She trusted Zander would not require forfeit of her father’s arms, not that there was much to gain from them. Still, she could sell them and perhaps pay the fee that was named for a burial. Sick at heart by how the sun moved so relentlessly through the sky, she made her way back to her camp.
She ducked inside to find her father on his pallet, with his arm slung over his forehead and his boots off. He looked to be sleeping, but he moved his arm and gazed down his body at where she stood.
“Come sit with me, Elinor, so I can see you.”
She sat on the edge of his pallet, near his hip. The wound that had caused his leg pain had happened right here, a deep gash from a Saracen’s sword that broke through the mail to cut him deeply. It had healed while he was in France, but not well, and it pulled forever now.
“We’ll be in the money by tonight,” he said. “Once I take his armor and horses.”
She closed her eyes to hold in the tears.
“Where did that other plate come from?” he asked.
“A man brought it. A knight. He said he did not want you fighting without good protection. He said you should have better if you met Zander on the field.”
His gaze found her again. “Zander. You speak of him with familiarity.”
“We were children together. I will always think of him by that name.”
“You are not children now. I’ll not have you weep for him when this is over, Elinor. He has dishonored me and must pay.”
“I will not weep for him.”
He seemed to accept her answer as obedience to his will.
“Father, can you not stop this? Or at least tell the lord you do not require it be to the death?”
“To turn back now would be cowardly. I’ll not have men say that of me.”
Something in his voice said he might have chosen differently if the decision came to him at this time.
“Perhaps Z—Sir Alexander would be willing to find a way that would not make either of you appear a coward.”
“I’ll not be asking such as him for favors.”
“Not a favor. A mutually useful change, that is all. You can still defeat him and still take his horse and arms.”
He did not speak for a while. Then he shook his head.
“Do you want me to rub the salve on your hip?”
“I already did it.”
She wished he had waited for her so she could care for him one last time. “You never told me how the wound happened.”
He sighed. “The Saracens have these curved swords. Damascus steel, many of them. More steel than we ever had. This horse came upon me without warning. I was lucky I kept my head. But that devil’s sword swung low and caught me here. I could tell it bit through the mail.”
“You were with those other knights then?”
“We were still together. Others saw me fall. But they began to fall back when an order came from Richard. They left me there.”
“I have never understood why they would do that. You were one of them.”
“Cowards is why. All of them, from king down to squire.”
She took his hand in hers. He gripped hers tightly.
“Did no one try to help you? No one at all? That surprises me.”
He fell silent.
“Father?”
“Seems one of them may have picked me up and tried to help. I don’t remember it too well. That sword had stunned me, and the Saracen’s horse pushed me over. Even so, it did not last, and they ran and left me there to die. That Frank found me first, and for that I am grateful since I kept my head, but he proved to be a blackguard looking only to profit off me.”
It had not been a ransom as such demanded since the Frank fought on the same side as her father. The message that came said her father had promised to compensate the Frank for saving him and getting him to safety, and for passage home. Even so, it had been a large sum, and she did not think her father had named that amount in any negotiations.
“Father, is it possible that they did not leave you so much as you left them? To go back and fight? If you believed the battle was not lost, perhaps.”
A silence met that question, one that was deep and hollow and full of trembling anger. Then suddenly, to her astonishment, her father began to cry.
“I might have. I see fallen Saracens, and their helmets and swords and . . . I may have. I was found amidst those bodies.”
“Perhaps you returned and fought again and brought all of them down.”
He nodded. “Quite likely.”
“If so, you were not left behind. You chose to stay behind. If there is even some possibility of that, you must not fight today. You must stand down.”
“What would I say? That I may have got it wrong and that maybe it was different? They will all say that I am not only lame but entering my second childhood.” He sat up and shook his head. “It would not be honorable. I have challenged a man, and I will meet him. There are those expecting me to.”
“Father—”
“No. Do not speak of this again.” He lay back down. “Now, let me rest, but be here to help me with my hauberk.”
Furious and distraught, Elinor ran out of the tent. She stumbled her way among the pavilions until she arrived at Zander’s. She pushed through the flap and found him sitting on a stool, drawing absently in the dirt with a stick.
He looked up at her, and her heart broke. Longing in those eyes, and already regret.
“You should not be here, Elinor.”
“Where else would
