CHAPTER 846: THE LONG WAY AROUND (PART TWO)

"I’d prefer to avoid killing horses if we can," Jocelynn said before the principled knight could object. "Those hamlets still need to rely on their fast riders if the demons attack again. I don’t want to cripple their only means of calling for help if we can avoid it."

"But I take Sir Elgon’s warning to heart," the young lady added. She’d just asked these men to act as her advisors. If she didn’t listen to them and act on their advice, then what was the point of bringing them into her confidence in the first place?

"I should have earned at least a small amount of favor with Liam Dunn and his father by helping to secure a path for them to become a county," she said hesitantly. "Or at least, I should have if Lord Bors still honors his words from the last session of the Lothian Court."

"I can write to them and ask for a letter bearing their seal that I can show people in the hamlets, requesting their discretion about my travels. I don’t need to reveal the reason for it," she added. "It should be enough to imply that it relates to resettling the guild masters in Dunn Barony."

"You’re playing with fire if you do that, my lady," Eleanor cautioned after taking a drink of her cooling, honeyed tea. "If Lord Bors intends to wed you to Liam Dunn, then the Dunns may be just as motivated to catch you as the Lothians would be."

"Then... I’ll need to think of another way to ensure the hamlets can’t betray our route," Jocelynn said as she gazed at the map. "Sir Elgon, you’ve led men on long marches before. How long would it take us to reach the northern border of Lothian March if we moved from hamlet to hamlet and avoided the villages?" Jocelynn asked as she traced her finger over the map.

"You want to cross into Marquis Carew’s lands from Dunn Barony?" Elgon said, scratching his head as he studied the map. "Is that even possible? There’s a distance of more than fifty leagues between the northernmost hamlet in Dunn Barony and the lands of Baron Tibraeth on the other side... more if you figure the distance to reach the villages of any of Tibraeth’s knights," he said as he studied the map.

"I’m aware of that," Jocelynn said as she stood to collect another book from the shelf in the room. "I was reading an account of the Second Crusade," she said as she placed the book on the table and began leaving through its pages. "There are ancient roads built by the demons all over this region and there’s one that runs between Nialin Village in Dunn Barony and Purcell Village in Tibraeth Barony," she said as she tapped the map between the two villages.

"The area was swept clear of demons during the crusade a hundred years ago," she explained. "But no one has expanded enough yet to keep the lands between the two villages completely clear of demons. If the demons had built new villages in these lands, I’m sure they would have been seen at some point, but if there are nomads among the northern demons like there are to the south, we may run into danger here."

"So long as the Inquisition clears you of charges," Eleanor said with a brow furrowed with thought. "Then the Templars who accompanied you from Blackwell County should be reliable to fight against demons. None of them are High Templars like Sir Tommin, they don’t carry Holy Flame Blades or Holy Light Blades, but they’ll be a powerful force against most demons even without blessed armaments."

"You’ll have me and the rest of the knights as well," Sir Elgon said, unconsciously committing to follow Lady Jocelynn on this dangerous escape. "But even with Captain Albyn and the other captains from Blackwell County, we’ll barely have a dozen fighting men, and fighting in the snow is dangerous. If we’re caught and surrounded by demons..."

"It’s worse than you might think," Albyn said, shaking his head as he poured himself another tankard of the chewy, dark ale. The bitterness of the frontier brew suited his mood too well and the words lingering on his tongue were even more bitter than the ale. "Captains Caradog and Macsen can’t be relied on. They gave up their ships to come here and become knights and they’ve turned themselves completely into Owain Lothian’s men."

"Lord Owain has been dropping hints about the lands he intends to bestow on the ’best of us’," Albyn said after washing down his words with a heavy swallow of ale. "Those two have forgotten the waves and the dignity of a captain in order to curry favor with their new master. Even a ship’s cat has more loyalty and a dead fish more spine than those two."

"What about the others?" Elgon asked as he frowned, though perhaps this much should have been expected. The men had been willing to sell their shares in their ships to come fight in this war, and while Albyn seemed to have leaped at the chance to serve a higher calling than he could have found in Blackwell County, the others weren’t nearly so altruistic.

"Devlin is a good man," Albynn said after spending a moment thinking. "He has two sons and three daughters that he’s hoping to build a better future for. He still boasts that his ancestor was the boatswain on the Black Tide back before the First Crusade," he explained, referring to the legendary ship of the first Count Blackwell.

"He’ll follow Lady Jocelynn into demon infested lands or the briney deep. Ivor will too," he added confidently. "Though I’d caution your ladyship about letting him think he might be able to win your hand. He’s a bit... infatuated," he said with a guilty look.

"I can manage infatuation, as long as he restrains himself," Jocelynn said with an awkwardly conflicted expression. It was good to be charming, but lately, she’d begun to wonder if the Holy Lord of Light inflicted her appearance on her as a curse, or a form of struggle she had to find a way to meet.

The line of men who wished to possess her had grown so long that she was beginning to sour on men altogether. Perhaps, she thought, glancing to her side at her older cousin, there might be something to a life of celibacy in a convent.

She wasn’t devout enough to take up the cloth the way her cousin had, but even her mother had found peace living the quiet life of a lay woman in the convent. And right now, the life of a spinster was starting to sound more and more appealing than anything involving any of the men who seemed to be vying for the right to claim her maidenhood.