Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 01] by Knight in My Bed

Author:Knight in My Bed [Bed, Knight in My]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

BY THE ROOD, Donall!” Gavin MacFie scrambled to his feet and came as far forward as his ankle chain would allow. “Saints be praised!” he cried, pulling Donall into a rough, comradely embrace.

“I thought you were dead. They wouldn’t give me word of you.” He released Donall, a broad smile lighting his beard-stubbled face.

Donall returned his friend’s smile with a grin of his own. “There are varlets a-plenty here who’d savor naught more than to see me swing from a gibbet,” he said, casting a glance at the two scowling churls affixing his chain to a heavy iron ring on the wall of Gavin’s cell.

“But,” he vowed with as much purposeful joviality as his hoarse voice would allow, “I refuse to oblige them.”

“Pompous bastard,” Rory snarled under his breath and jerked on the chain, testing the iron ring’s hold. Apparently satisfied, he strode to the door. “Were it not for our misguided ladyship, I’d smash my fist into your jeering mouth until you spit out every last one o’ your teeth.”

“Cool your temper,” the giant admonished him, stepping aside to admit a stream of wide-eyed kitchen lads, each carrying a bundle of some sort in their scrawny arms. “Summer Solstice is fast upon us. Soon the crows will be picking his bones clean.”

“Oh, aye?” Gavin balled his hands to fists. “Give me my blade and we’ll see whose carcass ends as carrion fodder.”

Donall leaned against the rough-masoned wall and feigned a look of detachment. Lifting his hand, he pretended to examine his knuckles. “You ken what they say, Gavin. A dog who barks overmuch does so because he cannot bite.”

Gavin tossed back his shaggy reddish-brown hair and laughed. To Donall’s amazement, even the giant’s lips twitched a bit before he caught himself. Rory sputtered, his eyes blazing with such fury it wouldn’t have surprised Donall to see steam shoot from his ears.

“Say your prayers, you whoreson knave,” Rory seethed, whipping out his dirk. He took one menacing step forward before the aged knight, Donall’s unlikely champion, entered the cell, his thick brows drawn together in a near solid line.

“Becalm yourself, lest I am tempted to have you muck out the cesspit,” he said to Rory. Grim-faced, he took up a position by the door, hands propped against his hips, his still-muscular legs planted apart.

He slanted a pointed glance at the double-edged dirk in Rory’s hand. “Sheathe it.”

“Ram it down his gullet is what I’d like to do,” Rory groused. With a last, outraged glower at Donall and Gavin, he jammed his blade into the leather holder at his belt, and stomped out the door.

“See he cools his blood,” Lorne said to the giant, then inclined his leonine head toward the door in a clear gesture for Niels, too, to exit the cell.

Niels obliged him, ducking beneath the doorway’s low lintel to disappear into the dimness of the passage beyond. The kitchen lads scurried after him, clearly relieved to make a hasty retreat.

The moment their collective footfalls faded, Donall let himself sag a bit more heavily against the cold stone wall.

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