She grinned and took it gladly, chewing into it and getting honey on her face. Then she looked at the tray, inspecting the contents.
“What else did you bring?” she put her dirty fingers on the white cheese. “Is this all? No meat?”
Toby rolled her eyes. “Good Lord, Ailsa,” she breathed. “Can you not be grateful for the hospitality you are shown? One more ungracious word from you and you can go stay with the pigs. That is where you belong if you cannot show more manners.”
Ailsa took another big bite of bread and ignored her sister. She moved away from the table and wandered around the room, inspecting the walls, the floor, and anything else she could find. Somewhere along the line she began humming a tune; the fairy tune that Tate had sung the day before at Forestburn. Before long she was twirling about, bread on one hand and the edge of her surcoat in the other, dancing with unseen fairies or perhaps pale young men.
Toby watched her sister prance around the room, thankful that she was at least in better spirits. With the events of the past day, she wasn’t at all sure how Ailsa would recover. But it would seem that she was showing a good deal of resilience.
“You must eat also, mistress,” Stephen’s deep voice was low as he placed a hunk of bread before her. “You must regain your strength.”
Toby eyed the bread before gazing up at the enormous knight. “I thank you for your concern,” she said, “but I am not hungry. Perhaps something later.”
Stephen didn’t push. He sat down at the table a few feet away from her while Kenneth took position on the opposite side. Toby continued to watch her sister flit around the room as Kenneth and Stephen silently consumed the food on the tray.
“She seems to show few ill effects,” Stephen commented quietly.
Toby turned to look at him, watching him nod his head in Ailsa’s direction. She, too, refocused on her dancing sister. “I know,” she replied softly. “It is quite surprising, actually. She has never been particularly healthy and she has rarely been away from Forestburn. I was afraid that traveling all night in the cold air might have affected her health but she seems well enough.”
“Has she said anything more about your parents?” Stephen asked as he took another bite of bread.
Toby looked away from her frolicking sister. “Not much,” she picked at the bread that Stephen had put before her. After a moment, she dared to look up at the men around her. “I have not yet asked but I suppose I should. Did… did you search for my parents?”
Stephen’s cornflower blue eyes were steady. “We found them in the rubble of the collapsed manor.”
Toby drew in a long breath. “I see,” she murmured, looking at the bread again. “May I ask what you did with them?”
“We left some men behind to bury them as we departed for Harbottle,” Kenneth answered her before Stephen could.
She looked at the very blond knight. “Where did you instruct that they should be buried?”
“We did not instruct. We left it to the judgment of the men.”
“So you do not know where my parents are buried?”
Kenneth looked at Stephen and the big knight cleared his throat softly. “I would suspect they are somewhere on the grounds of Forestburn,” Stephen said. “I will find out for certain if it will please you.”
Toby nodded faintly, looking back to her bread. She started to pick at it again but suddenly felt very much like taking in some fresh air. She needed it. Stiffly, she left the table, leaving Stephen and Kenneth behind in silence as her sister continued her dancearound the room. The knights watched her go, knowing she would not go far in her condition. Kenneth returned to his food before Stephen did; the big knight watched the lady moved towards the entry to the keep, still gazing at the doorway even after she was gone.
It was cold outside as the deepening dawn struggled to lift the fog, strangely bright as the sunlight reflected off the mist. Still clad in the heavy broadcloth surcoat she had traveled in, Toby took the stairs slowly and ended up in the bailey. It wasn’t particularly busy but there were a few people about. As weak and exhausted as she was, it actually felt good to walk so she moved across the bailey in an aimless path. It was slow going. Thoughts of her parents rolled through her head, people who hadn’t been particularly kind to her for the duration of her life but people she was fond of. They were her parents, after all. But now they were gone.
The reality of their deaths began to sink in. She had been too ill to care yesterday but at the moment, she found that she cared a great deal. She traced the progression leading up to their deaths only to realize that she had been very ill for the past several days and recalled very little. The most she remembered was waking up to hear the young squire fighting off a monster of a man. She had tried to defend him. She remembered the man calling the squire young Edward, something that had no meaning until this moment. The intruder had seemed very certain that the squire’s name was Edward and not John as she had been told. Then Tate had brained the man before he could do any further damage.
As the fog lifted from the ground, the fog in her mind seemed to do the same. Pacing back along the stables, her mind was wrapped up in the chaos of the past two days as she recollected. Men had burned her house down and Tate seemed to know who they were. He didn’t seem surprised at all. In fact, it was almostas if he had expected it. Just as he had not been surprised that men had attacked them in the mist the day they went to visit the sheep herd. He had been gone for hours trying to locate the attackers. Then he had returned and she had become ill.
Toby came to a pause at the corner of the stable block that faced the kitchen yard. There was a rough-hewn bench there with some farm implements on it and she shoved the tools to the ground and wearily took a seat. As she watched a puppy chase chickens around the kitchen yard, her thoughts inevitably turned to Tate.
He was a man of wealth, skill and supreme power. Long had she heard the rumor that he was Edward Longshank’s bastard. It was an accepted fact. It was also an accepted fact that he had served Longshank’s son, Edward, until he had been imprisoned by Isabella and Mortimer. She thought of the man and his undeniable status, visions of his storm cloud colored eyes filling her mind and his handsome face invading her senses. For the first time since she had met the man, she admitted to herself that she found him wildly attractive. But he clearly had little use for her; at least, she thought so until he had kissed her on the forehead. The kiss had made her heart leap crazily, but it had been a wonderful sort of crazy. Yet she could not get her hopes up about the man. He was unreachable; especially to her. He was of royal blood and she was a farmer’s daughter. That was the reality of things.
She hung her head moodily, eventually distracted by a noise off to her left. She turned to see the young squire quit the stables and head towards the keep. He was a tall lad, blond, and seemed nice enough. As she watched him avoid a pile of horse dung, she remembered what the intruder back at Forestburn had called him;young Edward. He said that he had been sent to retrieve him. Toby remembered asking Tate once if he was running from someone and he assured her that he was not. But he had cometo Cartingdon Parrish to raise money for young King Edward’s cause, a boy crowned while still quite young and now being hunted by his mother’s lover.
And that’s when it hit her.King Edward. Toby nearly fell off of the bench as the realization struck. There could be no other explanation; John of Hainault could be no other than Edward the Third. Traveling in the company of his Uncle Tate, the only man capable of protecting him from his mother and her vicious lover, the young king was disguised as a squire. What else would explain de Lara, two massive knights and a contingent of heavily armed men-at-arms around the boy? It made perfect sense. The more she thought on the awareness, the more stunned she became. And the more frightened.
She rose on shaking legs. The men who had destroyed Forestburn had obviously been hunting for the young king. They must have been Mortimer’s men and the Cartingdon family had been unknowingly caught in the crossfire. Terrified, furious, Toby could only think of one thing; she had to get out of Harbottle. She had to take Ailsa and flee far from the young king and the murderers who pursued him. She had to get away to save them both; otherwise, surely they would end up as their parents had.
It was difficult to walk across the bailey on shaking legs. She made it to the stairs, pulling herself up until she reached the entry to the keep. Her fatigue was growing worse but she ignored it, determined to retrieve her sister. As she moved inside, she could see that Kenneth and Stephen were still sitting at the table, only this time they were joined by the squire. Ailsa was still dancing around the room. Toby staggered into the hall as fast as her weak legs would take her and went straight to her sister.
Ailsa took issue with being grabbed. She glared up at her sister until she saw the look on her face.
