Part 43 (1/2)

The soldier's gaze snapped from Senna.

”Why are you still standing there like a dolt? Round up the men.”

Senna saw a telltale flicker shudder cross the veteran warrior's face. It was nothing of note, a flash by his lips, a tightening along his jaw. He turned to his men-at-arms, who were lined up along the walls.

”You heard what your lord said. Double the watches, everyone on half rations. Mac and Conally, round up the men from the rabble out front.”

A slow groan rose from the war-wasted men, some of whom were only here on castle duty from their own lords, a service that was due to end for some of them within a dawn.

At the sound, Balffe turned back with a blank and utterly terrifying look. ”You want for me to convince you?”

The men scattered. Wood-soled boots cracked stone as they barreled up the stairs out of the hall. Angry echoes bounced back into the hall as the soldiers pa.s.sed along the long, dank corridors to the barracks.

Rardove turned to Senna. ”And now, what shall I do with you?” he said, his tone contemplative.

”Do with me, my lord?” The interchange with Balffe had given her just enough time to gather her wits, and she needed them all to carry her next words into the air. ”Why, you shall marry me.”

Rardove's attention narrowed in on her like an archer's. ”I somehow doubt you will say 'I will' in front of a priest.”

”I somehow doubt you would have a priest who much cared. But I shall come willing enough.”

”You will?”

”Aye.”

Rardove's hand shot out and gripped her shoulder. The pain had begun. ”Willing? You lie,” he spat. ”That is as big a lie as the other.”

Cold drops of fear slid down the back of her throat like medicine. ”Aye, I lied. But we both knew that, did we not? I am a dyer. As skilled as my mother was.”

”You are like her in every manner,” he snarled, then reached into his tunic and slammed something into her chest. She toppled backward a few steps, gripping what he pressed there.

The missing pages. He'd found them.

Indeed, she found herself thinking-some rational, orderly part of her mind was still in working order- she found herself thinking-some rational, orderly part of her mind was still in working order-no more concerns on how to proceed. We know just what to do.

She pushed back her shoulders and said in a clear voice, ”I will make you the dyes.”

He burst out laughing. ”I know exactly what you will do, Senna. When, and how.”

”Do you?” She met his gaze. ”Tell me, do you want them explosive or”-she paused for effect-”camouflaging?”

His face underwent a series of small metamorphoses, from startled, to impressed, to furious, to...desirous. She seized the moment.

”You call off this war, and I will make you the dyes.”

His breathing, made unsteady by her admission, slowed. ”I cannot. It has gone out of my hands.”

”Retrieve it back into them,” she said coldly. ”Tell the king the dyes are only legend. A lie.” She looked down at the pages in her hand. His tongue flicked over his lips as she smoothed them. She perused them briefly before looking up. ”I do not want King Edward to know of this. Do you?”

His eyes were slightly distant as they met hers. He looked in the beginning throes of madness. Or pa.s.sion.

”I do not want anyone to know,” he agreed hoa.r.s.ely.

She lowered her voice to match his. ”No. 'Twill be our little secret. Tell Wogan, the governor. Send word to King Edward.” She looked down at the manual languidly, ran one finger slowly over it. ”Call them off, and I'll stay here with you. Willingly.”

His eyes narrowed. ”Why?” He might be pure evil, but he was pure cunning evil. Incipient madness-or l.u.s.t-had been overtaken by scheming. ”You do not want me to have the dyes.”

She had to find a way to bind him to her more than Edward. More than his hatred. She took another intuitive step in the dark.

”This is what we do, the women in my family, is it not?” she murmured. ”We start as de Valerys, but we end with you. I know my mother was here, with you.” She took a step closer. Desire swept over his face, slackening his jaw. He nodded as if in a trance. ”And now, 'tis I.”

”You are mine,” he said thickly. He shoved his hand through her hair, dragging her head back. ”Your mother is dead.”

”I know.” She fought off the urge to mark him, to carve up his face. Ten years ago it had gone like this, and she hadn't known how to defend herself. The knife on the marriage bedstead had been a stroke of luck. Now, she knew very well how to defend herself. And she couldn't do it.

If she killed Rardove, if news went out that he was dead, King Edward's men would crawl over the castle like fleas on a straw tick, and they would find the pages. They would find her. And they would find someone who, given time, could decipher the deadly recipe of the Wishmes. Then Ireland would fall, Scotland would fall, and Finian would have ropes tied about his wrists and ankles.

Rardove's vile lips were by her ear, breathing into her hair. ”And I swear, Senna, I will kill you, too, if you do not craft the Wishme dyes for me.”

She gathered every sc.r.a.p of reason and sense from the cold, trembling corner of her petrified mind, and drew herself up. ”I will work on the dyes this night,” she said, putting a hand on his chest. ”In the morning, come to me.”

In the morning, she would kill him.

Or he would kill her.

But really, it couldn't go on like this.

Twilight poured through the high, narrow windows of the empty great hall, creating a mingling of firelight and pale purple light, illuminating the spinning, dancing dust motes into an unearthly glow. Blue-black. Much like the Wishmes.

Pentony should know. He'd seen the color they made. And not the sample that was hundreds of years old. He'd watched a fresh batch be born, hatched by Senna's mother.

Sooth, he'd helped pound out mollusk sh.e.l.ls himself, when the baron was out hunting one afternoon and Pentony had not yet fully adapted to the groaning silences of Rardove Keep.

Elisabeth de Valery had been like fresh air when she arrived, twenty years ago. She'd chatted and laughed in that winsome, unique dialect of hers, some melding of Scots and mid-England French-and her hair practically glowed red, and she'd cared not a whit for Rardove's rage or the gloomy Irish winters, which is probably why, when she'd handed him a mortar that dreary afternoon, Pentony simply took it and started pounding.

It is probably also why, when it became needful, a year later, he helped her escape.

And it is certainly why, when she entrusted him with the last copy of the dye manual, he did as she bid.

He'd sent it, along with a small sample of the dyed fabric, to her husband, de Valery. 'He'll either receive me or the secrets,' she'd said to him, smiling. Pentony knew which he would have chosen.