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Sir Gust De Weer,
Raven of Dawn
Anne’s Raven
Part II
-I don’t believe anyone shall-
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“You’re in the presence of Princess Elsanne Eikenaar. State your intentions, knights of Kaltha,” Lord Bach said formally.
You have to say something.
Speak!
“Princess,” Gust croaked, pausing suddenly unsure about everything.
What in Tyeus blasted spear was that?
No, you darn idiot, Gust thought, battling with himself fearing he’d just put his foot in his mouth. Keep your wits about ye gods darn it!
Elsanne waited keeping her hands clasped in front of her stomach and the moment dragged, Gust sweating and feeling dizzy, a vein throbbing on his left temple, next to his stitched scar. Sir Vegenuur stepped forward taking his cue, the blue lobster of Badum engraved on his plate and unfurled the scroll he had on him. Cleared his throat once looking at the Princess, bowed his head and started reading with a clear voice.
“By order of Antoon the Third, King of the Issirs, Lord protector of the Lorians, the Northmen and shield of the Realm, your grace is ordered to renounce yer claim on the Wyvern Throne and cease all hostilities by surrendering thyself to the King’s knights,” the small crowd murmured in protest and Gust’s ogling eyes pleaded for Elsanne to agree so they could all go back without any unnecessary shenanigans. “What’s yer response your grace?” The knight from Badum finished.
Gust felt overwhelmed with the moment and incapable of thinking anything else but Mutiny’s words. Who would want to harm Elsanne? Curse the throne, you don’t need it!
Elsanne glanced his way as if expecting him to say something, but Gust crooked his mouth, the stubble on his face worrying him and drenched in sweat.
“Ahm,” was all that he managed to say. Elsanne sighed, pressed her lips into a thin line and turned to the expecting Sir Vegenuur.
“No,” she said simply.
There you go, Gust thought relieved afore realizing, what she’d said.
Sir Vegenuur opened his mouth to answer, but she stopped him raising an index finger, before turning to look at the stiffly standing Gust again. Mael who was waiting behind him, took a step forward and glared at a couple of the angrier civilians present.
“Is my brother dead?” Elsanne asked.
“The king has been declared incapable,” Sir Vegenuur explained sounding nervous. “Lord Est Ravn assumed the regency and young Antoon the Third the throne your grace.”
“My answer stands,” Elsanne replied after a thoughtful moment.
Gust grunted, the pressure getting to him. Sir Vegenuur made to speak again, but the princess’s stare told him she hadn’t finished.
“For two reasons,” Elsanne continued her voice crackling and sounding older. She looked older too, Gust thought. “These are Lord Anker’s words, so they carry no weight with us. The second being that no legitimate heir would resort to murder to further his ascension. He did that because the Throne is occupied Sir Vegenuur and you know it.”
Gust blinked, the throbbing on his temple intensifying as if someone had taken a hammer to his skull and kept pounding away. Vegenuur standing beside him cleared his throat again, lowered his eyes on the unfurled scroll and grimaced.
“By refusing to acknowledge the king’s order,” the knight droned reading from it. “You reveal thyself as a conspirator against the Throne and a rebel. As a clear and present threat to the monarchy, I have written orders to deliver the king’s justice, acting as his instrument.”
What? Gust snapped his head towards the knight and Vegenuur turned the scroll around to show them the Baron’s seal, next to the king’s.
Robert for fuck’s sake, Gust thought with a grimace of despair. Why?
Elsanne words snapping him back to reality.
Her tone absolute.
“I am the Throne!” She declared and the crowd gasped, Sir Vegenuur recoiling and turning a deeper shade of dark.
“TREASON! Seize her!” He roared loud enough to be heard and dropped his hand to the pommel of his longsword. Vegenuur made to unsheathe his blade, but Gust turned to his right and put a hand on it. The knight gasped and glared at him. “Step aside Gust,” he warned through his teeth.
“I won’t do that and ye can’t make me,” Gust rustled trying to appear reasonable and Vegenuur hissed, dropped the scroll and tried to shove him away. Someone yelled and more cries followed, half of them a warning, the others fear. Gust closed his gauntleted fist and punched the knight on the chest, right at the engraved lobster. Vegenuur was shoved violently backwards, boots sliding on the street and the plate dented. In that same instance Mael stepped forward to block the few Dogs soldiers that had moved to attack the knights and someone stabbed Gust in the back.
