Page 77 of His Forsaken Bride

“If any of the guards challenge us, let me do the talking.”

Fen gulped. “Yes.”

“Don’t look so worried,” he said wiping a smudge from her nose with his cuff. “I have the King’s permission to roam wherever I choose.”

She nodded again and he reached for her hand.

The kitchen courtyard was bustling with servants and tradesmen making drop-offs. They slipped through there without raising any comment and from thence down a busy walk-way.

“This leads to the palace west gate,” Oswald informed her. He was wearing a long black cloak over his fine suit of clothes. Fen glanced down and found hers was a dark green wool.

Fen eyed the palace guards nervously as they approached the tall stone arch, but there were plenty of people walking before and after them, though Fen did not recognize a one. They seemed to be servants rather than nobles. The two of them passed through the gate without comment. Fen breathed a sigh of relief. “That was somehow quite nerve-wracking, husband,” she admitted when they had left the soldiers behind them. She had to stop herself from glancing back at them over her shoulder. “When Gil and I arrived, we did not do so from this gate.”

“No,” Oswald agreed easily. “Doubtless you came in by the north entrance.”

They were crossing a wide bridge, now flanked with azure flags bearing the King’s rampant lion. It was a crisp, cold December day and Fen could see her breath puffing out before her as she gazed at the soaring spires, arches and lurching roofs before them. She squeezed Oswald’s hand and he looked down at her. “Cold?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Excited,” she corrected him with a smile. “What would you have told the guards, if they had stopped us?” she asked curiously.

He seemed to consider his answer a moment. “That I had delivered a missive to someone,” he shrugged.

“To Lord Vawdrey?” she asked.

He pulled a face. “Nay, not to me. I have a certain…reputation. Someone whose name bore less sinister association.”

Fen swallowed down the words that sprang to her lips. She didn’t want to spoil their impromptu trip by asking him unwelcome questions about his role as the King’s spymaster. “And what would my role have been?” she asked instead. “Your sister?”

He gave her a sideways look. “They would not have believed that.”

“Why not?”

He held up their clasped hands and quirked an eyebrow at her.

“You could have let go my hand,” she pointed out.

“No, I could not,” he said firmly.

Fen blushed, though really, she had no notion why. She bit her lip and stared instead at the tall looming buildings with their timbered fronts and black painted beams. They seemed to grow wider as they reached toward the sky, the jutting upper stories, propped up by pillars and wooden struts. “So, not your sister,” she said aloud, gazing up at the overhanging windows. “What then?”

“My doxy probably,” said Oswald.

Fen whipped around to look at his straight face. “Doxy?” she repeated, aghast.

His face was entirely serious, but she noticed his eyes were laughing down at her. “My sweetheart, then?” he suggested.

For some reason, Fen had to fight to catch her breath. It was cold after all.

“We’re heading toward the main square,” Oswald said, taking pity on her tongue-tied state. “It’s market day, so there should be plenty to see.”

“Oh - I don’t have my purse,” lamented Fen, finding her tongue once again. “And I wanted to buy a deck of cards for Gil as a solstice gift.”

“I have plenty of coin,” said Oswald sounding unconcerned. “If there is aught you wish to buy.”

“But I-” her words were cut off as they turned a corner and came out into a wide and bustling marketplace in full swing. Fen drew in a breath at the wide array of stalls, traders and street hawkers.

“It’s just as well you don’t have your purse,” said Oswald dryly as he tugged her down the first row of stalls. “Or you’d probably soon lose it. Stay close to me. You need to have your wits about you here.”

“I often went to market day at Ashby,” Fen protested. Even as she said it, she knew the comparison was laughable. Ashby was a small market town, not one-tenth the size of this vast city. Her husband however, was far too polite to point this out. He simply steered her through the thronging crowds, drawing her sharply to one side when a herd of cattle were driven through or pushing her to the front where he thought she might find a stall that she wanted. She soon found a deck of Livelihood cards to her liking. They were rather nicer than Sir James Attley’s pack, with colored figures depicted on them rather than the black and white wood-cut images. “I wonder, should I get a pack for Roland also?” she turned back to ask Oswald who was stood behind her. “Do your family exchange gifts at Solstice Eve?”