Sorceress (15 page)

“Gavyn of Agendor,” she said, shaking her head as he dropped his hand. How had she not seen it? Not recognized him?

Three years older than she, he’d had long and lean muscles starting to show sinew as he worked with the horses. His hair had been dark but streaked with red in the late summer. She’d watched him as he leaned against the reins of a particularly headstrong black colt, the sweat running down his neck, the muscles bunching in his shoulders and arms, his hair nearly curling into black ringlets.

She’d felt the first stirring of womanhood looking at him, the odd swelling feeling deep inside that had made her flush and babble whenever he was near. She’d found that her mouth was often dry, her tongue wetting her lips as she watched him work.

And then they’d begun to talk and laugh. She’d often made excuses to wander to the stables or be around the horses. She’d readily agreed to sneak the horses out and ride in the twilight. Of course, when they returned and the stable master realized what had happened, Gavyn had been blamed.

Gavyn was the boy from whom the stable master’s whip had drawn blood. Gavyn was the boy who had been banished from Penbrooke forever.

Because of her.

She swallowed hard, nearly dropping the hot cup. God in heaven, could it truly be him?

His mouth twisted in a smile without a trace of humor. “So you remember.”

“Aye,” she whispered, though she had trouble believing it. This broken, battered, bullheaded man was the boy with whom she’d stolen honey from the beekeeper? The lad who had dared her to pick up an asp? The freckled-faced youth who had taught her to skip stones on the millpond and challenged her to scale the walls of the abandoned ruins of a crumbling cathedral? The very same boy who had ridden over the fields with her and been flogged for it, right before her terrified, guilt-ridden face. “Why . . . why did you not say who you were?” she asked, seeing him with new eyes. And old eyes. Her vision split between that of the boy she’d known and the man before her.

“I thought it would make a hard situation more difficult.”

“And lying would be easier?”

“Aye.” He yawned and stretched, then grimaced. “Now,” he said, “was there a reason you woke me?”

“Oh. Yes. Drink this.” She held out the cup.

He looked at her as if she’d gone mad.

“You were moaning in pain. In your sleep. This will help.” She handed him the cup and pushed it upward toward his lips. “Careful. It’s hot.”

Watching her over the rim, he took a sip, then scowled and tried to hand the cup back to her.

“Good?” she asked.

“It tastes like boar piss.”

“Which you’ve drunk?” she asked, pushing the cup back to his lips.

“I’ve smelled.”

“But this brew will help. I promise,” she said, coaxing him to drink.

“Did you ever drink it?”

“Many times,” she lied. “I think it tastes like Berthild’s, the alewife’s, mead. You remember her?”

“Aye, the big woman with red hair and . . .”

“Huge breasts. I know.”

“I was going to say freckles.”

“Of course you were,” she said, disbelieving.

“Well, if her beer tasted like this concoction you created, trust me, there would be no sots at Penbrooke Keep, and Berthild would be drawn and quartered.”

“Drink it and stop complaining.”

Scowling, he tossed back the foul-smelling concoction and emptied the rest of the cup. When finished, he handed the iron vessel back to her and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “The least you could do,
sorceress
, is chant or pray or cast a spell to sweeten that foul-tasting brew.”

“I promise, you’ll feel better in the morning.”

“I’ll hold you to it,” he said, and smiled at her.

Stupidly, she felt a warmth steal through her blood just as she had all those years ago when they were little more than children. As if he read her thoughts, he looked away.

’Twas all she could do for him for the time being. Tomorrow, she’d tend to his wounds, if he’d let her, and then . . . sweet Mother, they would ride together to Tarth, she supposed. Although she suspected Gavyn had a cache of secrets.

She was too tired to think about it now. She picked up her amulets, horns, and pouches of herbs, then returned to her place by the fire. Exhausted, she lay against her saddle, intending not to sleep but to rest her eyes while her ears strained to hear anything out of the ordinary. As Gavyn did, she wrapped her horse’s reins through the fingers of her right hand, as in her left, her strong hand, she held Isa’s dagger. Even though she now knew that the man lying a few feet from her was a friend from her youth, she still wasn’t certain she could trust him.

