softly. “Believe me, I know how the little princess must be feeling, and I will do nothing at all to jeopardize her safe removal from Bloodmoor.”
Friar sighed inwardly, refraining from pointing out the obvious: that she was jeopardizing their safety at that very moment. Whatever she had to say to La Seyne had better be damned important to take such a risk. Conversely, La Seyne should have refused outright to see her—what game was he playing at?
Friar navigated them successfully to the rear portal of one of the buildings linked to the main keep. It was the exit used by the servants and it was here Friar ushered her into a tiny storeroom and mouthed a few choice words as he struck tinder to flint, finally creating enough sparks to light a small candle. In the interim between begging her leave of the company in the great hall, and pacing anxiously in her solar until Friar came to fetch her, Servanne had prudently changed the ornately embroidered velvet tunic and silk train for a plainer garment of dark wool. She had removed her wimple as well and left her hair in a single thick braid trailing down her back. Now, to further disguise her against recognition by the guards, Friar handed her a voluminous cloak made from the same moth-gray horsehair Gil and the others had been wearing.
“A more fetching cleric, I cannot imagine,” Friar said with a comforting smile. “I have already passed through the sentries once tonight, so there should be no difficulty in gaining the outer bailey. What is more, since the celebrations have not been restricted to the great hall, there should be enough noise and revelry outside the keep to cover our tracks. Ready?”
Servanne nodded and raised her chin so that Alaric could fasten the cloak properly in place. A final adjustment of the spacious hood, and Friar blew out the candle. When the glaring yellow blotches had faded from his vision, he took Servanne by the hand and cautiously led her out into the corridor.
The sight of two more cowled figures gave her heart a momentary start, but when a distant torchlight assured her she was not seeing double, she nodded a faint greeting to Mutter and Stutter, and felt safer for their quiet presence behind them. Two more “monks” joined them outside the portal, and a third pair, including Gil Golden, fell into step near the gates to the outer bailey.
The guards at the first barbican tower scarcely paid heed to the cloaked figures who crossed the footbridge. There were huge fires blazing in every corner of the common, and flickering torches thrust into niches every few paces along the walls. Sentries paced the ramparts up above, but they were not too concerned with anyone already granted entry to the inner grounds. There was even the squeal of a woman’s laughter from somewhere high up, showing exactly how interested they were in the pedestrian traffic below.
The second bailey was not quite as brightly lit, but it appeared as if everyone in this tiny, self-contained village was out in force, drunk on cheap ale and anticipation of the next day’s events. Alaric’s dark cowl and glinting crucifix won them an amiable passage through the gloomy, musty labyrinth of laneways and workshops. Visiting knights had left their retinues of men-at-arms to be housed in the small, crowded barracks that lined the walls, and they had been quick to find the whores who were willing to do the most for the least amount of coin. Goliards and minstrels, practicing for the day of the tournament, put on impromptu shows by firelight and there was singing and dancing in nearly every lane they passed.
It was a far different scene from the image Servanne retained of the day of her arrival at Bloodmoor. These people smiled and laughed, and were not afraid to meet one another in the eye. Even the guards who patrolled the bailey in pairs, stopped to appreciate a daring acrobatic feat, or to sample a taste of sizzling meat roasting on a small grill.
There were heady scents in the air as well. The bakers along bakers’ row were bending nonstop over their ovens in hope of meeting the morrow’s demand for bread, biscuits, and pastries. In the butchers’ quarters, hogs, lambs, goats, and chickens were being slaughtered, skinned, and plucked in preparation for the banquet that would follow the tournament, as well as the feast to culminate the wedding. In the armourers’ alley, contrasting