"What, just once?"

"It was enough, my friend. I will say, rather, that it was much more than enough. I was young and foolish and in love," he said those words as though they were an epithet, "and I did not do well in my selection of a mistress." Jerking his head slightly, as if suddenly aware that he had said more than he meant to, he reached out and grabbed one of the bottles off the table, knocking over two others in the process.

"I have another mistress now," he said, loudly, brandishing the bottle. "She's loyal and true and never strays far from my reach. She never fails to satisfy me; she never lets me down. She fills me to the brim with her warmth of loving kindness and she does not deceive me. Veritas in vino!" he shouted, raising the bottle high in a violent gesture that toppled him from his chair. He fell to the floor and remained there, dead drunk.

Lucas glanced down at him. "You were saying?" he said to Finn.

"On the other hand, maybe it's one of the others," Finn said.

Lucas didn't say anything. Delaney glanced at him and saw that he was staring intently out toward the center of the room. A young, elegantly dressed cavalier had come down the stairs and he was circling around the mock combat in the center of the room, heading toward the door.

Misinterpreting his stare as an effort to keep his eyes in focus, Finn rocked his chair back down, away from the wall, and set his goblet down upon the table.

"Hell," he said, "I've had about enough. What do you say we call it a night?"

Lucas glanced at him sharply. " What did you say?"

"I said, what do y

ou say we call it a night?"

Lucas rocked his chair forward so hard that the few remaining upright bottles on the table were knocked over, spilling their contents onto the floor and into Delaney's lap.

"Christ, what's with you?" said Delaney, jumping up.

Lucas stared at the door, through which the young cavalier had passed seconds earlier.

"De la Croix" he said, softly.

"What? Lucas, what's the matter with you? You look like you've just seen a ghost."

"I have," he said. "Come on."

"What? Where are we going?"

"Come on, I said! Hurry, before we lose him!"

Simon Hawke

The Timekeeper Conspiracy

"Lose who?"

"The red knight!"

"The… what?" Lucas was heading for the door, pushing his way through.

They followed the young cavalier carefully, keeping their distance and staying in the shadows.

"Lucas, are you sure?" said Finn. "It couldn't be a mistake?"

"I told you, I never forget a face," said Lucas, vehemently. "The last time I saw that face, it belonged to the woman who was with Jack Bennett. And the time before that, it was in 12th-century England."

Delaney shook his head. "That's crazy. You've had too much to drink. It's a physical resemblance, that's all. It can't be the same man!"

"Then what was he doing with Jack Bennett, an underground contact? I told you I saw that woman before. No wonder I couldn't recognize her! She was a man dressed as a woman! I'm telling you, Finn, that's Andre de la Croix!"

Finn thought back to their mission in the 12th century and to a mercenary knight who had sold his services to Prince John of Anjou. Lucas had met him in the lists at Ashby and had taken such a battering that he hadn't been able to see straight for hours.

Tags: Simon Hawke TimeWars Science Fiction
Source: readsnovelonline.net