Knights of de Ware 01 - My Champion Read Free Page B

but rogues and swindlers to rob a man blind. Not to mention beggars. And waifs by the score.”
    “Nonsense,” Lady Alyce said sweetly. Then she added in a whisper, “I’ll wager no more than six.”
    “Pah!” Lord James replied, and then murmured, “My silver is on a dozen, madam.”
    “What’s this?” Holden ventured. “Wagering?”
    Robert leaned forward with a conspiratorial grin. “Aye. They’ve taken to wagering on how many strays Duncan will bring home with him each time he goes out.”
    Lord James grumbled, “It’s the only way I can afford to feed them all.”
    Duncan chuckled. He couldn’t be more content. With Holden temporarily home from the king’s service, and Garth and Robert by his side once more, things were exactly as they should be. The great hall teemed with members of his extended family, velvet next to linen, unwashed faces beside powdered ones, everyone partaking of the rich harvest the land provided. The room reverberated with the panoply of sound, from the rough heckling of seasoned knights to the murmured dreams of maidservants.
    His father never truly understood Duncan’s taste for the full palette of humanity. Lord James was a man of his station. He adhered to the belief that only nobles should sit above the salt, servants had little capacity for learning, and common wenches were to be bought for a penny. Yet, Duncan thought with admiration, he’d never turned away the waifs Duncan inevitably brought home with him. There was always an extra trencher at the table and a little room by the fire.
    Duncan swirled the wine around in his cup. His chest swelled with pride as he looked over dozens of his loved ones, lost souls he’d rescued from the streets, orphans he’d brought in from the rain. Lord James might complain about the extra mouths to feed, but he was always there with relief for them. Duncan smiled at the graying wolf of a lord who was still muttering into his beard and hoped with all his heart that when the time came, he’d be as fine a leader of men as his father.
    He wiped his mouth, and then arose, rubbing his hands together. “Now,” he called out, “who would like to hear the tale of the miller’s wayward daughter and the enchanted frog?”
    A high-pitched cheer arose in the hall, and a score of children came bounding up from the tables to gather around him. They clutched at his surcoat as he seated himself on the dais, begging him eagerly to begin the story. He grinned at them, placating them by holding as many on his lap as he could.
    Some of the children had the same thick black hair as he. Some of them looked back at him with the sapphire eyes he saw in the looking glass each morn. Indeed, many of them were likely his own by-blows. But he’d be damned if he could even remember which ones they were. He felt as if they were all his.
     
    Linet de Montfort elbowed her way along the crowded lane of the spring fair. All around her, patches of woaded linen, russet wool, scarlet velvet, and green silk fluttered on the breeze like a great beggar’s cloak.
    She took a deep breath. Cinnamon, pepper, and ginger wafted tantalizingly over the smell of fresh fodder and warm apple tarts. The smoke from roasting meat mingled with the musk of strong ale. Leather and tallow lent their familiar odors to an essence laced with the more exotic scents of pungent cloves and oranges from Seville.
    Sound filled the air around her: steel on steel as swords were tested, the bleating of spring lambs, the sweet tones of a jongleur’s lute, and the ever-present haggling over coins and wares.
    Despite the excitement of the morning and the gathering crowd, Linet felt a pang of sorrow. It was the first fair she’d come to without her father, Lord Aucassin. Last year, dispirited after the shipment of his cloth had been stolen, he’d succumbed to a wasting sickness. For the first time, Linet would be selling her wares as a femme sole under the de Montfort insignia. Lord Aucassin, God rest