Midnight Magic Read Free

dragon’s claws.
    Oddly enough, though sizable, the ring didn’t sit as heavily on his hand as Alberic thought it should. Odder still, it fitted as though a goldsmith had made it especially for his finger—loose enough to twirl but snug enough to stay on.
    “A handsome gift,” Chester commented, still frowning in disapproval. Though the earl stared at the ring, clearly he meant the entire royal gift.
    Alberic bent over and wiped the blood from his sword on the long grass, his stomach tightening as it always did when he spoke to Chester.
    “A handsome gift, indeed. My mind would be easier about accepting it all if I knew what game the king plays.”
    The earl shrugged a broad shoulder. “Simple enough. He believes he has now purchased your loyalty, and thereby firmly fixed mine.”
    Then the king believed wrongly, the grandiose gift given for naught. Alberic glanced at the bodies of the baron and his son. The two had fought and died together for the same cause, loyal to each other to the very end. With either father or son, the king might have struck a bargain and gained the cooperation of the other. The same steadfastness could not be assumed regarding Ranulf de Gernons and his bastard.
    “Then the king does not know you very well.”
    “Nay, he does not. I wish you good fortune in claiming your prize.”
    The earl walked off, shouting orders to his men to fetch carts to carry the wounded, to begin burying the dead, to march the prisoners back to camp.
    Prisoners Alberic would soon have to take charge of.
    He took a deeper than normal breath, the problems associated with his new position beginning to surface. The faces of the men he’d recently fought against twisted with varying degrees of defeat, anger, resentment, and despair.
    He needed only one of Sir Hugh’s soldiers to lead him to Camelen. Would it be the pikeman who sat cross-legged in the mud, his head bowed into his hands, or the elderly knight who might understand that a man submitted to shifts of circumstances and accepted the changes wrought by war? Surely, if one man of Camelen swore allegiance to the new lord, others might, too, if only for the chance to return home.
    Not that he could wholly trust the word of a one of them.
    Accepting the king’s gifts had been as easy as taking an oath; gaining possession of them wouldn’t be so simple. Not only did he have to get to Camelen, but somehow get through the gate without someone on the battlements taking umbrage and shooting an arrow through his heart.
    Alberic again inspected the ring, the garnet winking at him from atop the onyx, the dragon’s claws seeming to dig deep into his gut. He’d come by the ring and Camelen fairly and honestly, but he knew others would feel he’d stolen them.
    Too bad. Camelen was now his, and he would make his claim. How to go about it merely required a bit of careful thought and planning, something he was very good at.
    Atop Camelen’s battlements, Gwendolyn de Leon adjusted the ill-fitting helm in a vain attempt to keep the nose guard from interfering with her sight.
    She understood Sir Sedwick’s insistence that she wear the helm—and the shirt of chain mail her brother had worn as a young squire—whenever she ventured onto the battlements. During times of war one took precautions against threats. Except she saw no immediate danger to either Camelen or her person, merely two knights atop palfreys riding over the field separating the castle from the woodland beyond. One of the two, Sir Garrett, she had no trouble identifying.
    For a few moments she focused on the woodland, hoping either her father or her brother would emerge, too. Neither did.
    “I do not like the looks of this, my lady,” Sedwick grumbled from beside her.
    Her attention forced back to the field, Gwendolyn conceded that Sir Garrett shouldn’t be here, but rather with her father and brother defending Wallingford.
    “Perhaps Father sent Garrett home with a message.”
    In answer to her