Rhiannon by Vicki Grove Read Free Book Online Page A

leave, will you? And look in on the Man Who Sleeps as well.”
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When Rhia took Dull Sal her morning gruel, Sally was kneeling on the rushes of her floor, tapping her breastbone with her hand and rocking herself to and fro. This was always her chief activity, though in fine weather Mam and Rhiannon would sometimes lead her by the hand to sit outside upon the stoop in the bright sunshine. Sal seemed mayhaps thirteen years old to Rhia, a beautiful girl whose delicate head was marked above her left ear with fine lines like the cracks in an egg that’s been handled too roughly, this from a hard cuff by her brother some months ago.
    Sally’d had no living mother when the thing was done. Her father and brothers had fashioned a carrying bed from two oak poles with flax matting stretched between them. The brother that had cuffed her fell to his death carrying one corner of itwhilst they brought Sal up the trail. No one mourned him much, as all thought it God’s just punishment for the brutal crime he’d done his innocent young sister.
    Rhia knelt beside Sal and began her feeding. “Good day to you, Sally,” she said.
    â€œI’ll have three of those fish,” Sal answered, grinning. This was her constant saying since that hard blow tot he head, the only bit of talk she wouldmake.
    Sal opened her mouth wide like a small babe will, and Rhiannon spooned in the gruel.
    â€œSome of us up here go down to lay hands on a corpse today, Sally,” she told in a hushed, suspenseful way. “There’s murder afoot in our shire!” Rhia thought it courteous to give Sally all the news, though clearly Sal had not the wits to take it in.
    â€œThree fish,” said Sal. “I’ll have three of those fish.”
    Rhia wiped the gruel from Sally’s chin and confided, “There’s a fine black boat from the earl himself that came and went as well, though I only saw it from afar. Not his pleasure boat what brought those young squires, but still, it seemed quite grand! Reeve Clap came up here yesterday to bring direct word of the murder to Mam, though he’ll take any excuse to see her, I’d say, wouldn’t you?”
    â€œThree of those fish,” answered Sal.
    Rhia combed Sal’s hair with Granna’s bone comb. “I’m glad your brother fell to his death,” Rhiannon whispered as she smoothed Dull Sally’s beautiful golden locks. She often said this, but that day she added, quite sassily, “I’m sure he burns with the devil.”
    Feeling both shocked and pleased with herself for that new bit of nervy talk, Rhiannon took her leave of Dull Sal and reluctantly went next door, to the cottage occupied by the Man Who Sleeps. She didn’t bother knocking, as he was far past hearing.
    He lay there on his bench with his arms crossed upon his chest and his ankles crossed as well, just as the four men arranged him who had carried him up to this cottage a fortnight past. No one knew a single thing about him, as he was found on the beach, but he looked somewhat noble with his strong-angled face and sharp beard. Therefore, they’d crossed his arms and also his ankles, as is done for a knightly Crusader.
    Privately, Rhiannon figured him for a pirate.
    No one could feed him much, though Mam got a bit of gruel to drip down his throat and oft stopped by to wet his lips from a crock of water they kept beside his bench.
    He wasted away, though the wasting was slower than you might expect.
    Rhia quickly wet his lips from the crock and left, as he plain gave her the willies.
    Gimp Jim was at their place when she got back to it, drinking a mug of ale Granna had given him and all beaming with happiness about that morning’s coming expedition.
    â€œLittle did I expect to ever see fair Woethersly again when I was carried up here all bloody and one-legged and done for!” he exclaimed, raising his mug in a salute. “Here’s to the fine sight the