breach of the Tower of London. But in doing so, word had come back to The Marshal that de Lara’s position had finally been compromised and that his role as a spy had been discovered. King John was fighting a losing battle against his barons and the Executioner Knights had moved with their armies to shore up the Tower and force the king into compliance.
But first, they had to find de Lara before John’s assassins did.
None of them was more aware of that than Kevin de Lara. It was his brother they were hunting for on this inky night, when friend and foe was so difficult to see because of the moonless sky. There were torches all over the grounds of the Tower of London to stave off the darkness, but it was still difficult.
Kevin was in a panic.
He was looking at every face, every figure, in the hunt for his brother. Around him, his friends and colleagues, were doing the same thing – searching, hunting, for the greatest spy in The Marshal’s stable. Somewhere in the process, they had lost sight of The Marshal himself, for the man seemed to have disappeared.
“This way!” Bric MacRohan, the big Irish knight who commanded the de Winter armies, was waving his arm. “To the White Tower! The king’s men are coming from the White Tower!”
He was shouting to the group behind him – Kevin as well as fellow elite knights. And what a group it was – seasoned, powerful, deadly. Men who had been fighting for more than twenty years in some cases. A few had even been to The Levant with King Richard and had learned the more deadlier, deceitful art of warfare.
The names hunting for Sean were some of the most feared and respected in England.
Dashiell du Reims, Cullen de Nerra, Maxton of Loxbeare, Kress de Rhydian, Achilles de Dere, and Caius d’Avignon were part of the group. These were the commanders of The Marshal’s stable of agents, but there were also secondary commanders with them – Morgan de Wolfe, Gareth de Llion, and even Peter de Lohr.
Peter’s father and uncle, Christopher and David de Lohr, had the largest combined army currently in battle. As the Earl of Hereford and Worcester, and the Earl of Canterbury respectively, Christopher and David had led the bulk of the attack that night.
Even now, Christopher was holding the Byward Tower entrance and David and his men were covering the Traitor’s Gate access point. They were joined by Sir Gart Forbes and his son, Romney de Moyon, Baron Buckland, and a contingent of war-hungry soldiers from Dunster Castle. In fact, it had been Gart and Romney who had first breached the Traitor’s Gate to gain entrance.
After that, everything had been madness.
There were so many allies, so many men involved, that it was like a gathering of the clans. Everyone was at the White Tower this night to ensure it fell into the hands of the barons who had been struggling against the injustice of John for the past several years. This was a hard-fought battle in a hard-fought war that had seen strife and casualties on both sides.
Years of missions, death, and triumph had come down to this moment.
The Marshal’s agents were leading a group of about five hundred men from the de Winter army, their mission to find Sean and to secure the White Tower. But they weren’t moving with confidence – there was too much uncertainty for them to do that. They carried heavily smoking torches with them, but there were shadows in every corner, at every turn. On this moonless night, every movement was dangerous.
Men were dying everywhere.
They were over by the Tower now, that enormous structure of stone and wood, soaring into the night sky. As they were running towards it, a woman and two men fled past them. The woman was weeping, in between the men, who were practically dragging her away. As she was shuffled off into the shadows, Kevin and Bric kept leading their group towards the entry to the Tower, but that came to an abrupt halt when they saw men running out of the darkness towards them. It took them a moment to realize it was William Marshal and another man dragging a massive body between them.
It was Sean.
Kevin thought he might have let out a gasp of panic. He couldn’t be sure. All he knew was that he recognized his brother’s limp form, even in the darkness, and he ran towards them. Reaching out, he