Soon his worrisome moans eased into a gentle snore, and Bryanna concentrated instead on the sounds of the night— the flap of bats’ wings, the rush of water in the creek, the gentlebreathing of their horses. Overhead the clouds oozed their way across the sky, obliterating the stars and moon.

Trust him not,
she told herself.
He is not the boy you knew. He is a grown man and, most likely, a dangerous one.

CHAPTER NINE

I
n the great hall of Chwarel, Hallyd’s keep, the spy counted his coins, clinking them together as if he hoped the rubbing of silver would somehow create more.

“Tell me,” Hallyd said impatiently. It was late. They were seated before the dying coals of the fire, the castle dogs curled up and sleeping, the bitch letting out soft little yelps as she dreamed. One guard stood at attention near the main door. The others, Hallyd suspected, were dozing at their posts.

The scrawny little man with his large hooked nose and bulbous eyes glanced up, though his fingers still rubbed the coins greedily, as if touching them fed some insatiable need deep within him. ’Twas as if he were mentally calculating how far he could push Hallyd, how much more money he would be able to extort if he said the right words.

“You have drunk more than a cup of my wine and have been paid for your work, which may have been a mistake, as you have yet to tell me what you learned.”

“I was attacked,” Cael grumbled, rubbing his leg. “By a wolf. This witch . . . she must’ve trained the wild dog to do her bidding. A huge creature she was, bigger than a horse, I tell ye, wilder and fiercer than any natural creature that walks this earth. She had glowing red eyes, she did, a shaggy mane ’bout her devil of a face, and fangs yea long.” He held up his gnarled hand, his thumb and forefinger spaced three inches apart. “Blood and spittle rained from her mouth, and her roar was unlike any bestial cry I’d ever heard before. ’Twas the dog of the devil, I tell ye. Nearly had me down, she did, that beast from hell.” He held up his leg and, sure enough, his breeches were torn and slashed, blood evident on the tattered edges.

“So how did you escape?”

“Me courage, that’s how! I looked the beast square in the face, I did, and swore at her. Then I tried to slide through her ribs to her black heart with me knife, but she was too quick for me, she was. Grabbed me by the leg and shook me about and I was able to slice at her snout.”

“And she ran off?”

“Aye.”

“Must’ve been the swearing at her.”

“Do not mock me, m’lord. The wolf, she was a terrible, fearsome creature. I’m lucky to have escaped with me life. These coins, they are hardly enough for me to sacrifice me life, now, are they?”

“You survived,” Hallyd said dryly, irritated that the man was obviously trying to collect more money than what they’d agreed upon. Hallyd hated the fact that he had to rely on fools, charlatans, and imbeciles to do his work during daylight hours. How he’d love to ride after her himself. He would if she weren’t three days’ ride from here—a torturous journey for one who could not bear the light of day.

“I’m wounded, I tell ye,” the spy went on. “Perhaps crippled fer the rest of me days. I’ll be lucky if I don’t have to use a walking stick.”

“Then you’re saying you cannot go out and follow her again?” Hallyd lifted his eyebrows in question and fingered the pouch in his hands. The coins within jingled, and Cael nearly salivated as his eyes slid to Hallyd’s purse. “You have told me nothing, except about an attack by a wolf.”

“Not just any wolf, m’lord, but—”

“Get on with it.” Hallyd was tired of the pathetic spy’s excuses and stories. “What did you learn?”

“The girl . . . she is not only with a beast from the fires of hell, but she’s traveling with a man.”

“A man?” His head snapped up and sudden rage roared through his veins. “
What
man?” Did this rodent of a spy need to have every word prodded from him?

“He called himself Cain of Agendor, and he looked like he’d been beaten by ten men. His face . . . I saw it in the firelight and—”

“Let me guess. ’Twas the face of a devil?”

“Aye, a demon, with red eyes.”

“And you saw him with Bryanna?”

“Aye.” The weasel nodded his little head rapidly.

“They are traveling together?”

“To Tarth,” he said, and that, Hallyd thought, was the first valuable nugget in the spy’s tale. Had he not seen it himself? Had Vannora not foretold that Bryanna would be drawn to the very place where the curse had been born?

