Wonderful by Jill Barnett Read Free Book Online

made her look so pale the abbess had once asked her if she was ill. Early that morning she’d made a fillet of old marsh reeds by twisting the twigs together, and she’d fixed her hair in the same way as the ladies in the queen’s court.
    Clio had so much hair that the knots by her ears were huge. She yanked on her sleeves, which were too long and made her look smaller and weaker.
    Just like a “defenseless female.”
    For the final touch she fixed her face in an expression of careless innocence—that “What? Me late?” look. In an utterly nonchalant manner, she rounded the corner and faced the great hall.
    She stopped cold.
    The room was empty. No languishing men-at-arms. No meal laid out. No servants running to and fro like caged birds. No clink of the platters, no spilt wine and beer. No irate, red-faced earl.
    She planted her hands on her hips and looked around. There was not even a hound snoozing at the hearth. Did they not know how she had planned? Humph!
    A moment later she marched through the great hall and down the stairs, where she went out the huge wooden doors and into the bailey. The geese and chickens pecked at the ground while a rooster with a red plume strutted and crowed and behaved in manly fashion along the gutter drains near the wall. The chickens ignored him.
    She could see Cyclops hiding behind some broken staves near the abandoned cooper’s hut with Pitt perched on his feline head, wings spread and looking like the gaudy plumed helm of an ancient god.
    She wondered what those two were stalking now. With all the mice to be caught, she’d hardly seen them since coming back. But both her pets looked plumper already, and their eyes had the lazy and overly satisfied look of the kitchen hounds after a Christmas feast.
    In the bailey, there was no one. She walked through to the outer bailey and met the same emptiness. It was almost as if she were the last person in the world.
    The portcullis had been cranked open and she could hear noise from beyond. She moved through the gates and over the long wooden planks that spanned the moat.
    Every member of the castle, every villein, every serf, and a huge horde of men-at-arms were assembled in what looked like battle lines along the rolling grassy fields, where, toward the rear, a huge tent stood in an encampment.
    At each corner of the tent flew silken pennants marked with the Earl of Glamorgan’s distinctive charge blazoned sable a cross argent a lion rampant gules —a black field, white cross, and rearing bloodred lion. Whenever the breeze picked up, the flags rippled and waved and made the red lions look as if they were prowling.
    She tried to see what was happening, then spotted Merrick walking along in front of the lines. He wore no helmet or battle armor, only mail under a long black tunic that was belted with leather trimmed in thick silver chain. His sword and its sheath hung at his side.
    A light breeze picked up the thick black hair that hung down to the back of his neck. For just an instant, that dark hair flashed silver in the bright sunlight; then the light shone off the silver sword sheath.
    It hurt her eyes and forced her to shield them with her hand. His hands were locked behind his back as he walked in front of the lines, stopping to speak with each person. The servants did not appear to be cowering … yet. None were on their knees, nor were they prostrated before him.
    Clio moved toward them and felt the stares and glances of some of the people and caught a few of his men turning their heads in her direction. Ignoring those looks, she searched about the crowd for Sir Roger’s golden-red head, but it was nowhere in sight.
    So much for a spot of high dry land in a flood, she thought.
    Stopping a few measures away from Merrick, she stood there, expecting some response from him. A snarl. A cold glare like the night before. Or a roar might be more in character for someone called the Red Lion.
    She kept waiting.
    What she did not expect was