Chapter Eleven
“Are you going to let your brother show you such disrespect?”
Royston was out in the livery yard, taking a piss against the wall, when he heard a voice behind him. Still pissing, he turned to see Oscar standing several feet away with something smoking in his right hand.
“I do not know what you mean,” he said, turning around to finish his business. “My brother and I have been at each other since I told him about the marriage. Even before that, we were never close. It is the way of things.”
Oscar pondered that statement as he lifted a smoking stick in his hand and inhaled the trails of blue smoke that were curling out of it. He inhaled deeply and held it in his lungs for a moment before exhaling.
“He is arrogant,” he said simply. “Men like that think they can rule over men like you and me. You are a baron, a titled nobleman. I am an earl. We rule this land, de Royans. Not men like your brother or even men like Exmoor. They are insulated in their own little world. They do not know the trouble men like you and I see.”
Royston sighed heavily. “Creston used to serve the king, as you know,” he said. “Our father was quite proud of him.”
“You did not tell me why he left royal service, only that he did.”
Royston thought back to that time. He remembered his father’s agitation, his rage at the missives Creston had sent him, missives that detailed the dishonor John had put him through and the results when it came to the woman he loved.
He remembered his father’s distress over the missives he then received from King John, looking for Creston and telling Quinton de Royans to send his son back to London immediately.
Even if Quinton had known where Creston was, which he hadn’t for quite some time, he knew Creston wouldn’t have gone.
His mind was made up and royal service was no longer an option.
It had been a difficult time for them all.
“Why else?” Royston finally said. “A woman was the reason that part of his career ended.”
Oscar looked at him for a moment, surprise registering in his expression, but only for a flash. “Is that it?” he muttered. “I suppose that is to be expected. Your brother is much more handsome than you are. Women are likely to notice that.”
Royston cocked an eyebrow at the insulting comment. “It was one woman,” he said. “He wanted to marry her, but the woman’s father had other ideas. It destroyed Creston, enough so that he left John’s service. He blamed the king for the entire thing.”
“Why?”
“Because he was the king’s muscle,” Royston said. “He did anything dirty or underhanded that John wanted him to do. That’s what he teaches here at Blackchurch, in fact. Things he learned under John’s tutelage.”
Oscar grunted. “That must be a great deal.”
“I imagine that it is.”
“Even so, Blackchurch is not the sort of place a man would be proud to have his son serve,” Oscar said.
“Blackchurch has endured a less-than-noble reputation for decades. Mercenaries who take money to train men to kill, yet take no side themselves. That makes them manipulators and brutes. Does it not shame you that your brother serves here?”
Royston nodded. “Aye,” he said. “But Creston is a grown man. A highly educated, highly intelligent grown man. All I can hope is that he’ll grow weary of it and allow you to take him under your wing.
The lure of being the next Earl of Sidbury is why I agreed to this betrothal.
He will make an excellent earl, but we need to get the Blackchurch stench off him. ”
Oscar inhaled more of that pungent blue smoke. Royston had finished pissing by this time and was simply standing there, watching a stable servant feed the horses in a small corral across the alleyway. When Oscar spoke next, it was quietly.
“You know that Blackchurch is allied with an infamous band of pirates known as Triton’s Hellions, do you not?” he asked.
Royston nodded. “I have heard.”
“They burned half of my town last year,” Oscar said.
“Pillaged, looted, and burned. People were killed. By the time I mustered my army and sent them into town, they were already out to sea and the fires were blazing. It took us two days to get them out. I swore vengeance upon those bastards at the time, and now that I’ve met St. Denis, I can see that Blackchurch isn’t much better.
Both Triton’s Hellions and Blackchurch are stains upon the green fields of England. They are an abomination to this land.”
Royston was looking at him by then. “I am sorry to hear that,” he said. “It must be very difficult for you to be here, knowing the relationship between Blackchurch and the pirates.”
“It is,” Oscar said. He paused before continuing. “You know, de Royans, if Blackchurch did not exist, you would have no reason to be ashamed of your brother. And surely you would avenge your father’s disappointment if he no longer served here.”
Royston snorted. “If Creston no longer served at Blackchurch, my father would rise from his grave and dance a jig,” he said. “But that day is far off.”
“Is it?”
Royston’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
Oscar inhaled his smoke again, pensively, then exhaled once more.
“I mean that I have an idea,” he said. “My reason to see Blackchurch fall is because of what their pirate brethren did to my town. I do not have the ships or men to destroy pirates, but I know how I can destroy Blackchurch. If you are willing to help me, we can do this together. I get what I want, your brother is no longer shaming you, and the world will be a better place without this horrific guild of criminals.”
