He swallowed and his tongue rimmed his lips nervously. “Must the dogs be kept in here?”
“ ’Tis what Father wants.”
“But they are dangerous and should be chained outside near the gate.”
Cayley never had much cared for Timothy. “Mayhap you would like to take them to the gatekeeper.”
The priest’s thin lips drew tight, as if a drawstring had pursed them. “Mayhap one of the guards should slay them both.”
“My father would not be pleased.”
Father Timothy offered her a patient, tenuous smile. “I was only joking, child. These beasts shall stay with the baron. Now, let us pray,” he suggested, and though his words had a soft, even cadence, the thin man who was baron did not move beneath his blankets and the hounds who guarded him never gave up their tense, growling vigil.
The priest was in the middle of the third decade of the rosary when the door swung open and Holt strode in. He stopped near the fire, surprised to find anyone with the baron. Father Timothy, unhappy about being interrupted, motioned Holt to close the door and fall to his knees as the priest continued his litany. Cayley shot a glance at her brother-in-law and her heart turned to ice. How had she ever thought him handsome or kind?
Strong he was and possessing an authority few questioned, but there was a menacing cruelty about him she hadn’t noticed before. ’Twas as if she’d been blind and some angel had touched her eyes and given her sight.
When the prayers were finished, Holt helped Cayley from her knees. “Your father, did he awaken?”
“Only long enough to ask about Megan,” she said just as the sentries gave up a shout. There was a pounding on the door, which flew open, and one of the guards, breathless and smiling, snapped to attention in front of Holt. “The sheriff and some of his men have returned,” he announced.
Cayley’s heart knocked in anticipation.
“They’ve located Wolf and my wife,” Holt said, his eyes flaming with triumph and vengeance.
“Nay, m’lord,” the guard replied and Holt’s jaw turned to granite.
Cayley bit hard on her lip.
“Why have they returned?”
The guard slid a glance to Father Timothy. “They found a man in the woods, a sorcerer lurking about the forest of Dwyrain, a man who limps.”
“The crippled prophet?” the priest asked, a look of fear sliding through his eyes before he straightened his spine.
“Aye.”
Holt’s face grew thoughtful. “Bring him to my chamber.”
“Should he not be chained and locked in a dungeon? He’s nothing but a heathen,” Father Timothy protested.
“There’s time for that later. First, we needs discover what he knows.”
Cayley started to follow the men out of the room, but Holt, hearing her footsteps, stopped at the door and turned on her. “This concerns you not, sister-in-law.”
“It concerns me greatly,” she argued. “He may be the man who cursed Dwyrain, and if he is, I want to be the first to condemn his soul to eternal damnation!”
Seven
his is the sorcerer who cursed Dwyrain?” Holt said, eyeing the pathetic creature the guards held in the gatehouse. He was tall and thin with the coarse, tattered clothes of a beggar and a mud-colored cape with a hood that had been yanked from his head. His hair was lank and uncut, his beard a scraggly uneven growth hiding his chin. His hands were bound and shackles hobbled his gait, but he appeared calm and fearless, mayhap even a simpleton.
“Cursed?” the man said, and when he looked into Holt’s eyes, the would-be baron felt certain fear. This man was no weakling as he’d first thought, and his soft-spoken voice was deceptive—the truth lay in his eyes, cold and blue as a clear winter morning. “I cursed nothing.”
Cayley, who had the nerve to defy Holt, strode up to the captive. “Are you not the sorcerer who met Megan in the woods two winters past?”
The man’s smile was crooked and self-deprecating, indicating the kind of humble intelligence that caused a tremor of fear to pierce Holt’s heart.
“Aye, I came upon her in the forest. Her mare was lame.”