Barbara Leigh Read online

  Elreath had been on his way to the Holy Land when Hendrick was born, and did not see the child until some three years later when he returned.

  The child thrived, but the father had aged and shriveled in the desert sun. For a time there was some question that he would be strong enough to join the next Crusade. There was no question as to whether Hendrick would be the only child conceived of the union, as Elreath felt he must conserve his strength and left Serine alone. At the end of Hendrick’s fifth year Elreath had recovered enough to pledge himself to one last Crusade. In a gracious gesture he stripped his estate of able-bodied men and set out once more to free the Holy Land from the infidel, leaving his estates and his son in the able hands of his wife.

  Serine had been well versed in running the estate. With the help of the steward she had managed the lands, the flocks and the crops, but she was not prepared for the Celt invasion, and it angered her that they had been left alone and so ill prepared. It was only luck that she had found a way to recover the children. And perhaps her prayers to the Christian God were more powerful than those of the Celts to the deities they worshiped.

  Once Hendrick was again in her arms she would take the time to thank her maker. Hendrick, with his tousled hair and laughing eyes. Hendrick, to whom she had given life, and who now made her life worth living. Hendrick, her son.

  Lost in reverie, Serine found herself at the end of the hall and was about to start back through the maze of sleeping children when Dame Margot approached.

  “I must speak to you,” Margot said without preamble.

  “As soon as I find Hendrick I will be at your disposal,” Serine agreed absently.

  Margot took Serine’s arm and guided her through the door into what must have been a small chapel. “Hendrick isn’t with the other children.”

  Serine refused to meet Margot’s steady but sympathetic gaze. “Surely they haven’t taken him back to Sheffield already. Regardless of Old Ethyl’s boast, there still may be some danger.” She tried to look back into the hall over Margot’s shoulder. He must be there, somewhere. Any minute he would awaken and come running to her and the night’s work would not have been in vain.

  “Serine, come and sit with me.” Margot led her to a wooden bench. “Ursa tells me that some of the children were taken aboard the larger vessel before we were able to steal them back.”

  Serine nodded. “Yes, that could be true. I remember how the little boats went back and forth. Some of the children could have been taken.”

  But not Hendrick, her heart cried out. Not Hendrick! She knew he had been on the shore shortly before she started rowing for the ship. She had heard his voice. Heard him challenge the Celts like the lordling he was.

  She could feel Margot gripping her hands. She did not want to hear the woman’s next words, but they must be heard. Serine took a deep breath. “Go on,” she ordered.

  “Hendrick is not here.”

  “Perhaps he went back to look for me,” Serine suggested.

  Margot shook her head. “The Celts have him.”

  It was a statement of fact, and as such, beyond refutation. Serine turned her face toward the crumbling wall to hide the tears that sprang to her eyes.

  “From all that the women have been able to glean from the children, Hendrick was taken to the ship shortly before the fire.” Margot continued without releasing her grip on the younger woman’s hands. “You have done a very courageous thing, Serine, and the people of your village will be forever grateful, but Hendrick is gone.”

  Serine gave Margot’s fingers a little squeeze and pulled away. “Then I shall go after him,” she said. “How many others are missing?”

  “Over a dozen children,” Margot admitted, “along with Gerta and her babe.”

  “I will go after all of them,” Serine vowed. “I’ll go after them and bring them back.”

  “I understand how desperately you want to find Hendrick and the rest of the children and bring them home, but you don’t know where the Celts have taken them. It could take you months, or even years to find them.” Margot tried desperately to dissuade Serine from undertaking an impossible task. “Old Ethyl believes they came from Ireland, but there are Celts in Brittany, Wales, Scotland and even France. Most have become quite civilized, but these men must be renegades. You could search the rest of your life and never find their village.”

  “Perhaps some of the children overheard the Celts say something that would tell us where they came from,” Serine suggested. “You can question them when they awaken. I’ll take Old Ethyl and go back to the area where the Celts landed and see if they left anything that would tell me from whence they came.”

