Read The Honor Due a King for Free Online

he gave me a sidelong glance – “pretty as you are.”
    “You flatter me with your jealous remarks, Boyd.”
    He snorted and punched me in the arm so hard I staggered sideways.
    The old goat liked to nettle me. Not that he was as old as he said. He just liked to complain. And drink. And talk about his ‘woman’, although sometimes I doubted her existence.
    As we neared the graveyard, I could tell by the golden veil of curls that one of the women was undoubtedly the king’s daughter, Marjorie Bruce. She never wore a coif or wimple and dressed in the least ornate of gowns. Even from this distance and in the gloaming, I perceived a smile gracing her lips. But that was wee Marjorie as I remembered her in my heart from her girlhood days: as gay as a wren on the first day of spring. The spirit was still the same, but in beauty she had blossomed, just as the bud unfurls to reveal the glory that had always been there.
    Supper would not be for another hour at least and I didn’t relish Boyd’s irritating company for that length of time. Besides, the king’s daughter, I reasoned, should not be wandering about out of doors unguarded. “Go ahead, Boyd. I’ll join you in the refectory for supper.”
    “You won’t.” His singular shaggy eyebrow waggled above a crooked nose. “At least if you’ve any notion, you won’t.”
    I mustered a stern look, curling both sets of fingers around the axe haft to readjust its weight on my shoulder. “Watch your tongue or lose it, Boyd. It’s the king’s daughter of which you speak.”
    “Aye, and the king’s daughter is a woman ... a beautiful woman.” Smirking, he tugged at his beard. “Or haven’t you noticed?”
    The only reason I resisted shoving him to the frozen ground, pummeling his face and breaking what was left of his teeth was because I was keenly aware that Marjorie and her companion were watching us. I hopped off the path, leaving Boyd to chortle to himself, and threaded my way between lichen-flecked, broken gravestones, up the short rise toward the women standing beneath the sprawling crown of the yew tree.
    I did not look up until I heard her voice.
    “We’ve been watching you all afternoon, Sir James.” She held out a delicate hand, wiggling her fingers when I hesitated. “At least ever since you cursed loud enough to get our attention all the way up here.”
    Gently, I lowered my axe to rest its head on the ground and took Marjorie’s hand by the fingertips. No sooner had I grazed her knuckles with a kiss than she yanked her hand back.
    “An attempted escape, my lady. The ewe thought the grass would be better on the other side of the fence. I convinced her otherwise.” The ewe, in fact, had jabbed me in the thigh with one of her curved horns, even as I freed her head from the woven branches of the pen. The bruise was deep and throbbed with every stride, but it was nothing in comparison to a battle wound. When the tip of her horn snagged my leggings, I had bellowed more in anger than pain, but still, the women did not know that. I should have held my tongue.
    “Sheep are such clever creatures.” She winked in jest.
    Her companion, only a few years older and as plain of feature as Marjorie was perfect, giggled behind her upheld sleeve. Soon Marjorie, too, bubbled with amusement.
    Heat flushed the rims of my ears. I drummed my fingers on the end of the axe handle, then rested it in a fissure of the tree trunk. “May I escort you inside?”
    Marjorie flapped a hand over her breast, gulping air until her laughter subsided. “Why? Was I going there?”
    Her friend clutched her elbow. “It is cold, my lady.”
    “Cold? Invigorating, I say. Go on then, Sibylla. I’ll be along ...” – a warm smile lit her face as she glanced my way – “eventually.”
    Sybilla tossed me a shy glance, kissed Marjorie’s cheek and rushed off, skirts bunched in her hands to keep from trailing the hem over the soggy ground.
    “A distant cousin by marriage to Walter