Childe Morgan Read Free Page A

inside and don dry clothes. The archbishop will be wanting to leave soon for court. He has already been asking for you.”
    Oliver cast a last, longing glance at his brother’s grave, grimly signed himself with the Cross, then let himself be led inside.

Chapter 2
    â€œHe shall serve among great men, and appear before princes; he will travel through strange countries; for he hath tried the good and the evil among men.”
    â€”ECCLESIASTICUS 39:3
    â€œA LARIC Anthony Morgan, if you don’t stop squirming and let Auntie Zoë put your shoes on, I shall tell your father!”
    Lady Alyce de Corwyn Morgan turned from her mirror to cast an exasperated glance at her firstborn, both hands occupied with holding hanks of golden hair in place while a maid arranged her coiffure. Auntie Zoë, actually the child’s half-sister, did her best to keep a straight face as the wayward toddler glanced guiltily from his mother’s face to hers to the offending shoes, lower lip starting to tremble.
    â€œDon’t want those!” he declared, hugging two disreputable-looking bits of scuffed suede against the front of a once-clean shirt. “Want these !”
    â€œAbsolutely not!” Zoë said emphatically, plucking the offending shoes from his grasp and tossing them behind her as she held up a newer green one. “Those are nearly worn through and outgrown—and they’d look utterly shabby with your lovely new tunic,” she added, indicating the small black tunic laid out on the chest beside him. Embroidered over the left breast was a green Corwyn gryphon, its details picked out in gold. A border of fleury-counter-fleury in metallic gold embellished it at throat, sleeve-edge, and hem.
    â€œNo!” said Alaric. “Don’t like the green ones!”
    â€œAlaric, love,” said Zoë, “we don’t have time for this today. You know Papa will be very cross if you make him late for court. The green shoes are lovely and soft—”
    â€œNo!”
    â€œHere now, what’s this about green shoes?” asked a pleasant male voice from the doorway behind them, as Zoë’s father—and the boy’s—came into the room, accompanied by the youngest of his three daughters, the flaxen-haired Alazais.
    Though less colorfully dressed than the women, Sir Kenneth Morgan had also donned formal court attire for the occasion: an ankle-length robe of nubby turquoise wool, its high neck and sleeves lined with silver fox, cinched at the waist with the white belt of his knighthood. Alazais wore a rich brown damask, in contrast to Zoë’s gown of heavy rose silk. Alyce, as the heiress of Corwyn, had chosen deep forest green to complement the Furstána emeralds at her throat. All of them sported varying shades of blond hair, though Kenneth’s had gone more toward silver than sandy in the past several years.
    â€œHe doesn’t like the green shoes,” Alyce said, half-turning toward the newcomers as she set a narrow silver fillet atop the fine veil her maid had just pinned in place. “He wants to wear those manky old tan ones that even the dogs ignore.”
    â€œDoes he, indeed?” Kenneth asked, crouching between his son and his eldest daughter and taking up one of the green shoes. “Alaric, is that true? Why, these are very fine shoes. I like them far better than mine.”
    The boy’s rebellion shifted to curiosity, and he leaned forward to peer down at the pointed toe of one turquoise shoe protruding from beneath the hem of his sire’s robe.
    â€œI really do prefer yours,” Kenneth said, noting the boy’s interest. “Not that your shoes would fit me—and even if they did, the color would hardly suit this robe. Frankly, I’d far rather be wearing my comfortable old black ones.
    â€œBut sometimes, we have to do what someone else wants. Your mother likes these better, and tells me they are much more suitable