The good mood of the chamber began to fade as Maxton knew what that meant– that William was asking for his sword and his support. He didn’t even have to hear the words; he just knew. He looked at the girls in his arms, feeling sad as if already missing them, before replying.
“When?” he asked simply.
“Soon,” Cullen said. “He goes on to say that both de Lohr brothers are part of his army, and since Kevin de Lara serves David, he will be involved. So is Gart. But isn’t Gart somewhere in Devon now?”
Maxton nodded. “Dunster Castle,” he said. “He has a new wife and family now.”
Cullen turned back to the missive. “Savernake has committed men, which means Dash will be going,” he said. “So has de Winter. That means Bric will be returning to the land of his birth to fight other Irishmen.”
Maxton thought on the fiery Irishman, someone he’d come to know well over the past few years. “Bric’s loyalty is unquestionably to de Winter even though his heart is in the land of his birth,” he said. “This will be a difficult campaign for him. What else does it say?”
Cullen continued reading down at the bottom. “Sherry and Achilles serve William directly, so they shall be commanding The Marshal’s armies,” he said. “But Kress isn’t mentioned.”
“That is because William is sending Kress into Wales for an important diplomatic mission,” he said. “A marriage alliance, I believe.”
“Kress is an excellent diplomat.”
“Aye, he is,” Maxton agreed. “Is that all it says?”
Cullen shook his head. “He asks for men you can spare to send to Ireland,” he said. Then he lowered the missive. “I would like to go, Max.”
Maxton nodded. “You will, as will I,” he said, glancing at his wife to see that, already, she wasn’t happy about this in the least. He set the girls to their feet, ushering them towards their mother. “I must speak with Cullen about this. Please take the girls with you when you go.”
He kissed Andressa on the cheek, a gentle invitation for her to leave so the men could speak privately. Andressa picked up the weepy Ceri, but she didn’t leave right away. She was fixed on her husband.
“Max,” she said reproachfully. “Last year, you spent almost nine months in France for William. You promised you would never be gone overly long again.”
He kissed her again, gently turning her towards the door. “And I will keep that promise,” he said. “But I cannot ignore William’s summons. You know that. Let me speak with Cullen about it and I will talk to you later.”
Grossly displeased, Andressa did as she was told, taking the three little girls out of the chamber. They didn’t want to go, which made it difficult, and Maxton could hear them whining and complaining all the way down the stairs to the floor below. He heard Andressa, trying to lure them away with talk of puppies. That usually worked. When the sounds faded, he finally turned to Cullen, who was looking at him with a grin on his face. Maxton frowned.
“What now?” he demanded. “Why do you look at me like that?”
Cullen laughed softly. “Because you don’t want to be away from those women as much as they don’t want you to be away from them,” he said. “Even now, you miss your children, Max. I will be honest– I’ve never seen such a change in a man.”
Maxton’s frown turned into an ironic smirk of sorts. Ignoring the man’s statement, he took the missive from Cullen and began to read through it.
“What I did not tell you was that the foray into Wales will involve me, Sherry, and Achilles also,” he said quietly. “Andie does not know that yet.”
“When will you tell her?”
“When I leave.”
Cullen knew that was the wise thing to do, considering how attached Maxton and Andressa were to one another. She never took his departures well.
“You will note on the missive that William would like us to convene with our army at Lioncross Abbey Castle, Chris de Lohr’s seat, in six months,” he said. “It is clear he wants to make the crossing to Ireland after the spring thaw. But I did not want to say all of that in front of your wife.”
Maxton was still reading the missive. “Six months will come before we realize it,” he said. “And I shall be in Wales with Kress for part of that time. Andie is going to be quite unhappy.”
Cullen knew that. He had the benefit of not having a wife and, in times like this, it was a good thing. But over the course of the past few years, he’d had the privilege of watching Maxton and Andressa, and seeing the love they had for each other. It had made him wonder if he was missing something. More and more, he was thinking that he might be. There were times when he wished he had a wife and children, too.
But not today. There was much on the horizon coming, something that a wife and children wouldn’t figure in to.
“When do you leave for Wales, then?” he asked. “And I am assuming you want me to remain here.”
Maxton nodded. “It will be sometime next month,” he said. “The last I heard, Kevin was supposed to accompany us since his father’s lands straddle the Marches. Kevin knows the area we are going to quite well.”
Cullen nodded as he absorbed the information. “And his brother?” he asked quietly, bringing up a rather delicate subject among their tightly-knight group. “What about Sean?”
