Kiss of the Moon

by Lisa Jackson

  “The devil you say!” Nelson whispered.

  “Glad to meet you.” Astelle offered her a smile.

  “I, as well,” she said, but shot Hagan a look begging for him to release her. Even now Bjorn might need her.

  “Perhaps we should go inside.” Astelle’s gaze slid down Sorcha’s muddy tunic.

  “Yes, inside …” Hagan said, motioning to guards to help with the horses.

  “Just made our way through a hell of a storm,” Nelson muttered. “Came up out of nowhere. Lightning and thunder, the wind whistling as if Satan himself were screaming.” He shuddered and frowned as he stared at Sorcha. “Near scared the horses to death.”

  “Frightful,” Astelle agreed, and Hagan shot Sorcha a hard glare.

  “Please, Lord Hagan, if you would but let me attend to Bjorn,” she said again as they walked toward the great hall.

  “Hush!” he growled out of the side of his mouth. “Your precious stableboy will live.”

  “But—”

  “In time!”

  They started up the steps of the keep and Sorcha said, “Other than the storm, I trust your trip was safe.”

  “Aye, though we expected to be set upon by outlaws at any moment. My scouts told me that there’s a particularly nasty band that haunts the road between here and Castle Hawarth.”

  Sorcha half listened to the conversation, and though she stared straight ahead, she thought of Bjorn and her escape. She sent up a prayer for the noble stableboy and watched Hagan from the corner of her eye.

  Her heart turned to stone at the thought of leaving him and she silently told herself that she was being foolish. It had been barely a week since she’d been captured. Outlaws had changed her life, outlaws whom she’d thought had been paid by the treasures of Erbyn. But now old Rowley was discussing the band of thugs as if they had nothing to do with Erbyn.

  Hagan opened the door to the great hall, and they walked into the interior and out of the damp rain.

  Sorcha told herself she couldn’t think of the outlaws now; she had other worries. Bjorn was injured, perhaps mortally, and wouldn’t be able to help with her escape. McBannon would probably be considered a wild animal and kept separate from the other horses, and Hagan’s messenger to Prydd was nowhere to be seen.

  A chill as cold as the sea settled in her heart, and she shivered as Hagan handed his guests to his brother. Darton, still limping, helped Astelle to a bench near the fire. Without any notice, Hagan turned on Sorcha and dragged her into an alcove that led to the chapel. “Meet me in your chamber,” he ordered through gritted teeth.

  “But—”

  “Just be there.” Angry fire leapt in his eyes.

  “Why?”

  Fury pulled his brows into a single, dark line. “There are things you need to explain, oh savior of Prydd,” he mocked, his face set in anger, his breath warm as a summer wind against her face. “Things that seem mystical and have disturbed my men. Half of the peasants are ready to get down on their knees and pray to you, and the other half are ready to cut out your heart. Now, as soon as my guests have found comfort, rest assured I will come to you, and this time,” he said, holding up her hand so that the serpent ring seemed to glitter in the glow of the rushlights, “I’ll not take anything less than the truth.”

  Ten

  ain lashed at the battlements, and Sorcha, sick with worry, paced from the hearth to the window and back again. Now Bjorn was hurt, Hagan was furious, and … the whole castle thought she was some kind of sorceress or mad-woman.

  The door banged open. “What was that?” Hagan’s face was a mask of fury. Suspicion glinted from his eyes as he walked into the room and kicked the door behind him. “Out in the bailey—with Bjorn, what was that?”

  Outside, the wind still howled and rammed the battlements, and inside, the air in the room was thick. “I cannot explain—”

  “Try, damn it.”

  Her throat tight, her hands wringing with worry, Sorcha bit her lip. “Bjorn—is he all right?”

  “Nichodemas is with him.”

  “That old man knows nothing. He’d put leeches onto a man who had already bled to death.”

  Hagan’s eyes narrowed. “And what would you know about it?”

  “Only that it makes no sense to suck a man dry of the very lifeblood that flows through his veins.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I must go to him.” She started for the door, but Hagan was swift, his hand reaching out to capture her arm with deadly aim.

  “Do not worry. Your precious stableboy is safe.”

  “ My stableboy?”

