LITMIR.BIZ

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Ten? Twenty?’

      John looked down at the street again, silent. One thing about the boy. He knew when he’d been caught.

      ‘Confess, Little John. You haven’t been to Solar Hostel, I know that for a fact.’

      ‘Five. Maybe six.’

      Duncan sighed. ‘Well, you’ve many more to try. And if you can’t find a master among them, you’ll go to grammar school until you’re ready and try again.’

      He wrinkled his nose. ‘That’s for the little boys.’

      ‘Your father never took a rod to you, I can tell that.’ The boy’s sagging jaw confirmed it. ‘You’ll never make a bachelor if you give up so easily.’

      ‘I’ve been trying ten days and they’ve all said the same. Please. Will you take me?’ The boy’s eyes pleaded as strongly as his lips.

      Duncan wanted to say yes, but for all the wrong reasons. Peter would have been just a little older than this if…

      His thoughts followed their familiar wheel ruts.

       If only he had watched more carefully, if only he hadn’t turned his back, if only he’d tied the boy to him.

      His fadder had beat him for his sin. No harder than he beat himself.

      He watched the boy’s expectant, upturned face and wondered at his change of heart. He’d saved John from a beating tonight, but he wasn’t sure he, or anyone, could make him a scholar. Besides, he would do the lad no favour if he threw him into rhetoric ill prepared. The other scholars would eat him before they broke fast.

      ‘I’ll have to think it over.’

      ‘But you said you would help me!’ Now, it seemed the lad was going to cry. If he didn’t develop tougher sensibilities, he’d never last a year under any master. ‘If you don’t, there’s nothing else I can do.’

      Duncan’s sympathy vanished. ‘Nothing else? Are ya still breathin’?’ How many times had his father asked that question?

      John’s head snapped up, eyes wide. He nodded, biting his trembling lip.

      And every time, knowing the answer was aye, his father had said the same. ‘Then there’s more you can do.’

      The boy squared his jaw and swallowed. Face calmer, he nodded, tears gone. ‘Tell me and I’ll do it.’

      The blue eyes, defiant and pleading, didn’t leave his. Drawn into the gaze, Duncan had the strange sensation of staring into a reflecting glass, in which things appeared real, but were actually backwards.

      He shook off the spell. ‘All right. I won’t leave you to the mercy of the Master of Glomery. I’ll help you with your Latin until you’re ready to study with a master.’ He had the feeling he would regret this, but he couldn’t leave the poor helpless orphan alone in the street. ‘We pay our own way. Do you have money for board and fees?’

      ‘A few farthings.’

      He sighed, having known the answer. He was stuck with a penniless orphan with rudimentary Latin who deserved to be in grammar school. ‘Then you’ll have to work for it.’

      ‘I will. I promise.’ John nodded, all smiles again. Then, he gave Duncan an assessing frown. ‘What happens when my Latin improves? Will you take me on then?’

      The lad was relentless, he’d give him that. But those eyes seemed to claim something more personal than lessons. Something he wasn’t ready to give to anyone. ‘When I’m through with you, you’ll have your pick of masters.’

      ‘Your Latin’s that good?’

      Cheeky lad. He had to admire the boy’s outspoken pluck, even when it was insulting. ‘My Latin received a special commendation at my inception.’

      The answering grin was mischievous. ‘Probably because no one could understand your English.’

      He socked the boy’s arm, gently. ‘It’s your Latin that needs work, Little John, not my English. But if you’re willing to work, I’ll make you fit to lecture in Latin to these flatlanders.’

      ‘You don’t like people from this part of the country, do you?’ John gave him an odd glance through his eyelashes.

      Odd. He’d never noticed a man’s eyelashes before. ‘Some days, I hate them. And they don’t like me much either.’

      ‘Do you hate me?’

      The lad had twisted his feelings in all directions, save that one. ‘No, I don’t hate you, lad.’ He put his hand on the gilt-gold hair and tussled it. A few strands wound their way around his fingers. ‘You’ve some growing up to do, but when you’re not whining or pouting, I nearly like you.’

      And the blinding smile John gave him caused a strange shiver in the pit of his stomach.

      Alys de Weston watched Justin squeeze Solay’s hand. His wife did not respond. As the hours lengthened and the candles shortened, Alys had tried without success to shoo him out of the lying-in room. He was not swayed.

      Stubborn, that man, always.

      She had told neither of them that Jane was gone. As long as his wife had been in childbirth, he could think of nothing else. And in the days since, the babe was so small and frail it took all of them to keep little William alive.

      William and his mother.

      So she had said nothing, not wanting them to worry. But Alys? Alys was worried.

      ‘Come,’ she said, tugging his tunic. The man hadn’t eaten in days and had slept less than his wife. ‘Solay is sleeping and you need food.’

      She forced him down the stairs into the dim, smoky kitchen. The kitchen girl had fallen asleep, waiting for her summons, so Alys served the soup herself.

      ‘Justin,’ she said, as he munched bread and cheese without savouring it. ‘Jane is missing.’

      She could tell from his absent gaze he had not understood her words. ‘What do you mean, missing?’

      A wonderful man and a good son-in-law, but sometimes, they all were dolts. ‘Missing. She’s run away and left her skirts behind.’

      She had his attention now. ‘How long?’

      ‘Since the day the babe was born.’

      ‘And you didn’t speak til now?’

      ‘Could you have listened?’

      He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. Solay, the babe…I didn’t even notice.’

      She patted his arm. ‘You wouldn’t have noticed if the sun had fallen to earth.’ Her older daughter was a fortunate woman.

      ‘You’re sure? You’ve searched?’

      ‘The entire property. I knew she did not want to wed, but I had hoped…’

      She had hoped marriage would turn her younger daughter into a normal girl. She’d been a pretty blonde-haired, blue-eyed child, but they had left the court when she was five and, during the years of exile, she had become a different creature. Shoulders too wide and breasts too small for beauty, only her singing voice marked her as a woman.

      It was Solay who garnered Alys’s attention. Beautiful Solay, who understood what it meant to be a woman and what women must do to survive. Jane, poor, strange child, never did.

      So Alys had made no demands, trying to make up for losing their life at court. She let Jane play with horses and books, more boy than girl, until, too late, she realised that her daughter had become fit for nothing else.

      Alys sighed. Yet another of her failures as a mother.

      ‘I would never have forced her into marriage,’ Justin said. ‘Surely she knew that. But I thought

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