Chapter Thirteen #3
Annys gaped at him then clamped a hand over her mouth when Callum slapped him on the back of his head. She started to laugh and soon they were all laughing. It felt good and she welcomed it.
Harcourt walked into the room after greeting the guard outside Benet’s door and looked at the boy as he shut the door behind him.
He could see no lamb in the room, just the cat sprawled rather obscenely on its back at the end of the bed.
It opened one eye to look him over and closed it again.
When he looked at Benet again, however, he noticed that the boy was sitting up in his bed, his small hands clasped and resting on his lap and an angelic look on his face.
“Benet,” he said, “ye ken ye are nay supposed to bring the lamb to your bedroom, dinnae ye?” He sat on the edge of the bed and pretended he did not hear the soft bleat coming from beneath it.
“Do ye see a lamb here?” the boy asked.
“Nay but it is here, isnae it?”
Benet sagged, his thin shoulders slumping, and he nodded.
He reached over and banged twice on the bed frame.
There was a brief scramble and the lamb appeared from beneath the bed.
The fact that he had actually trained the lamb was astonishing, but Harcourt was not going to praise his skill this time.
“Why cannae it stay?”
“It is cute and small now, Benet, but it will grow. Ye have seen a grown ewe, havenae ye?” The child nodded.
“Ye cannae have that expecting to join ye in your bedchamber every night, now can ye?” Benet shook his head.
“Roberta needs to sleep in the stable.” He sighed when he saw the child’s lower lip wobble and his eyes turn shiny with tears.
“I dinnae want anyone to kill her and eat her.”
Harcourt moved to lie beside him on the bed and put his arm around his thin shoulders.
“Benet, people do eat lambs, but there are a lot of them at Glencullaich. No one needs your lamb to survive. They also all ken that Roberta is your special lamb and not one person here would e’er think of hurting it.
Those men were bad men, mean men. They didnae care whose lamb it was or that it was making ye unhappy to see them trying to kill it. We dinnae have those kind of men here.”
“Nay, we dinnae. I just get afraid for her. What if someone thinks my lamb is one of the ones they can eat? She looks like some of the others.”
“That is easy enough to fix.”
“It is?”
“Aye, we shall put a collar on it. I suspicion your mother can think of something. Mayhap e’en something with Roberta written on it so no one can mistake it for just any lamb.
” When Benet started to scramble out of the bed, obviously intending to have it done immediately, Harcourt caught him up in his arms and put him back in place beside him.
“Ye can talk to your mother in the morning and ask her if she can make something for Roberta.”
“Oh. Aye. Dunnie will keep a watch on Roberta, aye?”
“Aye. Now, go to sleep and I will take the wee beastie to the stable.”
He kissed the top of the boy’s head and then got up. Even as he picked up the lamb Benet leapt out of bed and stood in front of them. “Benet?” Harcourt asked, hoping he was not going to get a fight about the lamb now.
“I need to give her a kiss good night. She expects it.”
Harcourt looked at the animal he held who was trying very hard to dip her head down to Benet and sighed. He crouched down and waited as Benet kissed the lamb on the head and gave it a little pat.
Then Benet climbed back into bed but kept staring at the animal.
“Benet, I give ye my word as a knight, the lamb is safe in Glencullaich.”
“I just worry, ye ken.”
“Do ye trust Dunnie?”
“I trust ye, too. But, aye, I do trust Dunnie. He has been teaching me how to care for Roberta.”
“Weel, that is where your lamb will be. With a mon ye trust in a stable ye go to all the time in a keep that doesnae have men as bad as the ones who scared you.” He was relieved to see Benet smile and lie down. “Now, sleep and ye can see the wee beastie in the morning.”
He took the lamb to the stable and shook his head when Dunnie just laughed.
Yet he found himself watching how the man treated the lamb for a moment to reassure himself.
Harcourt shook his head again and headed back into the keep.
Discovering that Annys had gone to see a new baby born to the weaver’s wife, he sat with his men and talked over what they should do on the morrow to continue readying themselves for the war they were certain was headed their way.
When he heard Annys return, he waited what he considered a reasonable amount of time and then, ignoring the teasing of the others, went up to her bedchamber.
Annys opened the door at his knock and smiled at him.
Harcourt smiled back, stepped inside even as he picked her up in his arms, and kicked the door shut behind him.
Carefully he walked her to the bed, tossed her down, and started to take off his clothes as she laughed.
It was, he decided, a perfect end to the day.