ome,” the calm voice ordered.ome,” the calm voice ordered.
Bjorn, seething with injustice, spit on the floor of his cell. His muscles were on fire, his face throbbing, his jaw swollen, perhaps broken.
“Come.” Again, the soft-spoken command.
“Go to hell,” Bjorn growled.
“Am I not already there?”
Bjorn’s jaw tightened and made a horrid cracking noise, but he didn’t budge. The prisoner in the next cell was certainly half crazed. Though everyone here thought him some kind of magician, what lord of darkness would allow himself to be caged like a pathetic animal? Nay, he was just a half-wit who spoke in a kind turn of phrase.
“Do not let your friend die for naught.”
“My friend will be avenged,” Bjorn vowed, his lips pulling tight against his teeth. Fury and injustice beat fiercely through him and he blamed himself for Cormick’s death. Had he been more cautious, been ready for the men they approached to turn on them, they would not have been captured and beaten and Cormick would not have been killed. He should have known there was no honor in Holt of Dwyrain and both he and Wolf had been foolish to think that Ewan’s good word would still be law.
“Aye, but Cormick will not be avenged by a beaten, savage man who wants only fast justice. Nay, the way to win this battle is to destroy Holt by more than fists and swords.”
“Ah, ye speak as if ye’ve got only half a brain.”
“Shuddup in there,” the jailer shouted. A rotund man who sat half the time at his post and walked the halls and stairs the rest of his shift, he glowered at the prisoners as he polished the blade of his sword. “There’ll be no talkin’.”
I can soothe your wounds. The words came to him, though he wasn’t certain the sorcerer had spoken. Bjorn glanced to the jailer, who hadn’t looked up and was busying himself with cleaning his weapon.
Through the flickering, smoky light, Bjorn stared into the next cage and was certain that he could see the sorcerer’s kind face. There was not a trace of malice, no evil, but his eyes glowed a deep summer blue. Come!
Bjorn jumped. This time he was certain the man had not spoken. His lips hadn’t moved and the noise that rattled through his brain sounded as if it had traveled a long distance, even through a long tunnel.
Do not be afraid.
“I fear nothing!” Bjorn stated fiercely.
“Yeah, and bully fer you,” the jailer said. “Now, hush! Jesus God, do ye want another beatin’? That’s what ye’re askin’ fer.”
The lady Cayley comes and will save you, but you must be strong to help her; a weak man will only slow her on her quest to find her sister.
“By the gods!” Bjorn thundered, standing and stepping to the other side of the cell, tripping on his shackles and falling against the screaming muscles of his back.
“Enough from ye!” The jailer jumped from his stool, forced his sword into its sheath, and strode to the door. “Sir ’Olt, ’e’s got no love fer ye. If ye were to ’ave a mite of an accident, ’e wouldn’t be cryin’ a river of tears over yer body, let me tell ye.”
“Untrue.” This time the strange one spoke. “Holt needs this man to take him to the outlaw who stole his wife, and if he is harmed, Holt will surely punish whoever it was who let the ‘mite of an accident’—I think you called it—happen. Think you twice afore you hurt the one man who can help Holt find his wife.”
“I’ll never—” Bjorn started, but that faraway voice stopped him.
Hush. The guard will leave us be.
“Bloody Christ,” the jailer muttered, but returned to his seat and removed his sword from his sheath again. With one eye on the cells, he snagged his rag and began to rub the blade with renewed fervor. Soon, with only the drip of water and sound of mice scurrying through the crevices in the walls for noise, the guard was caught up in his work.
Bjorn turned to the cripple.
Come to the cell wall. I will help you. Do not be afraid.
“I fear nothing,” Bjorn whispered, but, in truth, his heart was thundering loudly, his face and back throbbing in pain, and it took most of his courage to walk the few steps to the rusted bars separating his quarters from the sorcerer. Not long ago, he’d been nearly killed by a rampaging horse and Sorcha of Prydd had used some of the spells from the old ones to heal him. He’d been brought back to life from the brink of death. But this man—this cripple who could not heal himself—was different. Oddly reassuring and yet … By the gods, what did he have to lose? He was in prison, sure to be tortured again, probably killed. He had no choice but to place his trust and his life in the strange fellow’s hands. Squaring his inflamed shoulders, he shot his hands through the bars, and the sorcerer, who appeared to move without sound, placed his soothing fingers on Bjorn’s torn flesh.
“So, Lady Megan, you’ve traveled a great distance to see me,” Sorcha of Erbyn said as Megan slid to the muddy ground within the gates of the largest castle she’d ever seen. Thrice the size of Dwyrain, Erbyn rose like a great yellow-gray dragon from the very cliffs on which it stood. The battlements were high and wide, the towers strong, the keep massive. Servants, pages, and peasants scurried through the bailey; carts pulled by old workhorses and travelers on swifter palfreys and jennets passed through the gatehouse. Chickens clucked and squawked, cattle bawled, and children ran through the few flakes of snow that fell from thick, slate-colored clouds.
