Page 16 of Peregrine's Call
She stuck her tongue out at him, then acknowledged that the move proved his point of her being immature.
She’d just have to show him otherwise.
The night grew colder. Even in front of the fire, Robin shivered. “My front half is roasting and my back half is freezing. Why did this stupid Lord Pierce decide to change sides at this time of year? He ought to have done it in summer.”
“Inconsiderate,” Octavian agreed.
“I remember when Cecily and Alric fled from him,” she said. Robin remembered nearly every detail, for the fateful arrival of Cecily in Rainald’s camp was the great turning point in Robin’s life. If she hadn’t spotted Cecily and Alric in the woods that day, if she hadn’t taken them to Rainald…everything would be different. She might still be living in the forest. He never would have come to Cleobury. She never would have met Octavian.
“Robin?”
“What?” She’d grown distracted, lost in the reverie. “What did you say?”
“I said that if we do find Lord Pierce, you need to be wary of him. Treat him the way you’d treat a poisonous snake.”
“Don’t worry. From what Cecily said, he’s no one I wish to befriend.” Indeed, the few times Cecily mentioned Pierce, there was a loathing in the other woman’s voice that no one else inspired. And when Alric heard the name, his hand always tightened on the hilt of his sword.
Robin was confident that she’d hate Lord Pierce on sight. She shivered again, both from the idea of the man and from the gust of wind that was strong enough to make the fire hiss and spark.
“Come here.” Octavian raised his arm, and Robin dove into the sheltering warmth under his cloak. She huddled up against him, her monk’s robes gathering around her as she made herself as small as possible.
“That’s much better,” she said after several moments. “I can feel my fingers and toes again.”
“Good. Curse this cold,” he muttered. “They say Hell is fire, but I think it’s ice.”
“You didn’t have such cold in the Levant?”
“Not like this. And never so damp.”
She nodded. The damp cold was the worst, seeming to creep right into a person and settle in the bones. “Tell me about Aleppo. I need to hear something warm.”
He laughed a little. “It’s definitely warm. In summer, the sun burns through the whole city and the land around it. During the day, we’d find any excuse to go into the hills, where the olive trees grew. The shade made it tolerable.”
“Who’s we?”
“The boys from St. Thomas. Especially Septimus. He was close in age to me, and had been taken in by the monks just the month prior to my arrival. We were raised as brothers.”
“Septimus and Octavian.”
“He was the seventh orphan that year. I was the eighth. The monks liked order in all things.”
“Hold a moment! Themonksnamed you Octavian?”
“Of course. You knew that.”
“I did not!” Perhaps he’d told others, but Robin never heard anything about his name being changed to suit the brothers of the monastery. “What was your name before? What did your mother call you?”
There was a long pause. “I was too young to remember.”
That was unbearably sad to her.
“Don’t you want to learn?”
“Yes,” he said, after a long pause. “I do. But I never knew how to go about it. I had only a few hints, based on what the brothers had been told when I arrived. My mother was Nubian, come to Aleppo with her family. And my father was a soldier for hire in the city. Protecting caravans, guarding outlying villages during times of strife, that sort of thing. They met and married, and probably thought they’d have a lifetime together. Instead, he died in some skirmish, and she died not long after. So what is there left for me to find?”
“Maybe someone remembers something else. What if they did, and it led you to your mother’s home? Or your father’s? You could find out so much more. You were really just a boy when Denis asked you to go with him. You probably couldn’t have traveled to Africa on your own, but you could now. You can go anywhere!”
“It’s a long way to go to answer a question,” he said, sounding as if he were trying to convince himself of the argument.