  “Serine! You know as well as I that they left nothing behind,” Margot pleaded, knowing in her heart that this brave young woman was headed for heartbreak and disappointment.

  “Not so, Dame Margot.” Serine drew herself to her full height, her eyes hard with determination. “There is one thing they left behind that could give us a great deal of information, and that is the wounded Celt.”

  “But the man was sore wounded,” Margot gasped. “Like as not he is already dead.”

  “If he is still on English soil and there is breath in his body, I will keep him alive until he can tell me where they’ve taken Hendrick,” Serine vowed, and without waiting to hear more of Margot’s objections she hurried off to find Old Ethyl, knowing all too well that the chances of success were slim.

  But even a slim chance was better than no chance at all.

  * * *

  “M’lady! Slow down a bit,” Old Ethyl panted. “I can’t keep up.”

  Serine glanced back over her shoulder, gauging the lengthening distance between herself and the other woman. “Don’t fret yourself, Ethyl,” she said. “Just keep me in sight and there’ll be no problem.”

  “There be a problem already,” Old Ethyl called after her. “No lady in her right mind would go looking for a needle in the hay. You’ll find yourself sorry, you will. Mark my words, there’s naught but grief left on those shores.”

  But Serine did not slow her steps, and the old woman somehow managed to keep but a few paces behind her, for all her grumbling.

  The coast looked deserted as Serine viewed it from her vantage point among the rocks on the high cliffs.

  “You see?” Old Ethyl came up behind her. “I told you there would be nothing here. The Celts have taken their fallen comrade and gone their way.” She tugged at Serine’s arm, her one eye scanning the coastline cautiously.

  Serine caught her breath. “The ship is still here,” she said as she ducked behind the rocks, pulling the old woman with her.

  “It will not sail again. The Celts have left it to rot. Now come along. This is not a good place to linger.”

  Serine shook her off. “I’m going down there to look around. Perhaps they left something that will tell me the name of the village from which they came.” As Serine spoke she spied a scrap of cloth along the shore. Her heart turned painfully in her chest and pounded against her ribs like a falcon fighting to fly free.

  She jerked away from Old Ethyl’s restraining hands and ran down to the beach. Only when she reached flat ground did she slow her steps and approach with some semblance of caution.

  The Celt was not where they had left him. She had noted the bush carefully, for it had been her point of refuge the night before, and there was no body lying beside it. If the Celts had not come back and taken him, he might yet be alive and have moved away from the sea. Again her heart lurched at the thought of life pulsing from his body, and she found herself almost as greatly troubled by the thought of the man dying along the water’s edge as she was by the loss of her son.

  She bolted through a cluster of rocks and almost stepped on an outthrust arm.

  It took all her control to keep from screaming as Old Ethyl slammed into her back.

  The older woman peered around her lady, glaring malevolently at the man on the ground. “Guess I didn’t place the arrow as well
as I thought,” she remarked as she nocked another shaft.

  “No.” Serine pushed the bow aside. “There will be no killing.”

  “What do you mean, no killing?” Old Ethyl challenged. “The man is a Celt! He’d just as soon rape and kill you as look at you. You can’t mean to let him live!”

  “I mean to make him live,” Serine told her. “To make him live, and make him tell me where his people have taken my son.” A tiny smile touched her lips. “And then I mean to make him take me there to demand the return of Hendrick in exchange for the Celt’s life.”

  Old Ethyl shook her head, but she lowered her bow. “I don’t know that Celts work that way,” she said thoughtfully. “But I guess it’s worth the chance. Especially since it seems to be the only chance we’ve got.”

  “I only hope he lives long enough to tell me where they’ve taken Hendrick.” Serine dropped at the man’s side, appalled at his color, or lack thereof. “That is, if he’s alive even now.”

