Free Shield of Three Lions by Pamela Kaufman Page B

other guests.”
    Gratefully I grabbed Lance’s scruff and pulled him along with our animals to the stable behind the inn. Once inside, I lost no time. I dropped my braies, removed my rags and held them up in the dim light. They were dry! Baffled, I turned them this way and that, able to discern only a few rusted spots from this morning. I touched myself and verified that I had no injury. Before I could think more, Enoch bawled my name from outside.
    “Coming!”
    “Magnus and George be nocht here yet,” Enoch informed me.
    “George?” I caught his sharp look. “Oh, yes, George.”
    We followed Jimmy into a tiny, dark room. There were a host and hostess, two nuns huddled like blackbirds around the firepit, and these few people took all the space. Smoldering embers under a pot gave forth billows of acrid smoke but little heat or light; two rush lamps in the far corners completed our illumination. Meantime the gale was hardly impeded by the crude log walls. Animal pelts had been hung for warmth and now swayed til and fro as if the whole structure were breathing.
    Enoch stepped to the center and took a menacing stance.
    “Yif ye do exactly as I say, ye have nothing to fear.” But his low threatening voice said otherwise and I could sense the panic around us.
    “Jesus, help us!” screamed the older nun.
    The sickly host reached a trembling hand. “Please, Sire, take whatever you like and leave us in peace. We have no valuables here.”
    “I be no brigand!” His blue eyes blazed. “I need to hide my wee brother. Now ye show me whar he’ll be safe.”
    Everyone looked at me uncertainly while Enoch quickly searched the room. There wasn’t even a fur large enough to cover me and my case looked hopeless. Just as the Scot turned back to the quaking host, he stopped suddenly.
    “Quhat’s that?”
    We all followed his pointing finger upward.
    “A shelf where I store a few personals,” our hostess said.
    “Would it take Tom’s weight?”
    “I don’t know. No one’s ever …”
    Enoch was already lifting down bundles of rags to reveal a shaky perch made of a few rough boards laid across portruding logs. It had nothing to recommend it except that it was hard to see: it jutted just above a man’s eye level in the very darkest part of the room.
    “Well, Tom, looks like an unblythe bird hae found his nest. Up ye go.”
    He swung me so high that my head hit the thatch and knocked several chunks of dirt to the floor; then he eased me cautiously onto the shelf, releasing his hold slowly as the boards took my weight.
    “There.” He removed his hands. “Lay yerself as flat as ye can.”
    Hardly daring to draw breath, I extended first one leg, then another, and stretched out on my stomach. I squinted my eyes against the acrid layers of smoke and looked down at the folk below, their chins lit by the fire and their eyes in blackness.
    “Waesucks, he’s as wisible as a peacock on a thornbush.”
    “Put this over him,” the younger nun suggested, offering her black cape.
    Enoch took the garment and tucked it around me, even over my head. Apparently the effect was satisfactory, for there was a general sigh of relief. The cape didn’t impede my own vision, however; I could see everything through the spaces between the boards.
    Once I was hidden, an uneasy silence fell upon the group. Again Enoch took his threatening position, and now his thwitel was in his hand.
    “Everyone, list to me guid. Thar be no time to explain our situation, but one, mayhap two, scoundrels want my brother’s life. I cannatell when they’ll cum—boot I think ’twill be soon—and when they do, ye’re to lat me do the talkin’ and agree wi’ whate’er I say. Yif anyone spakes otherwise, ’twill be his last word on this earth.”
    He tossed his gleaming dagger so that it twirled three times and fell on his open palm. All eyes followed the blade.
    The hostess rubbed her hands on her hips. “We might as well be good fellows while we wait. I