Considering the nature of their conversation the last time Aengus had shown up uninvited at Osh’s door, it was no wonder if the elf looked a little hesitant to welcome him in. “No more surprises,” that face seemed to say.
Well, he was in for a big one tonight.
Instantly alert, Lar opened the eye that was not buried in his pillow. Somebody was climbing into bed with him. Somebody light and graceful and scented with honeysuckle like a bride.
The whining stopped as soon as Murchad turned his head, and Cucu’s curly tail struck up an encouraging wag.
“Every time you interrupt me,” Murchad muttered, “I am going to start over. So if you want your walk, shut it.”
“And oil of jasmine,” Sadb said in a voice hushed by awe. “King Godred sent me this. Are you ready?”
Uallach nodded. Her eerie eyes were wide, expressing a most flattering interest in the contents of Sadb’s trunk.
“God damn it!” Gunnora stooped and blew sharp puffs on the guttering candle.
“Don’t blaspheme, Baby,” her uncle said wearily behind her.
If Lasrua had been the sort of girl who believed in omens, she might have had an inkling her life was about to turn the moment she dismounted at the gate. There she had been met not by Garalt—dear, dependable Garalt, uniformly discourteous to babies, dogs, grandmothers, grown men, and beautiful girls alike, and during whose morning watches Lasrua timed her visits—but rather by Marcan—her round-faced, red-cheeked, stolid and stammering, not-so-secret admirer.
It was Aed’s fourth, last, and least hopeful attempt of the evening, but it paid off: Gaethine was finally awake.
Swathed, spiced, perched on pillows and tucked into the lamplit alcove like a statue in a shrine. Gaethine had been shaken awake from a much-needed nap only to endure this. It was a wonder Aed hadn’t sent for bolsters to prop him up on either side. He could not even see the door from here.
“Don’t you think we ought to wake his valet?” Sicga asked for the second time.
Eohric whispered a sharp, “No.”
Imin glanced back to be sure his son didn’t need a hand, then flung a leg over the top of the wall. He felt out a cleft with his foot, wedged his toe into the crack, and heaved himself over with no more than a gritty scrape and a slight catch in the billowing in-and-out of his breath.
“Leofric: You knocked-up my wife! — Alred: No, your wife sent you to me since you knocked-up mine. Now get out of here so I can finish writing this poem to Egelric’s wife.”
Chapters
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