Sorcha held a forest-green cloak around her. The hood was trimmed in rabbit fur and the hem flapped loudly in the wind. “Come into the keep and have a cup of wine by the fire. You, too, sister. ’Tis much too cold a day for travel.”
Leah slid down from her spotted mare and embraced her sister. “So good to see you.”
“Aye, and you.” Sorcha held her sister at arm’s length and studied her face, as if searching for traces of unhappiness.
“How is my niece?” Leah asked.
Sorcha laughed, the sound ringing over the pounding of a carpenter’s hammer, the creak of the windmill’s sails, and the cursing of the master mason who was unhappy with one of the freemasons’ cuts of stone. “Bryanna is as beautiful as her aunt and mean-tempered as her father.”
“I heard that!” A big man with sharp eyes the color of ale, thick brows, and a vexed expression approached. By his dress and manner—that of pride and arrogance—Megan guessed him to be the baron, Lord Hagan of Erbyn. “You’re ever a sharp tongue, Sorcha.”
“And you’d not have it any other way,” she teased, clasping his hand. “Lady Megan of Dwyrain, please meet my husband, the ogre.”
Laughing, he placed an arm possessively around Sorcha’s small waist. “Forgive my wife; she sometimes forgets her manners.” He caught a page’s eye. “Have rooms prepared and tell the cook we have guests!”
The lad with straw-blond hair and crooked teeth nodded heartily, anxious to please. “Aye, m’lord.” He turned and ran toward the keep, while another boy of eight or nine appeared and, without a word, took the reins of their mounts and led the tired horses toward the stables.
The big man with tawny eyes smiled. “Now, Leah … so good to see you again.”
“And you, Lord Hagan.”
A pang of loneliness tore through Megan when she thought of her own family, so small now, but so close. Her father near death, or so she’d been led to believe, and her sister, fair and giddy, never thinking about the morrow—how did they fare? It had been weeks since she’d seen them and though she’d often fought with Cayley, now she wished to be able to sit down and talk to her, to confide in her.
Great snowflakes fell from the sky in earnest. Scowling at the dark clouds, Hagan shepherded them into the great hall. Once seated near the fire and drinking wine, pleasantries aside, Megan explained her reasons for riding to Erbyn. She told of marrying Holt and being kidnapped by an outlaw who, he claimed, was Ware of Abergwynn.
With the three sets of eyes steadily upon her, Megan barely touched her wine as she spoke. “ … I am worried that my father and I have been deceived by the man I married, a man I do not love. If it be true that he rode with your brother, Lady Sorcha, if he lied to my father, if, indeed, he committed the horrid crimes that Wolf claims, then Dwyrain is in jeopardy and … and I would want my marriage annulled. I need to know the truth and return to Dwyrain.” And to Wolf, she thought miserably, knowing that he would never again touch her, never speak to her, as she’d deceived him by lying with him, feigning sleep, then stealing his horses and leaving him stranded. That thought brought with it a deep ache in her heart, and her hands shook slightly as she took a long sip of wine.
“Everything Ware has told you is true,” Sorcha assured her with a thoughtful frown. “Leah knows.” The sisters’ gazes touched and they shared a silent painful moment before Sorcha looked at Megan again. “My brother was a cruel man with no thought but of his own wants. He cared not for Prydd, nor his family, nor the servants or peasants who lived within the castle walls.” She swallowed and stared at her hands before squaring her shoulders and tossing a mane of wild black hair over her shoulders. “Aye, Tadd raped Mary, the fisherman’s daughter. She was not his first, nor his last. On that day, there were several soldiers with him. Holt was there.”
“You remember him?”
“A bit.” Sorcha shivered. “ ’Twas a bad time in our lives.” She glanced at her sister.
“Aye. Our darkest hour.” Leah made a swift sign of the cross over her chest and blinked for a few seconds.
Relief that Wolf hadn’t lied came to her but the truth was damning, for she was married to this monster of a man. Leah said, “Megan has traveled a long distance and was ill when she was found by a local farmer who brought her to us. Now that she knows the truth, I think she should rest.”
“Nay, I must return to Dwyrain. My father—”
“Would want you to be well. Let us eat and rest. Tomorrow we can talk of traveling to Dwyrain,” Hagan interjected, his face a mask of hard determination.
But each day so far from home—away from Wolf—was an eternity to Megan. Since she knew the truth, she was eager to return, to face the man who had lied to become her husband.
“When you are strong enough to leave Erbyn, my best men will ride with you,” Hagan decided aloud. Though he stared at the fire, his eyes were trained on a far distance only he could see. “I have waited long to purge the land of anyone who rode with Tadd or my brother Darton. I, too, will ride to Dwyrain.” A cold smile crossed his square jaw. “ ’Twill be a pleasure.”
A piercing cry rang from the rafters. Megan jumped.
“Ah,” Sorcha said with a smile. “The lady Bryanna is hungry. If you’ll excuse me.”
An ancient woman with gray hair descended the steps. Smiling and wizened, lines of age etching her skin, she was carrying a small, howling bundle. “I’ve never seen a babe with such lungs in her.”