Gust felt the blade punch through his back plate and jerked away from it whilst spinning around. The dagger opened a wound above his kidneys, the thick gambeson and his timely reaction turning it aside enough to stop it from being fatal. The cut had gone wide, but not deep. Gust grunted, grabbed the stuck dagger and pulled it out, stumbling on his feet.
Sir Prust that had slipped behind him, seizing the opportunity with Sir Mael distracted, smacked his lips in disappointment and unsheathed his sword, taking a precautionary step back. Several knights started coming towards them reacting to Vegenuur’s call, but Sir Reuters ordered the Crows that had entered inside with him to move as well and block their way.
Gust breathed out and stared at the sneaky stocky knight, before reaching for his own longsword, blood trickling under his plate.
Didn’t learn that in a tourney, he thought and tossed the dagger away.
“Get back!” Mael warned the crowd, glancing behind him to see what had happened.
“Damn you,” Vegenuur cursed and rushed him. Mael turned around, pushed the knight away, sidestepped to get his long blade out, but got cut by Vegenuur’s return, the plate tearing exposing cut flesh and bleeding ribs.
Damnation!
Gust moved to attack Vegenuur, but Mael growled irate and waved him away.
“Milord,” Mael spat through his teeth. “Them lads are here to kill, not talk.”
To kill us all was his meaning. Stop fooling around.
Ah.
Gust abandoned his failed attempts at diplomacy, court manners and high culture, turned on the sneakily lunging Sir Prust and parried his blade away. The knight cursed, then came at him again, but had to block Gust’s downward hack aiming for his head. Prust pushed the brutally falling blade aside, steel clanking and bright sparks covering his helm, made to go on the attack, but realized his wrist was broken and he couldn’t lift his cracked blade.
“Fuck!” Prust gasped, trying to wrap his mind around it and Gust who had raised his sword again, cleaved him using the same simple move, putting some effort in it this time. The long blade caught the -jerking his head aside- knight at the right side of his neck, where the plate’s collar was. It caved then split the metal, breaking his clavicle, the tremendous downward force cracking his sternum bone. Prust dropped to a knee, tried to switch hands and use the sword with his other, but he was moving too slow now. Gust stepped forward and kicked him so hard, the iron tip of his boot sunk in the opened face helm with a sickening, somewhat muffled, crunching sound and Prust’s brains came out of his ears.
Mael was duking it out with Vegenuur, the crowd retreating at the sudden explosion of violence amongst the newcomers with only Elsanne, Lord Bach and a couple of injured soldiers standing their ground. Gust glared at the princess to make her move to safety, but she ignored him completely. Grinding his teeth Gust stabbed his boot down to clear some of the gore and walked towards the group of knights trying to break through Sir Jan’s Crows.
The hale knight shoved a fighter from Scaldingport out of the way, blocked the Riverdor knight’s sword and turned it aside. Horned sharks and blue lobsters, he thought. The knights that had moved to help Vegenuur were out of Riverdor and Badum. The rest had stayed behind near the destroyed gates and the majority of the Crows, either unwilling to be involved, or caught unawares.
Gust grunted, the wound bothering him when he tried to lift his arm, but he did it anyway, caught the knight’s sword on the return swing and send it flying out of his hand. The man ogled his eyes horrified seeing Sir Gust swinging in his turn and then his still helmed severed head went bouncing after his sword.
“Milord!” Jan barked a warning. Gust twisted around, a blade clanking on his head, but he jerked his neck left with a crack and rode it out. His opponent cursed and stepped forward, the big street suddenly narrow. The knight from Badum liked his chances against a wounded, dazed Sir Gust, but this as well as their whole impression that they could overcome the heavily outnumbering them veteran Crow warriors, was a folly.
Sheer madness.
Did Robert think the Crows would turn on him?
Or that an unnamed skilled armoured fighter couldn’t stand up to a knight?
Fighting isn’t just a matter of quality plate, but also a matter of will, heart and grit.
A sharp cheap blade could kill ye just as good as an expensive one, given half the chance and an unmounted knight is the poor soldier’s chance.
Sir Jan’s blade cut the onrushing knight above his greaves, severing the tendons and he went down with a cry of pain. Gust who had recovered somewhat, though his ears were still ringing, stepped on his head with all his weight stopping the man’s attempt to roll away and cracked it like an egg first, then flattened it -helmet and all.
