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glance from across the rise of Ceridwen's hip, as if asking permission for the
done deed.
"Fie, bitch," he grumbled, pushing himself to a sitting position.
The albino stretched her head down to lick Ceridwen on the cheek and nose, and
Dain found himself sunk to another new low: being jealous of a damn dog.
"Ceri?" He shook her arm. "Ceridwen." 'Twas time for them to be up and gone.
He preferred not to be caught dallying in the woods in the light of day.
She mumbled a few words of protest, and he shook her again, then rose with an
arm wrapped tightly around his ribs. Pale blue eyes squinted up at him through
gold-tipped lashes.
"Come,chérie," he said, forcing a smile and a lightness he did not feel. "Our
adventure has lasted through to the morn, and we must find our beds."
Adventure, aye, Ceridwen thought through the haze of sleep. They'd had an
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adventure, she and the sorcerer, a marvelous adventure full of strange people
and stranger places.
There had been a wood with wild folk gathered around a mother oak of enormous
girth. A waterfall had shimmered over their heads, revealing a secret trail.
They'd found a cottage hidden in a pine forest, and inside the cottage she'd
found a marvel. Her hand went to the pouch hanging from her girdle, and she
smiled. The elf shot was safe. 'Twas a wondrous thing to have, but there had
been something else in the cottage, something less tangible and far more
strange than her prized elf shot. Her smile faded. Memories had been in the
cottage, her own and those belonging to others, memories of a green-eyed maid
from long ago, and dreams. They had come to her in a fog and must have slipped
back into the selfsame cloud, for most of them were not clear in her mind now.
Yet she remembered love, strong and pulsing with the heart of the earth,
luring her into a dark abyss. She remembered the anguish and the fierceness of
it, and she remembered the man, a warrior.
"Come. 'Tis not far," Lavrans said, and when she looked up, 'twas him, with
his flowing dark hair and broad shoulders silhouetted against the sky.
Denial quickly followed. Lavrans had kissed her, and the kissing had created
confusion. He was no warrior; he was a beguiler. The man in her dream had
wielded a sword, not a rowan wand.
But even the quickest of denials could not change what she'd seen, or what
she'd felt. 'Twas him.
"Come, Ceri. We can be home before mid-morn." She followed the sweep of his
hand as he gestured to the west and the last shadows of night. The stone walls
of Wydehaw rose into a gray sky from a distant, rocky crag, its towers
wreathed in garlands of dawn mist.
The great hall of the castle was in an uproar. Servants scurried this way and
that, kicking sleeping dogs and snoring guardsmen out of their way with equal
vigor. Wasn't often they had the chance to get a swift foot on one of the
mesnie without facing even swifter retaliation, but the overseeing black scowl
of their lord, Soren D'Arbois, approved all means to his end. He wanted the
hall cleared. He wanted hyssop strewn on the rushes. He wanted clean linen on
the dais tables, and he wanted fresh bread and ale. The
Boar of Balor was less than a league north of the Wye, bearing down on Wydehaw
with a column of thirty men.
"Boar," Soren muttered.
"Milord?" A fresh-faced squire stopped in his tracks, his arms full of bee
balm, and looked up expectantly.
Soren eyed the boy, momentarily distracted from his grim musings. He liked
dark boys, and this one was darker than most, with coal-black hair curling
across his brow and ebony eyes shining bright and innocent.
Too innocent, he decided, and sent the squire off with a cuff to the ear.
"Hyssop, boy. Hyssop, I said."
Damn Vivienne. Where was she? Strewing herbs was her bailiwick, not his.
"Boar," he muttered again. The man would want his bride and Ragnor, and Soren
could lay claim to only one. Damn the red beast for bringing such as Caradoc
down on his head and then disappearing without so much as a by-your-leave.
Having Ragnor brought to the Boar in chains would have ameliorated some of the
northern lord's wrath at the treatment his betrothed had received in Soren's
demesne.
What was he to do?
He grabbed a passing kitchen maid by her arm and drew her up short. "Pies," he
said, sticking his face close to hers. "Meat pies."
"Aye, milord," she said, her head bobbing, her eyes round and wide.
He released her with a shove that sent her stumbling. A guardsman caught her
with a hearty guffaw and
"Ho, wench," but Soren would have none of that. He glared at the man until he
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released the maid.
Ragnor's lust for the swiving of women was what had caused the calamity about
to be unleashed upon them all.
And Caradoc's own carelessness, Soren thought uncharitably, and mayhaps the
Prince of Gwynedd's and his man's, whoever that had been. One maid should not
be so hard to hold that a fool could lose her in the woods and leave her easy
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