Baron of Emberly by Tamara Leigh

Author:Tamara Leigh [Tamara Leigh]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Tamara Leigh
Published: 2015-12-16T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY

“As should not be news to you, he tracks too well to himself be easily tracked. Thus, I dared follow him only a short distance.”

“Which direction?”

“He rode east, so likely—”

“Aye,” Sir Otto said sharply, as does one who knows what follows and would not waste ear on it.

Thomasin pressed her lips tight. Did he know where Magnus had gone on the day past when, according to Kelling’s man-at-arms who must be in Sir Otto’s pay, his lord had ordered his men to continue to the next village without him?

“Though I daresay you could have done better, John,” Sir Otto said, “’tis something.”

So that was the name of the man who betrayed Magnus—surely in the interest of her father. Still, it did not sit well with her. Disloyalty, by way of heart or by way of greed, could be the ruin—possibly the death—of the betrayed.

The jangle of a purse. The clink of coins dropped into a palm.

“What is this?” John’s voice pitched notches above what had been gruff.

“Gratitude, of course. Mayhap your woman would like some fine sweets. Or you, the best brew coin can buy.”

John chuckled. “Be assured, my woman is well enough fed. Brew ’tis.”

“Then make haste to the nearest tavern.”

Footsteps sounded on the packed dirt floor, but as Thomasin pressed herself tighter against the wall, the scuff of hard soles ceased.

“What of the lady?” John asked. “When—?”

“Do not concern yourself. Be assured, I take seriously the charge given me.”

Another chuckle. “She does have a fine figure, far better than my woman’s.” Now a heavy sigh. “Though once mine was fair lovely.”

“Good eve, John.”

The bulky man-at-arms exited the stall thirty feet from Thomasin who hid amid shadows just inside the stables where saddles, bridles, and blankets were stored. As he passed within five feet of her, she had her closest look at the one she had first seen conversing with Sir Otto weeks ago when she had assumed the knight sought to practice at arms. Perhaps not.

Though this sighting of the man-at-arms was limited to his profile, it was telling. From the center of a face two score aged jutted a long, distinctive nose, its end bulbous, its underside so flat the nostrils were barely visible.

Familiar, she mused. On whom had she seen such a face?

He opened the stable door, and as it closed behind him, Sir Otto strode from the stall. Chin down, he kneaded the back of his neck.

As he moved to follow John from the stables, Thomasin acknowledged the irony of doing unto Sir Otto as he had done unto her in the garden, though her eavesdropping was intentional.

When the man-at-arms and a knight had appeared at Kelling in advance of Magnus and his other men, tasked with ensuring the household was prepared to receive the returning party, she had started for the kitchen to instruct Mathilde to delay supper. But then she had seen Sir Otto move not after her but, rather, the man-at-arms.

Something had bid her follow them. And now she knew the length to which Sir Otto went to do his duty to her father.

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