Page 35 of The Knight's Pledge
Effie took hold of the tankard before him and placed it into Lucan’s hand, pressing his fingers around it. Her skin was cool and smooth and sent a little fissure of unexpected lightning coursing into his abdomen.
“Shutup and drink.”
Lucan clenched his teeth together for a moment, his head cocked. He wasn’t used to taking orders from anyone, let alone a woman who had already done him lasting harm, and one whose touch elicited an unwanted physical reaction from him. But he raised the tankard to his lips and took a reluctant sip, while surreptitiously glancing at the man in the corner again. The conversation among the band members started up once more as if they’d never been interrupted.
Madness.
The man looked away just as Lucan’s gaze fell on him. Dark hair beneath his hood; likely dark eyes to match what might be olive coloring, although it was difficult to tell for certain with the shadows of the corner wrestling with the flickering light of the hearth. His clothing was nondescript; Lucan couldn’t tell the quality of the man’s footwear from where he sat.
Now Lucan’s bladder was insisting he excuse himself. As he had just recently thought he was preparing for bed, he’d planned on stepping through the rear door of the tavern before heading up the stairs to his chamber. The delay and the added drink had increased the urgency he felt, but he didn’t wish to incur the inquiries as to his intended destination by the woman sitting at his side, although he wasn’t at all sure why he cared that Effie Annesley knew heneeded a piss.
The mere thought irritated him so that he stood immediately and stepped over the bench. “Excuse me,” he murmured, and remembered the phrase used by the soldiers. “Checking the horses.”
He expected someone to follow him, but only Chumley glanced at him before breaking into a hearty guffaw, apparently in response to something Rolf had said. The whole band broke out in loud laughter, causing the other patrons to glance overat their table.
So much for getting away inconspicuously, Lucan thought. At least none of them had offered to accompany him to the weeds.
Lucan pushed into the dark drizzle behind the inn, fat droplets of rain cascading from the thatch at the corner of the dwelling and splattering noisily into a run-off ditch. He reached beneath his gambeson and adjusted his trousers to accomplish the task he’d come out for. After finally becoming mostly dry and comfortable while inside the inn, the cold night air was refreshing and did much to clear his head from the fuzzled, cozy atmosphere of the tavern, and he took a deep breath as relief began towash over him.
He was just finishing his sigh when a muffled “oof” behind him in the darkness made him start, but occupied as he was, he could do little more than glance over his shoulder.
“Who’s there?” he demanded.
There was a loud crack; a moan. Splashing sounds, like boots in puddles accompanied various thuds and hollow blows. A sound likefabric ripping.
“Son of a whore,” a man’s voice lamented, closely followed by apanicked whoop.
“No, no, no!” someoneargued shrilly.
Lucan strove to finish his business and redress. “Who goes there?” he asked again, whirling around and laying hand to the hilt of his sword, stepping toward the darkness.
He was nearly run over by a charging horse, a bare foot or some such solid appendage catching him near the collar bone as it was, and sending him staggering back through the mud. Lucan watched the departing animal as it raced around the far side of the tavern and disappeared, something bulky and pale laid across the saddle.
Two dark, hooded figures appeared out of the inky drizzle and Lucan raised his sword. “Stop where you are,” he warned.
One of the men pulled off his hood: Gorman.
“No cause for alarm, Sir Lucan. Our spy has been asked to take accommodations elsewhere.” He tossed an object at Lucan.
Lucan caught it with a jingle—it was obviously a purse heavy with coin.
“That should take care of tonight’s lodgings,” Chumley said as he removed his own hood and tucked it into his belt. His left arm carried a dark bundle of some sort. “I’m keeping the clothes though—not had a new suit in ayear or more.”
Gorman clapped Lucan’s shoulder as the two men from the Warren passed back toward the tavern. “Good work.”
Lucan stood in the quiet drizzle for another pair of moments, his sword in one hand and a purse of stolen coin in the other, while his ale-slowed mind attempted to catch upto the events.
“I was bait,” he realized aloud tono one at all.
Chapter 9
By the third day, after leaving the tavern where the suspected spy had been routed, the earth was at last wicking away the standing water from the roads, but the torrential rains had been replaced with bone-chilling winds. All the land was encased in fairy-light ice and even though the sun seemed to shine down ferociously, sending out fiery arrows of blinding refractions through the crystal-laden boughs, every breath seared Effie’s lungs and her mount’s mane tinkled as they drew nearer and nearer the Warren.
Leaving London—leaving George Thomas—had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done. The pull of him was like water over a falls: nearly insurmountable. The days on the road had distracted her, allowing her to concentrate on nothing more than their intermediate destination, but now that they were within a mile of home, slowly traveling single-file under the weight of ice in the south of Northumberland, George haunted her again.
This is where we found the berry patch last fall…
There is the lake overrun with frogs and slippery, green logs…
