Rose Victory - Eagle Series Read online

  The earl grimaced at his friend’s optimism, but then Stefan would always stand by him. With his friendship came loyalty and unstinting support.

  “What if we went to the king?” was Stefan’s next suggestion. “You were one of his best commanders, I am sure he would help.”

  “No,” the reply came back quick and categorical. “I will not go begging back to court,” a dark, forbidding frown descended on the earl’s face.

  “You are a proud and stubborn fool, Roydon,” Stefan smiled to rob the words of malice. Indeed he knew himself to be one of the very few men who could get away with insulting this man and not feel the edge of his sword. “But are you too proud to accept the help of a friend? I have little enough, but what I have is yours.”

  The earl shook his head, his mouth set in a stubborn line. “I will not take you down with me.”

  “Don’t take that stance with me, my lord,” for the first time a hint of anger entered Stefan’s voice, his eyes flashing. “You know I care naught for land or fortune. A comfortable bed, good friends and a good fight now and then is all I wish for. My gold will at least pay the garrison for an extra month or so. It will give us time to think of something and keep greedy eyes away from Eagle Rock. Without a garrison we are lost.”

  Roydon stared at Stefan for a moment. He knew his friend was right. The instant his enemies, and he had several which he had made when executing the king’s orders, heard that his lands were unprotected they would attack him with all they had. The king would come to his aid, he was sure, but by then it would be too late.

  An abrupt nod and the relaxing of the earl’s facial muscles herald the acceptance of Stefan’s offer. “As you wish, but I will consider it a loan,” he added quickly. “To be repaid as soon as I am able.” Now at least he had a bit of time to think of something.

  “Some sense at last,” Stephen heaved a theatrical sigh of relief. “Stubborn and proud doesn’t begin to describe you.”

  The earl raised a dark eyebrow. “So why put up with me?” In spite of himself the question came out sounding almost too serious.

  Stefan looked at his friend consideringly and then his face broke into a smile although it did not quiet reach his eyes, these remained serious and earnest. “Well I do have a comfortable bed and a good friend here. All I am missing is a rousing combat…”

  “That I can most definitely give you, my friend,” Roydon paused, “if you have overcome your fear of me, that is,” he prodded.

  Stefan’s grin widened. “You have calmed down enough that I can now pound you into the ground,” he raised his sword. “Let’s give these soldiers a lesson in swordsmanship.”

  The earl raised his own sword, a grin transforming the hard planes of his face. Now, for a moment, he could forget his problems and concentrate on the contest, his mind no longer gripped or controlled by the fist of pain and anger.

  “You pound me into the ground! Now that is an unlikely event.” Roydon made an effort to keep up the friendly bunter as he swung the huge sword at his friend. “But you are welcome to try,” he challenged.

  Stefan parried the stroke and launched his own attack. “Oh, I’ll certainly try,” Stefan aimed a cutting slash for the earl’s head. “I have to beat some of that pride and arrogance out of you.”

  “You and how many others?” Roydon deflected the lethal swing, as Stefan knew he would, and then came at him with a series of bone jarring slashes.

  A half hour later the clash of swords could still be heard in the otherwise silent courtyard. Both men were breathing heavily and perspiration run freely down the strong columns of their necks. Sweat plastered their tunics to wide shoulders and muscled chests and backs.

  Roydon felt better than he had all day. The slight ache in his arms and the heaviness of his limbs a welcome distraction from his troubled thoughts. “Enough, I think.” The earl stepped back and sheathed his sword.

  “We will call it a draw then.” Stefan rubbed his right arm, after putting his sword away. “You have one hell of a down swing, Roy.” With an impatient gesture he re-gathered his dark blond, shoulder length hair and tied it with a leather strip at the nape of his neck.

  “I do try to please,” A smile flickered across the earl’s face and then he sobered. “A bath for me before the evening meal and then we have to talk. Come up as soon as you can.”

