Chapter Five #4
Much to her surprise, Kenneth actually snorted. “He has more courage than he displays,” he replied, holding up his big hands to warm them. “I would not worry about him.”
Toby lifted an eyebrow as if she didn’t believe him. “How old is he?”
“Fourteen years,” Kenneth replied.
Again, Toby shook her head. “And Ailsa is ten. She will soon be asking if he is betrothed. She is desperate, even at her age, to find a mate. I do believe she has little friends telling her that she must be wed by the time she is fourteen or she will become a spinster like me.”
Kenneth did look at her, then. “As for the squire, tell your sister to set her sights on someone else as he is already betrothed,” he told her. “As for you being a spinster, I suspect that will not be true forever.”
Toby’s head jerked in his direction, her hazel eyes wide with surprise. “Why in the world would you say that?”
“Because you are beautiful and wealthy. You are a fine prize.”
Stunned, Toby lowered her gaze and looked back to the fire. The big blond knight had barely said two words to her since their introduction and suddenly he was telling her that she was beautiful. She didn’t know what to say.
Fortunately, Stephen saved her from further bewilderment.
He entered the hall with loaves of bread in his hands, followed by an old male servant with spindly legs and long, stringy white hair.
The old man carried a tray with food laden upon it.
Just as Stephen reached the table, Ailsa suddenly forgot her pouting and she rushed to the big knight as he put the bread down.
In fact, she grabbed a loaf right out of his hand.
“It is brown,” she declared flatly. “I do not like brown bread. I want white.”
“You will take what you are offered and be grateful for it,” Toby said sharply, quietly. “Now sit and eat. Stop making a nuisance of yourself.”
More pouting from Ailsa. The old man who had accompanied Stephen pulled back the cloth that covered the tray he had carried. He picked up a small earthenware jar and held it timidly in Ailsa’s direction.
“Do you like honey, my lady?” he asked gently. “A little honey on the bread will make you think that angels themselves eat it.”
Ailsa eyed the jar. “I… I like honey.”
The old man smiled at her and put the jar down, taking a hunk of the brown bread and slathering some white butter upon it. Then he poured honey all over it and handed the sticky-sweet mess to Ailsa.
She grinned and took it gladly, chewing into it and getting honey on her face. Then she looked at the tray, inspecting the contents.
“What else did you bring?” she put her dirty fingers on the white cheese. “Is this all? No meat?”
Toby rolled her eyes. “Good Lord, Ailsa,” she breathed. “Can you not be grateful for the hospitality you are shown? One more ungracious word from you and you can go stay with the pigs. That is where you belong if you cannot show more manners.”
Ailsa took another big bite of bread and ignored her sister.
She moved away from the table and wandered around the room, inspecting the walls, the floor, and anything else she could find.
Somewhere along the line she began humming a tune; the fairy tune that Tate had sung the day before at Forestburn.
Before long she was twirling about, bread on one hand and the edge of her surcoat in the other, dancing with unseen fairies or perhaps pale young men.
Toby watched her sister prance around the room, thankful that she was at least in better spirits. With the events of the past day, she wasn’t at all sure how Ailsa would recover. But it would seem that she was showing a good deal of resilience.
“You must eat also, mistress,” Stephen’s deep voice was low as he placed a hunk of bread before her. “You must regain your strength.”
Toby eyed the bread before gazing up at the enormous knight. “I thank you for your concern,” she said, “but I am not hungry. Perhaps something later.”
Stephen didn’t push. He sat down at the table a few feet away from her while Kenneth took position on the opposite side. Toby continued to watch her sister flit around the room as Kenneth and Stephen silently consumed the food on the tray.
“She seems to show few ill effects,” Stephen commented quietly.
Toby turned to look at him, watching him nod his head in Ailsa’s direction.
She, too, refocused on her dancing sister.
“I know,” she replied softly. “It is quite surprising, actually. She has never been particularly healthy and she has rarely been away from Forestburn. I was afraid that traveling all night in the cold air might have affected her health but she seems well enough.”
