The tavern keeper looked at the coinage in his hand, surprised at the generosity of the big knight. Suddenly, he wasn’t so disinterested in the man. “I will, my lord,” he said, finally polite. “I’ll send it up right away.”
Kevin turned Annavieve around and steered her in the direction of the small flight of wooden stairs that led to the upper floor, but Annavieve was looking at the room.
“We will not eat down here?” she asked.
Kevin shook his head, still directing her towards the stairs. “Nay,” he replied. “Not with this rabble. Too many things can happen. Let us go where it is safe and I can lock the door.”
Somewhat disappointed, as she had never been to an inn before, Annavieve allowed him to take her up the stairs. While she stood on the landing and watched the room below, longingly, Kevin went to all four rooms, throwing open doors and inspecting the contents of the rooms before finally settling on one.
“My lady?” he called to her. “Come along, now.”
Annavieve had been watching a table of men as they sang a rather naughty song. It all seemed in good fun, however, because they were laughing heartily and she was sorry she was not going to hear the rest of their song. With a sigh, she followed Kevin into the room he had chosen, the last door on the right. He locked the door behind them.
The chamber was dark and musty-smelling, but Kevin was already over by the hearth, stacking kindling. There was a table and two chairs, and a rather small bed, and Annavieve sat down on the chair to wait for the fire so she wasn’t wandering around in the dark.
“I have never been to a tavern before,” she said wistfully. “It sounds as if everyone is having a marvelous time.”
Kevin grunted in disapproval as he arranged the kindling. “Drunkards,” he muttered, “half-wits and fools. You are better off not down there with them.”
Annavieve thought on the song she had heard. “They were singing a song,” she said. “I could only catch a few words here and there. They were singing about someone named Tilly Nodden.”
Kevin struck the flint and sparks flew. “That is not a song for you to sing.”
“Do you know it?”
“I do.”
“Why is it not a song for me to sing?”
A small fire began to burn and Kevin blew at it to increase the flame. “Because the words are indecent.”
“Will you not sing it for me?”
He looked at her, scowling. “I will not.”
“Please?” she begged gently. “You must understand… this is all so new and exciting to me. The only songs I know are hymns. It is as if an entirely new world has opened up in this little town yet I find myself closed up in here. I have spent my entire lifeclosed up in one room or another. I want so much to go out again and see the life that is happening out there, but… won’t you at least sing that song to me? I would like to hear all of it.”
When she put it that way, Kevin was coming to feel badly that he’d locked them up in their room when all she wanted to do was go outside and see excitement she’d never experienced before. She’d never seen such things, a festival that celebrated the souls of the dead or men who sang of a tavern whore. Everything she knew was in the four walls of Sempringham Priory or at the palace on Thorney Island. Everything she was experiencing with him was new and he had a firsthand glimpse of someone who was looking at the world as if just seeing it for the first time. Literally, she was. He sighed faintly.
“It is a very naughty song,” he told her. “Why do you want to hear such a thing?”
She smiled faintly, shrugging. “I have never heard anything naughty in my life,” she said. “I do not suppose God will fault me, just this once.”
He lifted his eyebrows as he stood up, brushing off his hands. “He may not fault you but he would certainly fault me for singing it to you,” he pointed out. “God is already angry enough at me. I should not like to make it worse.”
She watched him as he went over to the bed and tossed back the coverlet, inspecting it for bugs and vermin. “Is he angry at you for what you did in the Levant?” she asked softly.
He was still looking at the bed. “That,” he said vaguely, “and other things.”
“What other things?”
He shrugged and put the coverlet back in place. “I am not sure,” he said. “God has not paid particular attention to me in my life so I would assume I did something terrible when I was very young and do not know about it.”
Annavieve was riveted to the man as he moved about the room, opening his saddlebags and rummaging through them. “God has not paid particular attention to me, either, but that does not mean he is angry with me,” she said. “I am a product of sin so I suppose it is a good thing I’ve spent my entire life in a convent. I have much to atone for.”
He pulled forth a few items in his saddlebags. “You would atone for parents you have never met?”
“Someone must pay for their sin.”
