“Dirick, you may get off the floor and rid yourself of that sword and cloak,” Henry boomed, standing to look down at him. “’Tis not as though Eleanor doesn’t understand the rudiments of traveling in haste. The woman leaves me in her tracks when we tour Aquitaine. ’Tis only when she is enceinte that she travels at a reasonable pace,”

“Indeed, Sir Dirick,” the queen’s languid tones forgave him, “’twould be unthinkable that you could offend me. Or any of my ladies, for that matter.”

Dirick murmured his thanks and pulled to his feet, smothering a groan from the ache in his knees, and unbuckled the sword from his tunic. Resting it on the floor near the door, he tore the cloak from his shoulders and dropped it atop the scabbard, then turned back to his liege.

“Sit yourself down,” Henry grumped, turning to pace across the room. “Your excessive height offends me—and in truth, you look as though you are ready to fall over.”

Dirick sank onto a stool near the crackling fire and tried to warm his hands. Henry’s sharp eyes surely did not miss the weariness and pain that lined his man’s face, but he said nothing save, “Your father is laid to rest?”

“Aye. He is laid to rest—yet I will not rest until I lay hand and sword upon the man who helped him to an early grave.” Dirick stopped his weary tongue from adding aloud the words that echoed in his mind: with or without your blessing.

“And well you should not, Dirick. I would expect no less from you. A younger son you might be, but bound with honor and determination you ever have been—at the least in my name.” Henry gestured to a wooden platter of cheese and bread. “Eat, man, before you tilt onto the floor, and I will tell you why I have summoned you.”

Eleanor thrust a goblet of ruby wine into his hand, and Dirick took it, mildly surprised that she would serve him. But he was left to reach for his own hunk of bread, and he did, tearing it from the brown loaf, and breaking off a piece of cheese as well. The wine, surely from Eleanor’s own lands of Aquitaine, went smoothly down his throat and warmed his limbs as Henry began to speak in his abrupt fashion.