Chapter One #2
The other three knights laughed softly at Gates’ quip.
“And no one will,” said the last knight, Stephan d’Avignon.
A massive man with cropped, curly brown hair known as “Bear”, Stephan came from a very old and battle-scarred family.
He was no-nonsense and somewhat curt at times, but he was a knight to be trusted and admired.
“The man sends his son to live in London, away from battle, and he sends his daughter to live in a convent. He is doing all he can to keep his children safe from the ills of the world.”
“Yet he demands tales of battle,” Gates said. “He wants to know the excitement of it without participating. “
That was a very true statement as far as they were concerned.
Alexander sighed heavily. “De Lara is waiting for us right now to fill his head with more tales of battle and you know he will come looking for us if we do not make an appearance soon,” he said.
“It is therefore my suggestion that we swallow whatever distaste we have for telling the man stories of battle and simply get on with it.”
Stephan made a face of displeasure. “What more can we possibly tell him?” he wanted to know. “We have told him everything we possibly can.”
Gates eyed the burly knight. “We have told more stories than you have,” he pointed out. “It is your turn to speak first this night, Bear. It is time for you to lay yourself open as the rest of us have.”
Stephan threw up his hands. “But I do not have as many stories as you three have,” he said. “I was holding the line while you were all off trying to outfight one another. The man with the greatest score of victories to impress the women with, eh?”
Gates and Alexander waved him off irritably as the four of them began moving towards the glowing entry to the hall.
“There is nothing wrong with impressing women with tales of victory,” Gates insisted, “and if I do not have any, I simply make them up. I do not need to outfight anyone, and especially not you three whelps.”
Alexander cast him a long glance. “Then it must have been someone else I rode to help when his horse became mired in the mud at Poitiers.”
Gates scratched his chin. “You only imagined such a thing.”
“Did I?”
“If I say you did, then you did.”
Alexander laughed softly. “Next time, I shall let you sink.”
Gates grinned but didn’t respond; he didn’t acknowledge that Alexander had been forced to help him at Poitiers when he became stuck in the epic mud and quite possibly saved his life in doing so.
The weather had been raining off and on for the past month and had created horrendous conditions at times, so to save his pride and not discuss what they all knew about de Lohr’s heroics, Gates changed the subject.
“What do you think de Lara will say if you tell him that I had my tongue cut out today?” he asked. “Do you think he will believe you and therefore not demand more stories from me since I will clearly be unable to speak?”
As Alexander and Stephan shook their heads, Tobias spoke in his youthful and animated way. “He would make you write them down if you lost the ability to speak,” he said. “He would make you draw pictures in the ashes. A missing tongue would not deter him from demanding stories.”
Gates grunted. “Then we must take control of the conversation,” he said as the entry to the hall loomed directly ahead now. “Do you think I can regale him with humorous tales instead?”
Alexander snorted. “You do not tell humorous tales, Gates.”
“I do so.”
Alexander rolled his eyes. “In case you have not yet discovered this about yourself, my darling lad, you are about as humorous as a barrel of dead babies,” he said. Then, he sighed heavily. “There is no hope for us tonight. God’s Bones, I think I feel an aching head coming on.”
“And I am quite positive that I have contracted the plague,” Alexander grumbled.
Stephan suddenly came to a halt and bent over, coughing violently although it was obvious that it was forced. “And I am, quite simply, dying,” he said as he stood up, putting a hand over his chest. “Give my apologies to Lord de Lara. Tell him that I may not make it through the night.”
It was a last-ditch effort from the knights to avoid going into the hall, now with the door right in front of them. Gates balled a fist at Stephan.
“And that outlook is guaranteed if you do not make your way into that hall under your own power,” he said, looking at Tobias and pointing to the open door. “Go. Your liege awaits and your foolish excuses will not prevent the inevitable.”
Stephan and Tobias made their way to the door as Gates and Alexander followed, although Alexander was dragging his feet. He was moving so slowly that he was holding Gates back, who put his hand on the man’s back and finally pushed.
“Move,” he growled. “Let us get this over with.”
