Catherine Archer - Dragon's Knight

She spoke with forced cheer. “And you, Father, what of your day?”

He frowned. “The blackguards will not give me rest of late. Llewellyn’s constant efforts to plague me have been extended to his neighbors on the Welsh side of the border as well. Obviously there is some trouble brewing there, but I have been unable to glean any hint of what it might be.”

Aislynn sighed. The problems of holding the lands along the border did not abate simply because they had other worries. “Have you contacted Gwyn?”

“I have questioned your intended, but he seems to know naught, though he is deeply troubled by his neighbor’s obvious quest to wreck havoc with us all.”

Aislynn sighed again. Gwyn ap Cyrnain was the one of the few Welsh lords who had reached out in any kind of friendship to them. He had done so to the point of offering for Aislynn’s hand in marriage. Her father approved of the match and Gwyn had been a friend to Aislynn in the long years when her brother had been away. The marriage would strengthen her father’s position with Gwyn’s countrymen. She had agreed. That Gwyn seemed in no great hurry to see the matter settled suited her most well.

Gwyn was a good man, a solid man, not only in size but in heart. With him she would create a stable base about which their children would gravitate. It would be a family such as she had always wished hers had been.

To the getting of those children she gave little thought. Although Gwyn had kissed her on the day their marriage contracts were signed over a year gone by, she had felt nothing but the same filial affection toward him that she always had. She did not bemoan this fact, for she had no notion of experiencing love such as was told in tales of romance. Family was what mattered to Aislynn.

Her father sighed now, bringing her attention back to him. He said, “As you know, under normal circumstances, I do my duty here gladly. It is only now, with Christian gone and with no explanation that I chafe under the responsibilities of keeping matters in check.”

She touched his hand gently. “I understand.”

There was no more conversation between them as the trays arrived from the kitchen and the meal began.

Aislynn did not take her father’s distraction as any insult to her person. In the years she had lived alone with him he had been a good father, if somewhat preoccupied with his duties. Only after Christian’s return from the Holy Land had he been more garrulous at mealtimes. That was, until her brother’s disappearance.

Aislynn was making every effort to eat the food, when the door to the hall flew open wide, bringing on a rush of cold air.

Like all those present, she glanced up, thinking the new arrival must simply be some latecomer for the meal, and stared. For the man coming toward them was not a resident of the keep or the surroundings lands.

Aislynn was quite sure that had she seen this man about the demesne she would certainly remember it. As he moved toward them with both casual grace and alertness, she noted the exotic quality of his appearance. His hair was black as a raven’s wing, his skin darkly tanned, though most other men were paling as they all did at winter’s approach. When he halted before the high table, she saw that his eyes were no less dark than his shoulder-length hair, their centers lost in that seemingly depthless darkness.

Even before the stranger began to speak, Aislynn realized who, in fact, this man was.

Jarrod Maxwell.

She had met him once, many years ago. It had been before Christian had left on crusade. She and her father had gone to bid her brother Godspeed where he was camped with King Richard’s army. Her father had allowed her to go off with Christian, who had, of course, gone looking for his friends. They had seemed to forget her until someone had shouted out that the king had arrived. The throng had risen to watch the king pass by. It had been Jarrod Maxwell who had lifted her up on his shoulders so that she could see above the heads of the many soldiers. Everyone wanted to watch King Richard as he passed within a mere stone’s throw of them.

Though she had been but six at the time, Aislynn had not forgotten that day. Her memory of it was sharper than that of her mother, who had died three years before.

Her brother had gone into fosterage only months after her mother’s life had been taken in a tragic accident when the horse she rode stepped in a hole and tumbled upon her. Though Aislynn had been very young at the time, barely recalling her mother as more than a warm scent, Aislynn had learned her father had lost much of his joviality upon her mother’s death.

This in no way surprised Aislynn. She knew her father blamed himself for his wife’s death. The night before she’d left Bransbury for a visit to her sister’s home, he had awakened from a vivid dream that foretold her death on the journey. Yet he had been unable to convince her that she must not go. He felt that he had not tried hard enough to convince her of the danger.

But Aislynn did not wish to think on this, for it had all happened long before she could remember. She must concentrate on the man before them.

And truth to tell that did not prove difficult.

Christian had told her that his friend had been born of an Eastern woman while his father was on crusade and that he had brought the child home with him after she died. That exotic heritage was stamped on this man in not only his coloring but in the flowing ease of his stride, in the noble set of his wide shoulders, and the regal angle of his head. He was garbed as any other knight, in a burgundy velvet tunic and a flowing cape of fine wool with a dragon clasp that was fashioned in the same manner as the one her brother wore on his cape. Yet it was also easy to imagine him in the Eastern robes of the people in the many sketches Christian had drawn on his travels.

Christian had shared tales of the many women who had sought the exotic knight’s favor wherever they had gone. And suddenly as those black eyes met hers for a brief moment, Aislynn knew a feeling of resentment for all those faceless dames.

Quickly she looked away, telling herself how very mad such a thought was even as the man began to speak. “My lord Greatham, my name is Jarrod Maxwell. I have come as quickly as I could in answer to the letter concerning Christian’s disappearance.”

Her father’s tone was dull with confusion. “Letter?”

Aislynn watched from the corner of her eyes as Jarrod Maxwell nodded, a crease appearing in his brow at her father’s obvious confusion. “Aye, it came to Avington by messenger some days gone by.”

Her father said, “I sent no letter.”

Aislynn, feeling her sire’s assessing gaze upon her, looked into his blue eyes. “I sent it, Father. Christian had just returned from Avington when he set off on this mysterious quest of his, and I thought that those there might know where he had gone. Or that he might even have gone there as he has before.” Her gaze flicked to the dark knight, and away. “I cannot deny that I did hope Christian’s friends might even come to our aid. They are, after all the years they spent in the Holy Land together, as much family as we are to Christian. Besides, Christian himself once told me if there was ever any reason, I should not hesitate to call upon them as I would him.”

Her father’s voice was filled with disapproval. “Daughter, that all may be true, yet it does not explain why you would do this without consulting me?”

Jarrod Maxwell spoke up, drawing her gaze back to him. “If you will permit, my lord, I can not disagree that your daughter erred in not begging leave before writing to Avington. Yet Simon and I are indeed family to your son and come to your aid in finding him gladly.” There was a coolly assessing expression in his dark eyes as they rested upon Aislynn for a brief moment. She felt a strange sense of unrest, though she was not sure why.