Crown of the Realm (A White Knight Adventure Book 2) by Jude Chapman Page B

ignorance, tried to conjure the power of those gods, believing as men believed today, that ritual, obeisance, and empty promises would dispel the fear, fill them with power, and make them just as invincible. It was a tantalizing thought. And a fool’s game. Man was weak, especially when there were other men who could subjugate them at will.
    Above, the dome of heaven and the twinkling stars watched th is lone man, this knight who thought himself invincible mere days before but was now bereft of kin, heart, and soul, wail at the moon and rail against the fates that had brought him to this fork in the road, where no direction was the right direction. He flailed at the fire with his wooden sword and tried to attack those who would dare make his brother a pawn in an unwinnable game. He regretted the day when he believed being a knight gave him stature, meaning, and a place in the world. Out here in the wilderness—cut off from those he held most dear—he was merely a man gripping a sword that could not inflict mortal wounds against his enemies but only against his friends and his king.
    Diminished in size and stature, and rendered into a helpless child, he cried out against his fate. After the anguish had been spent, he turned into a beast, wounded and feral, and yowled with the wolves until they sang together.
    Their complaints died on a whimper. The flames burned the night away. Drake expended his grief in the same way and awoke with the cool sun tickling his brow. A chaffinch greeted the dawn with song. An osprey dived for the catch of the morning. A woodpecker burrowed safe haven into a nearby birch.
    The campfire smoldered, and Drake again fed it with deliberation. He broke his fast with a leveret, sacrificed with bow and arrow. And tormented himself with the notion that he was probably destined for Hell by breaking the Lenten fast. Until he remembered that he was destined for Hell anyway—for his heathen ways and his unbelief—and so what did it matter, a little meat for his belly when his soul was starving.
    He slept again in the quiet of the day. Toward evening , biting spring showers descended. He huddled beneath a horse blanket and stared blankly out at the woods, teeming with living things. And contemplated death. The death of his brother, which would mean the death of himself. Or the death of his king, which likewise would mean the death of himself. And the death of the woman he loved beyond all other women, for by now, Aveline must be dead or wished she were.
    The sky cleared. Night overturned day. And he prayed. A heathen praying is a pitiful critter, for it means he has run out of hope and turned to walk the only path left him. Knowing himself to be a fraud, he grasped the silver crucifix Aveline had given him as a talisman against danger and mouthed words he learnt as a child, words unspoken for nearly a decade, and prayed for deliverance.
    Finally he settled down beneath a blanket of leaves and wool and slept the sleep of the damned. His future was laid out. He saw no other way. Come failure or success, his life as he knew it was over. If he had to sacrifice one, let it be his king. For if he let his brother die, he might as well take the dagger to his chest, here and now.

~ Part II ~
    Where Love Gets Its Name 
    Love gets its name (amor) from the word for hook (amus), which means ‘to capture’ or ‘to be captured’, for he who is in love is captured in the chains of desire and wishes to capture someone else with his hook.
    Saturday, the 31st of March, in the Year of Grace 1190

Chapter 11  
    STRETCHING ALONG A steep plateau overlooking the River Vienne, Chinon Castle had once belonged to the great comtes of Blois who, as a gift of solidarity in the year 1044, gave the castle to Richard’s grandfather. Passed on from father to son to grandson, Chinon became the favored palace of Old King Henry, and now of Richard.
    Before memory , a village had sprung up along the snug southern reaches between castle