Free The Lord's Right by Carolyn Faulkner Page B

and
commented, “This place suffers from the lack of women, Sir Piers.
Where is your Josette?”
    He told the king that he had sent for
her, but she hadn’t arrived. In truth, he hadn’t thought much of
Josette since he’d become involved with Amber, except to request
her presence, and it was probably a good thing he had or he was
going to end up becoming entirely too wrapped up in her. Amber
might make a good mistress, but Josette would be the proper wife he
needed.
    “ What about that wench I
saw you with earlier?” King William’s elbow was wont to find its
home in Piers’ ribs. “Amber, was it? She’s quite the comely wench,
and it looked like you’d done quite a good job on her
bottom.”
    “ She’s become somewhat of
a healer around these parts. All of my men swear by her. And,
despite what you might think and what you’ve seen, I understand
she’s quite virtuous.”
    The king looked taken aback, and quite
disappointed, at that pronouncement. “A healer, you say? And
virtuous, at that? Mayhap you shouldn’t wait for your Josette, Sir
Piers, but take an English wife, instead!”
    This had the whole hall laughing, just
when Amber entered the room carrying a basket full of bread. She’d
been pressed into service in the kitchens, where it was utter
chaos, because it was one of the most dilapidated parts of the
castle and they were trying to not only feed an army of men, but to
feed the king himself, which demanded a boatload of the best
quality foods available, and armies of servants to serve
them.
    Several of the girls were filling the
men’s cups, for the umpteenth time already this evening, with mead,
some, like her, were distributing the food. She knew most of the
people she was serving, and the majority of them were nice to her,
or at the very least, polite.
    The only one who gave her trouble was
the one she expected to do so: Troy. Every time she came near him,
he reached out and did what he always did to her; he grabbed her
breasts, or pinched her bottom, or both. She was just about ready
to break out that little blade she always wore and relieve him of
one or more of his digits to make him think twice about doing so
the next time she came around with a roll or a ladle of
stew.
    This time, he turned around on the
bench and put one hand on her breast, and reached up between her
legs with the other.
    Despite what Sir Piers had said, most
of the men appreciated what Amber had done for them, helping them
with their ailments, and they did not appreciate Troy making an ass
of himself annoying her. A lot of them leapt to her aid, but
unfortunately, in the fracas, Troy located the band on her thigh
where she now kept her knife, slipped it out, and had it at her
neck before she could prevent him from doing so.
    Troy dragged her into the middle of
the hall, knocking down the acrobatic tumblers and stepping on
midgets, pulling her up before Sir Piers and the king, poking the
tip of the blade against her neck while they watched. “Here’s your
precious whore, Sir Piers.”
    Piers watched, his entire body tense
as a single drop of Amber’s red blood dripped down the short blade.
He’d faced enemies in battle before, but he’d not expected they’d
come from within his own ranks to threaten his own. He could see
how terribly frightened she was, and anger welled up inside him
such as he had never known.
    No one threatened that which was his
and lived, and she was more his than most.
    “ I’m going to kill her
right now, right in front of you, so that no one will get her
precious virginity. Not any of those mewling guttersnipes, and
especially not you!” Troy looked directly at Piers as he raised the
blade to plunge it into Amber’s neck.
     

Chapter Six
     
     
    Several things happened at once: the
soldiers behind Troy stormed towards him, en masse, ever-present
weapons of all sorts raised. But they were much too slow, in
comparison to both Sir Piers and Amber—and the king, surprisingly.
Sir Piers had