  “Oh, he’s alive enough, I’ll warrant.” Old Ethyl quickly assessed the situation. “In fact, I’d wager he heard every word you said, didn’t you, laddie?” She nudged his leg with her foot.

  “How can you be so certain?” Serine looked up at the old woman and did not see the Celt’s eyelids flicker. “A moment ago we both thought him dead.”

  “That was before you knelt down beside him,” Old Ethyl said cryptically. “I don’t think he’s in any condition to harm you, but if you’re determined to save him I better go and get a cart to carry him back to Sheffield.”

  “Thank you, Ethyl,” Serine answered, but this time her whole attention was focused on the man beside her. The man who pinioned her with eyes filled with pain. The man whose hair fell in ebony ringlets across his forehead. The man who managed with all that was left of his strength to drag a breath into his punctured lungs and say, “I would have thought I had surely died and been taken to my reward, had it not been for the old hag beside you.”

  “Do not fear, Celt,” Serine said as she placed a cool hand on his fevered forehead, “I do not intend to let you go anywhere until you tell me where I can find my son.”

  She fought down the jolt she knew when her flesh touched his, and tried to act as though nothing unusual had happened, nothing that could not be explained as concern for his condition, nothing that might indicate that each moment she was near him filled her with emotion she had never before known and never so much as imagined.

  His voice was little more than a whisper as he fought down a quickening of his blood that was slightly less than devastating. “No man could desire eternity with you at his side on this earth.” His voice faded, and he stared at her, unblinking.

  “Why do you look at me so?” she demanded, unnerved by his scrutiny.

  “Because I fear if I close my eyes you will disappear and the one-eyed harpy of my nightmares will return.” His eyes closed against the pain, nonetheless.

  “I will not disappear,” Serine assured him. “At least, not until you tell me how I can find my son.” But even as she spoke his head lolled back and she knew he could no longer hear her.

  She turned him onto his side to ease the pressure on his wound. What was he trying to do to her? Offering compliments when he was barely conscious. It was almost obscene! A Celt offering flattery with his last breath. How dare he? If only she didn’t need him so desperately. If he wasn’t her only chance to discover the whereabouts of her son. If her heart didn’t beat so erratically when she so much as thought about their unconscionable first meeting. If these things weren’t so, she would leave him here without blinking an eye. But they were true. They were all true, and she couldn’t leave him behind again.

  * * *

  The man did not regain consciousness as he was moved from the coast to the castle. Serine watched him closely, making certain he continued the shallow breathing that was all his wound allowed.

  Secreted in her own chambers, Serine removed the arrow and bathed the wound with bedstraw tea, then applied a poultice of fresh crushed lady’s mantle. But the Celt’s fever did not abate and the women worried over what course to take next.

  “Nettle tea would give him some nourishment and purify the blood,” Margot suggested, “but before we dare try to get him to swallow we must bring down the fever.”

  Serine watched the man’s life slipping away as the poison of the wound had its way. With him would go her only chance of finding her son. She could not allow him to die.

  She knew which herbs to administer to ease the pain of childbirth, to heal a cut or draw the infection from an ulcer, but the man before her was sore wounded and she feared she did not have the knowledge to save him. Yet he must live. She must make him live...for Hendrick...and perhaps for Serine herself. Somehow she must find a way.

  “I do not know if I have the skills to save him.” She spoke the words aloud as the man thrashed on the bed.

  “Perhaps we should send for a surgeon,” Margot suggested.

  “A surgeon would only bleed him. In the end he would die and all our efforts will have been for naught.” Serine never looked away from the man. She was determined that he would live long enough to tell her what she wanted to know if she had to breathe life into his body herself. He must not die, she would not let him die until she learned the fate of her son.

  Aware of Serine’s desperation, Margot agreed to stay with the man while Serine went to gather the herbs she hoped would be of the most benefit in lowering the fever and healing the wound.

  Dame Margot did not feel comfortable left alone with the Celt, even if he was unconscious. There was something about him so raw and primitive, so completely virile that it intimidated the gentlewoman.

