Amenities thus discharged, Foster nudged the fettlesome stallion over to where stood old Geoff Musgrave and Henry Turnbull, who would stay behind to see to the estate and the hall proper. Keeping a tight rein on Bruiser—the war-trained charger had become safe enough around the familiar-smelling men of Foster’s campaign staff and entourage, but would deign to trust very few other humans and was likely to bite or to kick, as the mood took him—Foster shucked his mailed gauntlet and offered his hand to each of the men.
“Well, Geoff, old friend, I’m off to war again. Pray God, for the last time. I’ve no instructions to give you—either of you—for you and Henry between you manage Sir Francis’ holdings far better than do I.”
The Estate Warden, Geoffrey Musgrave, shook his scarred, grizzled head, “Och, nae, Sir Bass, y’r worship shouldnae say sich. Y’ need but tae learn a bit more an’ y’ll be—”
Chuckling, Foster waved his hand. “I thank you for the compliment, Geoff, but I do know the truth of the matter. I can only hope that when, and if, I assume my own holdings at Velegrad, I am so fortunate as to have fine men such as you to so competently handle my affairs as you handle those of Sir Francis.”
Musgrave frowned and scratched at his close-cropped Iron-gray hair. “Y’r lordship’s pardon if I seem tae be speaking’ oot o’ me place, but yll gang far e’er y’ finds a better, all-round man than y’r war-servant, Noogay—fr a’ he be a cat-footed, slant-eyed heathen.”
Foster tried not to show his surprise. He had been completely unaware that Musgrave and the silent, usually solitary Nugai had been as much together as this comment implied.
“Again, I thank you, Geoff,” he said, gravely. “I trust Nugai with my life and”—he grinned to lighten the conversation—”he’s not failed me … yet.”
Foster turned to Majordomo Turnbull. “Henry, so long as the Lord Archbishop remains, he—and only he—is master of the house; should any of the other gentlemen issue orders contradicting his, courteously refer them to him. God willing, m see you both before the first snows.”
Then, because such was expected, he turned his horse and paced slowly across the flagstones to where stood Krystal. Leaning from his saddle, he encircled her waist with the steel-encased right arm, lifted her up, and kissed her, thoroughly, to the lusty cheers of his gentlemen-officers and the assembled folk, one and all, noble and common.
With her arms clasped about his neck and her lips close to his ear, that he might hear her words above the raucous tumult, she said, “I love you, Bass Foster. Oh, God, I love you so very much! So take good care of yourself, for me and for little Joe. Don’t be reckless and come back to me, to us … soon. I need you, Bass, I need you every moment of every day, I …” She sniffled. “Oh, dammit, I swore I wouldn’t cry, not now, not until later. Put me down and get on your way before . . . before your armored sots swig so much ale they can’t sit a horse!”
As he lowered her~slowry, a mischievous twinkle came into her swimming eyes. “Those women over there are right, you know, you do cut a handsome figure, Sir Sebastian. The answer to a maiden’s prayer. That’s what you are, a knight in shining armor. And you’d better be damned glad that that armor is so hard to get off quickly, or Td rape you in front of all of them.”
Foster in the lead, trailed at a few paces distance by his bannerman and squad of bodyguards and, behind them, nearly twoscore gentlemen-officers, the column walked their horses down the gravelled way toward the main gate to the cheers and well-wishes of a heterogeneous throng of hall folk, farm folk from round about, Fort Whyffler commoner officers and other ranks, wild Scots of the treaty parry, soldiers and servants of the English treaty negotiators, and a small knot of crippled veterans—the incomplete jetsam of many a hard-fought field who never again would ride out to war and who so eyed Foster’s whole, sound, and heavily armed bodyguards enviously.