“Help Sir Bolte!” Jan snapped hoarsely and stepped in front of him irate, a grimace of fear rippling through his face realizing the old Gust would have killed him for that. “We have this milord,” he added to save it.
“Mmm,” Gust grunted and turned around to go after Vegenuur.
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Sir Mael had wounded Vegenuur, the cut bleeding down his right leg, but he got another cut himself under his elbow. The blood painting his gauntlet and dripping on his sword’s handle. It was the open wound on the knight’s sides that worried Gust the most though, as he stepped between them.
“Come to your senses!” Vegenuur urged him though his clenched teeth. “Gust that’s the king’s fuckin’ order!”
Gust grimaced and slashed once in a wide arc almost taking the knight’s head off. Sir Vegenuur recoiled gawking at him under his steel helm. He stumbled back with a curse and regarded the slowly advancing Gust with pity.
“You god darn fool,” Vegenuur taunted and took another step back to measure Gust’s approach. “Without it she’s nothing but a pretty wench!”
Gust dodged his swing, slapped the return away with his sword, sparks erupting from the clanging steel blades and covering them. Vegenuur tried to trick him with a feint, but Gust parried that as well not biting and kept advancing. The knight from Badum glanced behind him worried he was running out of street and Gust moved faster than his bulk betrayed taking his chance. Two large strides and he was on him. Vegenuur switched his stance and tried to cut upwards aiming for his chin, but Gust grabbed the blade with his hurt left hand and stopped it dead. The sharp edge cut through the hardened leather underside of his gauntlet, bit in his flesh and shoved the broken bone back in place.
All it needed now was stitching it anew, he thought.
“Ugh,” Gust said, the pain making his eyes water, then raised his own sword, the tip pointing upwards between them, found Vegenuur’s -desperately trying to saw through Gust’s hand- exposed chin and pressed the skin there. The knight froze, sweat running down his haunted bright blue eyes.
“I yield,” Vegenuur pleaded in panic.
But Gust would have none of that and just kept on pressing. The blade slowly pierced the soft underside on Vegenuur’s chin, then broke through to his mouth, dislodging teeth and severing the tongue. It kept going unhurriedly as much as mercilessly, through the palate and then the brain of the shuddering, bleeding down his collar and slits of the eyes, knight. Gust stopped when the cruel tip of his longsword cracked the top of Vegenuur’s skull and hit the inside of his great helm with a ding.
“If yer lying about the brat and the king’s incapable,” Gust grunted and yanked his blade out of the mercifully dead and unable to respond knight, allowing his maimed body to collapse in a heap afore him. “Then that pretty wench is the Queen of Kaltha.”
No De Weer had ever betrayed the throne in two hundred years.
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The knight wearing the dark grey plate with the engraved Griffin on it lowered his longsword and then tossed it on the street. The rest of the prominent knights in the group did the same.
“Pick it up,” Gust grunted, his blood still boiling and approached him. “Ye don’t get to knife me and call it quits when the going gets rough!”
“I won’t fight you De Weer,” the man rustled and lifted the eaglehead shaped front of his helm, to show him his hard-lined Issir face. “You have the advantage here.”
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“Ye could still give it a blasted try,” Gust crackled irate. “I did!”
“I rather not chance it, I have a young wife back home,” the knight argued tiredly and stood back.
“Milord,” Sir Jan Reuters intervened. “We have the field.”
It’s just a blasted street!
We can’t keep butchering noble knights, was of course Sir Jan’s meaning.
Gust glared at him seething, realized nobody else was eager to continue the fight and let out a disappointed groan.
“The First Foot’s Cavalry?” He asked wearily. Gust realized whilst talking that he couldn’t close his right fist and he was dripping blood down the soaked gauntlet.
“They never moved sire,” Jan replied and stooped to pick up the city of Pastelor knight’s sword. He returned it to its owner. “Sir Pek, I have your surrender?” He asked him and the man nodded.
“You do Sir Reuters.”
Gust grunted, found a cloth to clean his blade, then sheathed his sword and used the cloth to bandage his left hand crudely.
“You’re wearing the Iron Griffin’s helm,” he noticed after finishing, not to appear completely uncivilized.
“Was fortunate to wed Siske, Sir Reinir Tellman’s daughter,” Sir Pek replied in a friendly manner, as if they hadn’t just tried to kill each other in the middle of the street and Gust eyed him coldly not buying this fresh façade of politeness one bit.
