Page 70 of To Love

The crowd began to disperse. “He knighted me as if it were nothing more than sheathing his sword.”

“It may seem a simple thing,” Gareth said as his friends circled him. “But it is not. He’d never have even considered it if you did not deserve the honor. Which you did.”

“Sir Alden.” Darien looked as if he were about to say something profound.

They waited.

“You are covered in blood and smell like a boar’s arse.”

They all laughed. A moment of brevity despite knowing what still awaited them. Alden had not seen the field of King Stephen’s supporters but had heard rumors of them. They were severely outnumbered.

“I could say the same of you.”

“Come.” Gareth pointed to the nearby chapel. “Let us see the field beyond.”

The men climbed to the top of the crumbling tower of St. Swithun’s Church. From their vantage point, they saw the narrow streets of the city, dominated by the spires of Winchester Cathedral. Smoke rose from various parts, darkening the sky and filling the air with the acrid smell of burning wood.

Siege lines and camps stretched across the fields in one direction and wound into the city streets below them. Tents and makeshift fortifications dotted the landscape, guarded bridges over the River Itchen, and banners fluttered in the breeze.

Winchester was now a battleground.

“Knighted but . . . will we return to Blackwood from this?” He had the least experience in battle of the four.

That no one answered was not the response Alden hoped for.

“There are too many of them. It matters not,” Roland said, “how skilled we may be.”

“Winchester is lost.”

All three men looked at Darien as if he’d gone mad. He shrugged. “I would retreat.”

“They will not be as cautious,” Gareth predicted. “If the empress loses the city, after being run out of London . . .”

He did not finish. There was no need.

If she lost Winchester now, her bid to become queen, despite the fact that the empress held sway in much of Southern England, outside of London, would be stalled. But the evidence of their impending defeat lay before them.

Alden had gained much this day, but he was set to lose much, much more.

Chapter

Twenty-Nine

“Good day,” Elara said to the steward as she approached the great hall for the meal. She’d begun to take them all in the hall. Spotting Evelina and Amalia already seated, she began to head toward them when Elara realized Pembroke had not answered her.

“Master Pembroke?”

It was as if he looked through her. Elara immediately thought of their traitor. Perhaps she’d been wrong to assume Father Percival had truly worked alone. Finally, he blinked and focused on her.

“They’ve lost.”

She looked down at his hand, the missive rolled up as he glanced around the hall, as if trying to determine what to do next.

Her stomach clenched, the feeling she might be ill immediately threatening.

“Pembroke,” she repeated, realizing the man was in a state of surprise. “Tell me. What have you learned?”

He too glanced down to his hand. “They have lost. Winchester.”