He had Royston’s full attention now. “What did you have in mind?”
Oscar looked around to ensure there was no one within earshot before answering. “The Blackchurch Guild has a neutral reputation,” he said. “They train warriors, but they never take sides. That way, they have no guilt or responsibility for any of the killing their men do.”
“I am aware.”
“But what if they did?”
“Did what?”
“Take sides.”
“How?”
The blue smoke that Oscar had been inhaling, from burning hemp that he inhaled on a regular basis, gave him great clarity of thought. He seemed very pleased with what he was about to say.
“Henry and Louis, the French king, have been fighting over Gascony,” he said. “Are you aware of this?”
Royston nodded. “I am,” he said. “I was sent a royal request for men, in fact.”
“Did you send any?”
“About one hundred, what I could spare.”
Oscar moved closer to him. “Have they returned yet from France?”
“Some.”
“Then listen to me,” Oscar said, lowering his voice.
“What if Louis sent a dispatch to St. Denis, thanking him and Blackchurch for providing men and money for him to take Gascony from Henry? Only it would be a forged dispatch and I would send it to London, straight into the hands of the king, with the news that I intercepted it from a French messenger bound for Blackchurch. I could say that I happened to be at Blackchurch because my granddaughter married a trainer, which is not a lie. My presence, and my connection to Blackchurch, gives a forged missive validity. I can say that I saw Blackchurch’s support of Louis for myself.
And if you were to confirm my information because your brother is a Blackchurch trainer, then… ”
Royston caught on quickly. “It would be two affirmations of Blackchurch’s loyalty to France.”
“Exactly.”
Royston could see precisely what the man was planning. “The fact that Blackchurch is neutral in any conflict would be destroyed,” he said. “Henry would send his army to Blackchurch and wipe it from the earth.”
“Of course, he would,” Oscar said. “Blackchurch does not have royal permission to train knights. They do not even have a license. Anyone training knights, for profit, must have one of those things, and Blackchurch has neither because it was started so long ago, back in the days when William of Normandy was battling the Saxons upon these lands. Because of this, the Crown of England has long overlooked the fact that Blackchurch does not have license or permission, but the only reason it does is that Blackchurch, itself, remains neutral in all things. Imagine if they were not only no longer neutral, but siding with the French? Henry would destroy it, indeed.”
Royston could see that consequence as clear as day. He could also see his family’s honor restored once his brother ceased to be a Blackchurch trainer and assumed his rightful role as the next Earl of Sidbury.
Restoration, indeed.
“Very well,” he finally said. “What do you want me to do?”
“For now, nothing,” Oscar said, pleased that he had a cohort in crime.
He inhaled the last of his blue smoke as the embers in his fingers nearly burned away.
“I know a cleric in Sidmouth who is from France. The man will do anything for coin and I will have him draft a dispatch from Louis to St. Denis.”
“Is that not complicated?” Royston asked. “What about a royal seal?”
Oscar waved him off. “I have a royal dispatch addressed to the Septum Port Alliance from Louis requesting permission for French ships to trade in our ports,” Oscar said.
“Believe me, the writing, and seal, can be replicated based on that royal dispatch, and once the missive is drafted, I will send it to London and let nature take its course. But you must be prepared to say that you, too, witnessed St. Denis’ loyalty to France.
Mayhap through something your brother said. ”
“But he’s said nothing.”
“And there is no missive from Louis. It is all a lie. You must learn to lie.”
Royston understood. God help him, he did, and he actually felt good about it.
“As you wish,” he said. “Then I’ll return home and wait to hear from you.”
“Good,” Oscar said, putting an uncharacteristically friendly hand on Royston’s shoulder. “Vengeance for your family’s honor. Vengeance for my town. And in the end, Creston and my granddaughter will come to live with me, and I will ensure he is most worthy of being the next Earl of Sidbury.”
With that, he patted Royston on the shoulder and headed back into the tavern where he would sleep for the rest of the day.
The blue smoke always made him sleepy. Royston simply remained in the yard of the tavern, mulling over their conversation, wondering how he went from pledging his brother to an earl’s granddaughter to plotting the fall of Blackchurch.
Now, he was part of it.
But he didn’t feel any remorse. What Oscar had said was true—if Blackchurch no longer existed, then Creston would no longer be an embarrassment to his family.
Quinton de Royans’ spirit might even rest in piece thanks to his heir.
Perhaps it was up to Royston to bring Creston back into the fold and forget about the stain of Blackchurch.
The situation, he was certain, was about to become very interesting.