King's Warrior (Renegade Lords)

Fáelán turned his head slowly to peer into the other room, where Maggie sat. “You want us to care for your woman?”

“And I need to find the earl of Huntington.”

“Why?”

Tadhg turned his head away faintly, shook it a little, and blew out a long, thin breath. He said nothing. It was a very definite nothing.

Fáe’s chin came up, the slash of a smile cut across his lightly-bearded face as he waited.

Let him wait. Too many years had passed, too much had been seen and done, for Fáelán’s commanding presence to be decree any more. Tadhg was no longer their errand boy, nor their little brother, nor the lord of mud. He was the king’s man, and his own.

Their gazes held and the silence extended.

Fáelán turned on his heel and started out of the room. Beyond him, Tadhg could see Maggie sitting, staring down the length of the room at him, trusting him to manage this. To save her.

“Wait,” he growled from between gritted teeth, looking down at the ground.

Fáelán stopped but didn’t turn.

Tadhg pulled out the ruby dagger and laid it in the table.

Fáelán came back in, Máel rose from his seat, and Rowan pushed his shoulder off the wall. They all stood around the table and stared down at the thing, silver-steel sharp, the blood-red ruby in its hilt glowing in the firelight.

“Christ’s mercy,” Rowan muttered. “That is a monster ruby.”

Máel was the first to reach for it, of course. “Worth a fortune.”

“I know who’d pay,” Rowan said.

Máel smiled. “I know who’d pay more.”

“That is the king’s,” Fáelán said flatly. They all looked at him, but he was staring at Tadhg. “Why are you here in England, with the king’s ruby in this strange dagger, and not with your beloved king?”

Tadhg let out a long breath, and sat down. “That is an awful long story, brother.”

Fáelán pulled out a bench opposite and dropped onto it. “It has been some long time since I heard one of your tales, brother.” He kicked his boots up on the table and held his arms out to the sides, hands wide. “I am all ears.”

Unwise as it might be to tell these opportunistic mercenaries about his adventures, they’d once been his brothers in arms, through many trials and tribulations. They’d saved each others’ lives more times than he could count. And while Tadhg could lie to the pope with a clear conscience, he could not, unfortunately, lie to them.

So, in the end, he had no choice: he told them everything.

Fáelán’s pale, pewter blue eyes, the mark of true Rardove heirs for centuries, peered at him, impassive. The others listened and looked between Tadhg and Fáelán as the silence stretched out.

In the other room, they could hear Maggie’s soft voice, talking to someone.

The gentle, airy sound seemed to make them all restless, as if some sort of spell had been cast from the other room. Máel glared at her darkly, then pushed away from the table and began pacing. Rowan scowled at the tabletop, his hand restless at the hilt of a blade in his belt. Fáelán looked slowly into the other room, too, then back at the dagger.

Then he smiled, slowly. It was a cold thing, frozen steel bending under great pressure. “So, you want help to save your wretched king?”

Tadhg’s jaw tightened.

“Why do you not go to your noble friends?”

“I cannot. I cannot find William the Marshal. Prince John has claimed Richard is dead. He and the French king are raising an army. The nobles are torn in two. They are turning from him. All the king’s men are falling away.”

“As should you.”

“How do you know Huntingdon is still loyal?” Máel asked from his stance against the wall. “He might have turned too.”