Free The Lion of Senet by Jennifer Fallon

he taken a turn for the worse?” Dirk asked in concern.
    “You said he’d be fine before dinner,” Eryk reminded him helpfully.
    Tovin glanced at Eryk curiously, then turned his attention back to Master Helgin. “Well, old man? Is he dying? Or is he fine?”
    Helgin didn’t answer him. Wallin was sufficiently annoyed by now to push past his wife and the physician and open the door himself. He took a step inside the bedroom and stopped dead, then looked back over his shoulder at Morna. The look he gave her was filled with such pain that Eryk thought Duchess Morna was going to cry.
    “Well?” Tovin demanded impatiently.
    “I think perhaps you’d better see for yourself, my lord,” Wallin said. He looked away, as if he suddenly couldn’t bear the torment in Morna’s eyes.
    The governor crossed the threadbare rug and stepped into the bedroom. From his place near the door Eryk couldn’t see the expression on the Senetian’s face when he saw the sailor, but there was no mistaking his tone when he bellowed, “Call the guards!”
    “You can’t move him!” Helgin protested. “Please!”
    Tovin pushed his way back into the sitting room to confront Morna. “You may consider yourself under arrest, my lady.”
    “Mother?”
Dirk cried in bewilderment. “Father? What’s going on?”
    Tovin rounded on Dirk angrily. “Did you know about this, too? Are you part of the plot to conceal his presence from me?”
    “Plot? What plot? What are you talking about?”
    “Go to your room, Dirk,” Morna ordered. Her voice was flat and unemotional. “And take Eryk with you.”
    “No! I want to know what’s happening. Why are you under arrest?”
    “Dirk,” his father said, “do as your mother says. Leave us.”
    “Lord Tovin?” Dirk seemed to think that if his parents weren’t going to tell him what was going on, then perhaps the Senetian Governor would.
    “Your mother is harboring a criminal, Dirk. I’ve no doubt that we interrupted her and her accomplice preparing to spirit him away somewhere.” Tovin turned to Morna, as if he were mightily pleased with himself for uncovering such a dastardly plot. “That was the plan, wasn’t it, my lady? Claim the man had died during the night, before I got a good look at him? What then? A message to his pirate cohorts to get him off the island? Or perhaps you knew he was coming? Is that what his ship was doing near your coast, my lady? Was he coming to visit you?”
    “You can’t arrest my mother!” Dirk objected. The Senetian turned to stare at him in surprise.
    “Stay out of this, son,” Wallin warned.
    Dirk ignored him. “My lord, you can’t arrest my mother for harboring a criminal. If anyone is guilty of that crime, it’s you.”
    “Dirk!” Morna cried anxiously.
    “No, my lady, let him continue,” Lord Tovin said, his eyes dangerous. “It seems you have quite an advocate. Please, Dirk, carry on.”
    “
You
ordered the rescue of the sailor, my lord, and it was your men that brought him here to the Keep, when they could just have easily taken him to the garrison in town. My mother didn’t even know he was in the Keep until you brought it to her attention.”
    Dirk waited expectantly. Eryk had no idea who the sailor in the next room was, or what was really happening, but if Dirk was so sure Tovin Rill couldn’t arrest Lady Morna for it, then Eryk believed it, too.
    “And what of Master Helgin?” Tovin asked. “Do you have an excuse for him, too?”
    “Master Helgin is a physician, sir, and sworn to do no harm.”
    Eryk was very proud of Dirk. He wasn’t scared at all. Eryk would have given a great deal to have just a tiny bit of Dirk’s courage.
    “As you obviously wish this man serious harm,” his young master continued, “he could be considered to be merely upholding his oath.”
    Tovin smiled suddenly and turned to Wallin. “Where did you educate this boy, Wallin? In the tribunals of Senet?”
    “I did warn you he was a bright lad,” Wallin