“I would advise you to take it, sir,” Matt told the man. “You know the punishment for cowardice in a knight.”
Actually, he didn’t, but the enemy knight must have, for he accepted the blade and held it up to guard even as he fumbled his shield up from its hook on his saddle.
“Lay on!” Brion shouted, and struck.
Five blows later the enemy knight lay stretched on the ground.
“Shell him,” Brion grunted, “then bind his wounds and chain him. He may yet prove of some worth as a hostage. Heaven knows he had little enough as a knight.”
Then he sheathed his sword, turned his horse away, and dismounted heavily. Sergeant Brock sprang to take the shield from him, men the helmet, as Brion turned to fold Rosamund into his arms with a glad cry. She came willingly, and he buried his face in her hair, murmuring, “My lady, I feared you were lost to me!”
“I was not,” she told him, head on his shoulder. “I knew you would prevent it.”
“I would defend you against all Hell’s legions,” Brion declared fervently.
Matt didn’t doubt it, even though Brion was bound to lose—if he hadn’t had several patron saints on his side.
What else they said to one another was lost to Matt and everyone else, it was so softly spoken. Of course, it didn’t help the eavesdroppers that Sir Orizhan sternly pressed them back, saying, “Give them space, if you value the freedom of your country.”
The fishermen moved away with looks that ranged from impatience through sly grins to tenderness.
Later, as they rode behind Brion, with peasants acclaiming him loudly at every crossroads, Matt managed to press his horse up beside Rosamund’s long enough to tell her, “When they kidnapped you, he went kind of crazy.”
“Crazed?” Rosamund turned to him, suddenly intense. “In what fashion?”
“He said to cast away his crown and his kingdom, because nothing else mattered, nothing had any worth without you.”
“Did he truly?” Rosamund turned back to watch Brion with a slight smile and a glint in her eye. “Perhaps there is some truth to his troubadour’s extravagant phrases, after all.”
Nonetheless, when they pitched camp that night, and the peasants and fishermen were passing the aleskins and getting to know one another by discussing the relative merits of pruning hooks versus gaff hooks as weapons, Brion came up to Rosamund where she sat by her campfire, his armor laid aside, his manner stiff and formal. “Highness, I must ask your pardon.”
Rosamund looked up at him with a glad smile that froze as she saw the stiffness of his face. “Apologies for what, Majesty?”
Inwardly, Matt groaned.
“For presuming to show you affection,” Brion said, every word creaking, “when we cannot be betrothed.”
Rosamund went rigid. “My pardon is given, Majesty.”
This time Matt groaned aloud. “What is it with you two? Can’t you see that how you feel about each other is what really matters?”
Sudden vulnerability showed in both faces, and Brion protested, “But we cannot wed without the leave of our fathers!”
It is given, it is given! howled a voice inside Mart’s head.
Matt ignored it “Her father betrothed her to the heir to the crown of Bretanglia. Do you really think he’d take that back just because the actual person has changed?”
Brion hesitated, but Rosamund said, almost angrily, “He certainly would not!”
“But there is still my father to be considered,” Brion protested.
Loyalty can go too far, exclaimed the exasperated voice inside Matt’s head.
“All right, let’s consider your father,” Matt said. “Why does his opinion matter?”
“Why, because a prince may not wed without the permission of…” Brion’s voice trailed off as his gaze drifted away from Matt to Rosamund.
She gazed back, speechless.
“You may not marry without the permission of your king,” Matt finished for him. “But you are King of Bretanglia now. At least, you’re the rightful king, and the man who wears the crown is a usurper, brother or not!”
“Why, that is so.” Slowly, Brion knelt before Rosamund and asked, “My lady, will you marry me?”
“Oh, yes, Brion, with all my heart!” Rosamund threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, tolerating no nonsense about chaste symbols.
Matt turned away to find his pallet. After all, it had been a long day.
His last thought was wondering which spirit of perversity had come to help him when he had called for accidents during the ambush.
They marched through the countryside, and as Old Meg had predicted, peasants joined him at every crossroads. Soon there were merchants with them, then squires, then knights. No lords joined them—they had estates to consider—but several of their younger sons came in.
“Doesn’t that show the lords’ hearts are with you?” Matt asked.
“No, it shows only that they wish to be sure that no matter who wins, their families will still keep their estates,” Brion told him. “We must watch those younger sons closely, Lord Wizard. There may be traitors among them.”
Matt set his spies to watching—fishermen and peasants, and a squire or two—but they found nothing suspicious about the younger sons. In fact, they reported that the young men seemed to burn with eagerness to strike a blow against John and his reeves, for they had heard of the insults he was offering the nobility, trying already to make them bow to his tyranny.
Then at a crossroads in the wood, a dozen outlaws with bows and staves stepped out of the leaves in front of the king.
Brion leveled his lance and cried, “Declare yourselves!”
“We declare for King Brion and the welfare of the kingdom,” the foremost said. He carried himself like a nobleman, but he knelt, bowing his head.
“For Brion and Bretanglia!” his followers shouted, and likewise knelt even as the same slogan rang from the trees all about them: “For Brion and Bretanglia!”
Matt’s scalp prickled. He realized that there were a hundred archers all around them, probably with bows drawn. Worse, he realized what those bows could do, and doubted that anyone else there did.
The leader stood. “There is not a man of us who is not sickened by the slaughter and rapine with which this self-named ‘King’ John treats the common folk. There are already many among us who have fled to the greenwood because his soldiers have beaten the poor to pry from them every copper coin. There are more who have fled to us because the king’s druids have tortured and slain their families or sweethearts.”
“They are false druids,” Matt called out quickly.
Everyone turned to stare at him, but Brion confirmed, “They are false indeed! It is the true druids who saved my life!”
“Why, that makes most excellent sense,” the outlaw leader said, “for no true holy man could drench the land with blood as their chief Niobhyte has done! Down with the false druids, and up with the true king! We hail Brion as the savior of Bretanglia—if you will have us!”
“I welcome you, and am right glad of your allegiance,” Brion told them. “I cannot promise a pardon to every man, for I know not what crimes each has committed, or what his circumstances were—but I can promise you justice if we win!”
That didn’t seem to faze a single man; apparently they were all sure of their innocence, or at least of their justification. “We will depend upon your justice,” the outlaw chief said, “for you shall triumph, and the crown of Bretanglia shall rest upon your brow!”
“That shall be as God wills,” Brion told the man. “We can only strive as mightily as we can, and leave the victory to Him!”
“Ah, but a victory for Brion is a victory for God,” the outlaw returned. “None could think otherwise, who knew even half of what the soldiers and the druids have done.” Then he spun about and punched his forearm straight above his head, calling to his men, “For God and Brion!”