“Do you imagine he could run any faster?”Bayard asked.“And over the rumor of a rat.How soft the men are in these parts.”He snorted.“We could tell him tales that would keep him sleepless for a fortnight.”
“But it is better that many of those tales are left untold, my friend,” Quinn said.“We will start anew here, you and I, should you be inclined to remain.”
“I have no other place to go, as you well know.A younger son must make his fortune where he finds it.”Bayard turned to Quinn.“Perhaps it is fortunate that Niall and Amaury fell ill in Venice and Lothair remained to tend them.Lord de Tulley might not have been so glad to host twice our company.”
“Or you might not have had sufficient to eat,” Quinn teased and Bayard laughed.
“Oh, I am well and truly prepared to enjoy a feast,” he said.“And a hot bath.Not to mention a thick palette by a fire.”
“The others will arrive in due time, though, and I would hope to have Sayerne fit to welcome them.”
“They will all arrive in May, as agreed,” Bayard said, surveying the keep once more.He shook his head.“There is a great deal to be done, Quinn, and you have no villeins.”
“Aye.”Quinn clasped his companion’s shoulder.“But Sayerne is mine, Bayard, and Lord de Tulley must mean to aid my success.”
“At what price?”the other knight asked.
“I do not care,” Quinn replied.“I will pay it, without hesitation.”
Bayard eyed him for a moment, as if keeping some comment to himself.
Then Michel appeared in the doorway to the hall.“My lord, I could not find the rat.”
Bayard’s gaze trailed to the gate, but the clerk was already out of sight.“It seems that the lord’s messenger lost his appetite.”
“Or perhaps he knows more about the bounty of the lord’s board than we do,” Quinn commented.
“Woho!Now there is a thought!”Bayard’s brows rose at the promise of food.“Let’s hasten to this barn to take our ease, and thence to Tulley in the morning.”He, too, ruffled Michel’s hair and the boy’s eyes lit in anticipation.
“If I did not know better, I might think you had only accompanied me to have food in your belly,” Quinn accused as they turned toward the stables.
Bayard laughed.“I anticipate more than that pleasure now that we are home.Do you think Tulley has a pretty daughter?”
“He has a niece, as I recall, but expect her to be well-defended from the likes of you.”
Bayard grinned.“Any pretty maid will suit me, it must be said.A cook’s daughter perhaps, or a miller’s daughter.A maid from the kitchens.”
“A woman who will see you fed.”
“Among other pleasures.”Bayard’s dark eyes twinkled.“I would see her well-pleased, to be sure.”He sobered as he glanced over the ailing estate again.“Trust you to find a haven for us that will require solid labor from our hands.”
“Such work will be good for you,” Quinn said.“You become too old to earn your way with a blade.”
“Too old to fight?But not too old to work like a peasant?”
“You do not have to stay.”
“First I am old, now I am not sufficiently robust to move millstones.Thisisa sorry day for my pride.”Bayard poked Quinn on the shoulder.“Do not imagine that you will shake me from your side in this adventure,” he said, his voice gruff.“You may believe you owe me a debt, but to have a home would be the greatest gift a man might give to another.Should anyone be able to rebuild this place, it will be you, Quinn.I have never raised a blade beside a man of such will.”
Quinn smiled, knowing the words came from the heart.“Then consider yourself at home, my friend.We have battled alongside each other for too long to part company now.”
The two knights paused in the middle of the snow-filled bailey and shook hands under the bright winter sun.Then they hastened through the snow to their squires and steeds.
The grain barn, with its warmth, fodder and food, was more than sufficient to entice them on this night.
Chapter 1
Melissande was not pleased to be summoned to Tulley so early.Indeed, the messenger must have left that keep at first light, or even before.She had received word of another raid upon Annossy while breaking her fast, this time at the mill on the border, and had been conferring with her Captain of the Guard when the messenger arrived.
