Page 14 of The Knight's Pledge
Winnie appeared on Rolf’s arm from the wood behind them and the steward asked, “No trouble?”
“None,” Gorman replied, tossing the purses to Gilboe.
The band sat on the ground near where Lucan watched them incredulously. Effie obviously felt the weight of his scrutiny, for she looked up at him with a clear lack of patience in her sigh.
“What isit, Sir Lucan?”
“You just robbed two innocent men,” he accused. “And made them believe you’d killed a monk, for God’s sake!”
“Innocent, I don’t know,” Gorman said. “Two pampered noblemen on their way to the brothel at Dillon for the holiday, if the coin and the saint medallions against the clap in their bags are any indicator. Getting a bit of tail through the graces of their daddies’ coffers.”
“That’s no crime,”Lucan insisted.
Everyone in the group staredat him soberly.
“This is the way it’s to be all the way to London, then,” he said, growing more and more irritated with the idea that he’d been dropped into a world he knew nothing about; where what seemed simple and obvious was neither.
“Yea,” Effie replied. “Yea, it is. We can leave you here if you wish.”
Winnie made a series of hand motions toward Effie.
“What did she say?”Lucan demanded.
“She said you’re very innocent for a knight. I have to agree with her. Your sensitive sensibilities would likely lay you low ere we reach the king, and even if you survive, you might die of guilt before you can spill yourguts to Henry.”
Lucan frowned in confusion while Effie continued to stare at him. “So? Do you continue on or nay?” she taunted, and Lucan clearly heard the challenge behind her words.
He didn’t know why, but he said, “I continue.”
“There you are then,” Gorman said, and he tossed several coins in Lucan’s direction.
He caught some of them before they hit the dirt. “What’s this for?”
“Wear the hood, share the good,” Gilboe said with an enthusiastic smile. “And may God bless you, Sir Lucan.”
Lucan looked back to Effie Annesley, who watched him still. Her lips were parted, desperation and challenge in her pale eyes. Lucan felt as though she were trying to peerinto his soul.
In the dappled light of the Break, Lucan had to admit that she was beautiful—like a haloed figure in a religious portrait.
Or perhaps an adder camouflaged against the underbrush, ready to strike. Yes, that wasmore accurate.
Blasted Effie Annesley. It was going to be a very long journey.
Chapter 4
They came in on the North Road, or so Lucan Montague said. Effie had never been to London before, although she’d heard enough of it to recognize the hazy black cloud that heralded the city hours before they came in distant view of it. Now, after nearly a fortnight on the road, Effie paused at a rise to take in the scene from atop her horse, bracketed by Lucan Montague to her right and Gorman on her left.
Her heart skipped a beat and her stomach fluttered at the sight of the crowded spires and haphazard multilevel buildings, their floors seeming stacked atop each other like children’s blocks. The entire place looked gray-black, even though it was only a pair of hours past noon and the winter sunshine was bright around them. The sky was like a clean, new parchment whose center had been held too close to a candle flame, causing a black, ragged char mark in thecenter: London.
Somewhere in that dark conglomeration wasGeorge Thomas.
She knew that beyond the snaggle-toothed horizon of the city snaked the gray Thames, crowded with vessels of every length and mast. Ships that brought people from all over the world to this crowded chaos, and could also take them absolutely anywhere, never to be seen again, ifthey so wished.
She tried not tothink of that.
“Where is he?” she asked aloud. “Where is George? There?” She gestured to the tall, square structure near the river on the left side of the city.
Lucan shook his head. “I highly doubt Henry would place a boy of six in the Tower, although with any luck, that is where his abductors will end up. There.” He pointed in the opposite direction, far across the city to Effie’s right, where a walled complex of buildings crowned by the arched dome of a cathedral could just be glimpsed beyond the metropolis.“Westminster.”
