AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The boy’s eyes came up at that, but Aodh had dragged a tunic over his head and was unavailable for scrutiny, so he turned his regard to Bran, half a decade his senior and clearly the next rung on the ladder in Aodh’s world. He took Bran’s measure for a moment, then turned back to Aodh.
“What do you adhere to, milordsir?” he asked impertinently.
“Horses.” Aodh reached for his sword belt. “I can think of several ways a man like yourself can be useful, Dickon.” The boy’s head lifted as if pulled by a thread. “Know you much of horses?”
“Horses, milordsir? I’m not allowed near the horses.”
“Are you not?”
He hesitated. “I race about too much,” he admitted in a low voice.
Spirit shone in Dickon’s eyes, as did defiance and intelligence. He could be trouble, but once won, he could be invaluable. Aodh crouched down. “Come here, lad.”
The boy tossed Bran an enigmatic look, then, dragging his feet, he came. He arrived in front of Aodh, head still hung low.
“Look at me.”
He did.
“We must have out on one matter.”
Guilt flashed across the boy’s face. “Sir?”
“Did you bring your lady a sword?”
His head dropped so far, his chin rested on his chest. He said nothing. Aodh waited a moment, then said quietly and firmly, “You cannot do anything of that sort, ever.”
The boy shook his downturned head. “No, sir.”
“Neither bring things, nor take them away, nor put a nail in a post, without my leave. Aye?”
He nodded his chin into his chest. “Aye, sir.”
“Very good, then. I’ll need your pledge of loyalty. You know your lady’s garrison is locked up?”
Suspicion clouded the boy’s gaze and made his eyelids rise to half-mast. “Aye.”
“And you know why.”
“Aye.” He hesitated, then added in a low voice, “I know you could do the same to me.”
“Then it was brave of you to come. But I do not lock up boys.”
This drew a swift, almost bitter grimace. “Thought I was a man,” he muttered.
“In matters of loyalty and honor, we shall proceed with you as a man. In matters of prison, you are a child. D’accord?”
He studied the lord suspiciously. What the hell did dahcour mean? “Aye, sir.”
“Heed me now, Dickon, for I shall expect the same of you.”
“The same, sir?”
“The garrison is loyal to her. I expect the same from you. If you are here, now, you are pledging to me. As my man.”
Dickon’s face paled a bit. He was used to being cuffed on the back of the head when he was attended to at all, except by her ladyship, who, almost worse, or at least more infuriatingly, treated him like a child. Which he was not. He was ten, almost eleven. Nigh on to being a man.
“I have your pledge, then?” The Irishman thrust out his hand, just as if he was nigh onto being a man.