He also couldn’t care less.
“Keep them separate and have them watched at all times Jan,” Gust ordered. “Bring our men inside right away,” he paused realizing he’d another open wound on his back, the blood leaking in his undergarment. “Where’s Klaas?” Gust asked grimacing and touched the hole on his weathered plate.
“With Sir Bolte,” Jan replied his face grim.
Damnation.
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Klaas had helped Sir Mael inside a watchtower’s yard, built at a corner of the relatively crowded with civilians street and had him sit on its marble stairs at the entrance. The watchtower yard tiled with pink granite, sporting a stable and a newly constructed large separate kitchen building, next to a flower garden.
Elsanne was standing near the wounded knight with Lord Bach, who stepped in his path when Gust approached with a scowl to check on his friend.
“Sir Gust, how far is Lord Van Durren?” The Lord of Colle demanded.
“Get out of my way,” Gust grunted before he could control himself.
“We need—”
“Let him see to Sir Bolte Sigurd,” Elsanne stopped him, saving Lord Bach’s life.
Gust grimaced and walked to where Mael was sitting. Klaas had removed his wrapped plate and was trying to clean the wound, the blood sipping to the stairs.
“How bad is it?” Gust asked. The experienced knight wouldn’t sit down to dress a wound before a fight was over, unless it was serious.
“Darn plate had weakened from all that sand and salt,” Mael rustled, breathing haggardly. “Should have taken my time there.”
Gust’s face fell. “Damn it man,” he rumbled. “You should have left me deal wit them.”
“They had you cornered,” Mael countered. “Yer mind elsewhere. I told you not to turn yer back to them milord.”
Gust clenched his jaw hard, feeling his anger returning.
“You make peace wit Robert, if possible,” Mael murmured and reaching grabbed his right hand. “You need the army whole.”
“Robert tried to have us killed!” Gust growled, not caring one bit about the Baron at that particular moment.
“Not us,” Mael grunted stopping him, his grip tightening. “Her. And it was those that rushed inside that knew of the order and not the rest, else we’ll be fighting still. Not everyone is in on it Gust,” the knight added and let go of his hand.
“Is in on what?” Gust crackled and glared at a desperate Klaas. The squire’s eyes were feverish. “Fuck, remove those things, let me see it,” he ordered the young man, but Mael stopped him.
“No need for that,” he told Gust. “It opened the spleen, the blade did, aye.”
“Cut that darn thing out!” Gust snapped.
“We can’t clean it sire,” Klaas replied. “Lost too much blood and what’s left is poisoned.”
Gust grabbed him by the neck with his right hand. Klaas yelped in panic, but it was impossible to escape his grip that is until the injured Mael forced himself upright and slapped at Gust’s arm hard.
“Let him go,” the knight told him. “It’s not his fault.”
Mael is right, he thought and released Klaas that moved away coughing, his knees turned to rubber. Gust hang his head and sighed. The older knight grimaced and lowered himself on the step of the stairs again with a groan.
“You don’t get the easy out. I need your help old priest,” Gust murmured and Mael chuckled despite the pain he felt.
“Yeah, ye do, but you’ll manage, just follow your gut. We don’t get to choose our moment,” he told him and set his eyes on the huge black Mastaba on the other side of the street across the watchtower. “Klaas has my papers, see they return it to the Order’s scribe.”
Gust sighed and removed the helm from his sweaty head, to better see his friend. “Anything I can do for you? I can take care of Fiend—”
“I rather ye didn’t milord,” Mael cut him off tiredly, but sternly. His stare turned again to the large exotic building, now surprisingly clear and peaceful. “Never seen one of those afore,” were his final words.
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A numb Gust stared at the strange buildings in silence. The smell of burned flesh lingering in the air and the eerie peaceful district allowing the distant sounds of battle to reach them. He’d removed his battered plate for a while and had Klaas work on his back wound. The stiches hurting and leaking, but Gust cleaned, then bandaged it and put his plate back on again. Eight knights had been killed in the scrap, along with five of Scaldingport’s men-at-arms and Sir Mael of course. The latter too big a loss to palate.
Immeasurable.
Gust trusted very few people and none more than the late priest of Tyeus.
“I’m sorry for Sir Bolte,” Elsanne told him and Gust grimaced not really in the mood to talk about it.
