At the Queen's Summons Read Online Free PDF

basin, she saw, wavering in the bottom of the bowl, a coat of arms.
    Norman cross and hawk and arrows.
    Lumley’s device. She knew it well, because she had once stolen a silver badge from him as he had passed through St. Paul’s.
    She straightened up and combed her fingers through her hacked-off hair. She did not miss having long hair, but once in a while she thought about looking fashionable, like the glorious ladies who went about in barges on the Thames. In the past, when she bothered to wash her hair, it had hung in honey gold waves that glistened in the sun.
    A definite liability. Men noticed glistening golden hair. And that was the last sort of attention she wanted.
    She jammed on her hat—it was a slouch of brown wool that had seen better days—and wrenched open the door to greet the day.
    Morning mist lay like a shroud over a rambling courtyard. Men and dogs and horses slipped in and out of view like wraiths. The fog insulated noise, and the arcade created soft, hollow echoes, so that the Irish voices of the men had an eerie intimacy.
    She tucked her thumbs into her palms to ward off evil spirits—just in case.
    Several yards from Pippa, three men stood talking in low tones. They made a most interesting picture—the O Donoghue with his blue mantle slung back over one shoulder, his booted foot propped on the tongue of a wagon, and his elbow braced upon his knee.
    Donal Og, the rude cousin, leaned against the wagonwheel, gesticulating like a man in the grips of St. Elmo’s fire. The third man stood with his back turned, feet planted wide as if he were on the deck of a ship. He was tall—she wondered if prodigious height was a required quality of the Irish lord’s retinue—and his long, soft tunic blazed with color in hues more vivid than April flowers.
    She strolled out of her chamber to find that it was one of a long line of barracks or cells hunched against an ancient wall and shaded by the arcade. She walked over to the wagon, and in her usual forthright manner, she picked up the hem of the man’s color-drenched garment and fingered the fabric.
    â€œNow, colleen,” Aidan O Donoghue said in a warning voice.
    The man in the bright cloak turned.
    Pippa’s mouth dropped open. A squeak burst from her throat and she stumbled back. Her heel caught on a broken paving stone. She tripped and landed on her backside in a puddle of morning-chilled mud.
    â€œJesus Christ on a flaming crutch!” she said.
    â€œReverent, isn’t she?” Donal Og asked wryly. “Faith, but she’s a perfect little saint.”
    Pippa kept staring. This was a Moor. She had heard about them in story and song, but never had she seen one. His face was remarkable, a gleaming sculpture of high cheekbones, a bony jaw, beautiful mouth, eyes the color of the stoutest ale. He had a perfect black cloud of hair, and skin the color of antique, polished leather.
    â€œMy name is Iago,” he said, stepping back and twitching the hem of his remarkable cloak out of the way of the mud.
    â€œPippa,” she said breathlessly. “Pippa True—True—”
    Aidan stuck out his hand and pulled her to her feet. She felt his smooth, easy strength as he did so, and histouch was a wonder to her, in its way, more of a wonder than the Moor’s appearance.
    Iago looked from Pippa to Aidan. “My lord, you have outdone yourself.”
    She felt the mud slide down her backside and legs, pooling in the tops of her ancient boots. Last winter, she had stolen them from a corpse lying frozen in an alley.
    â€œWill you eat or bathe first?” the O Donoghue asked, not unkindly.
    Her stomach cramped, but she was well used to hunger pangs. The chill mud made her shiver. “A bath, I suppose, Your Reverence.”
    Donal Og and Iago grinned at each other. “Your Reverence,” Iago said in his deep, musical voice.
    Donal Og pointed his toe and bowed. “Your