Cedric is summoned

Colban clapped his hands together and brushed them clean. “So! What shall we do now?”

“Must we do something?” Cedric whined. “I ate too much.”

“That’s all the more reason to do something, so you don’t get fat, son! Why don’t we go to your brother’s and see whether they’ve found the murderer yet?”

“It isn’t as if it’s a real murderer,” Cedric grumbled. “Just a man who killed his wife.”

Colban laughed and scooped up a handful of chestnut shells to toss one by one into the fire. “Just a pretend murderer, he says. Tell that to the woman he killed. ‘I’m just pretend beating you, love!’ I shall try that on my wife!”

Cedric saw that an abrupt change of subject was in order. “Why don’t we go to Nothelm and see what they’re doing?”

“That’s a fine idea,” Colban said thoughtfully. “Why don’t we go to Nothelm and… visit our sweethearts?”

Cedric grit his teeth.

“Ach!” Colban smacked his forehead and laughed. “I forgot I haven’t one!”

“Neither have I!” Cedric growled.

“She mayn’t, but you most certainly do, son! Or…”

“Let’s go to my brother’s,” Cedric muttered, hoping to distract him.

“…perhaps Cousin Cat will be there,” Colban said wickedly. “And you can sit back and stare at her ass every time she crosses the room—”

Cedric gasped, “I do not!”

“—just as you did last night!”

“I did not!”

Colban laughed. “I know exactly when you’re thinking about girls, son, and exactly how hard: Kraaia watches you, and all I have to do is watch her and see how red and crabby she’s getting.”

Cedric cried, “Never!”—though he feared he might have been looking rather red himself.

He did not think he had been staring at any part of Catan last night, but if Colban was telling the truth, then he was capable of sinning even unawares—which, considering how often he was well aware of his sins, put him in even graver danger than he had supposed.

“Girls know,” Colban said ominously. He swept another handful of chestnut shells into his palm and threw them all into the fire.

“Quit that!” Cedric barked. “You’re going to get us in trouble!”

“What?”

“We’re not supposed to be eating in here!”

“Ach! That Cedric!” Colban groaned. “Never met a rule he didn’t like! After he breaks it,” he added with a giggle. He threw a whole chestnut into the flames and said, “We already did eat in here, son. I’m simply burning the evidence.”

“Someone is going to smell the smoke.”

“Someone is going to smell the smoke!” Colban whined. “You had just better stay downwind from Eadie, or you’re going to give us away with your chestnut farts.”

Cedric rolled his eyes, but he was willing to let the insult pass in the hope it would serve as a distraction. For some reason, however, Colban did not intend to let the subject drop.

“Listen, son,” he said ponderously, “let me give you some advice.”

“About girls?” Cedric snapped.

“No—about boys,” he grinned. “It’s time you were told what some of them are saying.”

“They can say it to my face!” Cedric said stiffly.

Said face, however, was growing hot and damp even then. Cedric could hold his own in a fistfight, but he was not a boy who believed the truth could be altered merely by breaking the nose of the boy who told it. He feared it was the truth itself he would have to confront.

“Shut up and listen to me when I’m talking to you,” Colban grumbled. “It’s for your own good. First off, some of them are saying it’s awfully unfair of you to be flirting with the other girls when you already have Kraaia—”

“I am not flirting with anybody!” Cedric spluttered. “And—I don’t have Kraaia! I mean, I never have!”

“That’s the other problem, Cedric. Some of them are saying, if you won’t have Kraaia, it’s because you don’t like girls at all.”

Cedric gasped.

“You know and I know that isn’t true,” Colban winked, “but some will say it. A girl that pretty throwing herself at you…”

“I just wish she wouldn’t,” Cedric groaned.

“What’s wrong with her?” Colban cried in exasperation and smacked his hands down on the rug. “The devil! I don’t know what to do with you! I grant you, she’s annoying when we just want to do something between boys, but, Cedric! Son! She’s a girl!”

“Sometimes she forgets to dress like one,” Cedric muttered.

“That’s because she’s trying to get close to you. But listen, son—let me give you some advice.”

“About girls?” Cedric grumbled.

Colban laughed. “Aye! About girls this time. You want to know how to get rid of a girl like that?”

“As if you knew.”

“It always works for me!” Colban laughed in great and unfathomable amusement, and he tossed another uneaten chestnut into the fire.

Cedric snorted in annoyance.

“What you have to do,” Colban said, “is give the girl what she wants—and then more.”

Cedric did not protest, too occupied in calculating what, in Colban’s experience, could have been the source of this observation.

“If she wants you to hold her hand,” Colban explained, “then put your arm around her. If she wants you to put your arm around her, then kiss her. If she wants you to kiss her…” Colban smiled thoughtfully up at the ceiling. “Ah… put your hand down her dress!”

“Wait just a moment!” Cedric warned.

“And if she wants you to put your hand down her dress…”

“Wait!”

“Put your hand up her dress!” he laughed.

“Stop it!” Cedric whined. “I can’t start down that road! What if she lets me get that far?”

