Fire Song

by Crosby, Tanya Anne

“Aye?”

  “I… I am sorry.”

  “For what, m’lady?”

  There was so much she wished she could do all over again—so much she wished she had never said. “For not thanking you properly before now. You’ve… well… you’ve been… a godsend.”

  His lips spread into a warm smile. “Your sister would make no bones about it; she would have said goddess sent.”

  He winked at her.

  Seren averted her gaze at the mention of Rosalynde, but he mistook her gesture. “Worry not; you are thanking me now. All is well that ends well. Is that not so?”

  “And will it?” Seren asked, clutching at her breast as though to still the beating of her heart. “End well?”

  The question seemed to sober him, and his smile fled.

  “Wilhelm,” she said, again. “I do not know what we would have done without you. I am so grateful for your succor. I only wish…” She averted her gaze, tears pricking her eyes, and Wilhelm heaved a burdensome sigh, and then fell back upon his rump.

  Seren sat as well, pulling up her blanket up to wrap it about her shoulders, shivering a bit, though not because she was cold. It would have been easy enough to cast a simple warming spell, but there was no remedy for what she truly felt.

  “I am sorry,” he said, his turn for apologies. He plucked up a pebble. “If only I’d not wasted so much time…”

  “As you have said, my sister’s death is not your fault,” Seren reassured, and for a moment, Wilhelm wouldn’t look at her. He tossed his pebble into the darkness. She heard it smack a tree somewhere in the depths of shadows.

  “I suppose tis no one’s fault.”

  “Aye, but it is someone’s fault,” Seren argued as the fire crackled behind her. “Tis my mother’s fault. She is the one responsible for my sister’s death—not you.”

  Silence.

  “Wilhelm,” she said again, in part because she liked saying his name. “I fear, if we do not stop her… England could be lost.”

  He stared at her intently. “Lady Seren… even without your mother’s intervention, England may still be lost. Eustace is not Stephen, and Stephen is not Henry.”

  Now, more than ever, hearing the affection in his voice, Seren wished she’d known her father better. So many of his barons seemed to hold him in such high regard—why then, had they allowed Stephen to steal his crown?

  Oh, but she knew why, even as she wondered… Morwen. Although Matilda had not won herself any devotees, so much of this was Morwen’s fault, and she and her sisters had been naught but pawns in her unholy war against this realm.

  If Wilhelm only knew half her story, he might abandon her, here and now. “Alas, there is so much I would say—so much you do not know.”

  “I know enough,” Wilhelm said, pulling up a knee, and wrapping an arm lazily about it. Seren longed for that embrace to be hers. “I know enough to have judged you when I should not have,” he confessed.

  “Aye, well… so did I—judge you—do not fret.”

  He lifted his brows at her confession. The gesture only accentuated his scar, and a hint of his smile returned. It made her heartbeat falter and her pulses scatter.

  “You are not as I once supposed,” she said shyly.

  His full lips turned a little more. “Neither are you.”

  Bracing herself for truth, Seren wrapped her blanket tighter against the cool night air. “So, what is it you thought about me… before?”

  He tilted her a look. “Alas, m’lady, I should not say, but I will. I thought you vain, selfish and self-important, for what else could such a beautiful lady of your caliber be, but all these things and more?”

  Seren blinked. She had expected him to speak of her witchery, but the confession startled her. The smoky look in his dark eyes, and the spread of his deep red aura warmed her more than any fire could, and she was suddenly acutely aware of the boy sleeping not more than five feet away. She blew out the breath she forgot to exhale.

  He thought her beautiful?

  The thought was so arresting that the rest of his assumptions about her vanity didn’t faze her. Goddess only knew why this should excite her so much when he was not the first man to say it was beyond her. Somehow, none of those other professions seemed to matter one whit. Only Wilhelm’s.

  She swallowed now, uncertain how to respond. “My sister Rosalynde is beautiful,” she said, discomfited, trying to remember all the reasons she could not have this man—primarily, he was already bound to her sister and who was she to come betwixt them?