  “I’ve seen how you look at him, Sorcha.”

  Sorcha wanted to laugh aloud; so Hagan thought she fancied Bjorn. Fine. Let him think that. ’Twas better than him knowing the truth.

  “Now, tell me, what happened out in the bailey? What kind of magic is it that you spin?”

  “No magic.”

  “Then you would not care that Nichodemas removed this …” He reached into the folds of his tunic and withdrew the red string necklace.

  “Oh, no …” She reached for the knotted twine, but Hagan snatched it away.

  “Nichodemas sees no need for charms from the devil, as he calls them.”

  “Nichodemas is a fool. He’s not fit to stitch up a wounded dog.” To her surprise, a touch of a smile wavered over Hagan’s cruel lips, as if he knew that old man’s failings. “How did you get this?” she asked, pointing at the necklace. Though she told herself she did not believe in magic, in truth, she placed more than a little faith in Isolde’s runes and spells and herbs, and she worried that the stableboy would die without the old remedies.

  Her throat was dry as sand. ’Twas her fault Bjorn was injured, Bjorn, whom she felt was her only ally in this castle filled with enemies.

  She yanked her arm free, ripped the necklace from Hagan’s fingers, and pulled open the door. Ignoring Hagan’s shout of outrage, she ran out of the room and through the dim corridors. Rushlights flickered as she turned a corner and found herself at the top of the back stairs at the door to Hagan’s private chambers.

  A short guard with greasy hair and dark eyes blocked her way. “No one’s allowed—”

  “Let me pass,” Sorcha ordered, and when the man seemed unmoved, she stepped closer to him. “I could cast a curse on your family, tell the gods that—”

  “Nay, m’lady, please. I’ve been given orders not to let anyone inside.”

  Sorcha placed her hands on her hips. “I’m warning you, let me pass—”

  “ ’Tis all right, Matthew.” Hagan reached over Sorcha’s shoulder and shoved open the door to the chamber. Candles were lit and a fire blazed in the hearth, but rain still beat against the exterior walls. Bjorn was sprawled across Hagan’s bed. His eyes were open and he slid a glance toward Sorcha as the old physician touched him with practiced fingers.

  Bjorn winced.

  “Be still,” Nichodemas, his bald pate shining in the candlelight, ordered. “Looks as if you lost your fight with the beast,” he said, shaking his head and clucking his tongue as if at the boy’s foolishness.

  “ ’Twas an accident,” Sorcha interjected. “Bjorn tried to save a little girl.”

  “Aye, but he got himself trampled in the process.” He bound Bjorn’s chest with strips of cloth.

  “He saved the girl’s life.” Despite a warning glare from the old physician, she walked closer to the bed. “For your nobility, please take this gift, Bjorn.” She placed the knotted string in his callused fingers.

  “Bjorn is no nobleman, just a common dung sweeper who wasn’t smart enough to jump out of harm’s way,” Nichodemas said as he tied the strips and wiped his hands on his soiled tunic.

  Hagan said quietly, “He saved the child.”

  Nichodemas lifted a shoulder, then, for the first time, he seemed to notice Sorcha’s gift. “Red string. Knotted in a special manner? ’Tis the work of Satan.”

  Sorcha shook her head. “It will help him heal.”
<
br />   “And he’ll owe his life to the devil. The old ways are dangerous …”

  Sorcha ignored the old man’s warning and curled Bjorn’s fingers over the string. “Wear this until you are strong again.”

  Bjorn stared up at her, and his big fingers curled over the necklace, but there was not the hint of a smile in his blue-green eyes, and his color washed grayer than usual.

  “I will wait for you,” she whispered quietly, knowing that he probably didn’t understand, but wanting to give him some hope.

  Hagan heard her promise, and the muscles in his neck twisted into painful hard knots. So Sorcha and Bjorn were lovers. His stomach coiled at the thought, but he watched in silence and told himself that hatred of the stableboy was a waste of time, though the thought of Bjorn wrapping his arms around Sorcha caused Hagan’s fists to clench. He looked away from the tender scene at the bed and tried to concentrate on his other worries. The messenger from Prydd had not returned, and soon he would have to ride to visit Tadd himself.