“ ’Tis a sign for strength of character, Isolde,” Sorcha said as she took the crying infant from the old crone’s arms, and the nursemaid cackled affectionately. One little fist had escaped from the blankets and a head of black curls was visible as the babe let out another lusty cry. “Come, little one,” Sorcha cooed, kissing the child’s soft crown. “ ’Twill be only a minute. I know … I know.”
Hagan watched his wife ascend the steps and a kind, nearly reverent expression changed the hard contours of his face as his gaze followed her. The love in his eyes touched Megan. Here was a man who would lay down his life for his lady and child, a man devoted to her, a man, upright and law-abiding, who wanted only to provide for and protect his family and castle.
Unlike the renegade outlaw to whom she’d given her heart.
“Did Wolf kill Tadd?” she asked once Hagan had turned to her again.
“Aye. After Tadd nearly killed me.” He finished his wine and set his mazer on the hearth. Then he told her the story of Sorcha of Prydd, his wife, born with the birthmark of the kiss of the moon, an ancient prophecy stating that whosoever was born with the mark would become the savior of Prydd. Many had scoffed at the thought of a woman becoming a leader, mostly Tadd, Sorcha’s older brother, but in the end, she proved herself to be uncommonly brave and determined.
Megan withered inside. Sorcha had done so much for those who depended upon her, while Megan had brought only fear, distrust, and now, by marriage, the reign of a cruel baron. Unwittingly, she’d become the curse of Dwyrain. And now she was in love with a wild man, an outlaw of the forest, who used her only for revenge against a sworn enemy.
As if reading her thoughts, Hagan said, “Wolf breaks the law without a thought, he takes refuge in the forest and disdains life within a castle, he makes his own rules and lives by them, but he is a good man, Lady Megan; his heart is pure.”
“I—I believe you.”
“Good. Then eat the food that Cook has prepared and rest. We’ll talk of riding to Dwyrain tomorrow.”
Megan didn’t argue as a page brought in a trencher filled with eggs and eels, a round of cheese, and a few tart winter apples. The cold seeped from her bones and she realized how badly she missed a part of her life at Dwyrain. The adventure of living in the forest was appealing, though, and she thought of the outlaw band—grizzled Odell, innocent Robin, even-tempered Peter with his one eye—but she knew that the source of her fascination with the life of the thieves was their leader. Where was he now? Was he following her? Would he even now burst through the gates of Erbyn? If he asked, she would eagerly give up the comforts of the keep to be with him.
Silly girl. Foolish heart. He was probably glad to be rid of her and the problem of returning her to her husband.
Holt.
Her blood curdled at the thought that she was, in the eyes of the church and in accordance with the laws, bound to him for the rest of her life.
She’d finished eating when Sorcha, carrying the tiny babe, swept down the stairs. No longer wailing, the infant’s face had lost its scarlet hue and was as smooth and white as her mother’s. “She’ll not be an easy lass,” Sorcha said proudly. “Headstrong.”
“Like her mother.” Leah swallowed a last bite of eel and sighed contentedly. Fluttering her fingers, she indicated that she wanted to hold her tiny niece, and Sorcha reluctantly gave the swaddled babe to her sister.
“I know of Ware of Abergwynn,” Sorcha said. “I knew him first as Wolf, the outlaw. But he is Baron Garrick’s younger brother who, in his youth, was overly confident and eager to prove himself a man. Unfortunately, when his brother trusted him to rule the keep, he was overthrown by a traitor; his own cousin.” She crossed her legs and laced her fingers over a velvet-draped knee. “Ever since that time, Wolf has been a man haunted by his past, an outlaw who is forever chased by the demon guilt. Though Garrick blamed him not for losing Abergwynn years ago, I think that Wolf has never been able to redeem himself in his own eyes.
“At the time he and Lady Morgana’s—she is now married to Garrick—anyway, her brother, Cadell, escaped from the murderers only to be forced over the cliffs at Abergwynn and into the sea far below. Their bodies were never found. They were both thought dead for years until the outlaw Wolf turned out to be Ware of Abergwynn.”
“What happened to Morgana’s brother?” Megan asked.
“Never heard from since. ’Tis presumed that he died in the fall off the cliffs or drowned in the sea.”
“And Ware blames himself for this as well?”
Sorcha lifted a shoulder. “I say only what I’ve been told by those who were there. ’Twas a long time ago. Over ten years.” She cleared her throat, dispelling the dark mood that clouded her eyes. “ ’Tis late and you need your rest, Lady Megan.”
“Nay, now that I know the truth, I must return.”
“Tomorrow,” Sorcha said. “With Hagan and his army.”
“Curse your bones, Megan,” Cayley growled under her breath as her fingers curled more tightly over the rope. Fighting a fearsome dizziness, she climbed out the window, swallowed back her qualms, and began to lower herself slowly into the waiting cart filled with straw. If only her sister hadn’t gotten herself into such a mess, then she wouldn’t have to go through this torture. Her arms and shoulders ached from holding up her weight, her shoes slipped on the stones of the castle wall, and the rope felt as if it were shredding the skin off her hands even though she was wearing gloves.
