“Pardon, sir.”
Damien and Alissende both turned to look at the serving lad who had approached them unnoticed. He wore the king’s livery, but Damien did not remember having seen the youth before. That was not unexpected, of course, considering the number of attendants the royal entourage contained, but even more than his sudden appearance, the lad seemed nervous, glancing back and forth between Damien and Alissende, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed several times in quick succession.
“You are Sir Damien de Ashby?”
“Aye. What do you seek with me?” Damien asked, frowning.
“I come bearing a message, sir, from one of your men-at-arms, Sir Reginald. Your tourney mount suffers an ailment, and your man entreats you to come posthaste to the stables, lest the steed be unfit to carry you through tomorrow’s events.”
“What kind of ailment?” Damien scowled at him, and the lad went pale. Concern and doubt warred within Damien as he waited for the boy’s answer. His gelding had served well in training these four months, and when he had left the horse only a few hours earlier, he had seemed as fit as he had ever been.
“He said not, sir,” the lad said, swallowing convulsively again. “He offered only that he would not interrupt your evening but for the dire need of the moment.”
Cursing under his breath, Damien looked at Alissende, seeing his own concern reflected in her serious gaze.
“Go,” she said before he could say aught. “I will return to our pavilion to await news.”
He scowled more deeply, liking this less and less. It was not far from the main keep to the tilting grounds and the field where all the combatants’ silken tents were pitched. The path would likely be well lit with torches and far from deserted, with the number of ranking combatants in attendance here this week. But he still hated for Alissende to go anywhere without escort.
The serving lad looked as if he was ready to jump from his skin in his eagerness to be gone, now that his message had been delivered, but Damien forestalled him a moment longer.
“What is your name, lad?”
“Simon, sir.” The boy crushed his soft cap between his fingers and seemed to be shifting his weight back and forth.
“Here, Simon,” Damien said, reaching into his leather side-pouch to retrieve a coin. “Escort my lady back to our pavilion, whilst I attend to the problem in the stable.”
“It is not necessary, Damien,” Alissende protested softly. “None will hinder my progress in returning to our tent.”
“Nonetheless, I will see you protected at all times.”
In case this is a trap, set by Hugh in an effort to separate you from me.
That part of the statement, left unspoken, echoed between them, prompting Alissende to nod her head at last in wordless concession.
“Go swiftly, Simon, and do not diverge from the path to the pavilion field, lest you earn far different recompense from me than the coin I have given you just now.”
“Aye, sir—I mean, nay, sir, I will see your lady nowhere but straight to your tent and the attendants that await her there.”
Damien nodded, touching his finger briefly to Alissende’s cheek, only breaking his gaze with her reluctantly. He did not like this, but he had little choice. He could not compete in the tourney tomorrow without a mount.
Wanting to get this settled so that he could return to Alissende’s side as swiftly as possible, Damien turned and strode through the clusters of people in the chamber, earning more of their stares as he made his way out into the dark of the yard that led to the stables.
The path was strangely empty, Damien thought as he tried to make his way by faded memory and the faint light of the moon. The stables and outbuildings at Odiham were set at the furthest edges of the retaining wall, thanks to the unusual, octagonal shape of the main keep, and Damien berated himself for not remembering this sooner so that he might have at least grabbed one of the hall torches on his way out here.
In truth, he’d never thought to find so few servants moving about. Then again, perhaps they were all occupied with duties inside, thanks to the opening celebration.
He would get there soon enough, though; he could see the flicker of light from the stables ahead in the gloom, and he could hear the soft nickering of horses. That Reginald had not sought him out along the way did not bode well, however, for it likely meant his mount was even worse than he’d thought, and that Reginald had needed to remain by his—
A rustling sound behind Damien gave him a breath of warning, allowing him to tense an instant before something long and hard cracked across his back, up near his shoulders. Whatever it was hurt like hell, and he realized that it would have caught him on the base of his skull had he not reacted with hard-won instinct to the whispering approach of the blow.
Twisting in the direction of his unseen assailant, Damien braced himself in a half crouch, wishing he had time to reach for his blade even as he tried to ready himself for the next strike. He’d been hit with a jousting lance, apparently, and he saw it come swinging in at his head again, wielded by a short and stocky man. As he ducked and rolled, Damien caught little more than a glimpse of red hair and glittering eyes in the wash of moonlight that broke from behind the clouds.
The blow missed him, but he collided with a second man, unseen before in the darkness. Damien felt him though, by God, when the bastard’s fist cracked into his jaw as he tried to lurch to a standing position to face the two of them. The strike sent Damien back to the dirt, filling his mouth with the metallic taste of blood and setting off a dull ringing in his ears. He had no time to react, however, because at that moment a well-aimed kick drove deep into his belly from another direction, unleashing a wall of white-hot agony and stopping his breath on a choked grunt.
Damn, there were three of them.
As he rolled to his side, hunched over, that realization echoed dimly through the pain stunning his mind, while the blows began to rain down on him. To his good fortune, in the space of time it took to drag a tortured breath into his lungs, something flared to life inside him. The will to fight swelled, building to a fierce burning as it had when he’d been under the diabolical torments of his inquisitors—only this time, unlike then, he was restrained only by his own pain.