  Again Sorcha whispered some kind of endearment to the boy, and Hagan gritted his teeth. Unable to stay in the chamber a minute longer, he turned on his heel and stalked along the corridor, barking at a guard to make sure Bjorn was kept comfortable, though his own thoughts of the stableboy were murderous. Jealousy raged through his blood.

  Damn that woman. She truly was some kind of sorceress, the bloody savior of Prydd, because she had found a way to turn his head around so completely.

  The steward approached him with news of a squabble between the silversmith and the armorer—some argument about metal—and Hagan yelled at the man, sending him cowering in the opposite direction. Several serving maids scurried out of his way, presumably from the scowl that blackened his features.

  He told himself that he had guests and couldn’t be bothered with worrying about a beautiful woman with a damned birthmark, but still her image of silken black hair and eyes as blue as a mountain lake filled his mind.

  He’d come back to Erbyn hoping to take a wife, to father children, to settle into the steady life of a baron here at the castle, but never had he intended to come across a wild, half-daft witch-woman like Sorcha of Prydd.

  The sooner he could send her back to her brother and her precious Prydd, the better for all concerned. She could do whatever she thought she had to as the bloody savior behind the stone curtain of her own castle. Soon he would wash his hands of her.

  “We’ve looked everywhere in the keep. Isolde’s vanished,” Sir Prescott said as he approached the dais.

  Tadd gritted his teeth in vexation. “She’s old. She couldn’t have gone far.” He drummed his short fingers on the clawlike arm of his chair. “What about the messenger?”

  Prescott frowned. “He’s missing as well. Our men searched the woods and the roads and found no trace of him.”

  “The dogs?”

  “Couldn’t track him.”

  Tadd closed his eyes against the headache that burned behind his forehead. A tic jumped beneath his eye, and he couldn’t stop his cheek from twitching uncontrollably.

  “There is some good news, though,” Prescott said, his mouth curving into an evil leer. “Some of the soldiers talked with the traitor again, Sir Robert. We described the messenger to him, and Robert swears he’s certain there was no tall knight in Erbyn with black hair, a broken nose, and cleft brow.”

  Tadd wasn’t convinced. He fingered the buckle of his belt thoughtfully. “Robert’s a liar and a traitor, and the messenger could be a soldier who returned from the war with Hagan.”

  “Aye, but he might be an outlaw.”

  Tadd sat up a little straighter.

  “There’s talk of a band that lurks in the forests between Hawarth and Erbyn. The man who leads the band is called Wolf, though no one knows his true name. He talks as if he was once a nobleman, and he knows how to read.”

  “There are many outlaws.”

  “But this man rides tall, with shoulders as wide as an axe handle. It is also said that one of his eyebrows has been split, as if from a previous battle.”

  Tadd remembered the messenger—the way he carried himself, the smirk in his harsh blue eyes, and the curl of disapproval in his thin, cruel lips. There was an arrogance about him, a pride that had made Tadd uncomfortable. Without a qualm, the messenger had disobeyed Tadd and whirled his swift horse through the castle gates.

  “You think the letter from Hagan was a fraud?”

  “I know not; but something’s amiss.”

  Clapping loudly, Tadd ordered a cup of wine from a page who stood at attention near the table. “Find the outlaw,” he said to Prescott as the boy brought him a cup, “and bring him to me.” He took a long swallow and felt the wine burn a warm, welcome trail to his stomach.

  “What about Isolde?”

  Tadd considered. The woman had lied to him and made him look a bloody fool.

  “Kill her.”

  “Your father—”

  “Is away. Kill her, and be done with it.”

  Prescott swallowed so hard, his Adam’s apple bobbed. “And what of Lady Sorcha? When she finds out—”

  “She won’t.”

  “But she has ways. She’s the—”

  “Don’t even think it, Prescott,” Tadd warned, sick to death of his sister’s birthright. “I’ll handle Sorcha. Now, be off.”

  “Some say Isolde is a witch,” Prescott persisted. A drip of sweat slid down the side of his face.

  The coward! Tadd was on his feet in an instant. “You are a Christian man, are you not?”

  “Aye.”

