“Boys!”
Cynewulf and Heafoc scarcely hesitated in their game, but Haakon went as stiff as a reed. It was not so much with the hope of remaining unnoticed as with his ten years’ experience of the futility of running from adults when one had been found out in a misdeed.
Conrad was forced to pounce at the last minute, having previously let slip a dozen opportunities to simply bend his head to Margaret’s and ask. But the great doors were opening, and once inside she would surely attach herself to Hetty, his father, or – God forbid – Father Matthew, or to any person who would make too embarrassing a witness to his attempts to steal her away, however subtle henceforth.
Cedric saw at once just what sort of trouble he was in. His father had been summoned, it seemed, and even if he had only chanced to come by at that moment, there was no explaining away the presence of the reeve.
“Ced – ”
“Nice joke! Very funny!” Cedric snapped.
His father finished his name as a grunt.
Instinctively Kraaia left the door open at her back. It was the same instinct that had made her count the steps outside and measure their height, the same that had made her pace out the length of the wall, and the same that had made her note the depth of the grass in the uncut field beyond the road: tall enough to hide the body of a crouching girl.
The shrill, two-note cry was tattered by the wind and muted by the brick and plaster of the walls, but Vash had heard it often enough here to know it: a kestrel was hovering outside, where kestrels should hover no more.
Cearball’s first thought was that he could run for it. He had only to bolt straight ahead, and by the time the man turned the corner, he would already be safe in his room.
Cearball wiped and spat and blotted, but he could do no more without water. He could not determine the state of his teeth unless he rinsed them of their red, and his chin and cheek were streaked with dried blood that could not have been removed without rubbing – and rubbing was the last thing his chin and cheek could bear.
“Now where you do you think you’re going, Mistress Kraaia?” Cat cooed.
Kraaia thought she was taking advantage of the sisters’ Gaelic squabbling to sneak downstairs and peek about and prowl – and if she found her way into the pantry, to stuff herself with cheese or cold meat so that she could turn up her nose at the roasted geese with proper disdain.
At once Cearball understood Malcolm’s frowning failure to identify the owners of the palfreys stabled at the roadside. At last, too: he had perhaps five seconds to prepare himself – and he spent them all staring.
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