  “Aye,” he said, staring hard. “So she is.” And, somehow, though guilt should have tainted his admission, he said it without the least bit of compunction, as though it should be perfectly acceptable to covet two women at once—sisters, nonetheless.

  Men were insouciant creatures. That fact sobered her. “All my sisters are beautiful,” Seren added, finding some small comfort in annoyance. “Each in her own way.”

  “I have only met Rosalynde,” he said conversationally. “But I know Giles made the acquaintance of your elder sister.”

  “Elspeth?”

  He nodded. “When he took Rosalynde to Aldergh.”

  “But you did not go with them?”

  He shook his head.

  Seren flicked her gaze away. “I was surprised to learn she did not remain at Aldergh.”

  There was a wistful smile in his voice when he said, “True love, I suppose. It makes us do the oddest things. But, I must confess, she would have been safer at Aldergh. But you know your sister; she insisted upon returning with Giles.”

  For Wilhelm, Seren presumed. “For love?”

  “For love,” he said, smiling a devastating smile.

  Seren turned away again, peering into the firelight, swallowing as she glimpsed Arwyn’s face.

  Sadly, she was beginning to fear she might never again look into a fire and not remember the Whitshed aflame. It was still so painful to think about.

  She swallowed convulsively, taking comfort in the golden-red color of the flame.

  “Seren… there is something I should confess…”

  Blinking away tears, Seren lifted her gaze to Wilhelm’s, loving that her name came so intimately to his lips. “What is it?”

  The look in his eyes was so full of … something she couldn’t name. Was he finally going to declare his affection for Rosalynde? Did he mean to speak the unspeakable—confess her this… this bond they were forming? But, then, even as she considered that possibility the red in his aura shrank back, giving way to shades of brown and black.

  “I feel I must tell you… everything.”

  “What do you mean, everything?”

  He shrugged. “About what transpired with Rosalynde.”

  Seren swallowed yet again, preparing herself for the worst. And yet what he disclosed wasn’t at all what she’d feared; it was so much worse…

  He told her about the battle in the woodlot en route to Neasham—how Mordecai descended from the skies like a demon, shifting shapes, so he was one instant a bird of prey, the next a serpent and, somehow, the next, both.

  A shadow beast?

  “It was Rose and Giles who defeated it. She spoke words to bind it so my brother could take its head.” He lifted a second leg, wrapping both arms about his knees, turning his face so she couldn’t see the shame in his eyes. “And me… well, I sat on my arse like a knot on a log, too stupid to do aught but gape. My brother swooped in on his mare—like a delivering angel—smote the beast with his Palatine blade.”

  Seren sat dumbfounded, uncertain what to say.

  Shapeshifting was not a thing dewines were inclined to, much less a common man such as Mordecai. “Art certain he shapeshifted?”

  “Quite. Until your sister spoke those words, he was no more solidly formed than…” He waved a hand in the air. “Mist,” he said. “The man was a changeling in the manner of smoke, ebbing and flowing like the wind.”

  “A shadow beast,” she whispered aloud.

&nbs
p; There were references to such things in her grandmother’s grimoire, though only in the manner of stories—no incantations. Cerridwen herself was a shapeshifter, but there was a difference between these two types of magik. The shapeshifter was never insubstantial, not at all like smoke. But only a very, very powerful dewine could ever perform shadow magik. No proof of it existed in written form so far as she knew. Her grandmamau had said all knowledge of these darker arts—if ever they’d existed—passed away with the fall of Avalon. But then again… she blinked, realizing what more he’d said. “Palatine?”

  Wilhelm gave her a meaningful nod. “So it seems… my brother is a Paladin.”

  Seren gasped aloud, her brows colliding. “A huntsman?”

  The Church gave them one name, but, like the king’s Rex Militum, they were naught but a company of assassins—executioners for a cause. It so happened that one of their causes was the slaying of witches. From time immemorial the Church had been determined to vanquish all enemies of its doctrine, whether or not they were enemies in truth.

  Wilhelm lifted a shoulder, then his hand. “Paladin, huntsman. Aye, whatever name you must give them.”

