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“And remember what to say if he returns.”
“I know what ye told me to say.”
Clara chuckled. That was exactly why she had not divulged her exact destination to them.
“Take care of yerself,” Albri said as her husband moved aside to open the door behind Clara. “And if yer ladyship arrives again at our humble door, she will always be welcome.”
“And I love you both for it,” a voice behind her answered.
It cannot be!
Clara spun around and stared at the man who blocked her way out.
“Gilbert? You are dead!”
Gilbert, her Gilbert, stood there, very much alive. How was it possible?
She took a step toward him and threw her arms around him. Gilbert. Alive?
“Ahh, Alfred.”
She didn’t care about strange looks or how strange it must appear for a young squire to have his arms wrapped around an armorer. Somehow, Gilbert was alive.
“How it is possible? What are you doing here?”
She let go long enough to look at his face once again. It was, indeed, Gilbert.
“You’re dead!” She glanced at Albri and Edgar, who appeared just as stunned as she felt.
Gilbert, who looked just as she’d last seen him, held up his arms. “Not dead, as you can see. At least, not now that I’ve found you.”
Clara’s hands were shaking. She didn’t understand, but neither did she care. Nothing mattered except that Gilbert was alive.
“Yer big bulk is blockin’ the door,” Edgar said to Gilbert jokingly.
He walked inside and nodded to an empty table.
“Do you still have the best ale in all of England?”
Albri and Edgar brewed and sold their own ale, and while they sat, Albri waved her hand to a serving maid.
“Ale for all,” she called loudly, and everyone who sat in the great room cheered. Money flowed through Keston, and its loyal customers would benefit from this happy occasion.
“Gilbert?” She hardly knew what to say. What to ask.
“I was left for dead— ”
“But I heard them. They talked about tossing your body in the river.”
“That much is true,” he said, taking a mug of ale from the serving wench. “And if I hadn’t been yanked out like a trout, I’d still be in there rotting away for the fish to feed on.”
He drank deeply, and Clara and the others waited.
“I woke with the gash in my side wrapped, the lump on my head pounding, and the knight who’d dragged me from that river loomin’ over me like a nursemaid.”
“A knight saved you?”
“More like he took a piss and happened upon my bleedin’ body. But, aye, he saved me. And allowed me to remain in his tent until the tourney was over, and I was mended. Or mostly mended.”