“Has she said anything more about your parents?” Stephen asked as he took another bite of bread.
Toby looked away from her frolicking sister. “Not much,” she picked at the bread that Stephen had put before her. After a moment, she dared to look up at the men around her. “I have not yet asked but I suppose I should. Did… did you search for my parents?”
Stephen’s cornflower blue eyes were steady. “We found them in the rubble of the collapsed manor.”
Toby drew in a long breath. “I see,” she murmured, looking at the bread again. “May I ask what you did with them?”
“We left some men behind to bury them as we departed for Harbottle,” Kenneth answered her before Stephen could.
She looked at the very blond knight. “Where did you instruct that they should be buried?”
“We did not instruct. We left it to the judgment of the men.”
“So you do not know where my parents are buried?”
Kenneth looked at Stephen and the big knight cleared his throat softly. “I would suspect they are somewhere on the grounds of Forestburn,” Stephen said. “I will find out for certain if it will please you.”
Toby nodded faintly, looking back to her bread.
She started to pick at it again but suddenly felt very much like taking in some fresh air.
She needed it. Stiffly, she left the table, leaving Stephen and Kenneth behind in silence as her sister continued her dance around the room.
The knights watched her go, knowing she would not go far in her condition.
Kenneth returned to his food before Stephen did; the big knight watched the lady moved towards the entry to the keep, still gazing at the doorway even after she was gone.
It was cold outside as the deepening dawn struggled to lift the fog, strangely bright as the sunlight reflected off the mist. Still clad in the heavy broadcloth surcoat she had traveled in, Toby took the stairs slowly and ended up in the bailey.
It wasn’t particularly busy but there were a few people about.
As weak and exhausted as she was, it actually felt good to walk so she moved across the bailey in an aimless path.
It was slow going. Thoughts of her parents rolled through her head, people who hadn’t been particularly kind to her for the duration of her life but people she was fond of.
They were her parents, after all. But now they were gone.
The reality of their deaths began to sink in.
She had been too ill to care yesterday but at the moment, she found that she cared a great deal.
She traced the progression leading up to their deaths only to realize that she had been very ill for the past several days and recalled very little.
The most she remembered was waking up to hear the young squire fighting off a monster of a man.
She had tried to defend him. She remembered the man calling the squire young Edward, something that had no meaning until this moment.
The intruder had seemed very certain that the squire’s name was Edward and not John as she had been told.
Then Tate had brained the man before he could do any further damage.
As the fog lifted from the ground, the fog in her mind seemed to do the same.
Pacing back along the stables, her mind was wrapped up in the chaos of the past two days as she recollected.
Men had burned her house down and Tate seemed to know who they were.
He didn’t seem surprised at all. In fact, it was almost as if he had expected it.
Just as he had not been surprised that men had attacked them in the mist the day they went to visit the sheep herd.
He had been gone for hours trying to locate the attackers.
Then he had returned and she had become ill.
Toby came to a pause at the corner of the stable block that faced the kitchen yard.
There was a rough-hewn bench there with some farm implements on it and she shoved the tools to the ground and wearily took a seat.
As she watched a puppy chase chickens around the kitchen yard, her thoughts inevitably turned to Tate.
He was a man of wealth, skill and supreme power.
Long had she heard the rumor that he was Edward Longshank’s bastard.
It was an accepted fact. It was also an accepted fact that he had served Longshank’s son, Edward, until he had been imprisoned by Isabella and Mortimer.
She thought of the man and his undeniable status, visions of his storm cloud colored eyes filling her mind and his handsome face invading her senses.
For the first time since she had met the man, she admitted to herself that she found him wildly attractive.
But he clearly had little use for her; at least, she thought so until he had kissed her on the forehead.
The kiss had made her heart leap crazily, but it had been a wonderful sort of crazy.
Yet she could not get her hopes up about the man.
He was unreachable; especially to her. He was of royal blood and she was a farmer’s daughter. That was the reality of things.