Barbara Leigh Read online

“Hah!” he taunted. “I should have known you were up to no good, but, fool that I am, I believed in you. And now I will come to rue the day.”

  “It need not be so,” Serine protested. “We will escape. We will go now, before the knights arrive. Old Ethyl can help and—”

  “A sick man, a determined woman and a one-eyed crone. Who indeed would think such a trio strange and look at them askance?” he scoffed. “We would be caught before we could reach the harbor.”

  “There is talk of a strange boat in the bay. It is small, but seaworthy. Perhaps the man who owns it would sell it to us. Or perhaps we could steal it,” Old Ethyl suggested wryly. “‘Twould save time and trouble.”

  “Know you the name of the man who owns the boat?” Serine asked.

  Old Ethyl cast a cautious glance at her mistress. “It is not my business to know the name of each man who puts in to our shores,” she said.

  “But you do know,” Serine persisted. “What does he look like? Where can we find him, and quickly?”

  “He is an older man with long silver hair and sharp black eyes. He carries the rod of learning. I do not think he means to stay long and doubt that he will readily give up his vessel.”

  “Then we will fight him,” Serine declared. “We must have that boat.”

  Old Ethyl sighed. “Very well, then. I will see if I can find him. He will not have gone far. He spends much of his time talking to the travelers in the alehouse. Hildegard says he calls himself Drojan the Seer.”

  Rory leapt to his feet. The stool on which he had been sitting skittered across the floor. “Drojan? The gods be praised. There is hope after all.”

  He started toward the door, but Serine was there before him while Old Ethyl nocked an arrow.

  “Do not be so hasty, Rory,” Serine chided. “Remember, I am going with you, regardless of what you think of me or my motives. I shall be with you every step of the way.”

  “And I with you, fair lady,” Rory promised. “And I with you. Now send your emissary here to find Drojan and let us be away.” He jerked his thumb toward Old Ethyl.

  “It is my lady who bids me come or go,” the woman told him, “not a thieving Celt.”

  “If what you say is true and you linger here arguing, there will be no Celt, and no chance of finding Hendrick.” He directed the last words at Serine, noting her reaction.

  “He speaks the truth,” she told Old Ethyl. “There is no time to lose. We must be away as quickly as possible. You find the man. I will apprise Dame Margot of our plans.”

  But Old Ethyl wasn’t to be sent off so easily. Her eye narrowed and she looked from Serine to the Celt. “Perhaps this Drojan is a spy and comes to free our prisoner at the cost of our lives,” she suggested.

  “Drojan is no warrior, nor is he a spy,” Rory contended. “Most likely he has come to see that I have a proper burial. If Guthrie thought I was other than dead he would have come himself.”

  “And it’s dead you will be if you betray my lady again,” Old Ethyl snorted. “Both you and your ‘seer.’”

  She did not trust the man, but then, there was no man she trusted, and her caution had held her in good stead. “Mind yourself,” she warned Serine. “And do not be lax in minding him, lest he forget all his pretty promises and run like a tag-tail dog to whence he came.”

  As soon as the door closed behind the irate woman, Serine turned to her prisoner. “Will you run? Or have I your word that you will take me with you?”

  The doubt in her eyes hurt almost as much as the doubt in his heart. “I will take you with me to my village and see that you are allowed to petition for the return of your son. On this you have my word.”

  Serine took a deep breath. It was the word of a Celt that she must accept—a Celt she had no reason to trust, but one she knew she would never be able to forget.

  “I will tell Dame Margot. Be ready to leave as soon as Old Ethyl returns.” Without giving him any chance to reply, she hurried off to make herself ready for the journey.

  * * *

  It took Old Ethyl but a short time to discover the whereabouts of the man. As she suspected, he was lingering around the alehouse talking with the patrons who frequented the establishment.

  She stayed in the shadows listening to his conversation. Rory had spoken true. The man was definitely trying to ascertain the Celt’s whereabouts, but, while it was common knowledge that the Celt had been wounded and captured, people could but speculate as to where he was being held.

