It was Jamie’s fault because he’d known about the danger. He had seen the person who’d pushed over the merlon. He had known that someone was trying to hurt Lord Hugo. He ought to have told the sheriff, who had taken him fishing before. He ought to have at least told Lady Finn, who never complained about him not having had a bath and had even given him lessons in how to hunt and draw a bow. He ought to have told his father himself. But he hadn’t told anyone. Instead he had hidden, like a baby, underneath the table where they’d set up the beer barrels. And by the time he’d felt brave enough to come out, both the Sheriff and Lady Finn were gone, leaving him no one to tell what he knew. He was no better than the tabby cat that licked the milk pails clean. He hadn’t done anything to stop his father from getting hurt. Until now. Now his father was lying on the great bed in Lord Geoffrey’s solar, and an old man was hovering over him, doing strange things to him. The old man had told Mistress Laver that Lord Hugo wasn’t going to die.
