|
Eodwine and Falco
"Awake indeed, you old fool," said Ruthven, "the poor girl's been up all night whilst you shirked your duties for the excuse of too much ale."
"I--" Hama stammered.
"You can fix it now by helping us get the lady Saeryn to bed. And her only just come from a journey herself..."
Ruthven turned on her heels, expecting immediate obedience. Hama, Eodwine, and Falco exchanged glances, and followed.
Eodwine said out of the side of his mouth, "The women of Edoras, crone, lady, and lass, are an unruly lot, are they not?" Hama cracked a smile.
Ruthven spun. "I heard that! Unruly, you say? And exactly who'd take ruling from the likes of you, pray tell?" She fixed Eodwine with a menacing glare.
Eodwine put his hands up in a gesture of warding ... a blow ... and said, "Did I say that aloud? Forgive me! I thought the words had not passed my lips!"
Hama guffawed. Eodwine fixed him with a betrayed look.
"Enough out of you," Ruthven scolded. "You're lucky I don't take you by the ear and make you swab the kitchen floor! Now follow meek."
Falco took up the rear, puffing on his pipe, quite glad to be hidden from sight by the two big lummoxes.
They came to Gudyrn's room. Eodwine and Hama would have had abject hat in hand had they hats. Falco moved around them. The girl stared at him a moment. He gave her a wink and a smile around the pipe in his lips. She smiled back and her eyes drifted to the man called Hama.
|