Alexander grunted unhappily but complied. The great oak door swung open and he followed Stephan and Tobias into the hall, hit in the face, as they all were, with the warm, stale heat that came from overworked hearths and too many bodies.
The smell, like dogs and unwashed men, did nothing to deter the appetite.
Already, there was a great deal of feasting happening at the two long, overused feasting tables and over near one of the two blazing hearths, men were playing a game of strength.
There were two teams, men on each team all latched on to each other and then somewhere in the middle, the two teams came together by one man from each team grabbing hold of a man on the opposite team.
Then, they began to pull in a great tug-of-war, each team trying to pull the other team off its feet. As the knights wound their way deeper into the hall, they could see that one team had pulled the other team straight into the hearth, laughing when clothes were lit on fire.
Stephan pointed at the men who were beating the flames out of their sleeves and hair, grinning, as Gates and Alexander shook their head in disapproval.
But the game was catching on, and more and more men were tugging at each other, trying to throw one another into the flames.
Gates simply walked past it all, followed by Alexander, as Stephan and Tobias observed the antics.
But then Alexander realized they were lagging behind because they didn’t want to sit with de Lara, so Alexander whistled between his teeth, catching their attention, and cast them a threatening expression that forced them to follow him.
Soon, all four knights were approaching their liege.
The man was sitting at the end of the larger feasting table, gorging himself on boiled mutton that comprised the evening’s meal.
His wife was not with him, as was usual, as Lady de Lara preferred to take her meals in her room and away from the loud and smelly men.
She wasn’t one for socializing, anyway, and other than a glimpse now and again, no one had really ever seen her.
She kept well to herself. Jasper de Lara, however, very much enjoyed the company of his men.
He was still a handsome man at his advanced age, with graying blond hair and a bushy white and gray beard, now with spots of gravy on it.
He was dressed heavily against the cold, in woolen tunics and a fur robe, and he smiled brightly when he saw his knights approach. He waved them forward.
“Ah!” he called out to them happily. “Come and sit, all of you. I thought you would never arrive! Wine!”
He bellowed the last word so loudly that Alexander, the closest to him, turned away and rubbed at his left ear, positive the eardrum was ruptured. Servants were running at the table from all directions, bringing cups and pitchers of the dark red wine that Jasper favored.
The knights sat around their liege as cups were placed in front of them and quickly filled, splashing red droplets onto the tabletop.
Gates was just lifting his cup to his lips when he happened to catch movement next to his right arm.
Turning, he found himself looking into familiar, sad, doggy eyes.
“Good evening to you, Jean,” he said to the massive black dog with a head the size of a cow’s skull. “I trust you have stayed away from the men trying to throw one another into the fire?”
He drank his wine as Jasper, across the table, laughed.
“I named my dog after the French king so that I can order him about and be cruel to him,” he said, affectionately eyeing the mutt that weighed more than most grown women.
“But I love Jean more than my own family, unfortunately. He is a loyal and true friend. He seems to have taken a great liking to you, Gates. He has seemed most attentive to you since your return.”
Gates eyed the dog, who was gazing back at him hopefully – hopeful that Gates would give him a scrap of food. Gates chuckled at the dog. “The dog has good taste,” he said, reaching out to pet the big, black head. “I had a dog once, as a lad. A Wolfhound, of course.”
He grinned at the play on his surname and the others chuckled. “My mother hates dogs,” Alexander said flatly, already nearly done with his first cup of wine. “We had cats and horses. Lots and lots of cats and horses.”
Jasper motioned for Alexander’s cup to be refilled immediately. “And your father did not take a stand against your mother?” he asked. “I find that astonishing. No house should be without dogs.”
Alexander held up his cup for his second helping of wine. “I agree,” he said. “Which is why when I inherit Lioncross Abbey, I will flood it with dogs. There will be herds of them all about the place and if my wife doesn’t like it, then she can go find accommodations elsewhere.”
Jasper banged on the table. “Here, here,” he declared firmly. “I applaud your attitude. A house without dogs is no house at all.”