"You're it! You're it!" Rosalind squealed, her face flushed red, half-laughing and half-shouting as she danced away from him. SHe thought herself fast, but she was not.
A man would think the girl didn't have a single friend in the castle, the way she cornered him every bloody morning to play whatever game had caught her fancy. Today, it was tag. More than once Basil had told her to go bother her highborn bed-companions, but the little girl always had a ready quiver of excuses whenever he tried to roll out of it.
Magya is too slow. Leria is too boring.
And I am too old for this, Basil thought with a silent, heavy sigh, though his legs kept moving anyway.
Rosalind wasn't looking where her little boots were landing. She tripped over her own feet and went sprawling into the grass. Basil was there in a heartbeat, pulling her up and dusting off her knees before shoving her gently on her way. She took off again, cackling and sprinting as if the stone-bruise had never happened.
