Free The Lion of the North by Kathryn Le Veque Page A

into the dank and musty vault. The stone steps were slippery with cold and rot and at one point, someone slipped and fell. They could hear the voices of at least two men trying not to fall the entire way down the steps. When the first man finally appeared, he was holding steady to the man just behind him.
    “Damnable steps,” the knight in heavy armor hissed as he let go of his companion. “I nearly broke my bleeding neck!”
    He was holding on to his heart, not his neck, as if genuinely terrified that he would have met such an end. Sir Adam Wellesbourne was a short, stocky, and muscular knight who more than likely would meet his end on a battlefield and not a flight of stairs, but he was dramatic with the best of them. Following on his heels, the man he had been holding on to, was his cousin, Sir Alec le Bec. A big man, young, with blond hair and bright, blue eyes, he was grinning at the shorter knight.
    “You would not break your neck,” Alec said. “With your girth, you would roll all the way to the bottom and bounce off of the walls, just like an inflated bladder.”
    As Adam snarled at his good-looking cousin by marriage, more men came down the steps. Sir Maxim de Russe, also a cousin to Wellesbourne and le Bec and the son of the great knight once known as Beast, Sir Bastian de Russe, eyed his cousins with some irritation. Maxim was quite young, like Adam and Alec, but he had a wisdom that went well beyond his years. He was also excruciatingly handsome and he knew it, making him palpably arrogant.
    “Still your tongues, both of you,” Maxim said quietly, gesturing to Atticus as the man sat next to Titus’ body. “Have respect.”
    As Adam and Alec shushed each other, Kenton and finally Tertius appeared from the stairs. Now, all five Northumberland knights were in the vault along with Atticus and the earl, gathered for a debriefing and further orders.
    Atticus glanced up at the men, now his men. With Titus gone, he was now in charge of Northumbria’s army. Odd how that hadn’t occurred to him until that moment; it had been six long days since the defeat at Towton but the fact that he was now in command really hadn’t hit him until now. Now, suddenly, realization dawned and he didn’t like the weighty feel of it. He didn’t particularly want it. He had things to do, a future path cut out for him that had nothing to do with commanding Northumberland’s armies. But for the moment, he would pretend the mantle of command had been easily assumed. They were all expecting such confident direction from The Lion of the North and he would not disappoint.
    “I am told that the men are settled and the army disbanded for the moment,” Atticus said, looking at Kenton. “Now that we are settled and returned, what kind of assessment can you give me on the dead and wounded?”
    Kenton folded his enormous arms across his chest, his brow furrowing in thought. He looked exactly like his paternal grandfather, the great Richmond le Bec, in many ways – he had the man’s substantial height and width, and he even had the same habit of cocking an eyebrow when particularly annoyed or thoughtful. He also had Richmond’s legendary fighting ability; in fact, he was better. At least, Richmond had thought so. The man had been gone for several years but his legacy, and his power, remained. There was no one finer with a crossbow in all of England than Kenton le Bec.
    “We carried at least ten thousand men into battle,” he said. “The exact number I had when leaving Alnwick was eight thousand, nine hundred and fifty-seven, but we picked up men as we marched southward so the best estimate is that we were well over ten thousand. Out of that ten thousand, a little over three thousand have returned with us to Alnwick and that is not including Thetford’s army.”
    Atticus struggled not to let his shock show but he couldn’t help it; he hissed, pinching the bridge of his nose to ward off the massive headache that threatened.
    “Less