In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,28
and complain and aggravate beyond endurance.”
Sparrow spluttered and Alaric laughed, clapping a hand on Eduard’s shoulder to steer him toward the main keep. “I can see this past week has been a long one for you.”
“And growing longer each hour that passes.”
“Aye, well, you should marry and see how much you miss these lengthy solitudes.”
Eduard grinned. “No, thank you. I will never be in that much pain. How is Lady Gillian, or dare I ask?”
“Oh—” Alaric drew a deep breath and released it in a gust. “Cross at everyone. Complaining her belly is too big and gets in the way of her bowstring. Blaming me, of course.”
“Of course. The babe is due this month, is it not?”
“Sooner, I pray, than later.”
“Another lout with more brawn than brain,” Sparrow griped. “If the men of this shire paid as much heed to sowing their fields as they do their wives, there would be enough crops to feed all of Christendom.”
Alaric passed a wry glance over his shoulder. “Whereas, if a certain thimble-sized codpiece were loosened now and then, I have no doubt its owner would have less cause to see only doom and gloom lurking beneath a woman’s kirtle. What was the name of that pug-nosed little vixen who had her eye on you the last time we were home? Bettina? Lettina?”
“Letticia,” Eduard provided helpfully.
“Letticia!” Alaric snapped his fingers. “Aye, that was it. Round and pink-cheeked, and determined to steal a peek up his tunic each chance she came by.”
Sparrow skidded to an indignant halt on the drawbridge. He gaped at the two men as if they had suddenly grown horns and breathed fire. “That troll-necked shrew? Sooner would I bed a foul-breathed sin-eater than let that drudge clamp a thigh around me. Saints assoil me! A walking mort, she is. Schooled by Old Blister herself.”
“Ahh, yes. Mistress Bidwell.” Alaric winked broadly as Eduard smothered another grin. “Now there is a well-kept secret if ever I heard one.”
“Secret?” Sparrow gawped. “What secret?”
“Nay, nay. You need not act the innocent with us, Puck. ’Tis a well-known fact: the harder a man protests against the virtues of a fine woman, the better … and more intimately he knows her.”
They had arrived at the stone pentice—the covered stairwell that gave access to the great keep’s living quarters. Alaric bowed Eduard on ahead, the stairwell being comfortably wide enough for only one large man at a time, while pointedly ignoring Sparrow’s outraged denials.
The stairs climbed in a gradual spiral to the second storey of the keep. Archers’ meurtriers were carved into the wall every few paces and admitted air and filtered light, but at the top, the landing was shrouded in a thick gloom, relieved only dimly by the light emitted by the entrance to the great hall. From where they stood, they could see down into the cavernous interior of the keep’s vast audience chamber. As Alaric had predicted, there were servants everywhere laying new rushes, spreading clean linens on the trestle tables that had been set up along both flanks of the room. The flames of a hundred candles twinkled through the haze of disturbed dust. The curling smoke from the torches blazing along the walls traced upward to the arched window embrasures, where the only outside light that gained entry was webbed and patterned by the huge crossbeams that supported the ceiling. The fires in the long cooking trench were shooting flames ten feet high in the air casting sparks in all directions as the cooks stirred the coals and prepared the hot beds for the spitted haunches of meat that stood waiting. Out of sight, behind the tall woven screens that concealed the entrance to the main kitchens and cook houses, there would be more frenzied activities as food was prepared and decorated, pastries baked and sweetened to the point of pain, soups, stews, sauces, and jellies boiled and set aside to complement each of the ten or more courses that would comprise the evening feast.
In the midst of all the confusion, a towering, broad-shouldered knight stood in his black velvet finery, his fists clutched around the necks of a pair of throttled, featherless capons.
Sensing the arrival of his son and his neighbour, the Wolf’s piercing gray eyes cut through the gloom and found the entryway.
“By Christ’s pricking thorns, it is high time the pair of you turned up!”
Randwulf de la Seyne Sur Mer’s voice boomed out over the shouting of servants and the squabbling of dogs, momentarily distracting a few sweaty