Chapter Eight
The brute. Richard mulled the word over on the ride back to the cottage. “Who is Eoos?” he finally asked as he helped Mercy dismount.
Mercy shrugged.
It was a name familiar to him. Comforting. But he didn’t remember who it belonged to. Was he married? Did he have a family that was missing him?
Mercy walked toward the cottage.
Right now, his only family was Mercy and her boy, Kit. He had vowed to help them to save Kit.
“Mercy,” he called.
She turned to him.
“I have given my vow to help you. But truth be told, we know nothing of my past. What if you are in more danger with me than you would be staying in this village?”
Mercy returned to him. She shook her head. “Kit is in more danger here. That is all that is important to me. They will not take him.”
He nodded.
Mercy sighed softly. Her gaze swept his face in contemplation. “So, it’s Richard now?” Mercy grinned. “I don’t know if I’ll get used to calling you that.”
“It is my name.”
She stared at him for a long moment. “Richard,” she whispered. “Sir Richard.” Finally, she nodded. “Yes. It fits.”
“What about the brute?”
She scowled. “I would never call you that.”
His heart warmed. “There must be a reason for others to call me that.”
“Yes.” She looked down, as if searching the ground for the answer. “Something from your past.”
“I didn’t remember my own name. What if I don’t remember? What if it never comes back?”
“It will,” she promised. “You’ve already started remembering. You knew how to ride.”
“But I didn’t recognize my horse.”
“You knew how to clean armor and that you had a bag.”
Richard grew silent. She was right. He just needed…to be patient. And he had a feeling that patience wasn’t his strength. Perhaps that was where the name brute came from.
Kit burst from the cottage and raced across the yard toward them. There was something in his wide-eyed expression that sent ripples of trepidation down Richard’s back.
Mercy held her arms out to him. “What is it?”
Kit leapt into her arms. “Simon is here.”
The boy had no sooner gotten the words out when two men walked out of the cottage, Alice following. Mercy set Kit on his feet, pulling him behind her as Richard stepped forward protectively.
Richard recognized Simon, but the other he didn’t know.
“You are not welcomed here,” Mercy stated.
Richard summed up the second man with a sweeping glance. He had a round belly and scraggily shoulder length dark hair. Even injured, Richard knew the man posed no threat.