  * * *

  “Does he still live?” Old Ethyl asked as she met Serine at the postern gate.

  “He has a grave fever. I have little hope of keeping him alive. We can only pray that he says something in his delirium that might tell us where they’ve taken the children.” She paused and looked back toward the keep, thinking how dismal it would be without little Hendrick there to give it life and hope for the future. “I must gather herbs to rid the wound of poisons.”

  “There was no poison on my arrows,” Old Ethyl declared. “I depend on my skill to kill my enemies.”

  Serine sensed the hostility and answered patiently. “The poisons come from the arrow entering the body and breaking the tissues. The man lay in the mud for hours, which was also detrimental. No one said your arrow was poisoned.”

  Old Ethyl hung her head. “If I had shot true the man would have been dead.”

  Serine touched her arm comfortingly. “If the Celt had died there would be no chance of his telling us where they have taken the children. You said you were from the land of the Celts,” she reminded her. “Can’t you guess where they might be?”

  “The Celts are scattered along the sea like stones in the sand.” Old Ethyl narrowed her eye. “And while there’s no doubt in my mind that this one came to us from Ireland, we could search for years without coming upon his village. You speak true, m’lady. We must hurry and get the herbs to heal the man. This is one Celt better left alive.”

  And Old Ethyl strode off down the path at a pace Serine was hard-pressed to follow.

  Chapter Three

  “We went back a second time,” the thane told Guthrie. “Just as you said. But your brother, Rory, was nowhere to be found. Perhaps he was taken by the sea.”

  “Perhaps he has been captured by those who set fire to our ship,” Guthrie growled.

  The man shifted nervously and inched his way toward the door, anxious to be away from his liege, who was fretting over the disappearance of his brother and the loss of a ship.

  “Send Drojan to me,” Guthrie ordered, dismissing the man with a wave of his hand. “Perhaps the Runes will tell of my brother’s fate.”

  Guthrie paced as he waited for the seer to appear. His anger and frustration had been unabated since he had learned of Rory’s disappearan
ce and the loss of the majority of the children. First the ship had burst into flames, then the children had been stolen from the guards and spirited off and finally Rory had disappeared without a trace. Evil spirits were to blame, of that Guthrie was certain, and Drojan would surely be able to ferret them out and force them to give up the secret of his brother’s whereabouts.

  “You sent for me?” The spaeman’s deep voice brought Guthrie from his reverie.

  “I have need of your talents,” Guthrie said respectfully.

  “You have only to ask,” Drojan assured him. “You know that I am always at your disposal.”

  “I need to know the fate of my brother, Rory,” Guthrie told the older man. “He did not return with us from the ill-fated raid on the villages of the English. If he lives I must go after him and bring him back. But if he has died and his body was taken by the spirits, I shall leave the English in peace.”

  Drojan nodded and placed his bag on the floor. After drawing a circle, he took his place within and began to lay out the Runes. He cared deeply for both Guthrie and Rory; he had known them since they were children. It saddened him to think that he might never see Rory again. He felt the loss of such a warrior was far greater than the gain of the few scrawny children the Celts had brought back with them.

  But he must answer true and read the Runes with honesty and detachment, for they were the word of the gods and he had sworn to give voice to their truth.

  He frowned as he put forth the Runes. Then he spoke. “Your brother is with a woman of strength and beauty. Danger and loneliness, for him, are in the past.”

  Guthrie wiped his hand across his face. “Then he is with Brunda, his dead wife. It cannot be read any other way, for there is always danger for a Celt on foreign soil.”

  Drojan continued to frown. He did not interpret the reading as did Guthrie and was about to tell him so when Guthrie continued his thoughts aloud.

  “We will not seek vengeance for Rory’s death. He died in the way of the Celt, and no man can ask more. We will raise the children that we have taken and teach them our way of life. But I must know that his body is given proper burial.”