  The group of travelers left the table where they had been conversing with the seer and Old Ethyl moved up behind him.

  “You ask many questions, Seer,” she said bluntly. “I thought any spaeman worth his salt was supposed to give answers.”

  Drojan did not look up from his ale. He knew a Celt had been taken, but the man was said to have been sore wounded and no one would say for certain whether he still lived. His hopes had soared when first he arrived, only to be dashed to dust by the subsequent information, or lack thereof. Now he was being interrogated by a woman who cast aspersions on his abilities as a seer. His hackles rose at the impertinence of the woman who dared question him or his abilities, and he turned, ready to chastise her verbally.

  The words died in his throat. It was she! There was no doubt. Before him stood a female with but one eye, who carried across her shoulders a longbow with a quiver of arrows on her back. The woman he had seen prophetized in the Runes. The woman he had been warned about. She, who carried the sign of Woden. The loss of an eye. There was no mistake.

  “Who...who are you?” he managed to blurt out.

  “Hah!” she scoffed. “Just as I thought. If you were what you say, you would know.” She cast him a disparaging look. “I am called Old Ethyl, and if you want the answers to your questions, you will come with me.”

  To her surprise the man did not give any objections and simply picked up his pack and his rod and followed her from the room.

  “Are you taking me to my lord Rory?” he asked as he followed her along the dusty road.

  “Oh, so he’s a lord now, is he?” she taunted. When the man did not answer she slowed her pace a bit. “I’m taking you to my lady Serine,” she told him. “She has need of your boat.”

  He stopped in his tracks. “My boat is not for hire.”

  Her eye narrowed and she gave him a malevolent glare. “I think it will be after my lady is through with you.”

  * * *

  Old Ethyl’s words proved to be true. Drojan gladly offered the use of his boat and was more than happy to take Serine along with Rory back to the village. He even went so far as to guarantee her safe conduct and assure her that she would be free to leave any time she chose. He did not say she could take her child with her when she left the Celt stronghold, for it was not in Drojan to lie.

  He balked only when Serine insisted that Old Ethyl accompany her.

  “It would not be proper for a lady to travel without a companion,” Serine asserted. For all her blossoming love for Rory, she found it impossible to trust him completely, or herself more than a little. Old Ethyl was her bulwark against her own emotional failings, as well as a strong ally and adviser.

  “If it is a woman companion you want, why not take Dame Margot?” Rory suggested. “Surely she would be a greater asset in diplomatically presenting your demands.”

  Serine had given this situation deep thought and knew that Dame Margot was quite capable of acting as chatelaine to Sheffield, while Old Ethyl was equally as capable of putting a well-placed arrow into an enemy who might try to keep them from accomplishing their objective. She had little doubt that Rory realized this truth as well, but she gave him the benefit of a polite answer.

  “The people of Sheffield are comfortable with Dame Margot overseeing the manor. Old Ethyl would not wish to fill such a position. My decision stands.”

  Rory turned away to keep Serine from seeing the laughter in his eyes as he observed Drojan’s discomfort. Most people were in awe of the man’s supern
atural powers and treated him with respect bordering on reverence. Such was not the case with Serine, who was oblivious to Drojan’s reputation, as well as Old Ethyl, who openly expressed her contempt for everything the man professed to believe.

  The haste and secrecy with which they were leaving Sheffield was not lost on Drojan, but he wisely withheld his questions, silently thanking the gods who favored him with their beneficence and allowed him to spirit Rory away without further trouble. Had he been forced to return to Corvus Croft without Rory and at the same time admit that the man still lived, it would have meant the lives of most of the villagers.

  “We dare not go together lest we be seen,” Serine said in a worried voice. “I will go on with Rory, and Drojan can come with Ethyl.”

  Old Ethyl shook her head. “No! If we are to do this thing with any hope of success it is you, m’lady, who must go to the boat with Drojan. In the dusk there will be little chance of your being identified if you wear a cloak. Once it is dark, I will accompany Lord Rory.”

