Page 27

W as there truly ever a time when a man was at peace?

By all the bloody saints, a body couldn’t even think in the lists anymore without some foolishness or other troubling him.

Colin swore in disgust. He’d been fuming for the whole of the evening before and well into the morning now.

There he’d been, understandably doing his damnedest to forget about his upcoming nuptials, and he couldn’t even have a decent meal without his sire pestering him.

As if Colin couldn’t manage to get his bride and his own sorry arse to Harrowden on his own!

Nay, he apparently required a messenger to be sent after him, calling him to heel like a disobedient hound.

Just the irritation of it had put him off his food and ruined his pleasure in swordplay.

Well, there was nothing to be done about it but come to heel as his father wished and have the whole sorry affair over with. Perhaps then he could concentrate on more important matters.

Colin looked at Henri, who stood in front of him, quaking as was his custom. The lad’s sword was still hovering in the air before him and belatedly Colin realized that he’d ceased with his instruction in midswing.

He resheathed his sword and considered the boy before him.

Now, here was a problem. After noticing Henri bolting from the hall the night before, then watching Sir Etienne leave off beating on one of his fellows to leave the hall as well, he’d decided that the little lad simply was not safe on his own.

And when he’d arrived and found Henri quaking in the courtyard, looking quite like a rabbit preparing to be eaten, he’d known that Sir Etienne had to be nearby.

Henri’s cries for sanctuary had actually touched his heart. By the saints, when was the last time he’d watched a man be reduced to woman’s weeping?

Well, the last time he’d stepped onto a battlefield actually, but that was another tale entirely.

Colin paused and stroked his chin. It had been rather womanly weeping, hadn’t it?

He took three paces forward and peered down at Henri. Damned unmanly features that boy had, if his own humble opinion were being asked. Unmanly enough that they certainly could be viewed as unmanly in the extreme.

Ah, the poor lad. What torment he must have endured, with features like that.

Perhaps he deserved credit for even attempting to hoist a sword, given that he likely would have been more suited to the undemanding and womanly calling of a player.

Colin had no doubts that any traveling company of jongleurs he’d ever seen would have been happy to have claimed this one as one of their own.

He could have filled all the women’s roles with ease.

Well, there was nothing to be done about Henri’s face except make certain that whoever deigned to tease him for it would pay the price with the lad’s fine swordplay. And again, who better than he himself to improve that swordplay?

Unfortunately, with his father clamoring for him to come to Harrowden, Henri’s swordplay might have to wait whilst Colin saw to his preparations. Unless there was someone else who might be prevailed upon to take up Henri’s training for a bit.

Colin looked to his left to see Jason of Artane loitering in a most annoyingly useless fashion upon a stone bench.

By the saints, hadn’t that lad more to do than keep a critical eye on Henri?

As if he had some interest in how the lad was trained!

Well, like it or not, Jason had a goodly bit of skill and he could certainly keep Henri safe from Sir Etienne for the morning.

With a heavy sigh, Colin beckoned to him.

“See to Henri’s sword skills for the rest of the morning,” he said reluctantly.

Jason rose gracefully from the bench and lifted one eyebrow in a perfect imitation of his father’s most irritating look of feigned surprise. “You trust me?”

“I don’t, but I’ve things to see to this morn. Teach him strokes of defense and only from the right. Do not proceed until he’s mastered each one completely. You should manage at least one before supper.”

“Your faith in him leaves me breathless.”

“I’m not speaking of his ability to learn,” Colin said pointedly, “I’m speaking of your ability to teach.

When I’m finished with him, he’ll be a match for you despite his small stature.

Now, see if you can avoid undoing all my fine work, else you leave me no choice but to find someone else who can. ”

Jason made him a low bow. “It shall be as my lord wishes.”

“You have,” Colin said, pursing his lips, “many of your father’s most annoying mannerisms. I vow I don’t know how you came by them, given that Christopher should have pruned them from you years ago.”

“I daresay ‘tis in the blood,” Jason replied cheerfully. “I don’t know why it troubles you so. Perhaps ’tis that you have no love for my sire.”

“Robin doesn’t care for me.”