“Umm.”
“Will you help Captain Martel’s men?”
“Who’s he?” Gust grunted.
“The Gallant Dogs have been fighting with D’Orsi’s mercenaries for a month,” the Princess explained.
“Why?”
“They wanted to arrest me.”
“Milord, I can have the men on their horses in ten minutes,” Jan said. The knight had approached him as well. Gust realized there were several people waiting for him to stop sulking and get back on it.
“That the gates to the south?” Gust rustled.
“Aye. We can see the lines engaged on the main street.”
“Will these Dogs pull aside?”
“They better do,” Jan retorted. “I’ll send word first.”
“Get on it Jan,” Gust told him. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”
“It’s better if you left that one out milord,” Jan argued.
“I’m fine,” Gust snapped.
“The men will fight better, if they know you’re alive milord,” Jan insisted. “It is not the time to risk you with the matter of Lord Robert undecided.”
Uhm.
“Sir Jan is right,” Elsanne intervened and Gust rubbed the stubble on his face wearily.
“Don’t fuck this up Sir Jan,” he finally said. “Otherwise I’ll have to come save you again and all this blasted fancy talk we just had, would have been for naught.”
“Sigurd said he has an agreement with your father,” Elsanne told him after Jan had departed. He was to lead over a hundred riders and assist Martel’s mercenaries.
The fact she used Lord Bach’s first name didn’t sit well with Gust, but he tried not to show it.
“I wouldn’t put trust on my father’s deals, or Lord Bach’s words.”
“I see,” Elsanne commented and touched the bandage under her neck.
“Umm,” Gust said, who couldn’t see anything else, but her face. Her clothes were peculiar, the words that of an older woman, but that face he remembered aplenty.
“Can I trust you?”
“Ask Vegenuur,” Gust grunted, her probe insulting.
Elsanne blinked and then pouted thoughtfully. “You took a chance Sir Gust,” she finally said. “For that I’m grateful.”
“Ahm,” Gust murmured. “Your grace is generous.”
“Why,” Elsanne beamed. “You can be courteous then.”
Was she mocking him?
“You’ll be the Queen, my family serves the throne,” Gust replied and Elsanne stood back and looked at his face intently.
“That pretty wench,” Elsanne said after a moment, repeating his words from earlier. Her tone enigmatic. “Is… the Queen of Kaltha.”
Gust felt uncomfortable and shifted on his feet. “I assumed ye were in the right your grace,” he finally said with a grimace of pain. “I took a chance as you said,” he lied.
The long and sort of it was Gust would have helped her, even if she was in the wrong.
> Sir Jan Reuter, a knight from Colle, led a charge of Scaldingport’s cavalry on the thoroughly surprised and probably exhausted by now First Division of D’Orsi’s men. The cavalry, estimates giving as high a number as two hundred riders, smashed through the cornered mercenaries killing forty in less than a minute, amongst them D’Orsi himself and routed them. The mercenaries ran towards the docks, now held by Captain Wyncall who had arrived earlier in the day. The attack came either in the early morning, or very late in the afternoon.
>
> It was a futile effort from the beginning, but Wyncall tried to defend the entrances to the docks and retake the company’s ships from the pirates. By the next day it was evident that his force was doomed. With the pirates refusing to talk with them, Wyncall asked Sir Gust De Weer to intervene for a cease in hostilities, while secretly contacting the Cofols and letting them know the Princess of Kaltha was in Eikenport.
>
> Sir Gust De Weer feverish from a wound he’d sustained earlier in the campaign, basically lost his mind when the knights met with the Princess to arrange for her surrender earlier that day. There are several versions of the events that led to the demise of several prominent knights, like Sir Jaap Vegenuur of Badum, third cousin on his mother’s side to the venerable Lord Shield, Duke of Riverdor Albert Van Durren, Sir Ricard Prust of Badum and Sir Mael Bolte, First Disciple of the knightly order of Tyeus and prominent military historian among others. Sir Gust got aggrieved or insulted for being kept in the dark and killed four knights before calmer heads managed to restrain him.