  Stefan nodded, but said nothing, as he watched his friend stride quickly through the admiring men who had witnessed the impressive combat of their leaders.

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  Two hours later and the evening meal over, the earl still did not have a solution to the impossible situation he found himself in. The High Table had been cleared but both the earl and Sir Stefan, who sat beside him, still lingered, cups of wine before them. The trestle tables had been stacked against the walls in the Hall and the soldiers had left for their accommodation in the middle bailey. Only some servants remained and those were already preparing for sleep on their pallets in the dark Hall. The only source of light in the cavernous room the banked embers of the huge fireplace, around which the serfs had laid their blankets and the candles at the high table.

  The earl waved his steward forward into the pool of light cast by the handful of candles. “Take a seat Brecov,” he indicated the long bench on the opposite side of the table. “What more bad tidings do you bring?” he asked pessimistically, noting the servant’s glum countenance as the old man settled down and placed several parchments on the table.

  Brecov glanced up at the earl and then quickly away, his thin, blue veined hands fidgeted nervously with the documents. “It’s the Saracen jewels, my lord,” he whispered at last.

  “Of course!” A wave of relief swept away all Roydon’s worries in one swoop. How could he have forgotten his grandfather’s treasure chest? He had played with the colourful bubbles often enough as a child at the older man’s feet. A solution at last; the salvation of Eagle Rock. The gold from their sale would easily carry them through the winter, after that the Holding could maintain itself.

  “What Saracen jewels?” Stefan was glad to see the relief on his friend’s face but had no idea what they spoke of.

  “My grandfather brought a small chest of jewels from the Holy Land when he returned from the Crusades,” the earl explained quickly. “When I sell them, our problems will be at an end.” The smile froze on his face the moment he turned from Stefan and saw the steward shaking his head, his eyes downcast.

  “The chest is missing, my lord.” Brecov’s voice was scarcely audible, a thin whisper of sound.

  “What!” the earl’s angry bellow reverberated through the Hall. The people by the fireplace jumped in startled fear and seemed to shrink back towards the fire. They seemed to prefer the flames behind them to the conflagration that was erupting at the Lord’s Table. The earl had risen to his feet, a murderous glare pinned the steward to his seat. “What do you mean missing?” His brief flare of hope splattered and died.

  “You are scaring the man to death, Roydon.” Stefan spoke calmly from his place beside the earl. “Let him explain.”

  The earl looked at his friend and subsided back onto his chair, raking his hair back from his brow, “Well?”

  “I noticed it missing this afternoon when you left, my lord, but it could have been removed days, even weeks ago.” The steward shrugged his shoulders. “It is kept in a bigger chest in the estate chamber where we were today. I too had forgotten its existence, until you left. I planned to bring it to you now but when I went to get it, it was gone.”

  “Who has access to that chamber?” Stefan asked sharply.

  “Only my lord and I have keys to both the door and the big chest, Sir Stefan,” admitted the steward. Unconsciously he clutched the bunch of keys that dangled from his belt. “No one else could have gotten into the chamber.”

  “I do not believe my father would have given the jewels away too!” Roydon asserted. “He would have been mad to do so.”

  “Lord Jayden was sane until the
moment he fell from his horse and died.” The steward’s voice rose in defence of his old master. “He must have hidden the jewels somewhere.”

  “And that is the act of a sane man?” Roydon challenged the steward. “That and ruining the Holding?”

  “The master did not expect to die. He eagerly awaited your arrival, my lord.” Tears trickled down the old man’s cheeks. “He would never have done anything to hurt you or Eagle Rock. He was stubborn and he liked to get his own way, but he loved you.”

  “I know,” Roydon said quietly, moved by Brecov’s tears. “If only the king had not detained me for those extra three months…” he left the thought unfinished.

  The steward leaned forward then, his hand pushing the documents across the table towards the earl. “I found these the day after Lord Jayden’s death, the day you arrived, while I was drawing up an accounting for your inspection.” Brecov’s hand trembled slightly as it rested for a moment on the parchments. “They might throw some light on Lord Jayden’s actions.”