“He respects your skill, though,” Jason said. “Personal feelings for your family aside.”

Well, that was something. Not that Robin, who had plundered more virginal beds—including Colin’s aunt’s—than he ought to have in his misspent youth, would ever have admitted the like.

Colin looked at Henri. “You’ll stay no farther than a pace away from Jason until I return. Understood?”

Henri nodded with wide eyes.

Colin turned to Jason. “Keep Sir Etienne away from him. If anything happens to him, you’ll answer to me.”

“Such tender care you take for the lad,” Jason said with a grin.

Colin momentarily considered repaying Jason for that, but decided it could wait until his other plans were seen to.

He gave Artane’s lad a look of promise, then patted Henri on the shoulder with a touch light enough only to send him staggering about a bit.

He strode from the lists, his mind already on what he needed to prepare.

Horses, gear, men, and enough food to keep his bride alive until they reached Harrowden: The list was endless.

And given what he’d seen being carried up the stairs to her lair, the last would require a large cart.

Perhaps two. Not that Colin begrudged her a meal.

The trouble was, she ate as much as he did, but he was the one sweating it all out in the lists.

The saints only knew what sorts of things she did hiding up in that solar.

Mayhap she used much energy praying that a miracle would occur and she would find that her husband was someone other than he.

It was enough to make a man consider a small trip to that chamber of horrors that masqueraded as Christopher’s personal healers’ quarters to see to an herb or two to make himself more desirable.

Not that Colin believed in magic. He most certainly didn’t.

And he wasn’t at all certain he believed that any of their potions could work.

Oh, they could brew a fine numbing draught.

He’d imbibed a rather hefty one the night he’d learned Aliénore of Solonge had disappeared.

And they could certainly brew up any number of things to ease a man’s aches and pains, unplug his nose, or relieve the infection of a wound.

But potions to improve a visage?

Ha!

He found himself, however, making a most unwanted journey toward their chamber, as if his feet were no longer part of him and had decided on their own to trot their merry way toward complete folly.

Colin allowed it, only because he was a bit stiff in the neck and perhaps the old wenches might have something on the fire that would serve him.

Black smoke was coming from under the door; never a good sign. Colin lifted his hand to knock, but the door was flung open before he could and he was jerked inside by women who had more strength than they should. He was shoved into a chair and commanded to sit there.

Magda was fanning the smoke with frantic motions toward the large window the chamber boasted.

They needed the damned window, what with all that that one burned.

Nemain was, as usual, cursing Magda thoroughly from head to foot. Berengaria merely sat in a chair by the small cooking fire and smiled through the clearing smoke at Colin.

“Taking up your journey, my lord?” she asked.

“Deciding upon the company,” he said unwillingly. “Will likely need a healer along, I suppose.”

And just from which crack and crevice of Hell had that come?

Colin listened to himself and wondered why it was he could no longer call back words that he surely hadn’t meant to say, nor stop them in the first place! He gaped at Berengaria, then gaped at her two helpers who were already beginning to throw things into satchels for travel.

“We would be honored to come,” Berengaria said.

“But,” Colin began.

“Beauty,” Nemain said, slapping Magda’s hands away from her selection of pots on the wall. “He’ll need all of it he can have.”

“Courage, too,” Magda insisted.

“Why?” Nemain asked with a mighty snort. “He has plenty of it, and to spare!”

Colin had to agree. His opinion of Nemain went up sharply.

“For his bride,” Magda said.

“I know of whom you speak,” Nemain snapped.

Colin suspected that the lady Sybil needed more than courage, but given that he’d only seen her a handful of times, and only one of those times was she coherent enough to sit at table, he was certainly not one to be advising anyone on what she did or did not require.

He sighed heavily and looked at Berengaria.

“I suppose you can come,” he said, trying to sound as ungracious as possible on the off chance she would take offense and decide to remain at home.

“Not that you need me,” Berengaria agreed, “unless it was to staunch some life-threatening wound.”

“Of course.”

“But there may be those in your party who might have a use for us.”

“No doubt,” he said grimly. “Perhaps you could spell Sir Etienne into better humors.”

“He is an unpleasant man.”