Finally the bravest of the lot approached Tadd. “The stable master’s gone,” Sir Prescott said, ducking his head against the fine morning mist that drizzled continually from the gray sky.
“He’s gone and my horse is missing,” Tadd said, flicking his crop at a piece of dirt on the shoulder of Prescott’s tunic. “Think you he took the stallion?”
“I know not,” Prescott admitted, showing off the tight wedge of his teeth that bucked prominently over his lower lip. He looked like a frightened rooster contemplating the butcher’s hatchet.
“Have you spoken with his wife?”
“Aye, and all she does is wring her hands while her little ones hide behind her skirts.”
“She knows not where he is?” Tadd had trouble believing the woman had no idea where her husband had gone.
“If she does, she says nothing.”
“Someone knows where the man is!” Tadd nearly yelled. He was in a foul mood. The kitchen wench with whom he’d lain the night before had been silly and dull. A beauty, with full breasts and accommodating hips, she was a bore with little i
magination, a woman who giggled incessantly until he’d kicked her out of his bed and felt unsatisfied. He’d woken up with the need to go hunting. His blood was up, his temper black, and he wanted only to sight a boar or stag, chase the animal down, and fell it swiftly. Now his horse, his prize destrier, McBannon, was missing. Along with that miserable Tim, the stable master.
“Find out what happened,” Tadd ordered, turning on his heel and feeling a chill as cold as death as Prescott hurried back to the stables.
First the attacks on his sisters, bungled though the one on Sorcha had been, and the murder of two soldiers and a maid, and now this … the loss of his finest war-horse. He wouldn’t be surprised if Tim, a man who loved mead, had taken off with the great beast. The man was a drunk and a dullard, kept on only because he had a talent with the horses. It was eerie sometimes, the way he could encourage the most headstrong of animals to do his bidding.
Tim had been with Prydd for as long as Tadd could remember and was one of Tadd’s father’s most trusted men. Though Tadd would love to turn the man and his family out of the castle walls, his father would not hear of it. Should Tadd dismiss the stable master while his father was absent, there would be serious trouble as soon as Eaton returned and discovered the fat pig missing. ’Twas enough to turn a man to drink!
Footsteps approached, and Tadd, who had started up the steps to the great hall, paused. Turning, he saw Prescott running across the wet grass and mud of the bailey. Rain drizzled down his long nose and splattered his cheeks. “M’lord,” Prescott said, “one of the guards on duty last night—Sir Michael—said the old woman was out searching for her herbs in the moonlight.”
Tadd snorted in disgust. “She’s a foolish old hag. She has nothing to do with—” He glanced up at the iron-colored sky, and his eyes narrowed. “Was there a moon last night?”
“Aye.” Prescott offered a cruel smile.
“Bring Isolde to me,” Tadd said, climbing the stairs with a new sense of satisfaction. He enjoyed baiting the dried-up old crone who had seemed to despise him from the very day he’d been born. Her disgust with him came from the birthright, of course, always the damned birthright. If only Sorcha had been born without that blasted mark on her neck, then no one would question his power. ’Twas he who should have been bestowed with the kiss of the moon. He was the firstborn son of the baron, and therefore heir to Erbyn. No one could question the power that would someday be his—if it weren’t for that damned prophecy and Sorcha’s birthmark.
Gnashing his teeth together, he kicked at a bench by the fire, yanked off his gloves, and settled into his chair to wait.
Sorcha heard the sounds of the castle coming to life. Girls calling to the chickens, carpenters pounding with hammers, sheep bleating in the distance. She stretched and raised one eyelid. Her heart was heavy with a sadness she couldn’t name, and then it hit her with the force of a winter gale: Leah. Sweet, happy Leah was dead. No, that was wrong, she was still alive, or had been when … when what?
Why couldn’t she remember? She’d seen Leah, the blood, felt the life draining out of her sister, and then … the ring. She looked down at her hands and saw the serpent wrapped around her finger. Leah had been alive. Her eyes had opened and she’d breathed a deep breath, but that was all Sorcha remembered before the blackness had wrapped her in its soothing folds.
Stretching and letting out a yawn, she sat in the bed only to find herself in a large chamber with a fire in the grate and a man—a hellish brute of a man—seated on a bench. He glowered at her with an intensity that cut her to the quick.
Hagan of Erbyn! Her insides curdled at the sight of him as the horrible nightmare of the night before played upon her mind.
“ ’Tis time you woke up,” he said, his voice more gentle than she remembered.
“Where’s my sister?”
“She’s been moved, to a better room. She is resting.”
Sorcha sprang from the bed. “I must be with her.”
Hagan shook his head. “She is with Nichodemas, the physician.”
“Are you daft? Someone has already tried to kill her.” Sorcha, hair flying behind her, bolted for the door, but he grabbed her arm, spinning her back into the room.
“Nichodemas thinks she tried to kill herself.”
“Leah?” Sorcha cried. “She had no reason to try and take her life until your brother brought her here. Asides, ’tis a sin, and Leah is devout. She would never—”
“I’m only repeating what Nichodemas told me.”