Dark Lord of Geeragh by Veronica Geoghegan Sweeney

Author:Veronica Geoghegan Sweeney [Sweeney, Veronica Geoghegan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amazon.com
Published: 2011-07-07T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

I found the Princess Aninn in her quarters, surrounded by her ladies. The more dramatic the turn of events surrounding the Princess, the more voluble did the ladies become in their protective role. Never entirely happy in this strange and - to them - forbidding country, they seemed more and more to be like a flock of black birds. As I entered the room they turned to me, fluttering and squarking - and pecking.

“What do you want here, you ungrateful boy?” demanded the lady who opened the door to me. “Haven’t you done enough damage - Where did you get that?” The sudden change of subject was caused by her bright black eyes alighting on the jewelled dagger, the belt of the scabbard looped twice around my waist.

“Who is it, Uana?”

“Young Fen, the page, Your Highness - he carries a dagger!”

“Send him in,” came calmly from the Princess.

The lady Uana stood back to let me in, clucking with disapproval. When the rest of the ladies saw me enter they sat back in their chairs, ruffled their skirts away from where they might come in contact with my passing form, and watched me, broodingly, unblinking.

Princess Aninn was pale, she looked as if she had not slept the night before, and she had been crying.

“Hello, Fen,” she said, despite all this, despite her hard-eyed, watchful ladies, she spoke with as much warmth as always, as if my words had not brought disaster upon her.

“I must speak with you alone, Your Highness.”

“Never!” said Uana, and the other ladies chorused their rights to their roosts and their place in the pecking order, until Aninn said, her eyes upon my face, “Leave us, ladies.”

And then what fluttering amongst them, “The boy is armed, My Lady!”, “He’s not to be trusted…!”, “A knife, Your Highness!”

“Leave us!” said the Princess, firmly.

And they left us, amid much clucking and ruffling and flustering until, when they had finally closed the door after the last of them, I still expected to see a few black feathers floating gently to the ground.

“Fen,” said the princess. “That’s Lord Bress’s dagger, isn’t it?”

My gaze was still on the door, outraged by the women’s suspicions. “They thought I was going to hurt you!” I looked at her, startled by the sudden thought, “You didn’t…!”

She shook her head. “I know you’d never hurt me, Fen - and I can’t see Lord Bress loaning you an enchanted dagger, just to kill me.”

“It’s…” I looked down at it. I took the knife from its scabbard, holding the blade towards myself and watched the jewels glow like… jewels. I raised my eyes to the Princess. “It’s bewitched, isn’t it?” I felt suddenly chilled. “The ruby, the saphire… all of them, they glow when there’s danger about.”

“A danger to the owner,” she corrected.

Had he seen, in those few seconds before I had dropped the dagger by his bed? But no - give a dagger to a boy who threatened danger? And I remembered, then, my own thoughts, and

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