  “Is it that you don’t trust me?” Rory hardly restrained his laughter at the woman’s obvious distrust.

  “Oh, I trust you completely,” Old Ethyl exclaimed. “I feel certain that given the chance you would be away in the flick of an eye, and your seer with you. And my lady, who knows nothing of the likes of you, would be none the wiser until it was too late. That is why you deal with me.”

  Drojan all but groaned aloud. Being confined to a small boat with this woman would make the trip seem an eternity. Yet he could not deny the validity of her words, for his own thoughts of escape had paralleled exactly what she had outlined.

  “It is not a large vessel,” he warned them, “so take as little as possible.” He looked at the younger woman askance, hoping she would prove to be a good sailor. The older crone gave him no concern. She could, no doubt, ride the waves as well as he, and probably weather a stormy sea with equal aplomb.

  His quick glance told him Old Ethyl was perusing him as he was her, and with much the same assessment. For a moment he actually found himself wondering if she could read his mind. He discounted the thought, though it would serve her right to learn that he disliked her as much as she obviously disliked him. And it was as well, for he would not have her know of his grudging admiration at her reading of the situation and the outcome that would have come to pass had Ethyl not seen through his ruse.

  His hand pressed against the bag of Runes. “And may the gods save me from a clever woman,” he whispered.

  * * *

  They left as the sun dipped low in the sky. Serine went on ahead with Drojan. Within the hour they were followed by Old Ethyl, who trudged along some three paces behind Rory, keeping him well within her sight.

  “Get into the boat.” Old Ethyl nudged Rory with her bow as they pushed the boat into the water.

  “It will go aground,” Rory protested.

  “Then the great seer can help me to push it out,” Ethyl said flatly. “Now into the skiff with you.”

  Her insistence was twofold. She did not want to take the chance of the younger man’s agility allowing him to climb quickly into the boat while she floundered at the side and was left behind. And Ethyl was positive that she could move faster than Drojan, for all that she suspected he was not as elderly as his flowing white hair would indicate. She was certain she had seen traces of gold in the man’s hair and suspected that he had been quite fair in his youth. Fair in more ways than one.

  Rory took the tiller while Drojan set the sail. In very little time the shore was far away and the skiff pressed its bow into the vapor of the night and slithered through the froth-crested water.

  As the sail caught the wind Old Ethyl went to the prow of the boat and scattered an offering into the sea.

  “What did you use?” Drojan asked when she turned back into the boat.

  “Bladder wrack.” The word held all the elements of a challenge. “And you?”

  Drojan cast a quick look in her direction. “The same,” he admitted. He hadn’t thought she had seen his surreptitious movements. “You observe a great deal for a woman with only one eye.”

  “More than many a person with two,” she agreed, “so mind yourself unless you want to be called out.”

  Drojan sputtered to himself as he went astern to join Rory. Who did this fool woman think she was? It was Drojan who was the seer. Drojan whose fame had spread throughout many lands, and this one-eyed crone acted as though he was her subordinate. He wrapped his cloak about himself and continued his grumbling long after the women had drifted off to sleep as the skiff sailed on through the night.

  By the time the sun fought its way through the morning mist the wind had risen and the little vessel clipped along toward its destination. Serine kept her eyes ahead watching for the first sign of land. Rory watched Serine, knowing that no matter what the outcome of her reunion with her son and her meeting with his brother, Guthrie, Rory would ultimately be the loser. He did not want to lose Serine. Not when he had only just found her. He stared moodily at the back of her head as the little craft bobbed through the gray waters.

  Old Ethyl watched both the young people in turn, knowing that she was not alone in her survey. Drojan seemed equally interested in the actions of Rory and Serine.

  “Your lady should get some sleep,” Drojan said noncommittally. “We won’t take the opportunity to cast her over the side, if that’s what you fear.”

  “I fear nothing from you, Spaeman,” Old Ethyl returned. “My lady is too excited to sleep.”

