Page 70 of Desire's Ransom
As casually as she could, she asked them, “Did ye happen to see any other English knights there?” She ignored Sorcha’s sharp look of warning.
“Maybe we did,” Robert said evasively. “Maybe we didn’t.”
William gave his companion a chiding cuff. “There were a few Irish nobles at supper,” he volunteered, “but no English knights.”
“Why are you telling them?” Robert bit out.
“Because they asked,” William replied.
“But they’re outlaws!”
“What’s the harm?” William shrugged. “They’re going to rob us either way.”
“Precisely,” Robert said. “I would think you’d know better than to barter with their kind.”
“And I would think you’d know better than to goad them into doing us further harm.”
Robert frowned suspiciously at the woodkerns around him, as if wondering if they might chop off his fingers or poke out his eyes.
“At any rate,” William continued, “we may as well enjoy the evening and be sent safely on our way, aye?”
Cambeal, ever the diplomat, intervened smoothly. “Sir William is right. We have no wish to do ye harm, as long as ye give us no reason to do so. We only hunger for news o’ the outside world.”
“Aye,” Temair chimed in, eager to find out what the hostage situation was. “Can ye give us the latest blather from O’Keeffe?”
“What Gray means,” Sorcha said with a tight, forced smile, “is we’d all love to hear news about our dearclannchieftain.”
Temair bristled at that. She didn’t give a piss what happened to Cormac O’Keeffe. She did, however, want to know what was going on at the tower, so she remained silent.
William hesitated. “You know, on second thought, I wouldn’t mind a cup of your ale to wet my tongue after such a long journey.”
Temair pressed at the ache growing between her eyes. Couldn’t he just spit out his news and be gone?
Aife brought ales for both of them. William raised his ale and took a healthy swig. Robert peered down at his cup as if he feared it might be poisoned.
Temair grew impatient, waiting for them to quench their thirst and begin their story. Beside her, Ryland seemed uneasy as well. Then she realized why. He probably wanted to know what had become of his knights as much as she did. If William and Robert hadn’t seen them, where had they gone?
Finally, William, his tongue loosened by two cups of ale, started recounting the details of the banquet they’d been served.
Temair wasn’t much interested in that. It was a cruel reminder that her father had a habit of snatching the suckling pigs from his starving tenants’ sties and roasting them for the pleasure of a few foreign guests.
Her head was buzzing from her third ale when she rose to get a fourth. William, already nursing his fourth cup, sat forward and motioned the outlaws closer with a drunken gesture of conspiracy.
“Did you know,” he confided, “that King John himself has sent an Englishman to wed the daughter of the O’Keeffe?”
She sensed Ryland stiffen beside her. But Temair was accustomed to hiding secrets, so she continued to sip blithely at her ale. Meanwhile, she was hanging on the nobleman’s every word.
Robert, trying to keep up with William’s consumption of ale, was now drunk enough to blurt out a few important details.
Though the two hadn’t seen Ryland’s knights, they’d heard a lot of gossip from the servants, who were eager to share what they knew.
“Some say they can hear her in the middle of the night,” William said.
“Who?” Ronan asked.
“The chieftain’s daughter,” he said.
Robert added, “’Tis said he keeps her in a cell at the tower.”