Finally, she was close enough to the cart to jump. Silently counting to three, she let go and fell, landing in the piled straw with a soft thud. The night air was crisp and cold, her breath fogging, the moon shining bright and nearly full to give some light. Rolling off the cart, she alighted on the hard ground and twisted her ankle. Holy Mother, she wasn’t any good at this!
Biting the urge to cry out, she hurried onward. Fear crawled up her spine, and she was constantly looking over her shoulder, certain she was being followed. As she passed the fish pond, she heard a splash in the water and nearly screamed. Her hasty footsteps echoed down the path near the beehives and through the bedraggled gardens.
Beneath her black-hooded mantle, deep in a pouch strapped around her waist, was the small knife Rue had given her, and she prayed that she didn’t have to wrestle with the guard and his huge sword. Dear God in heaven, what was she doing?
Tamping down the dread that stole the spit from her mouth, she opened the door of the north tower and tiptoed quietly down the steps. A few rush lights still burned, fouling the air with their oily smoke and causing shadows to shift in the narrow, dark halls. This was no mission for a lady—no mission for a sane person—but she continued downward, half expecting some burly guard or ghost of a dead prisoner to jump out at her. God be with me, she silently prayed as she rounded the final corner.
She comes. Be ready! The unspoken words charged at Bjorn from the next cell, and he saw the stranger arise. Using some small piece of metal, the sorcerer silently unfastened the manacles over his wrists, then did the same with the shackles at his feet. Come closer. As Bjorn edged closer to the barred wall, a hand shot through the metal slats and a nail was dropped into his palm. Sweating nervously, Bjorn glanced up at the guard and worked at his own bindings.
The man was so strange, he frightened Bjorn, but Bjorn was thankful that the fire in his back had faded to a dull ache, and his face, swollen and no doubt bruised, was stiff and sore but no longer throbbed in agony. Whatever magic this man possessed, ’twas powerful.
Now, lure the guard into your cell and we will steal his keys. You are stronger than I if he resists.
Bjorn no longer questioned the sorcerer’s commands. As if he were a knight who had pledged fealty to this peculiar baron, he climbed to his feet and felt a new freedom in his ankles and wrists. Revenge tainted his blood and he wanted nothing more than to seek out Holt and slit his traitorous throat.
Later.
He had to appear weak, he had to appear as if he needed assistance, he had to worry the simpleton sentry. Grabbing a handful of the foul rushes on the floor, he shoved them into his mouth. Straw and hair, dirt and all manner of grime and refuse clogged his throat, and as he coughed it up, he began to retch violently, his body racking against the putrid matter.
“Hey—what?” The guard glanced up.
Bjorn kept coughing, spitting, and vomiting.
“Oh, ye gods, what’s ’appened to ye?” Disgust and worry edged the jailer’s words. He climbed off his fat rump and grabbed his keys, as well as a candle for light. “Don’t ye be dyin’ on me, ye hear? Sir ’olt, ’e wouldn’t like it if ye did somethin’ as infernally stupid as leavin’ this life.” Keys jangling, he opened the cell door and slipped through, slamming the heavy bars into place behind him. “ ’Ere now, what’s got into ye?”
Bjorn waited until the man was near, then he grabbed with both hands the manacles that had bound him, and with a quick lunge, forced the sentry backward. The candle dropped, hot wax sprayed on Bjorn’s legs, and the soggy rushes on the floor caught flame, only to sputter out.
“Hey! Wha—?” the startled jailer yelled as links of chain wrapped around his thick throat. Using his weight, Bjorn jammed his heavy body against the wall of bars that separated his cell from that of the stranger.
Coughing, choking, swearing, and stumbling backward, the guard kicked forward, attempting to wound Bjorn between his legs, but Bjorn, finding some sort of sweet justice, only tightened the noose. The guard wound his meaty fingers around the steel coil cutting off his wind, but Bjorn pressed harder until the man was backed against the bars, and the stranger wrapped his own manacles around one of the jailer’s legs, looping the chain through the bars and clamping on the other cuff to his free leg.
“Hold him,” he ordered. With deft fingers, he tore a strip of cloth from his tunic and forced it into the guard’s gaping mouth. Only when the man sagged against the bars, his legs wobbling, did Bjorn release him and snap his manacles over the man’s thick wrists. The jailer-turned-prisoner struggled, shaking his head and throwing himself against his bonds, but to no avail. Bjorn grabbed his keys, sword, and dagger, then hurried through the door, unlocked the stranger’s cell, and ran toward the stairs, nearly knocking over Lady Cayley, who was hastening soundlessly down the steps.
“You’re free?” she cried, stepping backward, surprised.
“Aye. Let’s go.”
“But how—?” she asked as she squinted into the darkness.
“Later, woman!” Bjorn insisted. “Now hush.”
“He’s right. Come quietly,” the sorcerer agreed.
Bjorn grumbled, “I don’t know why we need her!”
