He nodded at Harmon. “It is. Much of the rubble may be too large for even both of us to move. Would that we had an ass or a horse to which we could affix a rope should we require it.”
Nell piped up brightly, “Why, Jeremy’s got an ass!”
“Aye, milord,” Dunny added with enthusiasm, “Jeremy has a big, sturdy ass!”
Leland snorted. “Verily, his ass is huge. Forgive me, milord, but I’m surprised you haven’t noticed it before now.”
“That’s it,” Jeremy growled, pushing through the small gathering of folk toward the blond Leland. “I’ll rip that shriveled branch from your body and beat you to death with it, you yammering bastard.”
But Leland whooped through his broad grin and leaped nimbly around the perimeter of the group to evade the lumbering man giving chase. Edgar and Edie turned as one and crept along in Leland’s wake, continuing to clutch at each other and display their unfathomable happiness through their largely toothless smiles.
Nell smiled up at Constantine. “With your permission, milord, I’d prepare your rooms. Would you be choosing the cottage yourself?”
Constantine shook his head. “My thanks, Nell, but the lot of you would know better than I.”
Jeremy paused, bent over, his hands on his knees, and gasped for a moment, holding up one fat forefinger. “I’ll . . . fetch Pearl. Send her . . . up . . . with Dunny.”
“Back home again, Garulf,” the boy said, taking hold of his uncle’s hand and guiding it to his shoulder.
“Oh, aye. They’re coming,” Garulf said as he shuffled obediently behind Dunny. His voice was shockingly steady and deep for one of his decrepit appearance. “Like mine, like mine. Happy teeth. Happy claw.”
“Don’t mind him, milord,” Dunny said, glancing at Constantine with a look of humility. “He talks out of his head. Says the same things over and over.”
Constantine raised his hand in farewell and watched the boy depart. When he looked back to Harmon, he saw the bearded man was also closely watching the boy and his uncle as they slowly traversed the ward, but his brow was furrowed.
“What is it?” Constantine asked.
Harmon looked to him quickly, the frown falling from his face. “Beg pardon, milord. Lost in my thoughts, is all. Shall we begin?”
Constantine clapped Harmon’s shoulder and slowly started toward the keep, seeking to preserve as much of his leg as he could for what would likely be a long day ahead. But he couldn’t help but hold in his mind’s eye the look of concern on the bearded man’s face at, according to Dunny, what was typical behavior for the affected Garulf.
And he chose to concentrate on that rather than the memory of Theodora Rosemont charging into what she likely thought was certain danger, his blade in her hand, ready to come to his aid.
* * *
Dori jerked her ragged skirts free from the wet, thorny canes shooting forth from the verdant forest floor like tethered arrows. She couldn’t take five steps before she was snagged again, and trying to hold them gathered together before her only resulted in her shins becoming colder and wetter and crisscrossed with stinging red welts. The thin, razor-sharp blade was of no use against such limber ropy vines, and so she tucked the knife into the double loop of the apron she wore and trudged on, seeking to gain as much distance as she could from Benningsgate without actually becoming lost.
At last she spied an old, wide stump, its weathered top indicating the tree had been harvested some time ago. Dori half-fell onto it on her hip, yanking her skirts after her a final time before letting them fall in a sodden heap against her legs. Erasmus ran around her in two full circuits before coming to an uneasy halt, his blockish head erect, his tongue lolling from the side of his mouth.
“Go back and leave me be,” she grumbled at the dog.
The sounds of his heavy pants seemed to ricochet off the humid air of the forest.
Dori flapped her hand at him. “Go on. Go back.”
Erasmus flinched to the side, as if he was eager to take off bounding once more through the trees, but when Dori failed to gain her feet and follow he hesitated. The dog yawned widely and shook his head, licked his muzzle noisily, and then turned in a half circle to flop down in the long weeds with a sigh. But he wasn’t still for long as his ears twitched and he turned his head, his eyes bright and his posture stiff. Dori couldn’t hear anything, and yet a moment later the dog leaped to his feet and galloped away, leaving her alone with only the dripping leaves and the faint roar of the river for company.
She was perhaps in greater trouble now than she had been on the night she’d come to Benningsgate. No fewer than eight people knew of her existence now, and those people hadn’t been too keen on finding her with their lord and master, Constantine Gerard. She didn’t know how much longer she could delay her return to Thurston Hold. If Glayer Felsteppe discovered she was still alive and had been hiding all this time little more than a stone’s throw away, he would certainly realize that Dori was only biding her time until she could retrieve her son. He was depraved and evil, certainly, but he was also cunning, and at the merest hint of Dori’s survival he would take flight with her child.
And then, Dori knew, Glayer Felsteppe would make sure Dori was hunted like one of Jeremy’s half-wild forest swine until she was cornered and cut down.
“Lady Theodora?” The unmelodic female voice cut through the wet air, interspersed with the crashing strides of Erasmus.
Dori sighed and pressed her lips together. Was it not enough that she had been humiliated before everyone there, being seen in the peasant woman’s apron? Nell would press the point by chasing Dori down and taking the garment from her?
Dori stood from the stump and picked at the knot, her ire rising as she remembered the goggling gazes of the villagers. They were all likely pleased to see that she had fallen to such a state.
By the time Erasmus led Nell to her, Dori was unwinding the wide apron and pulling it over her head.