“The devil!” Colban crowed. “Then you keep going! There’s bound to be something even Kraaia won’t let you do! And if there isn’t…” He laughed. “Marry her, son! Congratulations! That’s all I can tell you. A girl that pretty who lets you do everything and more…” He shook his head in wonderment. “And if you need any ideas,” he said eagerly, “you can borrow my brother’s penitential!”

“I think you’re the one who wants a look at your brother’s penitential! You’re the one always talking about it.”

He had intended the remark more in defense than offense, but Colban’s grin snapped straight, and he lifted his ugly nose high, as if he had been squarely struck.

“I am only trying to help you. However, if you like, I shall try my idea on Kraaia myself. Perhaps she just wants it from any boy, and foolishly thinks you’re the one most likely to give it to her.”

“I shall say this once,” Cedric menaced. “I will not allow you to talk that way about her, even if you are my best friend and even if she isn’t my girl.”

Colban snorted. “Why not? It isn’t as if she were a virgin or anything.”

“I said once!” Cedric cried.

“Everyone knows it!”

“Everyone knows nothing!” Cedric wailed. “I never did anything with her!”

“You’ve seen proof of it yourself! We all have!”

“Never! You lie!”

Though he was indeed Cedric’s best friend, now that his honor had been insulted, Colban lifted against him a glare as sharp as a knife.

“And when she rode in here that once,” he challenged, “straight across the bridge before the guards and everyone… astride!”

“And?”

“Astride?”

“And?”

“You baby! If a girl rides astride she’s lost her virginity sure and certain. Either she does then, or it’s proof she already has, so, either way.” He carelessly flipped a piece of shell into the fire.

Cedric opened his mouth, but he could not find a protest he dared pronounce. He thought it better to say nothing than admit how little he knew.

“It’s a fact, son,” Colban said smugly. “Everyone knows it. Why do you suppose girls ride side-​saddle? They can’t go half as far or half as fast.”

“Because of their gowns, I suppose,” Cedric mumbled.

“No, you triple-​ninny!” Colban groaned. “Priests wear robes—that’s almost like gowns—and they go astride. It’s because they lose their virginity if they do. And,” he added wickedly, “because they like it too much. It says so in my brother’s penitential.”

“You and your penitential,” Cedric muttered darkly, since he could attack Colban’s argument on no other grounds.

Colban sniffed. “You ought to read it, if you don’t even know that. But you see you needn’t be so gallant, my friend. It isn’t as if she were a lady, like Gwynn or Cousin Connie. I say have your sport while you may. You may even rid yourself of her… though you might wish you hadn’t once you find how much you like the sporting!” He laughed and tossed a handful of chestnuts into the fire for the fun of watching them pop and smoke.

“Quit it!” Cedric groaned. “You’re stinking up the place!”

“No worse than you farting in your sleep,” Colban retorted.

Cedric smacked Colban’s arm and began, “No worse than you when—”

Colban blinked at him.

Cedric squeaked, “Did you hear a knock?”

“I may have,” Colban said thoughtfully.

“Now you’ve done it!” he growled. “You sweep up these shells and—under the rug!” he hissed as he scrambled to his feet. “I shall stall whomever it is.”

“Probably just your little brother,” Colban grumbled as he began a furious two-​handed sweeping.

It was not Cedric’s little brother. It was Father Faelan, looking so grim that Cedric knew the priest had heard every word—even every sinful thought. Somehow priests knew.

“Father…” he whispered.

As soon as he said the word his eyes filled with a rush of babyish tears. Barring miracles, Father Faelan could not have arrived in time to observe this conversation unless he had set out from Raegiming three hours beforehand. If Father Faelan was at Lotheresburh—and if Father Faelan was looking for him—it could only mean one thing.

“My father!” he blubbered. “My lord! My Papa!”

“No!”

The priest laid his hand on Cedric’s shoulder, stopping him from falling against him entirely and embarrassing himself. Then he shook him playfully, as boys liked to be shaken by men they admired. From this new angle the candlelight washed the grimness from Faelan’s face and made him seem only tired.

“Your father is well, and all your family, Cedric. It’s nothing like that.”

He smiled, and Cedric began to believe it was not even about their conversation.

“Is something burning?” Father Faelan sniffed.

“No!” Colban peeped. “Cedric just farted.”

“Then we shall just lock him in there until the smoke clears,” the priest whispered. He leaned into the room to pull the door closed, winking at Cedric as he passed.

Cedric began to giggle. He had been at Lotheresburh long enough to have lost the habit of Father Faelan and his fun.

Father Faelan’s look of fun disappeared as soon as he stood, however, and the weariness returned.

“I am here on difficult business, Cedric. There’s a man who claims to know you and is asking to speak with you, but if you don’t know him or don’t wish to see him, I shall let you go back to your friend.”

“Who?”

The priest sighed and scratched his hair. “You heard there was a man murdered back home a few days ago?”

“Yes…” Cedric said nervously. “I didn’t have anything to do with that, Father.”

“I know, Cedric,” Faelan said gently. “He simply says he knows you and wants to see you again before he… dies. I promised him I would ask.”

“What’s his name?” Cedric whispered, though a sick feeling in his stomach—due to more than too many chestnuts—made him believe he already knew.

“He was a carpenter,” Faelan said. “His name is Tidraed.”