Read Online The Skeleth by Matthew Jobin - Free Book Online Page B

Tristan was a charlatan.”
    Lord Wolland scanned the crowd seated at the tables before them. “And that tall girl, the serving maid, she came with you?”
    â€œKatherine saved my life, my lord, more than once,” said Edmund. “We would all have been overrun by bolgugs, but she took up her sword, and—”
    â€œA sword? Pah!” Richard Redhands waved his spoon. “What utter twaddle! How could some peasant wench—”
    â€œShe saved my life, sir knight.” Edmund cut across Richard’s words and ignored his vicious glare. “She did everything folk say of her, and more, if you want truth.”
    Lord Wolland roared and thunked his goblet on the table. “By the cloven crown, even the maidens are a danger here! How old is this girl?”
    â€œFourteen, my lord,” said Edmund. “Like me.”
    â€œAnd her last name is Marshal.” Lord Wolland took up Richard’s dirk to carve himself some venison. “By chance, is she related to a
John
Marshal?”
    Edmund hesitated, unable to read Lord Wolland’s deep-set eyes. “She is his daughter, my lord.”
    Lord Wolland’s smile broke wide upon his face. “Then I do not find this girl’s deeds such a wonder, my lords, for I knew her father well, and it seems that the apple has fallen near the tree.” He popped a bite of the venison into his mouth. “Indeed, I had hoped to look in on John Marshal as I passed through Elverain, so that we might talk over old times together.”
    Edmund could not guess the meaning of the looks exchanged between the lords and knights at the table. “Oh—I’m afraid you can’t meet with John Marshal, my lord. He is gone away.”
    Lord Wolland took a sip of wine. “Is he indeed? That is most unfortunate. Tell me, my boy—do you know where he was bound?”
    â€œTo Tristan, my lord. To his castle at Harthingdale.” As soonas the words were out of Edmund’s mouth, he wished that he had thought instead to lie.
    All trace of jollity vanished from Lord Wolland’s eyes, though the smile remained fixed upon his face. “To Tristan.” He set down the dirk, but turned it over and over on the table. “And why is that?”
    â€œThey are old friends, my lord.” Edmund tried not to stammer. “Perhaps they wished only to see each other again.”
    â€œSee each other.” Lord Wolland let forth with a laugh, softer and more barren than before.
    A servant approached with a jug of wine, made a bow and poured it out for the nobles. It gave Edmund the pause he needed to duck out of the conversation before he caused any more trouble. He tried to get Ellí’s attention, acting as though they had never met. “Elísalon.” He could not quite say it the way that she had, but he still liked the sound of it. “That’s a Mitiláni name, isn’t it? From away south?”
    â€œSo it is, and so am I,” said Ellí, with only the faintest trace of an accent.
    Edmund leaned past an annoyed Luilda to get a closer look at what Ellí was doing. “What are you writing about?”
    Ellí stoppered her inkwell. “I’m working on a translation. This is in the Dhanic language, of the most ancient form. Not one in a thousand can read this, but if you really are some sort of wizard, perhaps you might be able to assist me.”
    Edmund read the words on the page in front of Ellí.
Tsalamemyu. Idhak tsaluri
 . . . He resolved their meaning into his own language, then tried not to gasp aloud.
    â€œNo.” He shook his head and made sure that his lie carried along the table. “I’m afraid I can’t understand that at all.”
    He sat back in Lord Aelfric’s chair, staring down at his feast without hunger. He turned over the words again and again in his mind:
I am being watched. Meet me in the cellar, tomorrow night at sunset. Come