  But, nay, it could not be true…

  “Do you know who they are, Wilhelm?”

  He nodded soberly. “I do.”

  “And yet you left my sister alone with that man?”

  Wilhelm gave her an odd smile. And his explanation in no manner assuaged her. “You mean your betrothed?”

  Seren frowned at him.

  “Rest easy, m’lady. My brother is no longer at Warkworth, I would presume, but I promise you he would never harm your sister.”

  “And you? Are you—”

  “A Paladin?” He shook his head. “I am but a simple man.”

  Hardly, Seren thought, but she pinched her blanket together, peering over at Jack, realizing only this instant how much danger she’d placed him in. If only she’d left him in Dover, he would have been safer there.

  There simply hadn’t been time to inquire after help, and even if she’d had time aplenty, she knew the boy had no one there to give him shelter. And, besides, if she’d raised suspicion for herself, they might all be locked away in a tower—Wilhelm, too, for abetting her, and Jack, as well.

  But how would she bear it if Morwen slew them?

  “I did not realize shapeshifting was possible,” she said after a moment. “We are not witches of the sort men so long have conceived, who turn men into toads at will. This is but an old wives’ tale, Wilhelm—a tale of the sort mothers tell young children to frighten them into behaving.”

  “I know,” he said gently. “I know. Your sister explained it all to me. I know who you are, Seren.” And once again, her name, whispered so gently on his lips, made her heart skip another beat. Only it affected her more deeply this time. It brought a new sting of tears, because there was not only acceptance in his tone, but a note of affection as well. He understood who she was, and still, he cared.

  “Remember that day… in the King’s Hall… I must confess, I saw only your mother. My heart was so filled with vengeance—how dare Stephen ply my brother with riches and beauty, I thought to myself: How could Giles possibly have any hope to defy you, if in truth your mother would send you to Warkworth as her emissary—this is what I believed. It was only later… once I met you that I realized how fortunate my brother was to have been offered you to wed.”

  Seren choked on her emotion over his confession. She opened her mouth to speak, but he wasn’t through yet. He held a hand up to silence her.

  “Alas, men such as I are simply not fit to kiss your feet. We are fortunate to wed at all, much less wed a bride of our choosing.” Seren wanted to argue, but she could not. Men of his station were never so fortunate. He was bound to his lord in ways even a simple farmer might not be. If he married at all, he would marry whom his lord decreed, and since he was blood-kin to her betrothed, Giles de Vere would no doubt wish him to marry to strengthen alliances.

  But… she was sister to Rosalynde. If, indeed, he was free to wed Rose, he should certainly be free to wed her—but, nay, Seren. Nay! What are you thinking?

  If Wilhelm was promised to Rosalynde, who was she to turn his heart? She was no wanton, nor was she a siren, luring men to their doom.

  So, this was the thing her sisters had so oft teased her about. Her beauty was a curse, because she could, indeed, turn men’s hearts with a glance, but if she should ever inspire them to sin against their beloveds… how was she any better than her mother?

  And anyway, theirs wasn’t true affection, she apprised herself—at least not on Wilhelm’s part. If aught, it was lust. And though Seren was beginning to feel something akin to affection for this man, what Wilhelm felt for Rose was bound to be more sincere.

  Sweet fates. At the moment, she wished so much she could be as ugly as Morfran, because then, folks might love her for her soul, or not at all. They would not tempt her with glances like the one Wilhelm was tempting her with now… as though he could, in truth, be fond of her.

  Groaning inwardly, she averted her gaze, and she was thankful when he changed the subject entirely. “I must confess, I fear for that boy,” he said. “I worry for you, as well, but if you can do half of what your sister can do…” There was a note of admiration in his tone. “Well… let us say you might be saving me. Jack, however…”

  The very implication tightened her shoulders. “Oh, nay! We couldn’t leave him.”

  “Not here,” Wilhelm agreed. “I meant Neasham. The sisters there are kind and they would keep him safe until such time as we can arrange for his return to Calais.”

  Seren lifted a thumbnail to her lips, nipping at it. “Neasham?”

