It was a craven act, but Colban sent the young Earl ahead to knock and gain entry to the girls’ lair. Baldwin was afraid to talk to anyone, he reasoned, and a general fear was necessarily less grave than an acute dread of speaking to one person in particular.
“There goes another one,” Finn said as a kilted man jogged past.
Eadred only grunted, but he seemed to pick up the pace. Indeed, he had said very little and walked very quickly ever since they had returned to the fort. This was doubly strange, for Eadred was ordinarily a man who preferred to lollygag and gabble.
Not since Iylaine’s chestnut pony Blackie had any four-legged resident of Nothelm borne such an ill-fitting name. Yappy snored and snuffled, and he had an endearing habit of whining when he yawned, but on the whole he was the quietest puppy Margaret had ever known. If Yappy was yapping, it could mean only one thing.
Joseph’s stride was long and light, and in the silence between his steps Malcolm could almost hear the swishing of the robes he no longer wore. When he was not scrambling to assist in an emergency, his quietly majestic gait was always the same, and it told Malcolm nothing.
Cousin Malcolm had so thoroughly failed to mention Cearball’s whereabouts this Sunday afternoon that Condal had concluded Cearball was nowhere to be found.
Matilda did not recognize the horse, but the master’s sleek curls were unmistakable. He was alone.
She thought Oswald had seen him too. Downstairs she heard floorboards creak from the fire to the window and back.
“Kraaia!”
Kraaia slid her arm beneath her and sat up on her elbow. She did not think she had dreamed the sound of her name. She had at least not dreamed the switch-crack sound of a hushed scolding across the room, nor the tearful whimpering of a girl.
Iylaine burst into laughter, startling Malcolm into the uncharacteristic act of lifting his pen in the middle of a word. What had Mother Curran said?
Donnchad clasped his unbuckled sword belt against his hip with one hand and lifted the other for silence, though no one had said a word in that frigid room for some time.
“Cedric, the Lord knows I never thought I would have to say these words, but No: you do not and never shall have my permission to become a eunuch.”
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