Chapter Fifteen #3
“It smells very good in soap,” Cruz agreed. “Now, what sweets have you made for us? You always make sweets, my lady. I have learned that about you.”
He was changing the subject, away from her failure, and she went along with it. She didn’t want to keep discussing her failures either. With a sigh, she stood up from Creston’s lap.
“Well…” she said, going over to the table where she prepared food. “I made a bread pudding. It has eggs and honey and cinnamon in it.”
“Then bring it over and let us feast.”
She did, bringing over something she’d baked earlier in the day.
The cook had evidently instructed her on how to make a bread with custard, and she had, but some eggshells were in the pudding, nearly piercing Cruz’s cheek, and the custard hadn’t baked well in some spots, leaving it runny.
Still, Creston and Cruz ate the entire thing and Ophelia’s tears were forgotten.
They were good men, indeed.
After the bread pudding was gone, Creston and Cruz moved out to the main living space, where the cats were now sleeping in both chairs.
They removed them, though when Creston sat down, it was with the black-and-white cat in his lap.
The animal curled up on his thighs as he petted it.
It was a quiet moment in a world that didn’t have many.
“Does this seem unreal to you?” he asked.
Cruz looked at him curiously. “Does what seem unreal?”
“All of this,” Creston said, looking around the cozy chamber.
“This room has always been empty. Cold and empty. But now it’s warm and comfortable.
I have a cat on my lap. I have never had a cat in my life.
Today, I ripped out a man’s toenail to see how much torture he could take and not give me the information you had given him earlier in the day, a test we give all recruits, and then I come home to my beautiful wife and the meal she cooked and a cat sleeping on my lap as if the violence of my world doesn’t exist. As if the darkness that is Blackchurch doesn’t exist. Three months ago, if anyone had told me this would be my life, I would have called them mad. ”
Cruz smiled, leaning back in the chair. “It is simply another aspect of life,” he said. “This is the domesticated side, a side that few men see with such happiness as you have experienced. Tay and Fox, Sin and Payne have, and now you. You should consider yourself fortunate.”
“I do,” Creston said quickly. “I just find it… baffling. Baffling and wonderful.”
“Cres?”
Ophelia called to him, coming out of the kitchen area and wiping her hands on her apron. Creston looked over his shoulder at her.
“My love?” he responded.
“What is the largest town around here, within a day’s ride?” she asked.
He thought a moment. “Bampton has a market,” he said. “Tiverton is much bigger, but it is about a morning’s ride away. Why do you ask?”
Ophelia seemed hesitant. “The only things I have to cook with are things others have given me,” she said. “I was hoping… hoping I could have something of my own? My own iron pot and tools?”
He smiled. “Of course, you can,” he said. “You do not have to ask. Simply tell me what you want and tell me that we are going to buy it.”
She shrugged. “I cannot do that,” she said. “I do not make demands very well.”
“Nay, you do not, but I dream of a wife who makes demands and orders me about.”
She giggled. “I can try my best,” she said. “But I was also hoping to buy some fabric to make some garments that will accommodate my expanding belly. May I?”
“We can go tomorrow if you wish.”
“But you have recruits to teach.”
“Cruz can do it for me.”
“Cruz is going with you,” Cruz said firmly. “Have one of the assistant trainers teach. Rhodes or Anteaus are excellent choices. Rhodes has already been shadowing you when you instruct. He knows what to do.”
He was speaking of a man named Rhodes St. James, a powerful knight who used to serve the Earl of Gloucester.
The earl had sent him to Blackchurch for training and was prepared to wait the five years it took for a man to become a fully fledged Blackchurch knight, but somewhere in the process, Rhodes became indispensable as an assistant to trainers like Creston and Cruz, and he’d taken to the water module easily, so Kristian preferred to have the man assist him over any other trainer.
But there was also a problem with him.
“He does know what to do,” Creston agreed.
“But that is an issue—he knows too much. He is ambitious. He is waiting for one of us to get kicked in the head or fall in the water and drown so he can take our place. I do not know if I want to leave him alone, instructing my recruits. He might try to take my position out from under me.”
Cruz snorted. “He would never succeed,” he said. “He does not have your skill or your support. I would let him take tomorrow’s instruction and pair him with Anteaus because Anteaus will not let the man get away with anything. He’ll keep him in control.”
