From the Ashes (The Elder Blood Chronicles, #3)(71)

Jala didn’t press him to continue and turned her gaze instead to the pristine snow of the forest. She knew he would continue when he had found the right words and it was clear that the topic was not a pleasant one for him.

“As I said, I had my Arovanni then, but such a mount isn’t suitable for everyday use. They are sacred and thus they are reserved for quests or war. So I had acquired Vanguard. He was young then, barely past three, and filled with spirit. We were making our way back south from getting him and had stopped in a small village for the night. I turned the horses over to my squire and went into the inn to secure rooms for the two of us. I was barely inside long enough to hail the innkeeper when the stable yard erupted into chaos. Thinking the boy was under attack, I rushed out to find Vanguard running hard for the open fields and my squire sitting square on his ass in the middle of the stable yard. There was a girl standing behind him, so thin it looked as though a strong wind could carry her off and she was clutching a chunk of firewood in both hands,” Valor shook his head and rubbed his face.

“She walloped your squire?” Jala asked with a raised eyebrow, the words forming a perfect picture in her mind of the scene.

“With a vengeance. It took me close to ten minutes to get the story from her. She was terrified of me and my squire was too addled to speak. When I finally managed it however I was furious. As it turns out Vanguard had been skittish about entering the dark stables and my squire had taken to him with a whip. That in itself is bad enough but the fool had been lashing him in the face when the girl saw what was happening.” Valor shook his head once more and glanced up at Jala. “There is barely a thing worse than striking a horse in the face. It ruins them. When the girl tried to stop him, my squire turned on her with the whip and she showed me the lash marks on her arm to support her story. By this time my squire was on his feet and hotly denying the girl’s words, but I could see the lie on his face. In my anger I dismissed him from my service and informed him quite clearly that the scrawny girl he had struck was more deserving of the armor he wore. I saw him loaded onto a coach that night before I went in search of my runaway horse. It was later that night that the girl found me once more as I took my evening meal, and asked me if I had meant what I said. At first I was shocked, but after seeing the look of desperation on her face, I simply nodded.” Valor pulled several more strings from his cloak and then stood upright stretching his back. Reaching into his cloak he pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

“So you took the girl as your squire,” Jala surmised, still not understanding why any of this would disgrace him in his homeland.

“She was young and common born and had no skill with a blade but was a natural hand with horses. I suffered a blow to my reputation by dismissing such a well-born son of a powerful house in favor of the scrawny little common girl, but I thought nothing of it. For the next year she traveled with me and began to learn the trade with a speed that amazed me. It wasn’t until we traveled to Glis with my family and I began to show an unreasonable amount of interest in Blue that things began to spiral downward. My father decided that day that I needed a betrothal to keep my mind and certain other parts of me from wandering and so he set about it at once. I ignored his efforts, of course, and continued my travels and met Finn that summer.” He paused again and gave her a look of regret. “I hated him with every breath of my body from the moment the first words left his mouth. He was as arrogant as I was proud, and he spat upon everything that I held dear. More to the point, he had acquired certain friends during his time in Arovan that had more than enough reason to dislike me. My former squire was in his company along with another knight that I knew by reputation alone. His name isn’t important to the story and I won’t sully his reputation should you ever meet him, but he had a reputation almost as dark as Finn’s. I spent several weeks in constant clashes with the three of them before I received word from my father that a betrothal had been arranged. There were certain matters on that account that I had to attend to, so I was forced to leave the city. In my absence, Finn left for Sanctuary. Several weeks passed before I saw the other two and unfortunately it was at my betrothal dinner. I didn’t drink much at that point of my life, but I was nervous that night and was drinking more than I should have.” His words trailed off once more and he stared out over the snowy landscape in silence as he gathered his words once more.

Jala watched him and pulled her coat tighter around herself wondering if she shouldn’t have simply left the matter alone. It was in the past, after all. It had been that look of longing that had prompted her to ask. From everything she had seen so far from Valor she couldn’t imagine him doing something so terrible that he couldn’t even set foot in his country again.

“It was about an hour into the dinner that I began to feel the effects of my excess. Thinking myself simply drunk, I politely excused myself from the company and went in search of air outside. Nesra powder takes a while to work on the system but by the time I made it to the courtyard it was coursing through my blood.” Valor gave her a meaningful look. “That’s part of why I hate Madren as much as I do. I know full-well what he put in the chocolates he gave you. I didn’t realize I had been drugged at the time, any more than I realized that the wine I had been drinking had been far stronger than the normal variety. All I knew at that time was that I was at my betrothal dinner with raging lust and if I didn’t get out of sight I would shame my entire family. I chose the stable as my refuge until I could sort through my issues and set to pacing an empty stall trying desperately to clear my head,” He sighed heavily and rubbed his face then cleared his throat. “The bastards sent my squire out to check on me. She had been scrawny when I found her but good food and travel suited her and in my care she had blossomed into a beauty. She found me pacing the stall and I tried to send her away but she refused. Being raised roughly in the lower quarters of town, it didn’t take her long to see my difficulty and all it took was a kiss. I knew she admired me and I knew she cared for me but by all the gods I wish she would have listened to me and simply left me alone.” His voice broke and he let out a ragged breath, his eyes staring off over the fields of Arovan once more. “They found us shortly after and I was arrested for rape,” he said quietly.