Page 92 of The Knight's Pledge
“Come along, twig,” James commanded, standing from the bench and untying his cloak. “A horse-back it shall be.”
George seemed to find new life then, and giggled as he stepped upon the tabletop to swing himself around James’s shoulders. The cloak was reattached, the hood draped to disguise the thin lump that was the lad across his back.
James turned to Lucan.“I’ll be back.”
Lucan nodded. “I know.”
“Not for you,” the young man clarified. “For Effie.”
“I know,” he assured him with a grin.
Iris took Effie into her arms as James smuggled George from the chamber. Lucan spoke to Giles briefly, and then returned to the room, sitting once more at Effie’s side. He pulled his rolled packet out of his gambeson and began undoing the ties.
“I do hope you have more parchment and ink,” he said gruffly.
They crowded back around the tabletop, and together opened the door to the past.
Chapter 23
They were shown to the same hall in which Effie had first met the king on her previous audience, but this time the space was filled with spectators standing on the stone floor, their chatter soaring up and through the wooden buttresseslike swallows.
Every nerve in Effie’s body seemed alive beneath her borrowed gown as the group was led through the crowd. She hadn’t seen Lucan since he’d left the apartment in the early hours of the morning, and although she had laid down on the bed in the chamber she’d been given, she hadn’t slept at all. James had at first insisted on staying with her, but Lucan had warned against it, if they were to keep up the charade of apprentice. And so, refusing a promise to not kill Lucan in his sleep, the last member of Effie’s Warren family had slipped through her fingers and was swallowed up into the dark interior of Westminster, leaving her in the company of a family that were somany strangers.
Lucan was here now, though, standing at the far end of the aisle before the dais. He looked fresh and crisp and, as usual, completely removed from the spectacle taking place around him.
The atmosphere in the hall was festive, and Effie suspected—hoped—that, because of the suddenness of the court, those gathered were little more than perpetual hangers-on and gossips who thrived on court intrigue. Their stares were weighty things upon her skin, and they made no pretense of their gawking as she passed through their midst toward the man sitting in his ornate chair. The group paid their homage and then Effie and Thomas Annesley’s other children and their wives were shown to a set of benches on the floor, opposite the aisle where Caris Hargrave already sat at Vivienne Paget’s side, a host of other nobility behind her. Effie recognized some of the faces, including Lord Hood, and the reality of what was to come hit her suddenly, and the room swam fora brief moment.
“Alright?” Finley Carson whispered.
Effie nodded, her eyes going to her father—his whiskered chin was lifted, his gaze going over the heads of the crowd. If he could bear it, sitting in a lone chair to the side of the dais opposite where Lucan stood, so could she.
She looked up at the king again, and for the first time, caught sight of a worn leather satchel on a low table at the king’s side. Effie’s heart skipped a beat and she sought Lucan’s face through the crowd.
He was watching her. She glanced pointedly toward the satchel, but he only gave a disinterested blink and looked away as the intendant came to the center of the aisle to announce the commencement of the king’s court.
“Sir Lucan Montague,” Henry called.
Lucan gave a deep bow. “Your Grace.”
“You have, for the second time, brought the fugitive Thomas Annesley into custody. England thanks you for your service. Youare dismissed.”
A low gasp came from the benches around Effie.
“But, my liege,” Lucan began, “I would speak testimony tothe issue of—”
“The return of your property will be addressed, I assure you,” Henry interrupted. “But not until I have this more pressing matter out of my way. As Annesley has already been sentenced, your services are not needed at court at this time. You are dismissed,” he insisted. “To observe.”
Lucan bowed again and then turned crisply on his heel to walk past the end of the bench near where Effie perched. She looked up at him as he strode by, but he paid her no heed.
“Thomas Annesley,” theintendant said.
Effie’s father stood.
The man then read out a long list of crimes going back thirty years, as well as the addition of several more misdeeds including escape of the Crown.
“How do you answer?” the intendant demanded.
“Not guilty, Your Grace.”
