On the other hand, she had no mischief in mind—or none that Geoffrey would have objected to, at least.
CHAPTER 9
In the stillness of false dawn, a bird called.
Geoffrey looked up, frowning. "Knows not that owl that he should be abed?"
"So should you, if you were a proper man," Quicksilver retorted.
"No, a proper man would be up and about at this hour. It is the unproper man who would still be abed."
"And not alone?" Quicksilver said scornfully. "I am sure you know whereof you speak."
"Trust the voice of experience," Geoffrey agreed. The owl hooted again.
"There is the voice I will trust," Quicksilver retorted. "She, at least, knows what she should be about, and when."
" 'She'?" Geoffrey raised an eyebrow. "How can you be so sure 'tis a hen?"
"Why, by its call," she said, with contempt.
"Indeed! And how is hers different from his?"
"By its tone, of course! Here, the cock owl sounds like this." Quicksilver cupped her hands and blew through her thumbs, producing a remarkably good imitation of an owl's cry. The bird in the bush instantly answered.
"Will she not come to seek you now?" Geoffrey asked. "No—belike she sought to scold a male who had been out of his bed all night."
"Indeed! And should he not chide her for her vigil?"
"Since it was to await him out of worry, I think not."
"'Twere best, then, that he not go home. Who could rest in a nest with a quarrelsome hen?"
"Indeed! Well, if she had a grain of sense about her, she would leave the nest ere he comes!"
"At last! We have agreed on something!"
Quicksilver stared at him, nonplussed, then reddened with irritation—but Geoffrey looked up at another birdcall. "That quail, at least, knows his proper hour."
"And his proper task," Quicksilver answered, "which is to greet the sun and find food for his mate and chicks."
"Before the nightcrawlers can ooze back to their beds." Geoffrey nodded. "I have seen them many a time."
"Oh? I thought you had been one."
"That, too," Geoffrey admitted. "Should we not stop to break our fast soon?"
"Why? Have you not brought wine enough?"
"When the dog bites me, I bite back," Geoffrey retorted. She replied that a man is what he eats, and so they rode on in good-natured verbal fencing as the sun rose, and the dawn elbowed its way past the night. After a while, though, both ran out of quips, and they rode side by side in a silence that Geoffrey realized had become companionable, and was surprised to find that he had no desire to break.
After a while, though, Quicksilver began to feel restless—she could not let this arrogant lordling presume too much, so she spoke. "I am surprised that you were so quick to say you would come to the aid of Aunriddy."
"Are you truly?" Geoffrey asked, with interest. "Would you turn away from the prospect of a fight in a good cause?"
Quicksilver stared at him, then slowly smiled. "No, I would not! And I suppose it would be too much to ask of you to forego it, either."
"Most certainly," Geoffrey agreed cheerfully. "However, that is only the true reason. I have a better."
"How now?" Quicksilver demanded. "You have already told me the true reason, and it is not so good as the false one?"
"Oh, the other is not false. It is simply that even without it, I would ride to the aid of a village beset by outlaws."
"Or a lord who was beset by outlaws," Quicksilver said, with irony.
"Or a damsel," Geoffrey reminded her. "Would I had known of your danger, when first you were accosted! But since I did not, I shall have to work out my anger on the outlaws who bedevil Aunriddy."
Quicksilver secretly thrilled to hear him say it, but made sure the thrill stayed secret. "What is this 'better' reason?"
"Why, 'tis simply that such a rescue is my duty. I am a knight-errant, after all, and am sworn to defend the weak."
"Very laudable," Quicksilver said drily, "since it gives you an excuse to go wandering and leave your wife and child at home."
Geoffrey frowned. "I have no wife or child." Quicksilver hid her savage delight behind sarcasm. "Aye, but when you have, you will be glad of such an excuse to go philandering."
Geoffrey laughed, but quickly sobered, gazing straight into her eyes. "I shall never marry unless I can find a woman who will be so desirable that she will drive thoughts of wandering clear out of my head, making me wish only to stay by her."
There was that in his look and his tone that made Quicksilver quiver inside, but she spoke all the more hotly for that. "There is no such woman, sir, for any man will grow bored with the favors of even the most beautiful female."
"Her remedy, then, is to be a woman of infinite variety," Geoffrey retorted, "so that she is many women in one." Quicksilver laughed bitterly. "Do you not ask the impossible of her, sir?"
"Why not?" Geoffrey said airily. "She is sure to ask the impossible of me."
Quicksilver frowned, and was about to ask—when Geoffrey turned from her, his eyes kindling. "Ah! Is that Aunriddy, then?"
Quicksilver turned to look, then nodded. "Aye."
Below them, the forest opened into a hillside of scrub growth, sloping down into a bowl between itself and other hills. In the hollow lay a village, plumes of smoke rising from its chimneys. Men were trudging out to the fields with hoes over their shoulders, and women moved about the cottages in their morning chores.
"I did not know that we were so close," Geoffrey said. "I thought it better to come upon them by morning," Quicksilver replied.
"Wisely done, for who knows what may lurk in the night? And from what Maud said of these bandits, I think they are not the sort to wake early." But Geoffrey was frowning down at the village. "There is something wrong about it."
"Oh, naught but starvation and despair," Quicksilver answered.
"Both can be remedied." Geoffrey shook the reins, and Fess moved on down the trail. "Let us hope it is nothing more lasting," he called back to Quicksilver.
They rode into the village side by side, looking about them with sharp eyes. A goodwife saw them and dropped her bucket, hurrying away and shooing her children before her, stopping their complaints with whacks across the bottoms.
"Strangers are not a sign of hope," Geoffrey said.
"I doubt not that too many strangers have shown themselves to be causes of despair." Quicksilver looked up keenly. "Do you know now what seemed wrong to you, from above?"
"Aye." Geoffrey nodded at a tyke who sat playing listlessly in the dust. "It is the children. They do not run and shout at their play, as little ones should."
Quicksilver turned to look, her face darkening. "Aye. They are too weak for such eager sport. They have eaten too little."
The child's mother came running to scoop him up and hurry away with an awkward, limping gait. The tot squalled a feeble protest, then was silent.
"All lack spirit here," Geoffrey said, eyeing the slump shouldered form of the mother. "Even from the hillside above, we should have been able to hear the men sing as they went out to the fields."
"What had they to sing about?" Quicksilver was looking more and more stormy as they went along.
"Ho! What is this?" Geoffrey reined in and looked up, frowning.
They had come to the village green, if you could call it that—a larger-than-average space between houses, more or less circular, with a few patch-legged stools sitting in the dust. On one of them sat a pretty young woman, tears streaming down her cheeks as older women fluttered around her, making soothing sounds and dressing her hair with flowers and ribbons.