She nodded. “Romney is my eldest,” she smiled at the boy with pride. “He is an intelligent lad, sweet and loving. Orin is my middle son and Brendt is the youngest. Boys, why are you covered in white powder?”
She addressed her sons, who had a complete change of demeanor since her arrival and were now innocent little angels.
“We were playing, Mama,” Orin insisted. “We were ghosts.”
Emberley’s delicate eyebrows lifted. “Ghosts? Why on earth are you ghosts?”
Romney took charge of the conversation before Orin blew their cover. “Because,” he said simply, hoping that would be enough to satisfy his mother. “Mama, can we eat in the hall tonight? I want to see all of the knights!”
Emberley shook her head. “Nay,” she told him. “You must eat in your chamber. Your father has business to attend to and does not want you underfoot.” She looked at Gart. “Am I to understand that you have met my sons already?”
Gart wasn’t sure how to answer. He looked at the boys, who all gazed back at him quite innocently. He didn’t believe it for a moment. In fact, he was resisting the urge to scowl at them with disbelief.
“Aye,” he said slowly, reluctantly. “I have just arrived and the boys were… that is to say, they were….”
“Mama,” Romney latched on to his mother’s arm. “We were going to show Sir Gart to the hall. May we do that, Mama? May we, please?”
“Of course, sweetheart,” Emberley smiled at her eldest. “That is quite gracious of you.”
Gart eyed the boys suspiciously as the youngest one reached out and took his big hand. “We will show you, Sir Gart,” he said politely. “Come with us.”
Gart didn’t want to pull away from the child because he didn’t want to offend Emberley. He stood there dumbly as the boy took his hand and Emberley smiled happily.
“’Tis so good to see you again, Gart,” she said sincerely, her dark blue gaze drifting over his handsome features. “It has been a very long time. Much has happened since you and I last saw one another. I would like to know what you have been doing in the twelve years since I last saw you.”
Gart could only nod. Realizing she was the baron’s wife dampened his enthusiasm at their re-acquaintance and he was coming to think that he had been very, very stupid as a young man not to have realized her potential. True, she’d always been a lovely girl, but had he known she would have grown into such an exquisite creature, he might have vied for her hand. But that thought was tempered by the fact that she had apparently raised three hooligans who had her completely fooled. The woman was raising a pack of wild animals.
Emberley smiled at him and beckoned him to follow her back up the stairs. He did so willingly, gladly, but the moment she turned her back on the boys and headed up the stairs, the youngest one yanked his hand from Gart’s fist and began smacking him on the leg.
Romney, too, waited until his mother’s back was turned before shaking a fist at Gart, making horrible and threatening faces at him. Orin still had a stick and he whacked Gart on the back with it. Gart grabbed the stick and tossed it away but when Emberley turned around at the sounds coming from behind her, the four of them froze and smiled innocently at her. Emberley grinned and continued up the stairs.
The attack against Gart resumed all the way into the great hall above.
Read the rest of Archangel! Find it at all major eBook retailers.
The Thunder Warrior
Kathryn Le Veque
Enjoy a bonus chapter from Kathryn Le Veque’s upcoming release, THE THUNDER WARRIOR.
Part One
Winds of Fate
May
“In days of old,
With men so bold,
A storm was brewing brightly.
These men, it was told,
As knights so bold,
Were known to tame the lightning”
~ 13th century chronicles
Chapter One
Year of our Lord 1258 A.D.
Reign of Henry III
Oxford, England
It was a day of days, a mild spring day that was perfect in every fashion. The sun was brilliant against the deep blue expanse of sky with nary a cloud to hamper the view. Days like this were rare, neither hot nor cold, but in that perfect temperature that seemed to bring out the best in both man and beast. A breeze, as soft and caressing as a child’s whisper, whistled through the busy and proud town of Oxford.
The Street of the Merchants was a bustling road that was lined on both sides by close-quarters buildings, stalls and shops that were manned by aggressive salesmen determined to push their wares upon a spend-happy public. Between St. Clément’s church and the castle stretched the main thoroughfare through the town, and travelers spilled into the Street of the Merchants, just off the main road. This created a crowded bottleneck at the head of the street.
Four armed knights pushed themselves through the bottleneck and ended up in the crowds shopping along the avenue. The smells from the bakers on the next street wafted heavily in the air, the scent of yeast and of hard, brown crusts making for hungry shoppers at this time in the morning. Near the middle of the avenue near a fabric vendor’s stall, a man playing what looked like a crudely made vielle stood in the tiny gap between two buildings while his daughter, a round girl with a big mouth, sang quite loudly and somewhat off key. All of it, the sights and smells of the day, contributed to the hurried setting.
“Licorice root, wasn’t it?” one of the knights asked the group. “And spiced wine?”
The knight in the lead, a very large man with massive shoulders and a crown of dark, wavy hair replied. “Wine with marjoram,” he said. “She was specific. It settles her stomach, as does the Licorice.”
The knight who asked about the licorice room made a face. “Have you ever tasted licorice?” he asked. “It is most foul and turns your tongue black.”
The knight in the lead turned to look at the licorice-hating knight, who was now sticking his tongue out to demonstrate his aversion. Sir Maximus de Shera, a brawny beast of a man with enormous shoulders and a granite-square jaw, shook his dark-blonde head at his younger brother’s antics.
“It does not matter what you or I think of it,” he said. “Jeniver is feeling ill from her pregnancy and Gallus asked us to find her some.”
Sir Tiberius de Shera put his tongue back in his mouth but he still wasn’t convinced. The very tall, leanly muscular brother was animated to a fault and opinionated until the very end.
“The spiced wine would do better,” he said. “Moreover, why are we running Gallus’ errands for him? His wife is the one feeling ill; he should be the one to come and fish for stinking roots and rotten wine for her.”
Maximus grinned. “Will you tell him that to his face?”
Tiberius shook his head. “Not me,” he said. “Much like you, I do as I am told by our illustrious older brother. Let us get this over with; I will head down to the end of the avenue and see if I can find an apothecary. You stay here and see if you can locate the wine with all of the dried weeds in it.”