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

Arthur, High King! But why?”
    â€œBecause…because you have shown me such good courtesy!” More courtesy than Sir Ogden ever did! “You do not object?”
    He laughed. “I do not object! But how will you explain that ‘Sir’ to Percy, as he grows? You don’t want him to know about Sirs!”
    â€œOh, Percy! Percy will simply take it for your name.”
    â€œThen so do I, Alanna. With thanks.”
    Percy commenced loud and demanding, and grew more so. He kept Alanna and Ivie both running to rescue him several times a day. Sir Edik made him a basket, in which they laid him down to sleep as they tried to work at their new skills. But their main task continued to be changing moss diapers, feeding, bathing, and entertaining Percy.
    More than once, Ivie sighed. “If we were back at the hall now, Percy Lamb would have a nurse.”
    â€œAnd you would have a husband.”
    â€œMary and Martha! I forgot!”
    â€œThat’s why you came out here.”
    â€œBut you know, Lady, a nurse wouldn’t run to Percy every time he bawled! She would have other things to do, even as we have here. She would swaddle him tight against his cradleboard and leave him to yowl.”
    â€œAnd she would not worry that his yowls might call interested…Others…to him.”
    Ivie signed the Cross on her forehead and shoulders, and then on Percy’s.
    Their first fears of the Fey had calmed, somewhat. Always they watched with wide-open eyes—in their clearing, on the trails they made to the stream, to their traps and wild herb patches. Using all vigilance, they saw no Fey. No Good Folk appeared. And only the drums that throbbed on full-moon nights reminded them that this forest was Fey.
    Sir Edik explained the drums. “When the moon flowers, the Good Folk dance and mate.”
    â€œMate?”
    â€œLike pagans at Midsummer fires.”
    Evil walks when the moon flowers—I mean, when the moon is full. Then Satan rules his forest. Holy Mary defend!
    Alanna issued her first command. “We must all be safely inside the bower by the first drumbeat, and stay there till sunrise!”
    She meant, all four of them. But when she turned to Sir Edik, he had vanished.
    By midsummer Alanna and Ivie settled into a routine. They gardened, fished, and trapped, taking turns with Percy’s constant care. While learning new skills, they had lost their former major occupation. “It feels so strange,” Ivie said once, “to never spin, or weave, or sew!”
    Alanna agreed. “Any time my hands are idle they reach for distaff and spindle.”
    â€œAt this rate, Lady, we’ll soon be wearing skins.” The clothes they had brought were showing serious wear.
    â€œI wonder where we will find skins!”
    â€œI know where.”
    Alanna also knew where.
    When they first set up housekeeping in the clearing, wild creatures avoided it. Slowly, they drifted back in. Dawn and dusk, small roe deer browsed around Mary’s bower. Sir Edik suggested guarding the peas with a line of evil scent—filthy clothes, Percy-moss, even feces. Alanna shuddered. But Ivie took his advice. The stink worked, more or less.
    Once a red fox appeared among the peas, pouncing here and there on dormice. He paused to watch Alanna and Ivie with interested, curious eyes, even as they watched him. Satisfied they were harmless, he went back to his hunting. “We’ll have more peas for that!” Alanna said happily. “Fewer mice, more peas! How can we lure him back here?” But they never saw him again.
    Once a wildcat crept up on Percy where he lay in his basket in the shade. Ivie and Alanna had turned both their backs in the garden; but Percy’s roars brought them both running in time. The wildcat paused, hissed, then streaked away into a thicket.
    Rocking Percy to sleep in her arms that night, Alanna whispered, “Ivie, have you thought? That cat might as well