“Trust me. She is on our side.”
He felt, rather than saw, the woman’s back stiffen. “You doubt my integrity?”
“Nay, lady, only your ability.” Bjorn had no time for a woman—a rich, pampered daughter of the baron—getting in his way.
“Even though I risked my life to come down to the dungeon to save you, even though you are a common outlaw, you doubt me?” she said, her voice filled with indignation.
A woman would only slow him down, but Bjorn would not question the sorcerer, not when the man had healed his wounds and shown him how to gain his freedom. Now, if only he could sneak into Holt’s room and—
Enough! We must flee the castle before we’re discovered! Trust this woman; she needs us as much as we need her.
The cripple, even with his limp, was swift enough, and Cayley led the way to the stables, where no guard lingered. Inside, the horses snorted and rustled when they sensed the intruders. But each animal quieted as the magician touched its coarse winter coat. ’Twas too dark to see much, but Bjorn found his stallion and Cormick’s fleet mare for the woman while the sorcerer untied a quick horse to claim as his own. No bridles were in evidence, but Bjorn cut lengths of rope with the jailer’s knife. He fashioned the twine into halters with reins, and soon they were leading their steeds out of the stables and into the moonlight.
Don’t worry about the guards, the strange one intoned without words. I shall handle them.
The horses’ hooves rang through the bailey as they approached the main gate. Bjorn thought ’twould be easy enough to lure the guards from their posts and pounce on them, but he sensed that the magician had another plan.
Be ready!
The sorcerer rode his horse into the middle of the bailey and threw his head back to howl like a dog at the moon.
“Wait!” Bjorn commanded. “Do not—”
But the deed was already accomplished, and men were beginning to awaken and shout.
“What’s he doing?” the lady asked, horrified.
“I know not! Shh!” Bjorn kept his horse in the shadows of a hayrick. The main gate was open, the portcullis not yet dropped for the night.
“Halt! You in the bailey! Who be ye?” one guard asked.
“Know ye not?” the magician asked.
“Speak up, man!”
“I be the voice of the Devil. Lucifer’s my name.”
“Holy Mother,” Cayley whispered, swiftly making the sign of the cross over her ample bosom.
“For the love of Christ, he’s either drunk or as mad as a dog!” the guard growled. “He’ll wake up the whole damned castle.”
“Who is it?” another sentry asked, and he, too, was lured into the inner bailey, where the magician, arms spread wide, began to bay soulfully again. In a rustle of feathers, a great owl hooted and landed squarely on the man’s outstretched arm. Bjorn watched in fascination as the wizard didn’t flinch when the curved talons bit into his skin.
“Come,” Bjorn ordered and kneed his mount. The horse took off like a thunderbolt, leaping forward, in its anxiety running toward the gatehouse. Cayley’s horse gave chase.
“Stop! For the love of God, what’s that?” one of the guards yelled.
“Who goes there?” another demanded as Bjorn’s steed raced under the portcullis, steel hooves clattering over the drawbridge.
“ ’Tis the prisoner! ’E’s escaping!”
“Nay, it couldn’t … God’s blood, there’ll be ’ell to pay now!”
Bjorn heard no more. Over the ringing of hooves, shouts of alarm, and that horrid, soul-scraping, keening wail, he heard only the sound of his own heart beating a wild tattoo in his chest. “Run, you bastard, run!” he yelled at the horse, who was already nearly taking flight.
Down the road they sped with only a ribbon of moonlight as their guide. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that Cayley was tucked low, her black mantle billowing like a dark sail behind her as Cormick’s game mare swept across the night-darkened countryside. The wind whipped past them, bringing tears to his eyes, and Bjorn’s heart beat stronger, for this was the first taste of freedom he’d had in days, and oh, ’twas sweet.
The road forked, and they turned south, toward the nearest woods.
Zing!
An arrow hissed past his ear.
Thwack! Another landed in a tree to his right, and he heard the shouts of men on horses, already giving chase. A hasty look over his shoulder confirmed his worries; whatever advantage they had was surely fading.
“Bloody hell,” he grumbled. Without another thought, he turned off the road and into the blackness of the woods. Cayley’s horse didn’t break stride, and together they slowed, moving silently and doubling back, delving deeper into the woods as they crossed a stream and peered through the leafless branches to the starry sky. In a thick copse of pine, he stopped and grabbed hold of the reins of Cayley’s mount. Silently, he pressed a finger to her lips and felt her hot breath on his skin. The forest shivered with the rapid thuds of hoofbeats pounding over the frozen road. The soldiers passed not twenty feet from them, their horses galloping swiftly to the south, their torches held aloft, blinking like evil red-gold eyes before disappearing in the distance.
Once they could no longer be heard or seen, Bjorn pulled on the reins of his mount and headed north, to the camp near the old chapel where Wolf had said they’d meet.
“Oh, dear God in heaven,” Cayley murmured, her voice trembling. “They’ll find us.”
“Not if we shut up and hurry.”
“But they’ll send dogs and—”
“Just ride, woman. Do not cry, do not beg, and do not whimper, or I’ll leave you.”
