CHAPTER ONE
“My lord! My lord!”
Heedless of the shout, Sir Berenger Brewere stood staring into the distant hills. Although the peaks were too far away and hardly steep, they rose taller than the surrounding lands. And yet he surveyed those nearby with a mixture of pride and longing. There were no mountains here, no rocky crags, only gently rolling slopes. But all of it is mine.
“Sir Brewere!” The use of his surname roused Beren at last, and he turned slowly to cover his lapse. How many years would it take him to recognize his own title? King Edward had bestowed upon him the barony and fiefdom for services rendered during the war in Wales, and Beren lived like a lord. Why could he not answer as one?
Beren sighed, moving away from the heights to the young squire who shouted to him so eagerly. What had sent the boy racing to find him? A call to arms? A visit from the king? Farman, a youth Beren had plucked from obscurity, was too easily excited. Whatever it was, Beren suspected he would have to put aside his half-formed plans to view the distant hills more closely and attend to some business of knighthood, whether it be war or justice that commanded his attention.
Farman halted before him, a bit breathless after his run from the castle to the grassy bank where Beren waited. “’Tis a messenger, my lord, bidding you away!”
’Twas from the king then, Beren thought. In years past, he had served other lords, but now he was vassal to none except Edward himself.
“A summons to court?” Beren asked. He was not certain where the king was in residence, but he knew the place would likely be overrun by fools and greedy, jealous courtiers—a situation he little liked. But Beren hid his distaste from his squire as he began to stride back toward the castle that bespoke his allegiance, if not to the court, to Edward himself.
“No!” Farman said. “’Tis a summons, aright, but not from the king. ’Tis a demand that you go at once to a place called Brandeth, at the behest of someone called St. Leger.”
For a moment, all around Beren faded away at the mention of his old patron, Clement St. Leger. He drew in a harsh breath. Brandeth. ’Twas a name he had not considered in years, though he had begun his life there.
“The messenger was a bold fellow,” Farman said in an outraged tone. “Lest you refuse, he would remind you of your oath. ‘Recall to him his vow,’” Farman recited. “And then he left, without even waiting upon you, my lord!”
Stirred from his thoughts by Farman’s indignation, Beren glanced down to see the youth was practically in a froth that anyone, let alone a mere messenger, should fail to make the proper obeisance to Sir Berenger Brewere, knight of the realm, holder of vast lands, baron to the king. Beren smiled, for he did not take himself quite as seriously as his squire.
Farman eyed him quizzically. “’Tis a jest, then, my lord?”
Beren’s smile faded. “Nay, ’tis no jest, but a duty I am bound to fulfill.” As if pausing his pace might mire him once more in memory, Beren walked swiftly now, the squire hurrying to keep up with him.
“But who is this St. Leger? Some foreign king? I have heard naught of him,” Farman said.
“That does not make him less,” Beren said, a bit sharply. The squire was becoming too full of himself, too accustomed to visits of the mighty and royal, to recall that a man was measured neither by fame nor bloodlines.
“But why should you, the greatest knight in the land, have to wait upon him?” Farman asked, stubbornly insistent upon his master’s importance.
Beren halted, his gaze drawn to the distant peaks and beyond to that which he could not see: tall cliffs and crashing surf and a castle set amongst them. He murmured an answer, half to his squire and half to himself. “Because I swore an oath, and a knight’s vow is broken only by death.”
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