  “Aye.” He nodded. “Your sister saw to it they would be forever in our debt.”

  Our debt, he’d said.

  And he’d smiled yet again, very fondly, at mention of Rosalynde. Much as it pained her, Seren resigned herself to their love, even as she found new cause to fear her own fate. How could she wed a member of the Palatine Guard? Those murderers were tasked with the execution of her grandmamau. Only how, in the name of the Goddess had her sister found it in her heart to accompany that odious man anywhere once she’d learned the truth?

  Giles was a Paladin?

  A Paladin!

  “Seren,” Wilhelm entreated again, perhaps thinking her reticent. “If, indeed, the boy saw one of your mother’s ravens, I’d not put him at risk any more than we must. After what I have witnessed, I fear for the lad. He would be much safer at Neasham. Without you, he would be of no concern to your mother.”

  It was impossible to argue. He was right. Jack was in far more danger traveling with them. And though she thanked Wilhelm for not mentioning the fact, she knew very well that the journey would be quicker as well. So much as she would love to linger in perpetuity with Wilhelm, she knew it was folly. He was not hers, and he would never be hers. But, in truth, her mother would kill them all if she found them, and how would Seren feel, if she were responsible for the deaths of both Wilhelm and the boy?

  She peered once more at Jack, sleeping so peacefully, weary from travel, then nodded. “Very well.”

  “We are agreed, then?”

  “Aye,” she said. “We are agreed. We will leave him at Neasham.”

  As for her heart, she apprised herself, she should abandon that as well. It would serve no one at all if she pined for this man, and neither could she encourage his attention. Until they arrived at Warkworth, she must harden her heart.

  21

  “Man’s mind is so formed …

  it is more susceptible

  to falsehood than truth.”

  — Erasmus

  * * *

  Patchwork stone, blackened by age, ravaged by the elements, the very sight of Aldergh fills me with boundless rage.

  Simply for your part in the killing of my birds, someday I will turn you stone by stone, until naught remains but rubble and ash.

  Even now, Elspeth�
��s warding spell weaves boundary lines upon the aether, leaving me at the mercy of her gatekeepers, and nevertheless, if they wonder why their mistress returned, riding a stranger’s horse, they do not presume to ask. On sight, they raise the portcullis, but then, when, at last, the gate is open wide, I still cannot pass. Such is the nature of magik. I cannot not enter this place until I am bidden to do so—a small matter, to be sure.

  I lift a hand to my brow as though to swoon.

  “M’lady, art unwell?”

  I do not answer. I waver a bit in the saddle.

  “Go! Hurry! Get Cora!” the man shouts, and he disappears from the ramparts, scrambling down to the aid of his mistress. It comes as little surprise to me when he appears by my side.

  “I am but weary,” I say in the sweetest of voices. “I rode all night long.”

  “M’lady,” he says gravely. “My Lord Aldergh will be vexed. “Come,” he demands, as he steals the reins from my hands to lead my horse within. “At once, we will send word to Carlisle.”

  “Nay,” I say. “Please, do not.”

  I scarce can hide my joy. Aldergh’s lord is not in residence—but of course, he would never allow my daughter to travel without his protection. My sojourn here will go all the easier, and, with the lord and lady both absent, the courtyard is uncannily quiet, though the instant I enter, an elder woman flies out to greet me. “M’lady,” she shouts. “I had no inkling ye’d be returning so soon. Fie on ye,” she exclaims. “You’re e’en more stubborn than my daughters.”

  “Don’t worry, Cora; I am fine,” I say, realizing this must be the woman Aldergh’s guard sought to bring to my aid. “I merely forgot… something.”

  The elder woman gives me a toothy grin, one that feels entirely too familiar, and her voice softens when she speaks. “I ken what ye forgot,” she says coyly, and it is all I can do not to slap the impudent smirk from her face.

  I force a smile and a singsong tone. “Do you?”

  “Aye, m’lady,” she says. “But dinna fash yourself. I’ve spoilt them good and well.”

  She’s a Scotswoman, I presume, perhaps long gone from her motherland. Her accent is soft, only with but a hint of English.