The Skeleth Read Online Free Page B

that she needs some shaping.”
    Katherine curtsied and turned to go, hot to the tips of her ears. She could not stop herself from looking back at the threshold. “My lord, what is written on that scroll?”
    Lord Aelfric rolled it up. “Nothing that it would befit a girl to know. Get you gone from my sight.” He nodded to the page, who closed the door.

Chapter 3

    T om reached out to grasp the black-and-white muzzle. “Quiet, Jumble! No barking.”
    Jumble sat back on his haunches. He beat his ragged tail in the mud. Tom let go; Jumble’s mouth stayed shut.
    John Marshal slid down to join them at the edge of the moat. “Well done, Tom.” He turned to look up the steep banks, to the drawbridge where they had stood but a moment before. Hoofbeats clopped past on the planks above, thumping and thunking right over their heads. “We got out of sight just in time. You have fine ears.”
    â€œJumble’s ears are better still.” Tom reached down to scratch them—one black, the other mostly white. The drawbridge obscured half the sky above, and with it the moon, leaving all else he could see lined in its reflected glow. “Master Marshal, what is happening?”
    John Marshal waved out an arm. “Watch from the other side, Tom. Tell me what you see.”
    Tom grabbed for one of the iron rings that dangled from the lowered drawbridge and used it to steady himself while he peered out from beneath its expanse. A damp cold had descended with the death of the day. Curls of steam rose from the reed-choked moat below. He had not known what to expect when he arrived at the castle of Lord Tristan, the greatest knight and hero he had ever heard about, but whatever he might have guessed, it would not have been what he saw just then.
    â€œAldred!” The rider who had passed by above dismounted in the tunnel that ran through the gatehouse of the castle, and thundered an armored fist on the narrow door recessed into one side. “Aldred Shakesby, I say! It is Wulfric of Olingham—you will open this door at once!” He wore thick mail armor under a deep blue surcoat, emblazoned with the image of the head of a ram. He bore two swords, one in his hand and another, larger one hanging from the saddle of his horse.
    A roar resounded from farther down the tunnel, dozens of men shouting all together in the courtyard of the castle. “On three, boys! One, and, two, and—” A splintering boom drowned out the “three.”
    John Marshal craned forth from cover, then ducked back to whisper. “Tom, my heart misgives me. I had hoped to bring you to a place of safety, somewhere far from the reach of your old master where you could begin your life anew. Instead, I might have led you into the gathering action of a war.”
    The beginnings of a growl rose in Jumble’s throat. Tom shot him a look of command; he licked his chops and fell quiet again.
    â€œGood dog.” Tom returned to his watch on the castle just before him. “I see a rider, Master Marshal, a knight in blue.”
    â€œSir Wulfric of Olingham.” John Marshal knit his graying brows. “The only son of Edgar, the baron of Wolland.”
    â€œIs he a friend of Lord Tristan’s?”
    John Marshal shook his head. “He is not.”
    â€œAldred!” The young knight beat the pommel of his sword against the door. “It is Wulfric! Open, I say!”
    â€œAye, sir knight, aye, we hear you.” The side door drew wide to reveal an old man, bald-pated and with a scar that cut from eye to chin. A younger, taller man with a braided beard leaned out from behind him, covering the tunnel with a loaded crossbow.
    â€œWhat news, Aldred?” The young knight looped the reins of his horse over the posts of a broken-down cart in the tunnel beside him. “Quickly, man—tell me how we fare.”
    â€œTristan’s villagers are all down in the courtyard, sir knight,