Free Rose Victory - Eagle Series by Eagle Lady

managed to get Roydon to forget his worries.  “You are going to try to pound me into the ground again?” Stefan gasped between guffaws.
    “You can forget about the ‘trying’ part.  I will pound you into the ground.  Then we will see just who is in their dotage.”  The earl gestured regally for a still laughing Stefan, to precede him down the steps.
    Roydon waited for Stefan to start his decent and then smiling openly at his friend’s shaking shoulders, he added.  “And when I have finished with you, I will see about cutting off one of the two heads that Sir Ivan has been strutting around with since yesterday.”
    Stefan collapsed onto the steps, holding onto his aching sides.  “Enough, Roy, please,” he begged wiping tears of mirth from his face.  Ivan had been strutting around like a cock since he managed to disarm his lord yesterday.
    The earl sat down on the steps beside his friend.  “The impertinent pup actually had the gall to ask me what had distracted me,” he grinned showing strong, white teeth.  “I nearly bit his head off.”
    Stefan sobered abruptly.  “I could have told him without even being there.”
    “You could? ”  Roydon cocked his head to the side.
    “The cry of an eagle,” Stefan stated without the shadow of a doubt, concern for his friend clear in his voice.
    The earl said nothing.  He just stared down at his hands for a long while.
    Enough, thought Stefan again, point made.  He hoped Roydon would be more careful in future.  Quickly he rose from the steps.  “Have you changed your mind about the pounding, my lord?”  The blatantly fake servility in his voice made the earl look up at him suspiciously.  “Because I have an eagle waiting for my signal, he will distract you and then I can…”
    “You are an idiot, Stefan.”  Roydon knew very well what his friend attempted.  “I will be careful,” he acknowledged and then remembering something that Stefan had said earlier, he continued.  “I will say this only once,” the earl started with a warning, his voice an embarrassed growl.  “Never again question your welcome here.  Be you commander of my troops or not, this is your home.  I would have it no other way.”  Then, before Stefan could even think of a reply that would probably get them both embarrassed, he added in a lighter tone.  “In fact it would seriously displease me to have to find another sparring partner.  Now help this ‘old man’ up so that I can show you exactly what I mean by a pounding.”
    Stefan clasped his friend’s arm and pulled him to his feet.  The strong grip conveyed more than what mere words could have said.  They had saved each other’s lives in battle and they had also killed their enemies to preserve the others’ life.  Their bond went deeper than friendship, deeper even than brotherly affection.  Neither would think twice before risking his life for the other.  But that still remained something of which men did not speak, so Stefan just turned around and called back over his shoulder.  “As I said before; you can but try.”
    “Try what, Sir Stefan?”
    “Ah, the cock approaches.”
    “Sir?”  Ivan was no longer the awkward lad he had been at ten.  Now at twenty the young man had filled out and at just under six feet, his strength was apparent in his wide shoulders and heavily muscled arms.  Newly knighted by the earl himself, Ivan had taken the position of household knight that had been promised to his father so long ago.
    “Your presence, Sir Ivan, is required on the training field by his lordship,” Stefan looked at him consideringly.  “Something about a cock with two heads, I believe.”
    “A cock?”  Ivan looked up in bewilderment at the earl.  “My lord?  Is he drunk?”
    “No, but he is going to wish he were in a few minutes.”  Roydon eyed his former squire intently, a devilish glint in his eyes.  “ As will you.”
    “Drunk?”  Ivan didn’t understand anything.
    “Do not