“They’ve been beaten, Chris,” he said quietly. “Starved, too, from the looks of it.”
The man called Chris, the one with the blond beard, nodded. “I can see that,” he said. “And they’re clearly terrified. They are probably running from whoever did this. Why else would they be sleeping in an olive grove?”
The second blond man merely nodded and stood up. “We have some provisions we can give them,” he said. “But we need to be on our way. Richard is expecting us.”
The man called Chris stood up, too, but he was gazing down at the frightened boys. After a moment, he looked at the black-haired man standing next to him.
“Something tells me not to leave them here,” he said.
The man with the dark hair frowned. “Why?”
“I do not know. It is a feeling I have.” The man called Chris paused, looking indecisively at the boys huddling fearfully against the tree. “Those are very little boys who probably will not see another sunrise if they are not given food and help.”
The man with the dark hair rolled his eyes. “So you come all this way to kill Muslims, yet you want to save these two?” he asked incredulously. “We do not have time for this. Give them some bread and let us be on our way.”
With that, he turned and walked away, but the man called Chris didn’t leave with him. In fact, he called after him.
“Mayhap God will be more willing to forgive me for the Muslims I’ve killed if I help two small children,” he said loudly. But his focus returned to Addax and Essien. He’d made up his mind. He was going to help. “I cannot leave them here to die. David, pick up the one closest to you. I’ll take the bigger one.”
The other blond man looked confused. “And do what with them?” he said. “We bring them along like baggage?”
The man named Chris pointed to the dogs, still lying with the boys. “We bring them along like the dogs,” he said. “Mayhap I will put them to work for us. In any case, I will not leave them. Pick up the smaller boy.”
With a shrug, the other blond man dutifully reached down and picked up Essien, who screamed at being separated from his brother, but the man called Chris held up a hand to him.
“Hadi, hadi,” he said quickly.Quiet, quiet. “Sawf ’usaeiduk.”
I will help you.
That shut Essien up somewhat, but he was still crying. Addax found himself heaved up by the big blond man with the beard, being carried toward the warhorses that were tethered at the side of the road. No sooner were they put upon them than the warriors, men from a faraway land who spoke a strange language, were giving them water and stale bread.
But neither boy cared.
They wolfed it down.
Little did either one of them know that the food represented hope, and the Christian knights represented destiny. Hope and destiny came to Addax and Essien that day.
And they embraced it.
CHAPTER ONE
Year of Our Lord 1228
Tournament sponsored by the Earl of Hereford and Worcester
Lioncross Abbey Castle, the Welsh Marches
He saw thelance lower a split second before it hit his shield. That gave him enough time to slightly move his own lance, hitting the knight in the left arm, which, in turn, jammed it into his chest, knocking him clean off his horse.
Crash!
The crowd went mad.
Essien heard the cheers of the crowd and would have liked to acknowledge them, but the problem was that he was covered with splinters from Paris de Norville’s shattered lance and at least two of the splinters were big enough to pierce him. He could feel them rammed into the skin of his shoulder and had at least one that came through his visor. It hadn’t hit his eye, thank God, but it was on his face.
He could feel the blood.
He was also going to beat de Norville silly because of it.
