03 Kemp Riders of Fury by Jonathan Lunn

Author:Jonathan Lunn
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Medieval, Action & Adventure, Fiction, Renaissance, Historical, War & Military, Thrillers, Military, General
ISBN: 9781788639224
Publisher: Canelo
Published: 2020-07-29T23:00:00+00:00

* * *

The negotiations began in earnest the next morning. Kemp was content to let Sigismund and Quentin do all the talking. Mostly it was legal talk of dowries and dowers, which the friar and Father Oridial peppered with a lot of Latin phrases that went over Kemp’s head.

He glanced at Lady Azénor to see if she was as bored as he was. Although she spoke little – merely nodding her assent or shaking her head in response to glances from Montauban or Oridial – behind a façade of being bored she was clearly following the debate attentively.

Remembering that while they had come to negotiate a marriage treaty, FitzWaryn would have to be a cold-blooded fish if he did not ask someone to describe his bride-to-be, Kemp studied Lady Azénor’s features more closely, trying to memorise them and wondering how he would describe them to the knight. She was a handsome woman: her nose perhaps a little too large and sharp for perfection, but with good cheekbones, a strong jaw and full lips, and her close-fitting kirtle did little to conceal the fullness of her shape. Kemp felt a pang of envy towards FitzWaryn, or indeed any man who got to share her bed. Was she a maid, he wondered? Had she been married before? Did she take a lover into her bed at night? Not Oridial, that was for certain: he was an old and dusty dried-up stick of a man. Montauban, perhaps? Kemp tried to imagine Montauban lying atop Azénor, his head thrown back, teeth bared in a rictus of ecstasy, her ladyship responding with an ecstasy of her own. Kemp could imagine one or the other of them, but a picture of the two of them together would not form. It was easier and more pleasant to imagine her in his own arms, and then he thought how ridiculous it would be for a woman as high and mighty to give herself to a base-born villein like Kemp, and before he realised it he had snorted with laughter.

There was silence in the room. Everyone was staring at him. ‘My proposal amuses you, Master Kemp?’ Father Oridial asked icily.

Kemp blushed. ‘Forgive me. My mind strayed. I thought of something amusing, that’s all.’

Montauban tapped Oridial on the arm, and the priest moved his head closer so the captain could whisper in his ear. Scowling, the priest shook his head and muttered his response in Montauban’s ear.

‘Perhaps you would be good enough to excuse us for a moment?’ asked Azénor.

‘Certainly, your ladyship,’ said Quentin.

Azénor, Montauban and Oridial retreated to the far end of the hall to talk amongst themselves. The two men both gesticulated wildly, and while Kemp could not make out the words even when their voices became raised enough for him to hear, there was no mistaking Azénor’s recriminatory tone.

‘Have I upset the broth?’ he asked Sigismund.

‘By no means,’ said the Almain. ‘Your contempt for the proceedings appears to have given them something to think about. Now they seem convinced we are negotiating from a position of strength.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.