CHAPTER ONE
Year of Our Lord 1270
The Month of June
Tower of London
Summer days and summer stars,
And a deep blue sea that glistens like silver.
All at once, the past has turned to shadow,
And the future gleams like diamonds.
~ Welsh folk song, circa 14th century
Summer days and summer stars, he was humming to himself as he took a swing at a novice soldier who had only recently arrived in London as part of a contingent of men contributed by the Earl of Rutland. The young soldier was terrified of the big, seasoned knight and took to cowering rather than fighting back, as he was supposed to.
This was training time, after all.
Whoosh!
The knight’s sword met with no resistance. Bored, he kicked out a booted foot and caught the soldier squarely in the chest.
Down he went.
Thump!
The knight had been so bored that he’d been thinking of that song from his youth, from his carefree days as a child growing up on the marches. Kent de Poyer hadn’t thought of those times, those easy times, in years. The song had been taught to him by an old Welsh nurse who had coddled him and his siblings, babied them, and then tried to poison them. She’d ended up with her head on a pike and her body thrown into the moat surrounding Tyr Castle.
In her case, it was a fitting end.
Strange he’d thought of that at this moment.
“That is how you do not fight when in battle against a knight,” he shouted to the one hundred or so new soldier recruits around him. “We have been practicing battle tactics for the better part of a month, and if you idiots do not start learning something, I’m going to send the lot of you back where you came from.”
The group was properly subdued by the scolding. Given the fact that they were at the Tower of London, a more inelegant and military locale than Westminster Palace a couple of miles downriver, they were surrounded by the might of England perhaps more than any other location in the country. The Tower reeked of history and death, the remnants of the energy of men who had fought, and died, there. Here they were, surrounded by greatness, and the knight in command—one of six that comprised the king’s personal guard—was telling them that their fighting abilities, and the basic ability to learn, were shite.
Given the demonstration they just saw, the man wasn’t wrong.
It wasn’t as if Kent didn’t know what they were thinking simply by the expressions on their faces. A lot of fear, but also some determination. A knight was only as good as his instincts and training, and as he looked at the individual faces, he could see those who were willing to learn. Willing to fight. Those were the men he wanted for the royal troops.
He pointed to one of them.
“You, there,” he said to a young man in the front row. “What’s your name?”
The lad, tall and skinny with a thatched pile of blond hair on his head, looked terrified that he’d been singled out but, to his credit, quickly responded.
“Alvis, my lord,” he said.
“Where are you from, Alvis?”
“Uppingham, my lord.”
“What is your father’s vocation in life?”
The young man cocked his head curiously. “Vo-vo…?”
“Vocation,” Kent said. “It means trade. What does he do to put food on the table?”
The young man understood. “My father was a knight.”
Kent lifted a dark eyebrow. “Oh?” he said, puzzled. “Then what are you doing here?”
“My lord?”
“Why are you with the commoners and not following his path?”
“Because he died a long time ago,” the young man said. “I was a babe. I was sent to live with a cousin of my father’s, a man who tends cattle for Rutland. This is as good as it will be for me, in the king’s army, so I will do the best that I can with it. I will be a good fighter, my lord. I will work hard at it.”
That changed Kent’s opinion of the young man, just a little. He wasn’t afraid to look him in the eye and tell him about his life without sadness or drama. Simply facts. Kent appreciated the straightforward approach without any complaint. He looked the young man up and down, studying him. He was tall but on the lean side. He also had enormous hands, indicative of the strength in that slender body. Though he’d cowered from Kent, with the size of those hands and feet, he could probably be taught and taught well. Especially if his father had been a knight.
Kent pointed to a small group standing several feet away.
“Go stand with them, Alvis,” he said.
The young man did. He moved quickly. That left Kent standing with dozens of other recruits, men he’d been teaching the basics of warfare to, but they’d been slow to learn. As he was pondering his next move, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye, seeing more seasoned knights in protection and mail coming up behind him. They had other recruits with them, instructing them to join the group that was in front of Kent.