  “Then kill Isolde and worry not. God knows ’tis good to get rid of someone who worships false gods.” He took a long swallow from his wine and eyed the nervous knight over the rim of his mazer.

  “As you wish,” Prescott said. With a quick little bow, he turned and quickly took his leave.

  Sorcha be damned, Tadd thought as he rested the heel of his boot upon a bench. ’Twas the revels and he’d been celebrating for days. Hence the pain in his head. The musicians had entertained him, the jugglers and minstrels had been amusing, and afterwards, long into the night, he’d lain with several women, the most interesting having been the shy little kitchen wench with the sharp tongue. He tingled at the thought of her and knew she couldn’t refuse to warm his bed yet again.

  She hated him, he was sure of it, but she was frightened as well, and mounting her like a stallion had been a pleasure that he intended to share with his guests …but not just yet. For the time being, while she was still frightened and trembling, he would have his way with her, teach her how to pleasure him further, then, once he was tired of her, he’d cast her off to his soldiers for sport.

  Just the thought of her caused an aching hardness to swell between his legs, and he could barely think beyond the night’s pleasures. As for his sisters, he wished they’d stay where they were. Leah was too pious for his tastes, always frowning down her short little nose at him, then quoting Scripture as if in hopes to redeem him. Then there was Sorcha. She had the gall to outride and outshoot him, and took great pleasure in making him appear a fool to his friends.

  Another gulp of wine.

  Why not leave them both at Erbyn? This thought warmed his heart as the wine warmed his belly, but he knew he’d eventually have to go and retrieve his sisters and bring them back to Prydd. ’Twas a matter of pride.

  Unless they were not at Erbyn.

  What if the message was part of a trick to lure him from Prydd, to make the castle defenseless? What if that cur of an outlaw already had his sisters and was waiting to capture Tadd? Worse yet, what if Hagan and the outlaw were working together, plotting the downfall of Prydd?

  God’s eyes, ’twas all a mess. His gaze slid to a slit in the curtains that led to the kitchens. He spied Mab hauling a basket of eggs into the kitchen. She was scurrying quickly, as if afraid that he might see her. That pleased him and he smiled to himself as he rubbed his member with the palm of his hand. He’d worry about
his wayward sisters tomorrow.

  “I don’t like it,” Jagger said, tugging on his beard as he glared at Isolde.

  Wolf felt the dissent of the men as they sat around the fire, passed a bottle of mead, and chewed on tough, burned meat. He saw the glances cast between the members of his band. For the first time, they didn’t trust him. Because he’d broken one of their sacred rules and brought the old woman back to the camp.

  They felt betrayed.

  Wolf didn’t blame the men.

  “Jagger’s right. I don’t like it neither. What do we need ’er for?” Cormick asked. He picked at his teeth with a small bone.

  “She knows the ways of the old ones and she was Sorcha of Prydd’s nursemaid.” Even to Wolf, the excuse sounded weak, and he couldn’t afford to be weak with his men, but he didn’t want them to know of his private feud with Tadd. That was one of the secrets that he kept close to his soul.

  “ ’Ell’s bells, just what we need, a nursemaid!” Odell spat into the fire, causing the flames to hiss as he turned the four fat pigeons on the spit and the meat sizzled and rent the air with the smell of burning fowl.

  “I say she stays. She could be of much help.” Why he was convinced that she would help him, he didn’t know, but there was something compelling about the old woman. He stared into her lined face as she sat in the shadows, away from the circle of men at the fire, and felt as if he could trust her. “Asides, no doubt Tadd of Prydd would like nothing better than to find her and take her back to the castle to punish her.”

  “So what?” Odell asked, his nostrils curling a bit. “The rule is no women.”

  Wolf’s temper snapped. He focused his harsh glare on Odell. “So this time I bend the rule.”

  The men grumbled, but as Wolf eyed them one by one, no one dared question his authority. He was ready for it. Some of the younger men were anxious to take over leadership—like young bucks vying and butting heads for the right to mate with a female deer.

  Someday one would challenge him, and he’d be ready. All in good time.

  “All right, I say she stays,” Peter, the one-eyed soldier, finally agreed. He oftentimes was the single member of the group who could straddle both sides of an argument, pulling two warring factions together.