In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,129

squire close by your side and not leave him alone in Gisbourne’s company. The governor has a fondness for pretty boys and has not seen one quite so comely in some time. Unless, of course,” he added consideringly, “the boy has no objections himself. It would be the one sure way to keep Gisbourne’s attentions occupied elsewhere.”

Henry glanced over, startled. “I can promise you the lad would not be inclined to bend over for anyone, for any reason. Nor would it behoove you to suggest it in a voice loud enough for his brother to overhear.”

The emphasis on brother was supplemented by a pointed nod in Eduard’s direction.

“Godstrewth!” Brevant scoffed. “Brothers, sisters … happens did you bring a granny or two along to tuck you to bed at night?”

“Nay, friend,” Henry answered blithely. “But we do have a faery dwarf who serves just as well.” “Eh? A dwarf?”

“Aye, a poxy little gnome who probably has your nose aligned along the shaft of one of his arrows as we speak. He has chosen not to accept the governor’s invitation, preferring to remain here and keep a firm eye on who goes and comes from the castle once we are inside. He is the vindictive sort too; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. With the patience of Job when it comes to avenging himself on someone foolish enough to double-cross his master.”

Brevant merely snorted aside the implied threat and turned his steed, calling to the others to follow his lead up the steep incline toward the castle. The porters lifted the chair and the men-at-arms fell into step behind the captain, the lady, and the three mounted knights.

Despite having had the walls and towers of Corfe Castle under constant scrutiny for the past two days, and despite having studied it from every angle and view conceivable, nothing quite prepared them for the effect of the king’s stronghold once they had ridden close enough for the walls to grow and blot out the sky. The block and mortar showed the wear of heavy weather and sea air. With no moat to carry away the ordure and refuse dumped from the high battlements, there was a stench that lingered about the walls, as thick as the mists that dampened them. A blanket of lichen grew up from the base, greenest and richest where the dung heaps were mounded. There was another shallow gully, naturally carved in the land, where the rotting carcasses and entrails of animals won the screaming attention of gulls and other carrion.

From a distance, Corfe seemed bleak and forbidding. Up close, the walls were higher, darker, more unwholesome than any Ariel had ever seen. Knowledge of the cruelty and terror that awaited most visitors inside prompted a deeper chill than the weather, and, had either FitzRandwulf or Henry repeated the offer they had made earlier that morning, she would gladly have swung her palfrey around and bolted for cleaner air.

But even before the creaking portcullis was lowered behind them and the enormous inner gates were closed and barred, she knew there could be no turning back. She could not begin to imagine anyone—noble or common—being condemned to imprisonment in a place such as this. From the filthy, leering faces of the guards who sullenly watched them pass, to the steaming grates cut into the cobbles where air was vented from the maze of donjons carved below ground, the sights and smells of Corfe sickened her. If she could help to remove even one desperate soul from this place of insidious evil, she would not turn away now.

Brevant drew to a halt outside the largest tower—the King’s Tower, he informed them, rising fully a hundred feet into the murky sky. The keep was surrounded by a dry moat, crossed by means of a footbridge wide enough to walk but three or four abreast. Long, mucky streaks of offal spilled from the bottom of dung sluices and clung to the mortar like slimy icicles. Ariel had not thought the stench could get any worse, but here it made her eyes water and caused a lump to rise up the back of her throat.

A balding toad of a man shuffled out onto the footbridge to greet them. A hunchback, he grinned over teeth as slimy as the walls and bade them welcome. A flurry of stable boys appeared to hold the reins of the horses and the toad assured Lord Henry they would be well fed and groomed for the