“You wouldn’t!” she said, and he sensed her bristle. At the very least, she had some backbone.
“Not if ye behave yerself. Now, hush!” He felt her need to sputter and hiss at him, but she didn’t utter another word. “We’ll find Wolf.”
Wolf. The man he’d trusted with his life. The man whom he’d revered. The man who’d nearly sent him to his death. The man whom Cormick had considered his family.
Angry with himself, with Wolf, with the damned martyr of a magician, he glanced at the woman huddled on her steed. She trembled from the cold, and when she glanced his way, there was pain and anger in her gaze. “We should have left him not,” she finally said.
“Who? The wizard?”
“Aye. He gave up his life for us.” Her gaze, filled with blame, cut him to his bones.
“ ’Twas what he wanted,” Bjorn muttered, but couldn’t stop the blade of guilt that twisted in his heart. What the lady was saying had already crossed his mind. “Shh. Be still. As you said, Holt’s men could have dogs with them and find us.” He clucked to his horse, urging the stallion through the undergrowth, but his thoughts were at Dwyrain with the sorcerer.
God be with you.
As if he’d heard a scream from the dead, Holt awakened with a start. But the blood-chilling wail didn’t stop with his nightmare; no, it echoed through the castle, tumbling off the stone walls.
’Twas Ewan’s ghost returned to haunt him!
Guards shouted, footsteps thundered through the hallways, someone began pounding on his door.
“Sir Holt!” Red shouted. “The prisoners have escaped!”
“What?” Anger tore through him. “But how?” He threw on his breeches and tunic, then opened the door to find the rotund knight breathing hard and sweating despite the cool temperature of the castle at night.
“ ’Tis true. We were tricked, we were. By the magician!”
Another keening wail raced through the corridors of the castle. Holt’s heart nearly stopped, for it sounded to him as if the very beast from hell had been unleashed in the bailey.
“What in the name of Jesus is that noise?”
“The sorcerer, Sir Holt. He’s … he’s possessed! Call the priest.”
“The man’s a fraud. As you said, he’s used his magic to confuse you,” Holt sneered, hiding his own fear. Was he the only man in the castle with any brains? Strapping on his belt, sword, and dagger, he strode out of the room. Whatever trick the cripple had played, ’twould be his last!
Guards and servants were scrambling through the hallways, muttering oaths, whispering prayers, causing the rush lights to flicker as they passed. Outside, the noise was louder, a piercing, haunting scream that turned Holt’s insides to water. The sorcerer sat on his horse, his arms thrown wide, a huge ruffle-feathered owl sitting on his shoulder.
“Stop!” he commanded, but the man continued his screaming as if he heard nothing other than the demons in his head. “Do you hear me, man? Stop this infernal—”
“Hey! Halt! Stop!” Out of the shadows, two horsemen spurred their mounts through the untended gates. “Oh, for the love of Jesus. ’Tis the prisoner! He’s escaped!”
“What?” Holt’s eyes narrowed on the fleeing horsemen. Not one, but two of them. “The prisoner—?” His mind spun backward to the flogging. No man he’d beaten so hard would be able to ride, and who was the other one—the smaller rider? Certainly not the dead man, returned to life like Lazarus. Nay, that criminal had been buried in the woods outside the castle—the maggots were feasting on his flesh already. A cloud crossed the moon, casting a shadow on the land, and Holt felt as if the cold hand of death had grabbed his heart and squeezed so hard he couldn’t catch his breath.
“Stop them,” he yelled, but his men stood transfixed, staring as the sorcerer howled at the damned moon like a wolf from the depths of hell. Like a wolf—sweet Jesus, the man is mocking me. “Red, Oswald! Get some men together and stop those two!”
“Oh … aye.”Red snapped out of the spell that had disabled him.
“After them!” Holt ordered. “After them!”
Red’s gaze swept the gatehouse. “Damn it.” Drawing his sword, he sprinted toward the stables, hitting men on the shoulders and hurling orders. Several men managed to break the spell and took off after him, their boots thudding on the frozen mud of the bailey.
Father Timothy, rumpled and cross, strode out of the chapel. Befuddled by the wailing and the crowd, he demanded, “What’s the meaning of this?”
“Prisoners have escaped!” someone in the crowd yelled.
“The sorcerer is possessed!” Nell proclaimed.
Timothy’s steps faltered. “I think not.”
“Listen to him, Father,” the candlemaker insisted. “ ’Tis what he said, that the Devil had control of his tongue!”
“Nay, this I do not believe.” But the priest was more ashen-faced than before and trepidation contorted his fleshy features. His fingers anxiously rubbed the beads of the rosary hanging from his pocket.
Holt drew his sword and made his way through the crowd that had gathered, forming a crescent of onlookers near the center of the spectacle.
“You there, hush!” Holt commanded as he approached.
The shrieking didn’t stop; ’twas almost as if the man took no breaths. Children were crying, women on their knees, men staring at the sorcerer as if he were the Christ arisen again.
“Stop now, or I’ll kill you.”
