Roman by Heather Grothaus Page A

stone-edged arrow slit where Adrian Hailsworth had spent countless days lost in his own misery.
    When his vision cleared from the pounding of blood behind his eyes, Roman at once repeated the information Isra Tak’Ahn had relayed to him the night before. He embellished nothing, belittled nothing, reciting everything as closely as he could as to how he had been told.
    Once Roman had finished, he waited in the silence for several moments for a response from Constantine.
    â€œWhy do you believe her?” he said at last.
    â€œI don’t know why she would lie.”
    Stan turned his head to look over his shoulder at Roman. “Perhaps the four large bounties offered for our capture?”
    â€œShe risked her life to come here. She nearly died as it was. And she saved you and Adrian and Valentine in Damascus. She saved me as well. I never would have been able to find you on my own, and if I had been caught . . .” Roman let the thought trail away. Constantine wasn’t stupid, after all. He knew perhaps better than anyone what would have happened to Roman had he been captured inside the city walls. “She never demanded payment for leading me to you that night.”
    â€œShe is demanding her payment now.”
    Roman took a step into the room. “By giving us an opportunity to stop Glayer Felsteppe from orchestrating the murder of a man who was at one time one of your closest friends and possibly clear our names? Is that a payment or another debt we could never come close to repaying?”
    Constantine spun around. “ You tell me , Roman. She purports not to know who the English contact in Jerusalem is . Have you any idea how many states you would have to search? How impossible it would be for you to access the caste of nobility where you might ferret out the traitor? Or were you planning to simply march into Baldwin’s salon and announce as fact rumors relayed to you by a common whore wanted for murder ?”
    Roman felt his head draw back as if Constantine had struck him. He had to wait several moments for his heartbeat to slow before speaking. “It is true that I know little about Isra Tak’Ahn beyond what she has told me. And I have no idea how we would locate Baldwin in time to give him the information he needs. But that’s why I have come to you, Constantine.”
    Stan turned back toward the window and muttered, “I’m not the general any longer.”
    â€œYou were never my general,” Roman said. “I’ve come to you as my friend. As my brother.” He stepped to the table now and sat down in his chair. “If we are to act, it must be in one accord. Aren’t we accused together?”
    â€œI don’t trust her,” Constantine said. “She cannot be allowed to leave the abbey.”
    â€œI will go with her. I have no wife, no child.” He regretted the words as soon as he’d said them.
    A long, cold silence filled the library. “She has already killed at least one man. You may underestimate her cunning.”
    â€œIf you trust me not either, then come and be my keeper. Face Baldwin yourself.” Sweat broke on Roman’s brow and he rose again, suddenly filled with an agitation that made him unable to sit and caused nausea to cover him in gooseflesh. “It is the last chance I can see to clear our names, and what better way to do it than by saving the king’s life?”
    â€œYou’re wrong, Roman,” Constantine said. “I do trust you. I simply don’t care if Baldwin dies.”
    â€œYou’d better bloody well care,” Roman growled as the vision of Stan blurred and doubled for just an instant. “It is his word that damns or clears us. If he dies before we are vindicated, we will never have our lives back.”
    â€œI don’t have a life to return to,” Constantine spat.
    â€œI’m certain Adrian would like to see his brother and his father before he dies,”