Read Online Percival's Angel by Anne Eliot Crompton - Free Book Online

breath!
    â€œAha!”
    Alanna lifted her eyes to the treetops.
    There rose the full moon, a silver grail.
    Thump! Thump-thump!
    â€œEdik!” Startled Alanna croaked. “What is that sound?”
    Percy thrashed briefly in Ivie’s grip. Ivie swayed like a windblown birch and joggled him.
    Thump! Thump-thump!
    â€œThat drum will beat all night. That is why we can enter the forest, almost safely, on this one night.”
    â€œWhat…who…”
    â€œGood Folk beat that drum.”
    â€œHoly Mary!”
    â€œI can still catch a donkey for you.”
    â€œOh…no. No.” Faintly, Alanna reminded herself, “Never, never, Knight!”
    â€œThen follow in my footsteps. Now is the time. Stay in tree-shadow. Out of moonlight. Ivie, will Percy be quiet?”
    â€œWhen we move, he’ll be quiet.”
    â€œOne moment more.”
    Facing forest and drum, Edik raised and swept his arms about.
    A signal.
    He let his arms sink, and sighed deeply. “There. Now, we move.” He shouldered a small sack, one he himself had added to the load, unnoticed. Turning to wooden Mary, he caught Her about the waist and lifted Her in his arms like a heavy child.
    Edik strode forward.
    With no breath of hesitation, Ivie skipped after him.
    The baggage! Clothes, tools, cook pots!
    Edik disappeared into the night forest.
    Alanna gathered up the three sacks. She slung one sack over her shoulder, and clutched two with one fist. At the new weight, she bled harder. Burdened and bleeding, she struggled into forest shadow.
    Moonlight struck down between great trunks. That fluttering movement ahead must be Ivie, with now-silent Percy.
    Slowly, painfully, Alanna skirted moonlight from tree to tree. Each tree passed was a new barrier placed forever between Percy and Knighthood. At first she glanced back often toward the open, silvering space left behind. Quickly it shrank between trunks, behind fern and bracken, and disappeared.
    Flitting, stumbling, they passed one distant drum, and approached another. Far to the side, they could hear yet a third far, faint drum.
    This is a new world. Who said it would be better than the old? Only Edik. Why was I so eager to believe it?
    Too late to wonder, now.
    Tree by tree, shadow by shadow, Alanna passed into mystery.
    ***
    Before they built their own bower, Alanna and Ivie built Mary’s bower. On Edik’s advice, She stood by the trail they soon trampled from their small, sunny clearing down to the river. He said, “She will help keep you safe.” Alanna never doubted it.
    Edik showed them how to bend saplings over Her, and weave branches and rushes between; and they used this same method to build their own shelter. Only, with his help, they made it stronger.
    Edik found them seeds—they never asked where—and they spaded the clearing and planted peas and onions against the winter.
    Edik had said, “Any service I do you there, I will do only for love.” Alanna chose not to wonder, nor to question the love that moved Edik to help them build their bower; to show them new methods of fishing and trapping; to teach them which wild plants and mushrooms to eat, and which to avoid; and to bring them meat.
    She was only glad that Edik never suggested sharing the bower he had helped build. He came and went, appeared and disappeared like a songbird, or like a Fey; quietly, she and Ivie rejoiced in this.
    Alanna found herself calling him Sir Edik. At first she said this only when speaking with Ivie. Then, one day, the “Sir” slipped out in conversation with him.
    She blushed warmly and stepped back away. Maybe he did not hear…maybe he will ignore…
    He turned to her, startled, pleasure bright in his face. “Have I been knighted, Alanna?”
    Confused, surprised at herself, Alanna explained slowly to both of them. “I…I knight you myself, Sir Edik. For what that’s worth.”
    â€œI’d rather you than