It was a gathering of more men, donated by more warlords loyal to the king, men who would go on to comprise the king’s army. As was usual, those closest to the king were tasked with assessing the recruits and sometimes even training them. They usually had sergeants for this kind of thing, but there had been some military action lately and they were down several basic commanders. Therefore, the elite group of knights known as the Guard of Six were in charge ofthe recruits for the moment.
These were the crème de la crème of warriors, men hand-selected by the king himself. Torrande Serreaux was the first man who caught Kent’s eye. The unofficial leader of the Guard of Six, or the Six as they were commonly known, Torran was a big man with hazel eyes and a brilliant intellect. He also happened to be the Earl of Ashford, a recent title, and he smiled at Kent as he came to stand beside him. Following Torran were two more members of the Six—tall and blond Aidric St. John was gazing at the group of recruits critically while Jareth de Leybourne, the diplomat of the group, seemed a little more amiable about new men hoping for a position in the royal army.
“Ah,” Jareth said, running a seasoned eye over the rather ragtag collection. “Rutland’s contribution, I presume?”
Kent nodded. “Aye,” he said. “Farmers and peasants mostly, except for that group over there.”
He was pointing to the group that Alvis was part of, and four heads turned in that direction. “What makes those men special?” Torran asked.
“Smithies and those who have already fought with Rutland’s army,” Kent replied. “That tall, slender lad with the blond hair said his father was a knight. If that is true, he may have more potential than most.”
“What is his father’s name?”
Kent shook his head. “I’ve not asked,” he said. “That is why I had him stand aside, so he can be more thoroughly investigated.”
Torran nodded, his gaze lingering on the slender lad before he returned his focus to Kent. “Speaking of potential,” he said. “That is what I came to tell you. We may have a new knight joining our ranks.”
“Who?” Kent said. “Are you referring to de Lohr? He has been with us for months now, Torran. Our king has declared that he wanted a de Lohr in our ranks, so the Six is about to become the Seven.”
He was speaking of Stefan de Lohr, a son of the Earl of Canterbury and an extremely capable knight. Stefan had spent a good deal of time in London, on behalf of his father, and he’d assisted in some skirmishes, something the king had been impressed with. A de Lohr had served the Crown, closely to the king, for more than sixty years, and Henry very much wanted Stefan to be part of his personal guard if he could wrest him away from his father.
It was just a matter of time.
But Torran shook his head to Kent’s assumption. “I am not referring to Stefan,” he said. “There is… another.”
He waggled his eyebrows as if it wasn’t, perhaps, the most ideal situation, but Kent didn’t know what he meant.
“Who else is there?” he asked, confused.
“This is an interesting situation,” Jareth said, entering the conversation on a subject he knew something about. “It seems that we are to be joined by a knight who fought with Simon de Montfort.”
That was a distinct surprise, and Kent’s brow furrowed. “By whose command?” he said, incredulous. “Does Henry know about this?”
Jareth nodded. “The command comes from Henry himself,” he said. “It seems that this knight has quite a story. He is one of the great elite who served the king several years ago, but when Henry’s sister, Eleanor, requested the protection of a skilled knight, Henry gifted this knight over to her.”
Kent still wasn’t following. “Eleanor was married to de Montfort and he had an entire stable of skilled knights,” he said. “Why did she ask this of Henry?”
Jareth shook his head. “This, I cannot know,” he said. “But in speaking with the king on this subject, he mentioned a couple of things that led me to believe Eleanor didn’t actually ask Henry for the knight. I suspect that Henry simply sent him to Eleanor.”
Kent’s frown deepened. “Why should he do that?”
Torran leaned over and lowered his voice. “Because the knight was with Margaret, Henry’s eldest daughter, when she married the young King of Scotland,” he said. “The knight was part of the delegation, and rumor had it that Margaret, even at her very young age, was infatuated with him. That gave fodder for the Scots to spread rumors about Margaret, and she wrote to her father telling him how poorly the Scots were treating her, which caused quite a bit of upheaval. Henry must have heard the rumors about Margaret’s infatuation, so he sent the knight to Eleanor to get him out of Scotland.”