  “You did not think to show them to me before?” a frown marred Roydon’s forehead, an angry glitter in his eyes.

  “The way you have been acting, it’s a wonder the poor man can even speak to you. You frighten him to death.” Stefan interrupted before the earl lost his temper, again.

  “The way I have been acting?” Roydon looked incredulously at his friend. “I come home after twelve years, just in time to bury my father and find that the Holding, my heritage, has been deliberately destroyed by said loving father and it is I that am behaving strangely?”

  Stefan grinned ruefully at the earl as he tried to diffuse his friend’s anger. “When you put it like that…but still it’s no excuse to terrorize your steward. Knightly vows and so on.”

  Roydon shook his head at his friend as he picked up the first document. Nevertheless he knew that Stefan’s intervention had achieved what he had set out to do. The anger still simmered, but now under control.

  Not for long. The moment Roydon realized what he was reading the anger burst forth again, with a vengeance. “The stubborn, obstinate, persistent fool! How could he do this to me? It’s insane!” The earl crushed the document down on the table, his face livid with rage and incomprehension. “He has done all this on purpose, to spite me, to get his own way.”

  The people by the fireplace had obviously given up on finding rest any time soon. They huddled back against each other as if the force of their lord’s anger beat against them.

  Brecov stood and faced the earl, even leaning towards him across the table. “Surely not to spite you, my lord,” he said in a trembling voice, unsure how he found the courage to contradict his lord. “He only wanted to see you settled. He wanted grandchildren,” the steward finished sadly for what could now never be. Slowly he sunk back onto the bench.

  The reminder felt like a dousing of cold water. Roydon fell back in his seat, the anger draining out of him as realisation hit. His father would never know his grandchildren. He thought back to the arguments they had had over the years, always about the same subject. Ever since his twentieth year his father had been urging him to marry, to secure the earldom. He argued back that there would be plenty of time once he left the king’s service; when he came home to Eagle Rock. His father had only been two score and twelve; there should have been plenty of time for him to enjoy his grandchildren.

  “A betrothal contract?” Stefan’s question brought Roydon out of his thoughts. “I don’t understand,” he looked up from the document that he had picked up from the table.

  “I wrote my father that I would spend a year settling in, enjoying all this,” Roydon waved his hand around, encompassing not only the castle but the land and the mountain, “before I went looking for a bride. He decided otherwise.” Sadness and regret overshadowed the earl’s anger now.

  “You mean he actually impoverished the estate so that you had to get married immediately?” Stefan’s jaw dropped in disbelief.

  “Not impoverish. He made long term investments and he hid the jewels. We will probably never find them now,” Roydon added as an afterthought. “Then he arranged my betrothal, the only thing that could save Eagle Rock. It would have left me no choice. The bride’s dowry must be considerable.”

  Stefan drew the other document towards him, a low whistle preceded his words. “The settlement is more than generous. It will certainly solve all your problems.”

  “Yes, and after all his planning, father will not be here to witness the results of his machinations.”

  “What are you going to do, Roy?”

  “I honestly do not know.” Roydon shook his head. “I do not seem to have much choice. I will make a decision tomorrow,” he turned to the steward. “That will be all, Brecov.” A degree of coldness imbued the earl’s tone as he dismissed the man. He had not forgotten the steward’s failure to tell him of the betrothal contract sooner. “I will speak to you in the morning.”

  Brecov rose slowly from the bench, gathering his robes around him, his eyes downcast. He felt the earl’s displeasure acutely. “As you wish, my lord,” he said quietly before he shuffled away.

  “Don’t be too hard on him, Roy. He must have been…concerned at how you would take the news,” Stefan paused. “You have been rather volatile lately.”

  “Do you blame me?”

  “No, not really, but you do realise that you have another problem now, depending on what you do?”

  “Another problem?” The earl looked at his friend blankly. “I’m afraid I am not at my best right now. But by all means enlighten me. What is one more problem?”

