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Chapter 31

“Riders,” Idalia cried, running into the hall. “Riders have been spotted just outside the gates.”

“How many?” Cait asked, jumping from her seat so quickly the edge of her sleeve dipped into the bowl of stew in front of her.

Eight nights they had been gone, each of them worse than the last.

As Cait hastily attempted to clean her sleeve, the others abandoned her to the task. A maidservant handed her a linen serviette, and Cait took it with shaking hands, too flustered to do much with it. The girl took the serviette back, dipped it in a goblet of water on their table, and completed the task for her.

With a grateful smile, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She was eager to join the others, but a part of her hesitated to do so. She feared what they might have learned. Even so, she’d learned the steep cost of avoidance. She thanked the girl and slowly made her way outside of the keep and into the courtyard.

Her heart lurched at the looks on the other women’s faces.

“What is it?”

Sabine spoke first. “They say there are only a few riders. Four men.”

“That . . . that cannot be.” Why so few? What did it mean? Where were the others, the hundreds who had ridden out? “No, that cannot be,” she repeated.

Cait looked to Roysa, but she did not appear any more inclined to offer an explanation than the others.

Four men.

Though darkness had just begun to fall, Cait fixed her gaze on the long pathway leading away from the castle. She watched it, as did they all, for any kind of movement. The courtyard filled with curious onlookers, the steward included. But still, no riders.

She could not breathe. This was just like waiting in Dromsley Hall during the battle—looking for her brother, searching each face with mingled hope and dread. Only now she also awaited news of Conrad.

And then he rode into view—a magnificent figure of a man astride a massive destrier. He loomed large and imposing, just like he had upon her arrival at Licheford weeks before, but there was a difference this time.

Before, Conrad had seemed shocked, although not altogether pleased, to see her.

This time, he smiled.

She quickly scanned the others but did not recognize any of the men.

“Terric?” she called as the others questioned Conrad at the same time. Although he was riding toward them quickly, his horse kicking up dust in his haste to get to them, he did not wait to speak. Maybe he could see the worry in their faces.

“All is well,” he shouted. “London is ours. I’m here to bring you to them.”

The screaming was not just her own. Roysa and Idalia hugged as cheers erupted from all around them. But Cait only had one thing on her mind.

She ran toward Conrad, and by the time she reached him, he had dismounted. He gathered her in his arms and kissed her, not stopping even when whooping and clapping erupted from the courtyard. Only when she broke away to ensure his words were true did the cheers cease.

“Terric is well?”

Conrad nodded, handing the reins of his horse to a stableboy. When a second moved to help the first, Conrad stopped him.

“Will you take this?” he asked, removing his gloves. “And this?” He removed his light armor with the boy’s help as Cait and the others watched in confusion.

“A bath, if you please,” he called to the steward, who immediately disappeared into the keep.

Conrad smiled at her as Cait finally realized what he was doing.

“I regret I’m unable to give you a full accounting,” he said to the others, looking at Sabine, who smiled back at him as a sister would. “The men will do so for me. I can tell you this, London is ours. The cause has been won.”

“Won?” Sabine asked, her eyes wide. “Do you mean . . . ?”

“King John will meet us in six days’ time at Runnymede.”