In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,26
thought with chagrin, far longer than he had intended. The castle could have come under siege and he would not have known it. Pestilence and peril could have descended and he would not have noticed.
What he did notice now, as he crossed the outer bailey and headed toward the arched gates of the inner curtain wall, was a marked lack of activity in the yards. It was not so late that the quintains should have been put away and the knights all retired to their barracks.
“Sweet St. Cyril, rot my teeth!”
Eduard stopped, startled out of his musings.
“Nay, he should take my teeth, my toes, and all my fingers if I could but once lay a hand to the scruff of my lord Cockerel’s neck at the first call to do so.”
FitzRandwulf squinted upward, tracing the source of the familiar plea for dismemberment. Above, seated between the crenellated teeth of the flying arch, was the diminutive figure of the castle seneschal, Sparrow. Dwarflike in stature, with a round elfin face and a mouth puckered tight with self-importance, Sparrow had found a perch overlooking the main entry to the inner bailey and had settled there with the patience of Job, waiting for his quarry to come into sight. Seated beside him, obviously relieved to have won a reprieve from Sparrow’s company, was Robert d’Amboise, firstborn son to the Wolf and Lady Servanne.
“Rest an eye on yon fine specimen of knighthood,” Sparrow lectured sardonically. “Take heed, young Robin, of what can befall a man who heaves over to debauchery at the merest wink of a comely eye.”
Eduard followed Sparrow’s gaze down to where his shirt was rumpled and loosely caught about his waist; to his hose, haphazardly rebound to only half the required leather points and bagging sadly around the knees.
Seeing that the black eyes were dancing at the prospect of creating some mischief, Eduard feigned innocence and kept walking under the flying arch. “You have been looking for me?”
“Looking for you? Looking for you?” Sparrow gave an indignant squawk as he leaned too far forward on the wall and nearly lost his balance.
Eduard emerged from the shadow of the archway into the setting sunlight again and, as if by magic, Sparrow was there to greet him, his arms squared on his hips, his stubby legs planted firmly in the path.
“Look you to my heels, Groutnoll, and you will see them worn to the bone from hunting and searching. Your father has torn block from mortar with his bare hands this past hour waiting on your tardy appearance.”
Eduard glanced sharply up at the main keep. “An hour? Why the devil did you not fetch me at once?”
Sparrow’s eyebrows took a belligerent leap toward his hairline. “Both Robin and I have turned the castle grounds upside, hither, and yon! Why the devil were you not where you were supposed to be? After scouring the first hundred or so trysting nests, these old bones of mine began to aggrieve me.”
“I should aggrieve you with the back of a broom,” Eduard scowled, starting briskly toward the keep.
“Eduard! There you are!”
FitzRandwulf stopped again, too suddenly for Sparrow, who had taken up the chase with malicious intent. The wood sprite stumbled into the back of the knight’s thighs with enough of an impact to send his cap slewing sideways over his ear.
“I see Sparrow found you,” said Alaric FitzAthelstan. “Has he told you the news?”
“News?” Eduard frowned and glared down at the seneschal. “What news?”
“The Marshal of England is half a day’s ride from Amboise,” Alaric announced. “He has begged leave to rest here on his way back from his meetings with the French king.”
Eduard was surprised. “I had heard that Lackland had sent him to negotiate terms of peace, but not that the earl marshal would be passing this way on his return to Rouen. For that matter, are we not a considerable distance south and east of where he wants to go?”
“Considerable,” Alaric agreed. “And no doubt the news of his imminent arrival has caused a small flurry of excitement for the Wolf and his lady.” He paused and gazed thoughtfully up at the keep. “I warrant the entire household will have been turned turvy by now and set to cleaning, scrubbing, airing, and cooking. We would be wise, perhaps, to tarry a while longer before we answer our summons lest we find buckets and brooms thrust into our hands.”
“Father sent for you as well?”
Alaric was not only Randwulf de la Seyne Sur Mer’s closest friend