“And away from Margaret,” Jareth said.
“And the man ended up serving de Montfort,” Torran finished.
Now, the situation made a little more sense. “If I remember correctly, Margaret was ten or eleven years of age when she married Alexander,” Kent said. “Are you telling me that a grown knight had an affair with a child?”
Jareth shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “Not at all—and that was Margaret’s problem. The more he ignored her, the more infatuated she became. I seem to recall hearing about the situation back when it happened and also remember hearing the knight was not at fault, in any way. But he was sent to Eleanor and, by virtue of that post, ended up serving de Montfort. Something he did not wish to do.”
Kent shook his head at the sordid tale. “And Henry wants him to serve as a personal guard,” he muttered. Then he shook his head as if the entire thing were ridiculous. “This ought to be interesting.”
Torran nodded. “The man has impeccable lineage,” he said. “His father is one of the greatest knights in the north of England, but it is a complicated tale. Britt and Dirk have been with him today, at Henry’s request, and they are to bring him out here at some point. I will tell you the rest of the knight’s story later because I do not want him to hear us talking about him if he comes around whilst we are in discussion.”
He started looking around to ensure Britt de Garr and Dirk d’Vant, the last of the Six, weren’t somewhere nearby with this mysterious knight, and Kent didn’t ask any further questions. The situation seemed strange enough with a new knight who had once served the king’s greatest enemy.
Things were indeed changing.
“Considering what we all went through in the battle against de Montfort, I’m not exactly sure how comfortable I am at the prospect of serving alongside a knight who was once my enemy,” he muttered. “But I suppose that does not matter now. I will continue to serve at the pleasure of the king and do as I am told. That includes assessing these recruits before we finally turn them over to those who will properly train them, so let me get on with it.”
Aidric, a tall man with shoulder-length hair, came out from behind Torran and put his hand on Kent’s shoulder. “And I will help you,” he said, sensing Kent’s frustration. “Truthfully, I think we’ve done all we can with this group, but I am interested in the ones you have pulled aside. Given the seasoned soldiers we’ve lost over the past several years to de Montfort wars, discovering men with some command ability would be helpful.”
Kent nodded. “Agreed,” he said, letting Aidric soothe his irritation. “In fact, let us—”
He was cut off by a messenger wearing royal silks. The king had a small legion of messengers and the man approaching was very much out of place in a military situation. Either a clerk or an academic, the man dodged men and horses as he shouted again.
“De Poyer!” he called. “I seek Kent de Poyer!”
“Here,” Kent said, heading in the man’s direction. When he recognized the older man with the closely shorn hair who smelled heavily of perfume, he lifted a disapproving eyebrow. “What is it, Orly? I’m very busy at the moment.”
The messenger could see the situation for himself. “I know, my lord,” he said, distaste in his expression. “Better you than me, I must say. I detest the Tower. So… uncivilized.”
Kent found himself fighting off a grin at the snobbish messenger. “I am sure it detests you, also,” he said. “Did you come here just to insult this mighty bastion?”
Orly shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “I come from the king, my lord. He has summoned you.”
“Now?”
“Now,” he confirmed. “I have also been sent to fetch Ashford.”
He was referring to Torran, who heard him. He’d only just left Henry that morning and had been hoping for a little reprieve, but it was not to be. Knowing he couldn’t get out of a direct summons, Torran moved to follow Kent as Aidric and Jareth stepped in to take charge of the recruits. Aidric immediately began shouting orders, whipping the group into a frenzy. He believed that a man’s body should be fit and strong, so the vast majority of his role with the recruits was assessing physical strength. He ordered the entire collective to begin running, and shortly the bailey was full of hustling men. With Kent and Torran on their way to Westminster Palace, the recruits were in the hands of new masters.
The truth was that Kent’s busy day was about to take a dramatic turn.
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2025 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
