In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,97

red-rimmed, but they stared at FitzRandwulf with a hard, cold clarity of purpose.

“I trust she is not hurt too badly?” he asked evenly.

“She will be fine,” Eduard said, rising up off his bended knee. “The cut is clean and not too deep.”

“I am glad to hear it. The Welsh are a primitive breed, and I rather doubt Rhys ap Iorwerth would take too kindly to having his bride delivered in less than pristine condition.”

Eduard’s jaw clenched and he started across the room. He did not get fully past Lord De Clare when a hand reached out and grasped his arm.

He stared into the narrowed hazel eyes for a moment, then glared down at the restraining hand.

Henry relaxed his grip and smiled tightly. “Consider it a friendly warning … this time.”

His face set, Eduard walked past him and had to step neatly around the plump, red-faced matron as she panted up the last two steps, her arms filled with cloths, a collection of various medicinals and herbs for poultice-making, as well as a large, sloshing basin of water. She huffed a greeting and managed a polite bow before hurrying past Eduard and Henry to see to her patient.

Eduard watched a moment, then turned and walked sharply down the steps. As he descended, he unfastened one of the buckles that kept his hauberk strapped snugly over his shoulders. The flap of heavy mail fell forward over his gypon, straining the seams of the garment almost as much as his temper was strained at the sight of the motley group gathered in the taproom.

Sedrick was sitting on a bench by the hearth, his hands poking and prodding at bruised muscles. He had sustained several stout blows to the head and shoulders, but his armour, like Henry’s, had protected him from the worst of it, though his neck bled from a gridwork of cut marks left by the iron links.

Robin was seated alongside, occasionally giving his head a shake as if to uncross his eyes.

By far the worst off was Dafydd ap lorwerth. Eduard’s shouts upon their arrival had brought the innkeeper and his wife bustling out of the back rooms to take immediate charge of the young Welshman. They had managed to divest him of his gypon and armour before the pain had rendered him unconscious—an easier path to take, all things considered, than to remain awake and aware of the injured arm being jostled free of the rest of the clothing. The break was midway between the wrist and elbow, and the master of the inn, M’sieur Gabinet, was in the process of pulling and fitting the grating ends of bone back together again.

The blood that had soaked the young lord’s sleeve and tunic came not from the shattered edges of bone tearing through the flesh, as Eduard had feared, but from a large sliver of wood that had been driven into the arm when the bench had smashed. Fully the length of a man’s hand, the splinter had already been removed and lay red and glistening on the table as M’sieur Gabinet worked on the arm.

“Comment va-t-il? How is he?” Eduard asked,

“Bah! He is young and strong,” said M’sieur Gabinet. “The break is clean, the wound ugly but … pftph! … it will earn him much sympathy from the women, no? He will be uncomfortable, but he will not die from it.”

Eduard nodded his thanks and the innkeeper carried on, packing the wound with cobwebs before wrapping it tightly in strips of lyngel. A young boy, his son to judge by the similarity of face and shape, was issued brisk orders to cut strips of wood to use as splints, then to see to hot food and drink for their guests.

Eduard requested a small change to the order of priorities, and two brimming flagons of ale arrived at the table the same time as Henry returned from his sister’s room. He joined the others, barely glancing in Eduard’s direction as he helped himself to a tankard of ale.

“I suppose you expect me to take the blame for this,” he said, wiping a foam moustache from his upper lip. “But how was I expected to know there were two accursed taverns in this hellhole with cocks hanging over the door? You might have at least mentioned the one had crossed swords as well.”

“It was an oversight we remedied just in time, it seems. I assumed you knew the difference between fighting cocks and a pair of prancing fowls. Did you honestly think