“Do you know anything else about him?” Hallyd asked, irritated at the thought of any man with her.

“Only that he called himself Cain, and he rode a black steed that was as big and strong as any of your own horses. A prize stallion, I be thinkin’.”

“A beaten man with a destrier? A horse thief, this Cain of Agendor?” The name was unfamiliar, but he would find out the truth about the man, his wolf, and warhorse.

“I . . . I know not. He claimed the horse was once his father’s.”

“An easy lie,” Hallyd said, tenting his hands and leaning back in his chair. Who was this interloper? Why had Vannora not spoken of him? He didn’t like the sound of it and sensed there was a falsehood within the tale. From the spy? From this Cain? ’Twas easy enough to find out. He read the hesitation in the spy’s worried expression. He was holding back, not saying everything that he knew. Now why was that?

Hallyd decided to test the vile little man. “I might be willing to pay for further information,” he suggested, watching Cael’s reactions carefully. Was it possible he was turned? Paid more by one of Hallyd’s enemies and was, in fact, here gathering information rather than reporting it? Hallyd thought not; the man was just not that clever. “If you’d like to earn more,” Hallyd said, “you shall ride to Agendor and talk to the peasants and servants who work for Deverill. Find out what they know of a black stallion, and a man beaten within an inch of his life.”

“Agendor is a long ride,” the weasel said, already sharpening his bargaining skills. “And me leg . . .”

“If you cannot do it, then send up Frydd. I’m certain he would be glad to earn a few coins for an easy task.”

“Frydd! Oh, fer the love of God, m’lord. What are ye thinkin’? Frydd is too big, too loud, his red beard far too noticeable. Now, me, I blend in. I can sneak through cracks, listen at doors, disappear into a crowd and no one notices. Frydd!” He twisted his face into a knot of disgust and snorted. “Nay.”

“Then don’t argue with me. If you want the job, then you shall have it and I will pay you the usual fee. Take it or leave it.”

“Well, because I feel such loyalty, of course I’ll ride, if I’m able.”

The spy’s pledges of dedication were nearly as sickening as his complaints. “Have the physician look at your wound and stitch it, then be off. I’ll expect you to report back to me from Agendor within the fortnight.” He leaned forward again. “Now, tell me, was there anyone else with Bryanna, aside from the devil himself and his demon dog?”

Cael caught his cynicism and was not amused. He defended himself quickly. “I am not lying, Lord Hallyd. ’Twas just as I said.”

“But there is more, isn’t there?”

Cael chewed on his thin lower lip, as if he were afraid to reveal something. Which was rot. Hallyd had paid for all knowledge.

“Was there?”

“I . . . I know not, m’lord,” he admitted, and suddenly there was no guile in his big features. “’Twas an eerie night. Cold. But without a breath of wind and I felt . . . I mean, I saw no one else, but ’twas as if there were a presence, a dark spirit within the forest. Something that could not be seen nor heard, only sensed.”

“So you’re telling me that a man, nay, mayhap Satan himself was traveling with the witch? And with him was a demon wolf.”

The spy was nodding.

“But beyond all that, there was also a dark spirit lurking within the forest.”

“Aye,” Cael whispered and made the sign of the cross over his birdlike chest. He swallowed hard and glanced up at Hallyd. “’Twas the very force of evil, I swear.”

The man believed it to his very soul.

As did Hallyd.

Bryanna wasn’t certain how it happened, how she gave herself up to slumber, but sometime during the morning hours she dozed. When she awoke and glanced over to the spot where Gavyn had been sleeping, she found both him and his steed missing. Her mare, however, was still leashed to Bryanna’s hand.

Stretching in the cold of the gray dawn, she wondered about the events of the night before. A wolf? A black horse? A boy, now a man, from her past? Bryanna had nearly convinced herself that she’d dreamed it all, that her imagination had run wild.

And yet, she hadn’t. Boot, hoof, and paw print were etched into the mud around the campfire, telling her differently. The cup she’d used to brew her potion was where she’d left it on a rock near the fire, which now burned brightly. Late last night the campfire had dwindled to the barest of red embers, so she had to assume that Cain—nay, Gavyn—had found firewood and stoked the dying coals to new life before he’d left.