Chapter Eleven #2
put her palm to Lara’s forehead. “Are you feeling all right?
Because I’m fairly certain you just said something nice about the
captain.”
Lara playfully slapped Berta’s hand
away. “I could stay here in the kitchens with you, Tante,” she
pled, her grin dripping honey.
“No.” Berta picked up the
fork and knife. “Now they’ve seen you, they’ll be looking for you
and wondering why you stopped serving.”
“You’re right.” Lara
huffed. “I should’ve slit Ranulf’s throat that day instead of his
chin. I could’ve buried him in the woods, and nobody would’ve ever
known.”
“You would have.” Berta
pointed the knife tip at Lara.
“Aye, well.” Lara hoisted
a platter of cold ham. “I still say it would’ve been worth
it.”
Apparently, Nithard had taken control
of his son, because Ranulf kept quiet and only insulted Lara with
his sulking scowl as she set the platter of ham down. Both the
count and his son wore the full Roman robes they’d worn at Mallus
and looked rather foppish compared to the captain and his men in
their leggings and jerkins. Lara had never seen the captain in a
robe, but assumed he owned one, for he’d been at court with kings,
a thing she had to admit intrigued her about him.
That he intrigued Ravenna, who wore a
body-skimming gown of red silk with a low-cut bodice, was as
obvious as the woman’s preening smiles as she leaned forward to
face him and afford him a better view of her charms. That he
steadfastly ignored her smiles and her charms gave truth to
Patience’s assertion that Ravenna wasn’t his wildcat, which somehow
made Ranulf’s leers easier for Lara to stomach.
The main course done, the captain and
the count started making their plans for the march to meet Charles
and the returning army. Serving the honeyed berries, Lara heard
them discussing a cook’s wagon. The captain’s company didn’t travel
with one, so the count would have to provide one.
“There is a retired
soldier the next province over who I’ve heard will hire himself and
his wagon out,” Nithard told the captain.
“One cook for our twenty
and your fifteen?” The captain speared a berry. “He’ll need a
helper.”
“Begging your pardon,
Captain.” Lara formed a plan as she spoke. “I know of a lad who
would hire out as a cook’s helper to serve out his season of
military duty.”
“Go on,” the captain
said.
Lara glanced down at the platter of
meat scraps. “His name is Hamm. He’s the only son of a widowed
mother who taught him how to cook.”
“Does he cook as well as
you?” Phillipe asked, and Lara froze, fearing he’d seen right
through her crazy plan. Then she remembered how he’d eaten her
cooking at her house the past few days.
“Almost,” she
said.
“Then I say aye,” Phillipe
told the captain. “Hire the lad and ease his widowed mother’s
worries.”
“You would,” a harsh,
hoarse voice rasped. All eyes, all ears, turned to Fulrad, who sat
at table to sup with the company for the first time since his
injuries. “You would know,” he rasped louder. “You were up in the
captain’s chamber with her every night he was gone, tasting her
cooking.” He jerked his head toward a horrified Lara. “I seen you.
Hell, everyone here seen you following her around by day and going
up to her chamber by night, they’re just too afraid to tell the
captain.”
The hall was silent but for the
scraping of Phillipe’s chair as he stood.
“It was by the captain’s
orders that I stayed by Lara’s side during the day.” He spoke
slowly, clearly, to the room at large, then he turned to the
captain, whose jaw was set as hard and unyielding as stone. “After
supper, we played Shah in your chamber before I came back down each
and every night.”
The captain nodded wordlessly at
Phillipe before glancing at Lara, his expression
inscrutable.
“You, Fulrad.” The captain
kept his voice as steady as his glare. “You have slandered my good
friend and comrade, as well as my lidi, who has done nothing but
serve me and my men well. You are no longer welcome at this table.
Leave it. Now.”
“I am the king’s cousin.”
Fulrad puffed his chest out. “You cannot ban me.”
“Try me,” the captain
said, and for the first time since Lara had known Fulrad, he made
the smart choice and said nothing. “Now go,” the captain told him.
“Go find your corner to squat in and remain there until I return
with your cousin the king. Then he may deal with you.”
Lara shook as Fulrad pushed himself up
onto his crutches and hobbled over to his pallet, muttering curses
under his wheezing breath. When she looked back to the table, the
captain was watching her, the telltale scar on his cheek gone
white. With a quick bob of her head and a dip of her still-shaking
knee, she turned and walked as fast as she could without actually
running to the kitchens.
With Wolf at her side, she pushed open
the kitchen door to the outside and then she did run, straight for
the roasting pit. Sitting on the bench, she poked at the fire’s
embers and Fulrad’s vile accusations, at the captain’s expression
before he heard Phillipe’s explanation, and how the captain had
believed Phillipe without hesitation. Worried he wouldn’t have
believed her so readily, not after she’d practically thrown her
naked self at him. Which she tried desperately not to think
about.
Instead, she thought about how she’d
set herself up to pose as a lad, a cook’s helper, who would be
marching with the captain’s and the count’s company of men to meet
the king’s army. How once the march was completed, she would have
fulfilled a season of military duty in lieu of Fulrad, and how the
king himself would have to declare her wergeld paid and her freedom
earned.
The slow thump, thump, thump of Wolf’s
tail interrupted her musings. Looking up from the embers, she saw
the captain walking toward them and hoped he couldn’t see her face
in the dark. If she looked as guilty as she felt, she’d be a dead
giveaway.
“Here you are.” He didn’t
sound angry, but Lara thought it good to apologize
nonetheless.
“I’m sorry, Captain,” she
said. “I know I shouldn’t have left the hall without asking your
permission.”
“Don’t worry about it. It
was probably the smart thing to do.”
“May I quote you on that
for Sophie when she hears about it?” And she would.
“You may.” The captain
offered a slow smile in the fading embers of the fire, and she
smiled back at him, relieved. The whites of his teeth disappeared,
and he coughed once. “Will you return to our chamber with me? I’ve
a hankering to play a game of Shah, and Phillipe says you’re a
quick learner. I’ll even share my pie.”
***
Talon
Talon sat across the game board from
Lara, his castle in eminent danger from her knight. Phillipe was
right, she was a quick learner and a smart player, if a bit
impetuous. Charles always said you could tell much about a person
by the way they played, and Lara played like quicksilver, quick
thinking and mercurial, and cursed beautiful leaning over the board
with loose tendrils of auburn framing her face, her brow furrowed
in concentration.
She took his castle, and he allowed