“If you are looking for Zander, find the tall Norseman. He is nearby.”
Her gaze swung to the tallest knight on the field, and she found Zander fighting nearby. Already he had one opponent down.
“It looks dangerous,” she murmured.
“Of course, it’s dangerous,” her father said after a big laugh. “There’s no fun if it isn’t, daughter.”
She hoped it wasn’t too dangerous. It would be stupid for Zander to get himself mortally wounded in this melee after he had secured his future and fortune earlier in the week.
That thought had her squinting hard, so she kept him in sight. Any notion of leaving this wall after a short while left her mind.
She lifted her mantle and draped her head, pulling the edge low and the sides forward to shield her face from the sun, and settled in to watch the game of war below.
Angus entered the pavilion while Zander washed the river water off. Like many others, Zander had bathed in the river to remove the worst of the dust and sweat, but he did not want to attend the feast smelling of fish either.
Angus had returned from ransoming the last of the spoils from the forfeits. “You didn’t rest long,” Angus said. “No more than two hours.”
“I did not need more sleep, and I have something to do before the feast.” He glanced at the small leather sack Angus carried. “How much?”
Angus dropped the purse into his hand. “More than you will gain from the prize. You will leave a rich man. And there are those two palfreys you said to keep if you change your mind. They will bring good sums too, and we really don’t need them.”
“I’m fond of them.”
“As you wish.”
Zander fished six marks out of the purse. He dropped them on Angus’s pallet. “For you and one for Harold.”
Surprise showed in Angus’s eyes. “That is generous. Like most men, I can use it.”
“It is generosity to Harold, who has barely earned his keep. It is gratitude to you.”
Angus laid out the fine, clean, green tunic Zander would wear to the feast, then set a crockery bowl of warm water outside on a stool. He placed a highly polished metal plate and a honed blade there too. Zander sat on another stool and began shaving.
“You want me to do that?” Angus asked.
Zander shook his head. “Go to Sir Hugo. Ask him to join me in the tavern before we go to the hall for the feast. I need to make sure he doesn’t plan any surprises or becomes belligerent again if he drinks too much.”
“I’d think he’d be done with that, seeing as how you neglected to kill him.”
Zander scraped at his beard. “I want to be certain. If he will raise a tumbler with me, all is well. If he won’t, I’ll know he still harbors ill will toward me.”
Elinor waited impatiently, pacing outside the tent. Her father had disappeared without saying where he was going. Now it was getting late. Almost everyone had already started toward the castle.
She wore her blue dress, and the crimson veil and silver circlet. Her colors would match her father’s. She did not expect cheering when they entered the Great Hall, but she hoped they would not face anything humiliating either. A man who issued a challenge to the death, then lost and lived, was not a popular person.
The nearby encampments had emptied already, the knights and their squires making an early start to the free food and ale waiting. None of those men, not even Sir Lionel, had visited her father last night or today.
Maybe he had ceased being of use to them. Had they really expected him to best Zander in that challenge? To kill The Devil’s Blade? She found that hard to believe. Of course, perhaps they had not expected her father to take it so far.
She wished she could be sure that her father would honor his promise not to involve himself in any adventures regarding the royal brothers. She feared all that talk and flattery in that circle of knights had been very appealing, however. They had offered friendship, respect, and a cause. The notion of being useful again had blinded him to how they sought only to use him.
She would be happy when they left this place, and those men and their influence. She would not mind returning to the home they knew, and the people who remembered her father as the warrior he had once been.
The last of the stragglers walked past her, aiming for the dirt road up to the castle. It was time to find her father. She would start at the tavern.
She turned away from the tent, to do just that, when laughter reached her ears. Two men came toward her, angling through the camps. She recognized her father’s limp and saw that his companion was Zander.
“You are late,” she said when they reached her.
“We were just having a bit of ale, daughter.” He looked at Zander and grinned. “She can be a bit of a scold. Not shrewish as such. Not too much, at least.”
“She isn’t scolding me,” Zander said. “You are the one who is late.”
“You are as well,” she said. “Let us make haste. It would be a fine thing if the champion were not there when the prize is given.”
She set off with long strides. They followed, side by side. Her father muttered something. Both he and Zander giggled.
She turned on them, hands on hips. “You are drunk already.”
“Not hardly,” Zander said.
Her father nodded. “Not even half so.”
Zander stepped around her and continued walking. “Come along, or we will be late.”
She all but grabbed her father’s tunic and set off again.
“We were remembering old times,” her father said. “He had some clumsy moments as a squire.”
“And you were reminding him of those?”
“They were funny,” he said defensively.
They had to dodge through bodies to reach the castle entrance, then squeeze through more to get to the Great Hall. Already some guests sat there.
