Ah, yes. Ben was opening himself up to some good-natured jesting with this one, Damien thought, and his grin deepened. He gave a half nod in the direction of the new blade, waiting until Ben reached him before he spoke.
“I’m thinking that’s quite a weapon you have there, my friend. Especially for a man of your calling. It’s rather…large,wouldn’t you say?”
It only took an instant for Ben to react to the ribald nature of the comment, his razor-sharp glance taking in the lesser contours of Damien’s own sheathed weapon before he raised his brow. “You are wise to note it,” he retorted, “and to remember whose is bigger, be I a holy man or nay.”
Damien let go a laugh. Ben chuckled as well, and they gripped each other by the forearm for a greeting, slapping each other’s backs in affection. But there was no time to continue the exchange further, because at that moment Fitzgibbon emerged from the guardhouse across the yard with a dozen or so men behind him. All were fully equipped for a training session, it seemed, though by the expressions on many of their faces, they were anything but pleased at the thought.
Whether their irritation stemmed from being made to engage in training at all this day, or whether it was the result of that underlying hostility he had been thinking about earlier, Damien did not know. Likely, it was a bit of both. A few seconds later, Fitzgibbon reached him, and Damien nodded in greeting. The captain stood at attention for a moment before tipping his chin.
“I have assembled an even score of my top guard, my lord, as directed. We await your order to commence this training session.”
“Good,” Damien said brusquely, letting his gaze drift over the men standing behind Fitzgibbon. “Let’s get started, then. For the first exercise, we will need two groups. Ben will lead one set and I the other. When each group has mastered its own set, we’ll work them together.”
The men began to shift into two parts at his command, reluctant and slow. As they moved, Damien heard grumbling coming from the back of the group, and he stiffened, the muscles in his back tightening in response to the parts of the complaint he could hear in detail.
Swiveling his head toward the source of the mutterings, he grated, “If any of you have aught to say before we begin, I pray you speak it for all to hear. Unless, of course, what I’ve feared is true, and I’ve been given leadership over a clutch of gibbering hens, rather than well-trained fighting men.”
His pronouncement had the very effect he had hoped for. All movement stopped, and though none of the men spoke, several of them cast baleful glares his way.
Ben sighed, his expression a combination of long-suffering and acceptance, and Damien almost smiled. He knew his friend didn’t relish confrontation, but there was no help for it right now. Shifting his gaze, Damien saw Fitzgibbon glance warily toward the back of the group, where one of the men seemed about to speak; Fitzgibbon cast him a silent look of warning.
“Nay, let him have his say,” Damien called to the captain. “Better to bring it all out in the open now than to let it continue brewing beneath the surface while we swing blades at each other.” He did allow himself a kind of smile, then, though it was a tight, bitter look he had perfected over several years…an expression he knew was far more feral than friendly.
“I have something to say, then, if you want to know.”
The hostile statement came from the back of the group, and as the men shifted out of the way, Damien at last saw the speaker clearly. He was a man of about Damien’s own age, he’d guess, well built for fighting, as were all of these soldiers Fitzgibbon had chosen for the training—but possessed of a cocky manner that had no doubt forced him to use his fists in defense on more than one occasion.
Several of the other men seemed uncomfortable, a few shuffling their feet and looking down, while the one who had taken up Damien’s challenge stood with an insolent posture, his muscular arms folded across his chest as he continued to gaze at Damien.
“Your name?” Damien called in a voice that was deceptively calm.
“I am Sir Gareth de Burton, second in command of Lord Denton’s garrison,” the man drawled.
Damien didn’t respond at first, letting the insult wash over him before he tilted his head in barest acknowledgment, countering in a voice thick with sarcasm, “I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but Lord Denton has left this world and is no longer in charge of this garrison. I am.”
“By right of a hasty marriage, perhaps, naught else.”
“The status of my marriage does not concern you. And as for my right to lead you, I can promise that my military experience gives me far more claim to command you in training and battle than I possess in many of the other areas of duty required of me as the new lord of Glenheim Castle.”
Damien looked around the group of men, meeting Sir Gareth’s gaze again as he added, “Fighting and winning are what I know best. If you will follow me, I will provide you with instruction in all that I have learned in seven years of skirmishing, tournaments, and actual combat, both here and abroad.”
“Sir Damien is one of the finest knights I have ever seen, and I know of what I speak,” Ben interjected from where he stood, leaning against his sword just behind Damien. “Though I am a Franciscan now, as a young man, before I took my vows, I fought in the Holy Land—”
Damien’s gaze snapped to him.
“—and I was at Acre when it fell to the Saracens.” Ben looked serious, his usually ruddy complexion seeming paler with what he apparently was recalling from that time. At last he nodded and finished, “I saw some of the most impressive fighting skills a man may see in his lifetime there—and more barbarity than I would ever hope to see again. It was my reason for turning my life over to God. But I can tell you without qualm that Sir Damien possesses greater skill with blade, arrow, and spear, in hand combat and upon horseback, than any I witnessed during my own fighting days.”
The group fell completely quiet as Ben spoke, and Damien gazed at his friend now in stunned silence. He’d known Ben had learned to wield a sword at some point in his life, simply based upon his level of skill when they’d begun sparring together as he’d helped Damien regain his fighting abilities. But he’d never known the whole story behind it. Ben met his gaze with that wise, calm expression in his eyes that Damien had come to know so well during his time of painful healing, nodding to him in support.
The tension seemed to have dissipated somewhat with Damien’s answer to Gareth and Ben’s startling testimonial, but it was clear that something still simmered, so Damien remained quiet to see what else would come out into the open.
It took only another moment before he got his answer.
“My lord, I also have a question for you, if we may still speak freely.”
The man who spoke this time, and in a far more courteous manner than Gareth had, stood to the right of Fitzgibbon; he appeared to be several years younger than most of the other men—a new knight of perhaps only eighteen or so, which was the age Damien had been upon his first arrival to court.
“Aye,” Damien answered. “You may ask without fear, and I will answer, if I can, though as with your comrade, I would ask your name first.”