  “The trip is long. She can’t hope to stay awake throughout the voyage.” He glanced over the sea as if to bring credence to his words.

  “How long?” Old Ethyl challenged.

  “I’m surprised you don’t already know.” Drojan baited her a bit.

  The woman’s eye flashed as she recognized the challenge. “I can only know that of which people speak, and your young friend would not speak the name of his home no matter how long and hard we listened to his senseless blathering.”

  “A weak excuse,” Drojan asserted.

  “No weaker than a seer traveling all the way from God knows where to bury the corpse of a man who has never died.” Again the eye flashed.

  Now Drojan was taken aback. “I did not feel that my lord Rory had gone to join his ancestors, but had I told his brother, Guthrie, that he was still alive there would have been a war rather than a peaceful voyage.”

  The expression on Ethyl’s face did not change but she lowered her eye, unwilling to let Drojan know that her ability to listen had just given her a tidbit of information she had not heretofore known.

  So the Celt overlord was Rory’s brother, was he? Had she known sooner she would have made Serine demand that Hendrick be brought to Sheffield in return for the prisoner. Now it was too late, but never too late to make sure the overlord was properly grateful for his brother’s return.

  Her silence portended to Drojan that he had made a slip of the tongue, and he hastily reviewed his statement trying to discover what he had said that caused Ethyl to mull over his words. It irked him that after several minutes of speculation the woman could barely keep from smiling. She didn’t smile often, and Drojan had been surprised to see that she had all her teeth.

  Since she was disinclined to speak, he studied her beneath the harsh morning light. The hood had fallen back from her head, allowing him to view her face without obstruction. It was strange that she was called Old Ethyl, he thought, for the skin on her face was smooth and unwrinkled except for little laugh lines at the corners of her eyes. Even from behind the patch she wore the lines crept forth and turned up like tiny smiles, as if even though the eye could no longer see it could still laugh at the world.

  Her hands were smooth, too. And strong. He did not doubt that she could fire her arrow with the best of men, for she was not a small woman, and most likely was as strong and fit as many an archer.

  She turned to him quickly, aware that he was staring at her. “Have I tur
ned green?” she asked. “Or are you hoping that I will?”

  “Neither,” he admitted. “You are a fine sailor and that in itself is a relief.”

  “This is not the first time I’ve made such a journey.” She reached into the bag at her feet and drew forth a loaf of crusty bread, broke it and offered him a generous chunk.

  “You were not born at Sheffield, then?”

  “Ask your Runes, old man. Perhaps they will tell you where I was born, for you’ll never learn it from me.”

  She turned her back to him and her hair caught in the wind and blew against his shoulder. Without thought he brushed it aside and felt the snap, like lightning on a summer night, zing through his body. He glared at her as though she had done it purposely, but she held her pose, looking out over the water.

  The good side of her profile was toward him and he took in the strong, high cheekbones, the square chin, the patrician nose. With her hair streaming out behind her, glinting like precious metals of silver and gold in the sun, she looked for good and all like a Valkyrie figure on the bow of a ship. Drojan’s heart quaked within his breast as he wondered at the god who would flaw such beauty by striking out her eye so that he, Drojan, could identify her. And if this was indeed so, what great and portentous event did it foreshadow? He was an elder of his village. A man respected for his abilities as a seer throughout the many lands he had traveled. The last thing he needed in his life was a woman. Especially an argumentative one who never agreed with his premises and challenged his ability as a spaeman.

  He settled back into his seat and slowly chewed his bread, unable to believe that he was fascinated by a woman the rest of the world saw as an old, one-eyed crone.

  Chapter Six

  The sun reached its zenith in the sky. The wind calmed. The sail fluttered and collapsed like a dying bird. The little boat rocked idly in the water. And though each occupant took their turn at the oars, there was little momentum.

  “Think you Lord Baneford will take to the sea to follow us?” Serine glanced over her shoulder as though expecting to see an armada advancing upon them.