“Nay!” one woman, the baker’s pregnant wife, cried. “Sir Holt, you cannot. He’s but a half-wit or …”
“Pull him down!” Holt ordered his soldiers.
“Oh, please, no. He means no harm.”
“Do you not remember that he cursed Dwyrain?”
“That’s right,” the miller said, his frown deep. “We all suffered much. I lost a son.”
“And I a sister,” a woman said, but there was no conviction in her voice.
“My boy lost his leg,” another woman said with a catch in her voice. They stared at the man as if he were a saint rather than the hellmonger he was.
“Show some mercy,” Father Timothy pleaded, and Holt saw that his misgivings about the priest had proven true. Holt had always doubted the man’s allegiance to him. Timothy was weak in his faith and in his convictions. Holt had no use for him.
“The sorcerer is not a man of God, but practices pagan magic,” he reminded Timothy.
“He’s misguided.”
“As well as being a traitor to Dwyrain. This man helped the prisoner escape,” Holt said. How had the magician managed that? Who was the second rider? Several men appeared at his side, and while the man screamed, he was dragged from his horse, and the owl, startled, flew away with a great flapping of his wings. Feathers fluttered to the ground. Two huge, burly soldiers held the prisoner fast, and the sight was pitiful, for he was a thin cripple who struggled not and would become a martyr if Holt wasn’t careful.
“Who are you?” Holt threw at him, asking a question that had never before been answered. “Why are you here?”
The screaming suddenly stopped and the man’s fevered, mindless eyes once again were eerily intelligent, more frightening than when he appeared riotously insane. “I, Sir Holt, am your conscience, that nasty prick of worry that you’ve hidden deep but sometimes keeps you awake at night.”
The moon appeared from behind a cloud, bathing the sorcerer’s face in a silvery, nearly angelic glow. Holt shivered in his boots.
“What say you?” Holt asked again. The man was truly addled, but a drip of fear slid down Holt’s spine.
“I’m your conscience, for I know what you’ve done.”
There was no reason to listen to this. “Take him away!” Holt roared, trying to stem the dread that was slowly scraping at his soul.
“Is not the baron dead?” the cripple demanded.
Holt rounded and crashed his fist into the madman’s face.
Several women gasped and fell to their knees, praying loudly. The wind picked up, scattering dry leaves and playing with hems of surcoats and mantles.
“Ask him,” the prisoner said to the crowd. “Ask him if he hasn’t been poisoning Baron Ewan each day, and when the old man didn’t die quickly—”
“Enough! Take him to the dungeon. He’ll be hanged at dawn!”
The magician had the audacity, the sheer, stupid insolence, to laugh. “Is that what you do to your adversaries, Holt? Kill them? Sneak into their chambers and place the skin of a bear over their faces until they can no longer draw a breath, as you did with the baron? Or do you marry them off, as you plan to do with Lady Cayley? Are you not planning to have her wed an old, cruel man who will kill her?”
“Take him away!” Holt swallowed hard. How had this … this addled half-wit known what he’d done? If anyone found out about the death of Ewan or if Connor discovered that Holt planned to betray him … He felt a tremor of fear, for Connor was a coldhearted bastard.
The guards pushed their captive roughly toward the north tower, but the sorcerer laughed again, the sound hideous to Holt’s ears. “Enjoy your short rule as baron. Holt of Prydd,” the sorcerer said with a patient, knowing smile. “ ’Twill soon be over!”
Holt’s temper exploded and he caught up with his captive. “You fool,” he uttered as he smashed a fist into the cripple’s gut, causing the man to double over. If not for the guards holding him upright, he would have fallen to the ground.
“Did you see that?” a man’s voice, one he didn’t recognize, yelled loudly.
“A brute, he is,” a woman murmured. “Lady Megan is lucky that she escaped becoming his bride.”
“Thank God Baron Ewan is alive.”
If you only knew, Holt thought, but he held his tongue. ’Twould look suspicious if he alone knew that Ewan had already left this world and joined his dead wife and children. That thought warmed him. Soon enough, come the morning, no one would any longer question his authority and refer to Ewan as the rightful baron of Dwyrain. ’Twas his now.
“Sir Holt!” Mallory yelled as he ran, ashen-faced, down the keep steps. “ ’Tis the baron.”
“Did he call for me?”
“Nay,” Mallory replied as he crossed the mashed grass of the inner bailey. “ ’Tis Lord Ewan. I’m afraid … ’tis dead he is.”
“No!”
Gasps and wails met the soldier’s announcement.
“ ’Tis true …” Mallory searched the crowd. “Father Timothy, please—”
“Did not the magician say—?” a woman asked.
“Shh!” her husband commanded.
“Say no more.” Timothy held the skirt of his robes high and marched soberly to the keep.
“The baron? Are you sure?” Holt asked. He started toward the keep.
Mallory placed a hand on Holt’s arm, restraining him. “There’s more,” he admitted, staring at the ground and tugging on the end of his moustache. “ ’Tis Lady Cayley.”
