Dragon's Knight. Catherine Archer

do not wish to help us, please let them send word soon.”

      To hide her anxiety, she took a deep breath and schooled her features to appear calm. Stepping into the Great Hall, with its wide hearth and high, narrow windows, Aislynn gathered the strength to appear hopeful—not only for her father’s sake, but all those at Bransbury keep. As she passed through the hall, she observed, with approval, the clean, scrubbed surfaces of the trestle tables that were set up for the evening meal. Many of the castle folk had already gathered in their accustomed places, chatting as they waited for the food to arrive from the kitchen. But there was a decided solemnity to their expressions.

      She was sure they had noted their master’s recent melancholy and were moved by it, not to mention their own uncertainty at the disappearance of the heir to the lands. Strong leadership could mean the difference between peace or war. Aside from being a strong leader, her father, though a reserved and quiet man, was a fair and just overlord. These qualities made him well loved by his folk.

      Aislynn was taking her place at the high table when her father, Thomas Greatham, lord of Bransbury keep, entered with several of his men. She could see the weariness in his lean face as he removed his gloves. It was also apparent in his slow, measured step that did much to disguise his limp as he moved toward her. She was glad of the heat from the fire as the men’s entrance brought with it a breath of chill air that made gooseflesh appear on her arms even beneath the heavy sapphire velvet of her gown.

      As her father took his place, she noted a sheen of frost in his mustache. He looked to her with a hopeful expression in his periwinkle-blue eyes, eyes he had passed on to both of his children. “Any word of your brother?”

      Regret made Aislynn look down at her folded hands. She took a deep breath then faced him with a fixed smile. “Nay, Father, not yet. But I am sure he, or word of him, will come soon.” It was something she said each day and she no longer imagined that it offered any comfort.

      The naked disappointment that came over her sire’s face for a brief instant made her wish there was something, anything else she might do to help. There was nothing.

      Not for the first time she considered telling him about the letter she had sent to Christian’s friends. She dismissed the notion instantly. There had been no reply. Better that he not know in the event that no word came. Not only might he be angry with her for sending it, he would surely be even more disheartened.

      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