>
> There are two more accounts of this event, one given by Sir Evert Pek of Pastelor, mostly known for marrying Sir Reinir’s Tellman’s –aka the famed Iron Griffin’s- daughter ‘Daring’ Siske Tellman and of course sister to the late Sir Walter Tellman, who had been killed that winter outside Krakenfort by Lucius Alden. In his version, Lord Robert Van Durren had given secret orders to Sir Vegenuur to apprehend –a euphemism for murdering- the Princess and when Sir Gust protested he had gotten attacked in turn. Sir Pek claimed Sir Gust acted on self-defense and within his rights.
>
> The third version comes from Lord Ruud De Weer, a couple of months later and was given very publicly to a herald sent from Lord Anker to protest his firstborn’s unknightly and treasonous contact against the Throne. The following is registered in writing as his official reply to a disbelieving and livid High Regent.
>
>
>
> -
>
>
>
> -Young lustful fools can hardly be expected to keep their wits about them around a fledgling and maturing winsomeness like our princess, or follow orders to cause said fair lady harm, if such vile orders were given. I have many a times enjoyed a feverish dream or two about her highness. I’m nearing my eighth ten-year soon and it’s well-known I have never being accused of being a romantic like my son, or as diligent a knight. To expect of him to act differently would have been out of character and I shan’t punish him for that.
>
> Your man shall bring you my reply in writing, since I had to remove his tongue for insulting a member of my family. We are prideful folk, you understand. I have kept him alive out of respect for you Lord Est Ravn, but also as a reminder that fools shouldn’t speak out of line without losing something. Unfortunately his tongue cannot be returned, I have many a birds to feed.
>
> The answer is nay to all your ‘requests’.
>
> Please refrain from using titles you haven’t earned, for it’s the mark of a foolish man.
>
> Scaldingport,
>
> first month of Winter of 190 NC,
>
> Lord De Weer.-
>
>
>
> -
>
>
>
> Whatever the truth of Sir Gust’s ‘madness’, or the unforgiving knight’s ‘romantic’ inclinations, Captain Wyncall’s offer of peace was rejected promptly and the ‘Three Hundred’ ceased to exist as a unit.
A fully armoured Gust walked towards Fiend, the large warhorse snorting and shaking its head still grieving for Sir Mael’s demise. He paused unsure, a deep frown on his face and eyed a nervous Klaas holding on to the reins of another warhorse saddled for him.
“What’s wrong with this one?” Gust grunted, just as the Princess approached, still dressed in her male garbs. She paused to wave a hand to Sir Jan’s riders gathered on the main entrance to the port, Martel’s Gallant Dogs had cleared earlier that day. The men roared, the news that they had saved the Princess and future Queen of Kaltha traveling fast in the ranks. Elsanne smiled tensely and then patted the large horse, small fingers sinking in his rich mane. Fiend neighed and rubbed his head on her bosom, nostrils expanding, before relaxing into her arms.
“Umm,” Gust grunted in disbelief.
“A fine animal, yes?” The princess asked looking at him. “Who is riding it?”
Gust was thinking about taking it for himself, but chose not to say anything, as he feared this could be a trick query.
“That was Sir Bolte’s mount your grace,” a blushing Klaas replied. “Do you wish to try it?”
A hardened warhorse? She’ll get trampled under the blasted hooves!
“Should I then?” Elsanne asked with a grin. “I haven’t ridden in a while. What does Sir Gust think?”
Arggh. It’s a bloody trap!
Gust scrunched his jaw one way, then the other.
“It’s a great horse, your grace. None better,” he rustled, seeing no way out of it.
Ugh.
Elsanne nodded and glanced at the beaming Klaas. “I’ll need your help,” she told him and the squire rushed to help her up the saddle. Gust grunted, turned around and climbed on the other horse. Breathed out once, his wounds hurting him and accepted a heavy lance from the approaching squire.
“Sir Jan,” he barked loud enough to be heard. “Inform Wyncall he has five minutes to surrender from the moment you deliver the ultimatum. Every man with a spear charges on their lines after that,” Gust turned to see whether Elsanne had toppled from the large warhorse, found her sitting pretty on the saddle like a man and grimaced at her teasing shrug.
“Tell your pirates to stay out of our way,” he grunted. It came out angrier than he’d preferred to, but the princess chuckled, finding wit where there was none, cute dimples forming on her chocolate cheeks.
“Goodness me Sir Gust,” she replied, a hand touching her heart. “I don’t believe anyone shall.”
-
It would behoove one to believe a granite plinth would have caught her undertone, but a bewildered Gust didn’t.
For a time.
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