My Man Godric Read Online Free PDF Page A

exuberant, as usual.
    It was a trait that the people of the valley
had always seemed to regard fondly, unlike the stuffier members of
his brother’s court. Maybe it was something about the valley
people, a difference in attitudes as large as the difference in
customs between Camlann and the southern cities. In the valley
below the Keep they kept their feet bare in the summer as well as
in the warmth of early autumn, and held all children, especially
those conceived outside of marriage at the harvest, to be
sacred.
    Bertie joining them with his feet bare
beneath his skirts only seemed to delight them. He did not know how
it made Godric feel, if it upset his sensibilities or pleased him
or merely amused him, but it made Bertie wonder and dream more.
Sometimes about dancing with him, sometimes about someday seeing
Godric’s feet. It was yet another reason to adore the annual trip
to the valley with all its rituals; it gave him a tradition that
might mean he could see Godric tipsy among the fires and hay, and
that someday he might see him laughing.
    Arrival at the Keep began with a welcome by
old friends and an exchange of gifts that was a carryover from a
tribute of centuries ago. When Bertie had been offered a kitten by
one delightful child instead of the usual gifts, he could not
refuse. Aethir got casks of wine and a stag, Aethelbert got a
kitten. He did not mind.
    “How was I to say no?” He had explained
later at the head table during the banquet for their arrival, after
the kitten had poked its head from his bodice to sniff at his
plate. Bertie had been wearing a puffed bodice, not tight, and the
kitten might have gone unnoticed if it had not gotten hungry.
    The courtiers with them had laughed. His
brother had merely smiled and asked for his new pet’s name, and
then, as an afterthought, wondered why the cat had been hidden in
his clothing.
    The poor thing had been cold. Bertie should
have said that. Instead he’d looked over to see if Godric had
laughed too.
    Seated not far from dear Aethir, Godric had
not been smiling. He rarely did at court functions, but he had
seemed to hold the same softness in his gaze as had the king, that
same fondness for Bertie. It had been remarkable.
    Thus, what Bertie had said had been
the loud, and stupid, “Because how else would I keep my Godric with
me at all times?” He had named the kitten, humiliated himself, and
embarrassed Godric in one fell swoop. It was a natural talent.
    The others present had found this hilarious,
but then, there was very little about Bertie’s public devotion that
they did not find amusing. The king’s half-brother blindly in love
with the duke of war himself, a man who, to most of them, was still
a stable boy and always would be. Godric would keep them safe and
win their wars and fight their battles, but he had rough hands and
broad shoulders and had taught himself to read and write his name
when over the age of twenty and so would remain a peasant, just as
Bertie was always the child with the foreign mother, tolerated and
sometimes courted because he often had the king’s ear and because
their father had made certain that his bloodline could not be
denied by giving him his mouthful of a name.
    He cleared his throat.
    “I am hardly a lord, Godric. My mother was
not a lady, and regardless of my father’s generosity, I do not have
any real title at all.” Unless he counted bastard. He had been
given lands and money, had been treated well and loved by his
family, but it was true, he was no lord.
    “I am afraid I must disagree, my lord.”
Godric scratched, ever so carefully, and the cat purred, obscenely
happy. It was truly the strangest cat, throwing itself at strangers
instead of running from them. Perhaps it had grown so used to being
carried next to Bertie’s heart that it sought out the rhythm with
others.
    Without warning Godric raised his head and
Bertie ended his daydream of lying with his ear to Godric’s chest.
“I have watched you for