In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,176

as well, but she gave him deed to a goodly portion of Clun Forest in the bargain.”

“Why are we just hearing about this wife now?” Henry demanded.

“Why was I only told about Eleanor of Brittany outside the walls of Corfe Castle?” Dafydd rejoined smoothly.

Henry sat back on his heels, stymied for an answer that would be taken as anything other than a challenge to the Welshman’s honour.

Eduard rubbed his thumb along the lush growth of stubble covering his chin. “How was your brother proposing to deal with this small matter of an existing wife?”

“Annulment. He has huffed and puffed over her for ten years to no avail: she is barren. More’s the like he will have tossed her over the ramparts at Deheubarth, for he would not want to lose Clun back to her father or brothers. The same fate, I might add, undoubtedly awaits me if I return, for Rhys has little patience for fools or failures.”

“You are his brother,” Eleanor said, her voice husked behind the wall of blankets.

Dafydd stared at the barrier a moment, then shrugged and sighed. “No more than an extra spill of our father’s seed so far as either Rhys or Llywellyn are concerned. Rhys has only tolerated my presence this long because I have an honest face and gentle manner that makes it easier for a lord to believe his cattle have strayed rather than been stolen.” He glanced pointedly at Henry, flushing slightly under the returned glare, then let his gaze touch briefly on Eduard, Sedrick, and Robin. “You have shown me more camaraderie in these past few weeks than my brothers have in all my years. Not that I consider myself in any way worthy or”—he bowed his head again quickly—“or deserving of the friendship of such men as yourselves, but … if I might say it without drawing anyone’s scorn or wrath, I will guard the memory of these times for howsoever long I have left in this mortal guise.”

Sparrow groaned again and rapped the palm of his hand against his brow. “I am besotted by a plague of fools. I suppose now we must trail this wet-eyed lambkin along with us? I do not suppose we could simply beckon yon Littlejohn to wield his steel pricker to good effect and solve the problem of an addled Welshman with one swarthy stroke?”

“I do not suppose we could,” Eduard mused. “But you assume, Puck, our fine young Welshman would be addled enough to want to throw his lot in with us after all we have not confided in him.”

Dafydd’s face was as honest in its relief as it was open in its disbelief “You would allow it? You would allow me to return with you to Normandy?”

“If my wife will have no objections,” Eduard said, turning to arch a brow in Ariel’s direction.

“None,” she said at once. “But what about Lord Rhys? How long will he wait at Gloucester before he realizes we are not coming?”

“Long enough for Llywellyn to plan a warm reception for him when he returns to Deheubarth,” Dafydd suggested.

“No warmer, I troth,” Sparrow declared, “than the one Lackland is planning for us ere we linger too long in these poxy woods—or am I the only one recalling we are but a half day’s ride from the donjons at Corfe?”

“We have none of us forgotten,” Eduard replied blandly. “And we will be on our way just as soon as we find a barber to pluck that arrow out of your shoulder. ’Tis wedged too deep in the bone for any of us to try to dig it free. Littlejohn—? You know the villages hereabout better than we; do any of them boast a skilled healer?”

“Bah!” Brevant drew out his eating knife and spit on the blade. “No need to waste time with such extravagances. I have separated my share of iron from bone.”

Sparrow gawped. “I do not be thinking so, Lord Lubbergut. I would sooner dis-wedge it myself before I would let those great hairy paws have at me!”

“Then you had best dis-wedge it,” Brevant growled, looming closer, the blade of his knife flaring orange in the firelight. “And do it fast, before these paws decide there would be more pleasure pushing rather than pulling.”

Sparrow gave a yelp and yanked on the shaft of the arrow, surprising no one more than himself when it jerked out freely in his hand. He stared at the gleaming redness that dripped from the barbed tip, then at the gaping wet hole