Free Honor & Roses by Elizabeth Cole

gates?” Alric asked.
    Theobald chuckled. “I do not fear the Welsh!” Then he said, more seriously, “The English and their allies give me pause. We’ve no way of knowing how long this succession will take to settle. Neither Stephen nor Maud will give up an inch of soil. In such times, wise men look to their own defenses.”
    “Yes, my lord.” Alric couldn’t deny the truth of that statement, however calculating it sounded. Theobald was right to protect what he held, especially because he held it in trust for Cecily, who was heiress to it all. Allegiances could waver and vanish with a few turns of Fortune’s wheel. Allies could die or change sides. When everyone looked to their own interests, it was foolish to trust others too far.
    So Alric surveyed the manor’s defenses. He walked around the property, looking over the landscape and the walls, as well as the people. Though impressed, he still saw room for improvement.
    As he worked, he inevitably noticed Cecily and her entourage of attendants as they went about their own tasks. Cecily was consulted on many matters of the household. Alric also noticed that she spent as much time as she could in her gardens. She not only worked herself, but directed others at tasks such as weeding and turning over fallow beds. She smiled at him whenever their eyes met, but rarely had time to speak.
    That was just as well, Alric told himself. He had made a mistake that first night. He never should have touched her…and he certainly should not have enjoyed it so much, or hoped to find her alone again.
    To distract himself, Alric concentrated on examining the manor’s defenses. By making the manor stronger, he was helping Cecily. That was all he wanted to do.
    So he looked over the new curtain wall—a stockade fence, not stone. But it was sturdy and quite defensible, thanks to the towers at the four corners and the gatehouse in the middle of the front wall. Archers could keep any attacking force at bay until the manor’s inhabitants could prepare a defense.
    Alric evaluated the men inside the manor, and decided they could use some more training. He offered to teach a small contingent defense tactics, using his battle-tested men as the “attacking” force.
    Rafe offered to help with that part, since he never passed up the chance to display his own skills with weaponry.
    “Besides,” Rafe said, “I need some excitement. I’m healed now, and it’s far too peaceful here!”
    “Be careful what you wish for,” Alric warned.
    Those sessions started small, but as the days went by, nearly all the able bodied men—along with a few young women determined to defend their manor—showed up on the field at least once or twice. Both villeins and free men joined. Theobald granted leave for anyone who could spare the time from their usual occupations.
    Alric could see the eagerness in the eyes of his students. Cleobury was home to them, even more than it was for Alric. His own lands of Hawksmere were not far away, but some of the people at Cleobury hadn’t traveled so far in their whole lives. Alric also had the experience of seeing the great city of London, and of following the king for battle after battle. He’d seen something of the world.
    To these people, Cleobury
was
the world. If it fell, they’d be homeless, so they threw themselves into learning how to defend it.
    After one training session, Alric noticed a young lad trailing after him. He glanced back, recognizing the face. “Edmund, isn’t it? What do you need from me?”
    “Um, Sir Alric, I was just wondering. That is, I wondered…”
    “Speak, boy,” Alric urged. “Tell me so I can get on about my work.”
    “That’s just it, sir. I want to be a squire. You’re a knight, but you don’t seem to have a squire for yourself. So I thought…”
    “Have you got any training?”
    “No,” Edmund admitted. “But I can learn! I didn’t have any training for defending the manor before, and now I know how to disarm a