Oscar looked at him for a moment, surprise registering in his expression, but only for a flash. “Is that it?” he muttered. “I suppose that is to be expected. Your brother is much more handsome than you are. Women are likely to notice that.”
Royston cocked an eyebrow at the insulting comment. “It wasonewoman,” he said. “He wanted to marry her, but the woman’s father had other ideas. It destroyed Creston, enough so that he left John’s service. He blamed the king for the entire thing.”
“Why?”
“Because he was the king’s muscle,” Royston said. “He did anything dirty or underhanded that John wanted him to do. That’s what he teaches here at Blackchurch, in fact. Things he learned under John’s tutelage.”
Oscar grunted. “That must be a great deal.”
“I imagine that it is.”
“Even so, Blackchurch is not the sort of place a man would be proud to have his son serve,” Oscar said. “Blackchurch hasendured a less-than-noble reputation for decades. Mercenaries who take money to train men to kill, yet take no side themselves. That makes them manipulators and brutes. Does it not shame you that your brother serves here?”
Royston nodded. “Aye,” he said. “But Creston is a grown man. A highly educated, highly intelligent grown man. All I can hope is that he’ll grow weary of it and allow you to take him under your wing. The lure of being the next Earl of Sidbury is why I agreed to this betrothal. He will make an excellent earl, but we need to get the Blackchurch stench off him.”
Oscar inhaled more of that pungent blue smoke. Royston had finished pissing by this time and was simply standing there, watching a stable servant feed the horses in a small corral across the alleyway. When Oscar spoke next, it was quietly.
“You know that Blackchurch is allied with an infamous band of pirates known as Triton’s Hellions, do you not?” he asked.
Royston nodded. “I have heard.”
“They burned half of my town last year,” Oscar said. “Pillaged, looted, and burned. People were killed. By the time I mustered my army and sent them into town, they were already out to sea and the fires were blazing. It took us two days to get them out. I swore vengeance upon those bastards at the time, and now that I’ve met St. Denis, I can see that Blackchurch isn’t much better. Both Triton’s Hellions and Blackchurch are stains upon the green fields of England. They are an abomination to this land.”
Royston was looking at him by then. “I am sorry to hear that,” he said. “It must be very difficult for you to be here, knowing the relationship between Blackchurch and the pirates.”
“It is,” Oscar said. He paused before continuing. “You know, de Royans, if Blackchurch did not exist, you would have no reason to be ashamed of your brother. And surely you wouldavenge your father’s disappointment if he no longer served here.”
Royston snorted. “If Creston no longer served at Blackchurch, my father would rise from his grave and dance a jig,” he said. “But that day is far off.”
“Is it?”
Royston’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
Oscar inhaled his smoke again, pensively, then exhaled once more. “I mean that I have an idea,” he said. “My reason to see Blackchurch fall is because of what their pirate brethren did to my town. I do not have the ships or men to destroy pirates, but I know how I can destroy Blackchurch. If you are willing to help me, we can do this together. I get what I want, your brother is no longer shaming you, and the world will be a better place without this horrific guild of criminals.”
He had Royston’s full attention now. “What did you have in mind?”
Oscar looked around to ensure there was no one within earshot before answering. “The Blackchurch Guild has a neutral reputation,” he said. “They train warriors, but they never take sides. That way, they have no guilt or responsibility for any of the killing their men do.”
“I am aware.”
“But what if they did?”
“Did what?”
“Take sides.”
“How?”
The blue smoke that Oscar had been inhaling, from burning hemp that he inhaled on a regular basis, gave him great clarity of thought. He seemed very pleased with what he was about to say.
“Henry and Louis, the French king, have been fighting over Gascony,” he said. “Are you aware of this?”
Royston nodded. “I am,” he said. “I was sent a royal request for men, in fact.”
“Did you send any?”
“About one hundred, what I could spare.”
