Chapter 670: Probing Questions
Outside the tent, Isabell sat with Tiernan, Sir Rain and Sir Hugo as they converged on the young Sir Ollie, putting more than a dozen paces between their group and the group of tired soldiers who had endured a cold ride in an open topped wagon for hours in the dark of night. Most of the soldiers looked tired and cold and they were eagerly slurping at bowls of hot vegetable soup and drinking the warmed cider like it was water, but Isabell and her companions were more interested in the young knight and what he knew than the comforts of a warm meal.
"Sir Ollie," Isabell said, hoping to start the conversation on something minor and work her way to more serious topics. "You addressed Mister Marcel as ’Sir Marcel.’ Have I been meeting with an esteemed knight all this time without knowing it?"
"A knight?" Ollie said with a strange smile on his face as he tried to imagine the flamboyant spymaster donning heavy armor and a helm that would conceal his elegant features and soft, dark hair. "No, Sir Marcel is no knight," he said with a brief burst of laughter at the image in his mind. "But his status is just as high and the men under his command are as important as any soldiers on the battlefield. Calling him ’Sir Marcel’ is entirely appropriate," he finished a touch awkwardly.
It wasn’t his place to reveal where Ashlynn had been or her current status among the Eldritch. That would come soon enough. For now, all he needed to do was play host to their guests, both invited and uninvited, until Marcel finished his conversation with Lady Ashlynn and they decided what to do about the uninvited guests who had joined them.
"I see," Isabell said softly as she tried to sort out what kind of man wasn’t a knight but could be appropriately be addressed as though he was one. "And what is your relationship with her ladyship then?" Isabell asked pointedly. "I assume that she was the one who conferred knighthood on you? Or was it someone else?"
In truth, Isabell doubted that Lady Ashlynn would attempt to confer knighthood on anyone. It would be one thing if she was the reigning Marchioness after Owain succeeded his father, but since she wasn’t, she had very little authority to bestow any kind of title, much less a knighthood.
At most, she could take someone as a lady-in-waiting but anyone she granted that title to should already be the daughter of a baron at the least. What Isabell was really after was the identity of the mysterious patron who was shielding Lady Ashlynn while she lived in exile.
"It was her ladyship," Ollie said, surprising both the Guild Masters and the knights, though for distinctly different reasons as both knights mentally readjusted their assumptions about the mysterious Lady they were here to meet.
"As to our relationship, that’s a little complicated. You can consider me family," he said which instantly drew scandalized looks from both Isabell and Tiernan, prompting Ollie to nearly choke on his cider, sputtering as he realized the misunderstanding he’d inadvertently created.
"Not like that!" the young knight said frantically. "More like, more like she adopted me after... after I helped her a bit. But she’s always done far more for me than I’ve ever done for her," he said, staring into his cup and smiling sadly. "So I have a long way to go to make it up to her."
"It can’t be a small bit of help if you were knighted for it," Sir Rain said as he gave the young man an evaluating look. It was hard to tell beneath the cloak and the young man’s tunic but his forearm had felt as solid in his grip as a bar of iron and his hands had calluses that spoke of hard labor despite his delicate and refined features. Clearly the young man had worked hard to arrive where he was, but hard work alone was far from enough to become a knight.