Anteaus de Bourne was another assistant trainer who would probably become a full-fledged trainer within the year.
He was from a very old Northumberland family, having come to Blackchurch to train, but he was so skilled and so knowledgeable that he was easily on the same level as the senior trainers.
The House of de Bourne was known for its warriors, but Anteaus just happened to have more modesty and control than someone like Rhodes did.
That meant that Creston was comfortable with the suggestion.
“Very well,” he said. “They will make a good pair.”
“I agree,” Cruz said. “We will leave at dawn tomorrow and arrive in Bampton by midmorning. There is a smithy there who makes spectacular daggers. You know the one. I want to see what he has.”
Creston waggled his eyebrows as he looked at his wife. “It seems that we are leaving on the morrow and visiting a smithy, as well.”
Ophelia grinned broadly. “Good,” she said. “I am very grateful. I will clean up quickly and go to bed if we are to leave early.”
With that, she was gone, back into the kitchen room. Creston and Cruz could hear her banging around, wiping out the dishes they’d used. Hearing the noise, the black cat wandered in, meowing as he begged for food, and they could hear Ophelia talking to the cat.
“Shall I hunt down the draughts board so we can play a few rounds?” Creston said, yawning. “We have not played that game in a while.”
Cruz nodded. “Go ahead,” he said. “I think I beat you last time.”
“Liar.”
“I am going to tell your wife that you are calling me names.”
“Who did you complain to before I got married?”
Cruz shrugged. “St. Denis, but he ignored me.”
Creston snorted. “So will she,” he said, rising wearily from his chair and going to the wardrobe against the wall that served as a cabinet for some of the things he had accumulated over the years, mostly blankets or odd pieces that weren’t worn enough to throw out.
Creston tended to collect things that way.
The wardrobe had been in the cottage when he’d taken possession, and he’d just left it there, a big, heavy piece that was well made.
As soon as he opened one of the doors to hunt down the draughts board and the little pieces that went along with it, there was a knock on the front door.
“I will see who it is,” Cruz said, getting out of his chair.
“If it is Ming Tang, I won’t play him,” Creston said, finally locating the board. “He cannot be beaten in a game of draughts, and he crushes my spirit every time.”
Cruz smirked as he headed to the door, opening it to see one of the gate guards standing there.
“Well?” he said. “What is it?”
The man was an older soldier who had served Blackchurch for nearly thirty years. “Good evening, my lord,” he said to Cruz. “I am looking for Sir Creston.”
Creston heard him. “What is it?”
He was pulling the game board, a solid piece of wood, out of the cabinet as the soldier stuck his head in and addressed him directly.
“Visitors at the gatehouse, my lord,” he said.
Creston was inspecting the board for chips, but he glanced up at the man. “Who is it?”
“A man who says he is your cousin,” he said. “Brenton de Royans.”
Creston stopped inspecting and looked at the soldier in surprise. “Brenton?” he repeated. “A big lad with shoulder-length hair that looks like it needs a good brushing?”
“The same, my lord.”
“He’s here?”
“He is, my lord,” the soldier said. “And he has one of the sons of the Earl of Hereford and Worcester with him. A de Lohr.”
That doubly surprised Creston. He set the board down and went to the door. “Where are they?” he asked.
“I kept them at the gatehouse,” the soldier said. “Will you come?”
“Absolutely,” Creston said. Then he called back to Ophelia, “Sweetheart, I have been summoned to the gatehouse. I’ll return shortly.”
She acknowledged him, muffled, and he stepped through the door with Cruz behind him.
As the panel shut, they headed toward the gatehouse, following the old soldier.
Night had descended, and the evening was crisp.
Not exactly cold, but damp and chilly with a full moon overhead.
Torches lit the trainers’ village, and as they passed through it, there were also torches along the path that led from the village to the gatehouse.
There was an entire watch at Blackchurch that was responsible for keeping the torches lit and keeping an eye on the village overnight.
Creston and Cruz passed two of the watchmen on their way to the gatehouse, which was lit up in the distance.
They closed the distance in short order.
Just as the soldier had said, Brenton de Royans was waiting for Creston in the guard room of the gatehouse. Creston took one look at his cousin and greeted him joyfully.
“My God,” he said, giving his cousin a warm hug. “It has been ages since I last saw you, Brenton. What in the hell are you doing here?”