Page 63 of A Most Forgettable Girl

“Five and twenty.”

“Well, there you have it!”

“Ever competed in a tourney?” Kit demanded.

“I have not.”

Hal and Kit promptly lost interest and commenced scraping their soup bowls. He was one of those noncombatant knights, their silence seemed to say, the dull dog. Gunnilde felt the need to defend him, but while she cast about for something to say, Cuthbert spoke.

“For all that, I’ll wager you serve your forty days’ service a year, Sir James,” he said. “As is the duty of a knight to his sovereign.”

“I’ll take you up on that wager,” Kit said. “I’ll bet he doesn’t. I’ll bet he pays to skip them. My own father did that for ten years,” he added scornfully. “I still say it’s ’cos he got too fat to sit on a horse.”

“Well? Which is it?” Hal demanded when James did not speak.

Gunnilde cleared her throat. “I don’t think—”

“He does serve them as a matter of fact,” Neville cut in indignantly. “Tell them, James. He rides around muddy fields in the winter and dusty ones in the summer, practicing sieges and battle strategy and the gods only know what, like a good knight of the realm and true.”

James frowned. “I do, but only because I cannot afford the alternative, which is to pay the penalty.”

Hal relaxed, as though his own honor had been on the line. He fixed a stern eye on Kit. “And the next time you intimate a member of my own family is too fat to serve their King, I’ll dunk your head in the water trough, you just see if I don’t!”

“I never said he was too fat!” Kit objected. “I’ve eyes in my head, haven’t I? I said my own father was. He had to have a special chair made last spring after he got stuck in his old one.”

“Well, I’ll thank you not to imply things,” Hal retorted, somewhat mollified.

James looked up from his empty soup bowl. “And now your health has taken an upturn, Neville, you’ve some days to make up in your own service,” he pointed out. “I can’t afford to pay for you to skip yours either.”

Neville groaned. “I’m only about ten days behind. I can make them up in the spring.”

“And you so newly knighted,” Hal said with disapproval. “You do not even carry a dagger at your hip! Why, you ought to be out there—”

“Righting wrongs and practicing at the pell?” Neville said mockingly. “We’ll see if you’re still so eager in four years’ time, my lad! For my part, I’ll wager none of you will be!”

It was not to be expected that such an inflammatory statement would be allowed to pass. All three squires immediately gave rebuttal as they helped themselves liberally to more soup.

Gunnilde leveled an apologetic look at James. “I fear you are not used to such a lively table.” She remembered how dull and ponderous it was sat at table with the Portstanleys. Likely that was more the pace and tone they should be cultivating.

Ignoring this, he looked at her empty bowl. “If you want a second helping, I will need to wrestle it from them. Let me know now before they drain it dry.”

Gunnilde gave a startled laugh. “I have had ample and would rather fill my stomach with roast meat. I am impressed you would perform such a feat on my behalf though. Growing boys can be feral when it comes to food.”

“Like a pack of wild dogs,” he agreed after the tiniest of pauses.

“Your brother seems to fit right in with them,” she observed, pleasantly surprised about the fact.

“It seems Hal is right,” he said dryly. “Neville’s days of squire hood are not so very far behind him.”

A rousing cheer went up, interrupting them, and Gunnilde looked around to see the cause. It seemed to be the appearance of servers carrying in platters of roasted meats.

“It is very jolly tonight, is it not?” Gunnilde commented, picking up her goblet and taking a sip. “I have never known it so lively.”

“Jolly is one word for it, certainly.”

Again, she found her heart going out to this husband of hers. She guessed he would not have had such easy camaraderie with his fellow squires back in his own day. He was too stiff and standoffish for that.

“Will there be no music tonight?” Kit demanded, glancing up at the empty gallery.