  Stefan smiled grimly. “Lord Reinhart the earl of the Northern Provinces, your betrothed’s father, is a very powerful man. Breaking the contract and rejecting his daughter would not be very advisable.”

  Roydon sighed as he unconsciously raked a hand through his hair again; something he did when worried or angry. “To put it mildly, my father aimed high.”

  “You are not a bad catch yourself, Roy. Under normal circumstances it would be a great alliance. It could still be. You are his equal in rank and property.”

  “But not in wealth. Not anymore.”

  Stefan waved his hand. “A question of time only. Until the investments give fruit, no one need know. You know you are the most sought after bachelor at court.”

  “Yes, for my title and my lands; ambitious, power seeking parents. I wanted something different, something more.” Roydon finished off the wine in his cup.

  “I always knew you were a romantic at heart, Roy, but very few nobles marry for love. We marry for power and alliances, for wealth and advancement, you know this.”

  “Love? No, that is a concept for women and jougleurs,” the earl said softly. “I would have settled for affection and caring. A simple undemanding girl to make me forget all the death and destruction of war.” Roydon smiled ruefully at his friend. “I think the wine is making me speak nonsense. I had best retire before I become maudlin and you decide to leave this pile of rocks for better company.”

  “You might still get the girl you wish for.”

  “Do you really believe that?” The earl rose to his feet. “An earl’s daughter? My countess will be a proud, spoiled, grasping, demanding, arrogant…”

  “Enough,” Stefan interrupted his friend, his hands raised as if seeking protection. He could not help the slight twitching of his lips as he sought to control his smile. “You are running out of adjectives. No woman could be that bad!”

  The earl glowered down at his friend. “You have been to court, have you not? I could add a few more adjectives to describe the noble ladies there. Wanton, self-gratifying women who think nothing of betraying and cheating on their husbands. Do not deny it; we have both taken advantage of it.”

  “We took what they offered. Most of the husbands there did not know or didn’t care, they already had their heirs. Besides these are older, married women or widows we are talking about,” finished Stefan, serious once again. “There is no
comparison.”

  “How do you know that my betrothed is not old, it says nothing in the contract. All we know is that her name is Emma.”

  “Your father would not do that to you…”

  “He has done far worse,” Roydon interrupted quietly, hurt and regret in his voice. He stood behind the high-backed chair he had just vacated, his big callused hands sliding, almost caressing the polished wood. This had been his father’s chair, the Lord of Eagle Rock’s chair; his chair now.

  “True,” admitted Stefan, “but his intensions were good. There was no malice in his actions and remember that he wanted grandchildren. She cannot be too old and even if all the rest that you say is true, you will still be her lord and husband. Your word will be law.”

  “As I said before, no peace. I will not be a cuckold. What is mine I keep,” the earl stated forcefully.

  “Good God, Roy!” Stefan exclaimed. “You are not married, haven’t even met the girl yet and already you imagine her betraying you.” He rose from his seat, a smile again teasing the corners of his mouth. “If you cannot control your lady, be sure that I, as your friend and commander of your forces, will do my utmost to defend and protect your honour.”

  Stefan pounded the earl on his back. “You now have a solution to save your holdings. The alternative is to sell part of the estate, sell the lands that maintain it.” Having brought up what Roydon had been loath to even think about all day, the knight walked away.

  Sell his land! Unthinkable. It would be like parting with one of his limbs, a part of himself. Besides, it would not be practicable. As Stefan had said, it was the crops, the fruits of the rich land, which maintained the castle, fed the serfs and provided the soldiers to protect it all. Without the land there would be no Eagle Rock.

  Slowly the earl released the punishing grip on the chair that the mere thought provoked. The mark of his nails on the wood a testimony to his strong emotion. He would not sell or decimate his home, his heritage, his mountain. Anything was better than that. The moment he had learnt of the betrothal he had known what he must do. He had no choice.