“Yes, yes, what about her?” Holt shoved the man’s hand off him and strode toward the great hall.
“She’s missing, m’lord.”
Holt whirled so swiftly he nearly fell over. “Missing?”
“Aye.” Mallory paled and his Adam’s apple wiggled nervously. “She escaped down a rope from her window.”
“For the love of God,” Holt growled, looking at the gate where the two horsemen had escaped. The tall blond outlaw and Cayley? Ewan’s weak, whimpering, and flirtatious second daughter? His blood boiled. Not only had his own wife eluded him, but her simpering younger sister as well. Every muscle in his body grew taut as a bowstring and his eyes narrowed on his pathetic troop of soldiers. “Can’t we hold anyone in this keep? Now, if you don’t want to be flogged, beaten, or hanged, I suggest you take off after the prisoner and return him dead or alive. I care not which.” Though a few troops had left, too many stood idle. “Go!”
“And … and the lady?”
His jaw clenched so tight it ached. Both Cayley and the prisoner were worth more to him alive than dead, but he cared not. “Kill her if she won’t return peacefully.”
“But she’s the baron’s daughter!” the cook proclaimed, unable to hold his tongue.
“Nay,” Holt snarled to the pathetic people clustered around him. “If what Sir Mallory says is true and Ewan has given up his life, then I’m baron of Dwyrain!”
Megan stirred and reached for Wolf, but her hand found only an empty place on cold linen sheets. Opening her eyes, she blinked in the darkness and wondered where he was, what he would be thinking. Her dream of holding him close, of feeling his warm body and demanding lips, had been so real, so vivid, and she’d thought for just an instant that he was here with her.
“So ye’re awake.” The voice, that of the old crone, startled her and she scooted upward in the bed, holding a blanket over her chest.
“Aye,” she said as the woman lit a candle from the dying embers of the fire.
“I know ye be worried about yer man, the outlaw Wolf.”
“How would you know … ?”
“I see things, lass. ’Tis my curse.” Rubbing the huge knots that were the joints of her fingers, the gnarled woman lowered herself onto the foot of the bed and gazed out the chamber’s single window to the star-studded sky. “Something’s amiss tonight,” she said, as if to herself. “The gods are not happy.”
“Gods—you mean God,” Megan said.
“Aye, Him, too.” Sighing, she placed a candle on a small table near the bed and the flame flickered in the breath of wind stirring through the castle. “There’s good and bad in the world, m’lady. Everyone has a share of each.”
“What is it you’re trying to tell me, Isolde?”
“There was a death tonight,” the old one said, her eyes far away. “At Dwyrain.”
“Nay—”
“Your father, lass.”
“Nay! Nay! Nay! I believe you not!” Megan cried, though the lines of sadness around the old woman’s eyes and etching over her forehead half convinced her.
“ ’Tis true. He was helped to his death by your husband.”
The world jolted and spun. Megan’s breath stopped dead in her lungs. “No,” she cried, but sensed the woman would not have come here if she did not believe it.
“I sensed a tremor, child, a rending in the air. ’Twas Ewan giving up his life.”
Megan’s bones no longer supported her. She felt as if the world had stopped, as if life itself had withered. Her father, her wonderful father, now dead? Though she’d told herself that his death had been imminent, that there was a chance she wouldn’t see him alive again, she could not believe that he was really gone. Tears gathered in her eyes, but she held them at bay, refusing to break down. “Leave me alone. I—I believe this not.”
“There is more.”
“I do not want to hear it.”
Isolde reached forward and grabbed Megan’s fingers, still clutching the coverlet. “Aye, this news is sweet,” she said with a smile. “For every death, there is new life, and you, m’lady, carry new life in your womb.”
Megan couldn’t speak. Her words jumbled and clogged in her throat. A baby? Is that what the woman was saying? She was going to have a child? Wolf’s issue? “How … how would you know?”
Isolde sighed. “ ’Tis a gift,” she said.
“You practice the dark arts.”
“Aye,” she admitted. “Some say I be a witch, but ’tis not true. I’m a nursemaid. ’Twas I who helped Lady Sorcha come into this world.”
Megan glanced down at her flat abdomen, now covered with thick blankets. Could this be true? Could she believe this glorious gift had been given her and deny the woman’s death sentence for her father?
“As for the babe growing within you, ’tis early yet, the child only just conceived.”
Megan swallowed hard. A baby! Though she felt a deep grief at the loss of her father—if the old woman spoke the truth—the thought of bringing Wolf’s child into the world brought with it a joy she’d never before known.
Isolde placed a warm, aged hand over the furs and blankets that covered Megan’s abdomen. A small smile played at the edges of her thin lips. “I know not what it will be, ’tis much too soon. But ye must be careful, Megan. This babe was created by great love. You must take care of yourself and of it. Now”—she reached for her candle—“sleep well. Both of you.”
Megan slid lower in the bed and placed a hand over the skin stretched between her hipbones. Could she believe this old woman? Was Ewan really dead? Did a child grow deep inside her?
Tears slid down her face and she knew not if they came from grief or happiness.