Andressa wasn’t sure if he was joking; something in his eyes told her that he was for the most part. But not entirely. There was a glimmer there, something warm and kind that made her racing heart flutter yet again.
“I will admit it looks that way,” she said. “I suppose I could have gone straight to the king with this and try to tell him, but I thought you might be of more assistance.”
He shook his head. “I did not mean that, entirely,” he said. “I mean with everything. You needed food this morning and I was happy to provide it. You need help now, and I am also happy to provide it. You see? God knew you needed me, although I am not entirely sure why He would send you to someone who has one foot in hell. That has me puzzled.”
Andressa cocked her head, thinking of the conversation they’d had earlier while by the stream.You cannot possibly imagine how unkind and ungenerous I am, he had said. She was deeply curious about that statement, as she was about the rest of him.
“In the short while we have been acquainted, you have alluded to things you have done in this life,” she said. “AlthoughI cannot imagine you being anything other than what you are to me– a strong, honorable knight– tell me why you think you have one foot in hell.”
“Think?” he snorted. “I know.”
“What have you done?”
He let go of her hands, rocking back on his heels and averting his gaze. “That is a question with many answers.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
He cast her a long look suggesting he was displeased with the fact that she’d ably trapped him. She’d shown such trust in him and now she was expecting the same.Clever girl.When she smiled timidly, he simply shook his head with feigned frustration.
“Of course I trust you,” he said. “But why do you wish to know about an old knight like me? I am nothing in the grand scheme of things except that I have sinned more than most.”
“What have you done?”
He grumbled softly, with displeasure, but answered. “I have always been a man of great talent and little remorse,” he said. “Lords and kings have used that combination for, shall we say, unsavory tasks.”
“Like what?”
“You truly wish for an example?”
She nodded, firmly, and he frowned at her. Still, he dutifully continued. “Very well,” he said. “You have asked for it. While in The Levant, my cohorts and I were tasked with the abduction of a Muslim general. You met the men I speak of outside, though you probably cannot recall their faces– Kress de Rhydian and Achilles de Dere. The Christian armies called us the Executioner Knights and the Unholy Trinity, among other things. But if there was an impossible task to accomplish, it was given to us. Like the abduction of this general; the Christian commanders believed he was responsible for an ambush of Christian knights outsideof the city of Nahala, so my colleagues and I were charged with abducting him and bringing him back alive. You do not want to hear more than that, my lady. Trust me when I tell you it was an unpleasant task.”
But Andressa was listening closely, very interested, indeed. “But I do want to hear more,” she insisted. “At this moment, I still see you as a great and noble knight. I do not think there is anything you could do that is so terrible to shatter that opinion.”
He looked at her, then. “What if I want you to continue believing that?” he asked, his tone suddenly hoarse with emotion. As if he were pleading. “No one has thought such things about me before.”
Andressa felt silent a moment, but it was a thoughtful silence. “No man is perfect unless his name is Christ,” she said. “There are only degrees of mortal perfection and, to many, that is in the eye of the beholder. Did you kill this Muslim general, then?”
“I did, but only when he tried to ambush me. He knew we were coming.”
“Then you did it in self-defense.”
“I also killed his seven-year-old son who stabbed me in the leg with a dagger. Am I still great and honorable to you now?”
She didn’t hesitate. “The boy tried to kill you. Did you have a choice?”
He shook his head, slowly. “Nay,” he said. “I did not because the child had clearly been trained to kill. I told the boy’s mother that right before I slit her throat– I told her that she had raised a killer. Now… do you still think I am great and honorable?”
That gave Andressa pause. “Why did you kill her?”
“So there would be no witnesses to the death of her husband and son.”
It was a blunt, brutal, but truthful answer. Andressa sat back in the chair, pondering what she’d been told. It had been morethan she’s bargained for but, oddly enough, it didn’t change her mind about him. She had a rational quality not easily found.
“You were at war,” she said quietly. “I am sure the woman would have killed you if she’d had the chance. She was your enemy and there is no shame in killing an enemy in times of war.”
Maxton shook his head slowly. “That is not why I did it,” he said. “I did it because I wanted to. Because I did not want to leave her alive. My lady, you do not seem to realize what I am telling you– I am a killer. I am paid to kill men and women, and children if I must. When I tell you that I will remove the Mother Abbess from St. Blitha so she can never again harm anyone, know that I have no such reservations about the fact that she is a woman. It matters not to me. I will do what is necessary, and I mean every word I say.”
Andressa believed him. His confession about the Muslim general and the man’s family opened her eyes to him a little, but the truth was that all she could see was a man fighting to survive. Perhaps it was foolish of her, but that was her opinion.
