Free Claire Delacroix by The Scoundrel

in it than his own daughter.
    My three companions hailed me and summoned me to their corner. They were so besotted that there was little risk that they would question my identity now. The ale flowed, the meat was plentiful, the peasants and warriors fell upon the meal ravenously.
    “Such a plentitude of eggs,” I muttered. I have never had a fondness for them and it seemed each dish passed to me was wrought of them. Eggs in mustard sauce, poached eggs, scrambled eggs and stuffed eggs - who would have guessed they could be prepared so many ways!
    “Fergus favors them so we are blessed with many at the board,” Tarsuinn confided, helping himself to an ample measure of civet of eggs. “Do you not recall that he installed his own cook here at Inverfyre, solely because of that man’s gift with an egg?”
    I shook my head as if I had forgotten this detail. Tarsuinn passed the dish to me and I passed it on - if the ale was as foul as it was, then the wine could not be worthy of crossing a conscious man’s palate. It would be no better with eggs in it.
    “He has even filled the old falcon mews with chickens, so great is his lust for eggs,” Niall added with evident disapproval.
    Dour nudged me and winked. “Though it is said that eggs preserve a man’s potency. Perhaps that is why he favors them!”
    He and Tarsuinn laughed heartily together, though Niall spared a dark glance to the head table and said nothing. To my relief, there was a haunch of venison that managed to make its way to our table and I served myself amply.
    The meat was good, as were the noodles with gravy that followed. The hall filled with laughter that grew progressively louder, smoke and much merrymaking. It was not unpleasant.
    And the monk with the key was becoming soundly drunk.
     
    * * *
     
    When the trenchers were cast to the dogs, I glanced through the high windows and spied a clear night sky beyond, the stars glimmering brightly. The storm had ended then, the snowfall halted.
    Were my mission accomplished, I could depart this night while all slumbered drunkenly. Indeed, there would not likely be such a prime opportunity to be away without questions as this night offered.
    Which meant that I had several matters to resolve.
    I took a pause, purportedly to relieve myself outside. En route, I “tripped” over the robe of the drunken monk and claimed the brass key to the reliquary in the process of getting up. How dreadful that I was so drunk to lose my balance time and again! The monks were amused then — if not later.
    After an interval, I returned to the hall to discover that the lady had retired from the company. The laird had removed the hood from his gyrfalcon, a particularly large and fine bird. He spoke to it and stroked it with all the tenderness of a lover, though it seemed to me that the bird was skittish.
    I sat at another table, joining the men there in a hearty toast to the laird’s good health, scanning the hall all the while. Stairs wound upward at the other end of the hall, the sole flight obviously leading to the laird’s solar and lady’s chamber.
    I understood Evangeline’s retirement as both an invitation and a challenge. The invitation was obvious. The challenge lay in climbing those open stairs unobserved by such an enormous company. Any could witness me and cry an alarm - if they were not sufficiently distracted.
    There is nothing more readily done than beginning a fight within a company of drunken warriors. I carry a few tools for precisely this purpose. Do you know the herb angelica? It has a sweet scent, pleasant enough, and thus is unremarkable to carry among one’s possessions. Indeed, many men chew upon it when a rich meal gives their innards distress. I carry a dried length of stem, about the width of my hand, as well as a handful of dried peas.
    Angelica stem, you see, is hollow. I can hide this piece within my cupped hand and discretely create trouble.
    I targeted Niall with the first pea, for he seemed