In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,29
faces from their tasks. One other face, oval and lovely despite the harried frown, looked longer and harder than the rest before murmuring something to a varlet and dispatching him on an errand.
“I should have known,” declared Servanne d’Amboise, chatelaine of the castle. “I should have guessed the two of you would remain out of sight until most of the work was done. Eduard—cease your grinning and get you down to the cellars to help choose the wine and ale. Alaric—where is Gil? Surely you have not allowed her to sit a horse in her condition!”
“I had to steal all of the animals out of my own pens to prevent her doing just so, but nay. She follows in a litter, an hour or so behind. I would have ridden with her, but with a dozen knights already at her beck and call, I did not think she would notice my absence. Besides,” he added with a faint smile that encompassed the limp capons, “the message I received warned of dire consequences should I not put my feet on the road at once. When is the marshal expected? I was told half a day or thereabouts.”
“That was half a day ago,” Servanne declared curtly. “The Earl of Pembroke and his entourage have been inside the castle walls for several hours now. Thankfully, he was weary from a long sojourn in the saddle and begged leave to wash the dust from his feet and rest his eyes until we supped. Eduard! Why do you stand there still? Wine! Ale! The best tuns you can possibly find. Alaric—dearest Friar—can you not find it in your heart to take my husband and sit him somewhere with a tankard of mead? I have tripped over his feet so many times my toes are blue.”
“I was only trying to help, my love,” the Wolf said, thrusting the capons at a passing servant. “But if I am not needed—”
“You are not needed,” she assured him, snatching the capons from the one churl and handing them to another who had been waiting to skewer them. At the sight of her husband’s scowl, she sighed and smiled, and reached up a delicate white hand to press against his cheek. “Wanted … yea, a thousand times over, my lusty and handsome wolf’s head, but at the moment, definitely not needed. Sparrow!” The chatelaine’s sharp blue eyes flicked past the Wolf’s shoulder as she caught sight of another movement in the shadows. “Sparrow, where have you been! Biddy has been scouring the rafters for you.”
“Well, I am found now, am I not?” he groused sullenly. “And I should like to see the day Old Blister scours anything for anyone.”
“Is that so?”
Sparrow felt, rather than saw, the knuckled fist swing out at him from the gloom of the landing.
“Forsooth, I should scour the ears from your head after I box them free, you rancid little puffin of a man!”
Biddy had crept up on him with the stealth of a cat, and if not for lightning reflexes and elfin speed, Sparrow might well have taken an unexpected flight headlong down the steep span of stairs. As it was, he ducked and pivoted on a heel, then took intentional flight upward with a hop and a skip, landing on a ledge carved halfway up the wall.
Biddy’s grasping fist was mere inches behind, and, with an “Aaawk!” of genuine consternation, Sparrow leaped again, seeming to climb by finger and toeholds to an even safer sanctuary. Reaching a window embrasure, he plumped himself on the stone casement and glared down at his nemesis.
“Scour me now, Troll,” he snorted, his arms folded in smug defiance over his chest. “Would you had not eaten half a harvest at noontide, you might have succeeded.”
Biddy countered the insult with narrowed eyes. “Would that you had eaten half a harvest at noontide you would be able to remain on your perch through the smells of the coming feast. As it is, however, your belly will send you down long before I grow tired of waiting.”
Everyone within earshot snickered. Rare was the day that passed when the two were not exchanging verbal or physical blows. Sparrow had been the Wolf’s man for nearly three decades, while Biddy—well past her sixtieth year and still full of spit and vinegar—had been nurse and maid to Servanne’s mother before becoming the fiercely protective guardian to the daughter. Over the years, Sparrow had managed to maintain the youthful appearance and agility of a wood sprite,