle together and he fell right in front of me. I held him as he breathed his last.”
War closed his eyes for a moment as if to ward off that horrible thought. “I did not know,” he said softly. “I am sorry, Alexei. Very sorry. But how… how did you overcome it?”
“His death?”
“Aye.”
“It was difficult at first,” Alexei admitted.
“But I drew upon our affection for one another. If you remember the good times, sometimes it eases the sting of the loss. My father told great stories, you see. For example, if a man had a nice sword, then my father once had a nicer one. That is what he would say. If a man traveled to a faraway land, then my father had always gone further. According to him, he saw everything and he had done everything. I once joked that my father had done everything except childbirth.”
War laughed softly. “He sounds like quite a man.”
“He was. And not only in his own mind, but in mine.”
“And remembering his stories gives you comfort.”
“Aye,” Alexei said, putting an affectionate hand on War’s shoulder. “In time, it will be the same for you.”
War’s smile faded. He and Alexei were close and he considered the man his one and true closest friend. He always had. He knew that Alexei was trustworthy, but more than that, he trusted the man’s opinion.
There was something more eating away at him that Alexei didn’t know.
William de Wolfe.
Perhaps that was what had War the most unbalanced in all of this.
He was grieving the loss of the man who raised him, the man he thought was his father until Edmund’s deathbed revelations.
Part of him was angry at Edmund for doing that to him, for waiting until the end of his life before divulging such shocking information.
Surely Edmund would know what turmoil it would bring him, now on top of losing the only father he’d ever known.
But another part of him was angry with de Wolfe.
He’d promised Edmund no vengeance, no rage.
Having thought the circumstances of his conception over, he was coming to see that de Wolfe wasn’t at fault other than the obvious.
He’d lain with a woman who loved him and wanted to marry him, but that marriage never happened.
It had been Jane de Percy who had withheld the information from him and also from Edmund when she married him, so his mother, whom he loved dearly, was really at fault in all of this.
It wasn’t de Wolfe and it certainly wasn’t Edmund.
But both were affected by her secret.
Still, War found that he needed an impartial opinion in all of this. Alexei was a mature man, a man of the world, who had seen and done many things in his lifetime. Monty would simply side with whatever War felt and Clement wasn’t a candidate in the least.
Perhaps Alexei could help him see the situation clearly.
“There’s… something more in all of this,” War finally said. “Something more than grieving my father. Something that is troubling me greatly.”
Alexei looked at him with both interest and concern. “What is it?”
War was having a difficult time looking at him. “You must never repeat this.”
“I will take it to my grave.”
“If you do not, a great many people may be affected, including me.”
“You have my word.”
War sighed heavily. “It seems that my father had a deathbed confession to make,” he said quietly. “He told me that although he married my mother and I was born within the tenure of that marriage, he is not the man who fathered me.”
Alexei tried to keep the surprise off his face. “Your… your mother had a lover other than your father?”
“Before the marriage,” War said. “She was pregnant when she married my father.”
“And he did not know?”
“Nay.”
Alexei cleared his throat softly, understanding the implications of deception, among others. “I see,” he said quietly. “And Edmund saw it necessary to tell you all of this before he died?”
“Aye.”
“Then I would imagine he felt it very important,” Alexei said, trying to be of some comfort to what surely must have been startling news to War.
“Your father treated you as if you were his blood, War. In fact, he favored you over your brothers. We could all see that. He never loved you less. In fact, I believe he loved you more.”