“I do,” Hector agreed. “So you are telling me you are not here to compete in the tournament? I am disappointed. I wanted you on our team.”
Thomas glanced at the men behind Hector, recognizing all of them. A smile spread across his lips. “No wonder you want me,” he said. “Look at that motley crew you have brought with you. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Hector laughed softly, turning to the men behind him. “Even if my father didn’t come, old Deinwald did,” he said, catching the man’s attention and waving him forward. “Have you nothing to say to Tommy, Deinwald?”
Sir Deinwald Ellsrod was perhaps the surliest, bitterest, and meanest man on the border. A knight who had served with William and Paris and Kieran in his prime, he had been a wild man on the field of battle, looking like a barbarian with his blond ponytail and big muscles, and he rarely had a kind word to say to anyone. But the truth was that a fairer, more just man had never existed, and he had surprisingly mellowed in his old age. But not too much; he spied Thomas and simply lifted an eyebrow.
“I have much to say to that de Wolfe whelp,” he said. “Where should I start?”
Thomas grinned as he moved back in the group, going to Deinwald and putting a hand on the old man’s leg.
“Tell me how much you love me,” he said. “Tell me how much you miss me.”
“Never. I loathe the sight of you.”
Thomas pointed at him. “I can see a tear in your eye right now,” he said, grinning as he turned to the men next to him. Deinwald’s grandsons, Garr and Hugh Ellsrod. “God help you with a grandfather like that. It is a miracle you did not turn out exactly like him.”
Hugh was two years older than his twenty-year-old brother. “I would be proud to be as nasty and bitter as he is,” Hugh said, “but it seems I have inherited my grandmother’s fine disposition. I am a rose to my grandfather’s thorn.”
Thomas nodded. “Your Grandmother Aloria is a remarkable woman,” he agreed, looking to the dark-haired younger brother. “Greetings, Garr.”
“Do not talk to him!” Hector suddenly yelled. “He has asked to court my daughter, Lisbet, so I am in the process of being very cruel to him. You will not speak to him, Thomas. I mean it.”
Thomas started laughing. “Lisbet is a lovely young woman of sixteen years,” he said, pointing to Garr. “You would deny her this magnificent specimen of a potential husband?”
Hector waved a stern hand at him. “Bah,” he scoffed. “Ignore him, I say.”
Thomas looked at Garr and shrugged, who shrugged in return. There didn’t seem to be any real animosity, merely a father who did not want to lose his youngest child yet. In fact, Garr was trying not to grin. Thomas headed back in Hector’s direction.
“If you want me on your team for the tournament, I would be willing,” he said. “But I have no equipment with me. I would have to borrow yours.”
Hector nodded firmly. “I will be happy to let you,” he said. “One de Wolfe is worth ten men of another team. Will you come with us now? We are heading to Roxburgh to see Tobias. He will be on our team, as well.”
Thomas thought on his friend, Tobias, the big and powerful knight with a long reach, which would work to his advantage in a competition. “Collect Tobias and I will meet you back here,” he said. “Where is the competition field?”
Hector pointed back the way they had come. “If you came in on this road, you passed it,” he said. “It is in the open area to the north, outside of town. Meet us over there around midday. That is when the teams will be selected and the rules established.”
Thomas nodded. “I will be there.”
Hector’s gaze lingered on him a moment. “Tommy,” he said. “Is your intended with you?”
Thomas’ features stiffened. “She is not,” he said. “Why do you ask?”
Hector shrugged. “My father has mentioned the situation you are going through,” he said, lowering his voice. “I am sorry, Tommy. It does not sound ideal.”
Thomas didn’t want to think of Adelaide, not today, but he was polite to Hector’s statement. “It is not,” he said. “I will tell you more about it later, but not out here in the middle of the street. Get going to Roxburgh and I will see you at the field in a short while.”
Hector simply nodded, giving the man a brief smile as he moved out and taking his men with him. Thomas stood aside as everyone passed him, grinning when Deinwald cast him a typically nasty scowl.
It was good to see that again.
As the party from Northwood moved past him, heading for Roxburgh Castle, Thomas headed back to the stall to inform the eager children that he would, indeed, be competing in the tournament this day. As he moved down the road, the crowd thinned out and, suddenly, children in blue tunics were running at him.
“No more cheese! No more cheese!”
They were grabbing at his hands, pulling at him, and he looked down into happy little faces. Marybelle, a little blonde, and her sister, Nora, who was older with bushy red hair, each had a hand, while Artus and the twins, Renard and Roland, were pulling on his tunic. Behind him, he could feel more little hands tugging at him.
“We have no more cheese!” Artus said excitedly. “We sold it all!”
