Page 37 of Bride of Fire
Besides, Jenefer’s bow and arrows were out there as well. Worse, her satchel of food had been left to scavenging animals. It had contained a veal pasty, oatcakes, bannocks and butter, hard cheese, and an apple coffyn.
Her stomach growled in complaint. Of course it could hardly be heard over the babe’s loud wailing.
She joined Feiyan at the window and leaned out over the ledge.
“Miles!” she shouted toward the adjoining window. “Quiet down now!”
By some miracle, he stopped. She and Feiyan exchanged looks of amused surprise. But in the next moment, he resumed his cries, even more piercing than before.
Jenefer shrugged and pulled her head back in. “I’m going to give that babe to someone who won’t trade it for a coo.”
Feiyan rolled her eyes.
Jenefer scowled as her stomach rumbled again. “Thor’s beard! I’m starving.”
Feiyan folded her arms in disapproval. “If our uncle’s forces are indeed on their way, and if the Highlander intends to hold us for ransom, then we should be preparing for battle, don’t you think?”
“Ican’tthink,” Jenefer said, “not on an empty stomach.”
It was true. And Jenefer had given up trying to explain her voracious appetite, especially to Feiyan. She ate what she ate. Besides, despite her feasting, she was still rather lean for a lass.
Miles’ cries grew muffled then and finally ceased. The nurse must have put the babe to her breast.
Jenefer sighed. At leastoneof them was getting fed.
“If I only had mysais,” Feiyan said wistfully as she gazed into the mist.
Jenefer didn’t know which weapon that was. But she understood. She longed for her bow as well. If the two of them were forced to face battle together, they needed to be armed. Even more, they needed confidence.
As much as she mocked her cousin for her whirling and prancing, she knew Feiyan’s fighting methods could be effective indeed.
“You don’t need weapons, Feiy,” Jenefer said, giving her a wink and a sly grin. “Youarea weapon.”
Feiyan’s wry mouth slowly turned up, and her eyes glittered with deadly threat. “That I am.”
Chapter 20
Morgan scoured the armory as his warriors dutifully prepared for battle. They laced up their cotuns and buckled on claymores, donned helms and took down targes from the wall. All but one.
“Where’s Colban?”
“He was on watch last night, m’laird,” someone called out.
But no one knew where Colban was this morn.
Morgan searched the bedchambers, the courtyard, the great hall. He was nowhere to be found.
More often than not, Colban spent the night between the thighs of a lovely maid. His comely face and convincing grin assured him he seldom bedded down alone. And the black eye and split lip Morgan had given him had probably won him the sympathy of a willing wench.
But damn his hide! Morgan needed him right now. They were about to face a formidable force of knights bent on rescuing their precious clanswomen. And Colban was the only man he trusted to seek out and find the one that was missing.
Which reminded him… He’d promised to feed the two lasses in his bedchamber.
He stole several warm oatcakes from a kitchen maid’s tray as she passed and grabbed a skin of ale off a trestle table. That would have to do.
Most of the servants were too busy stockpiling food and gathering livestock to tend to captives. So he decided to take it upstairs himself.
As he crossed the great hall, young Danald ran up to him.
