“Come, my lady, every look you give the man is that of a swooning goose.”
“Geese do not swoon.”
“Very well, but women do.” Baldwin playfully tweaked his hand near her cheek.
“Don’t touch me, toad-eater!” She slapped his hand and he recoiled, but more from her words than her actions. “Sorry,” she rushed in at sight of his morose expression.
“I am no longer,” he managed, feeling the remorse for his past misdeeds coagulate in his throat. “Never once did I take a man’s life, only his money. You know I have always done what must be done to survive.”
“I should not have said it,” she said, punching her fist into a palm. “You coax me to false anger atimes, Baldwick.”
“It is false, for you use it to cover up those emotions you’d rather not touch.”
She did not reply, only fixed her gaze to the knight standing yonder by the brilliant white stallion. Fire had burned her path from the horse trail to here. But now the flames flickered in her cold blue eyes…and settled. Baldwin watched Sera’s anger simmer to a nodding acceptance.
Whew, he’d barely missed another punch to the shoulder.
With a thoughtful finger to chin, she finally offered, “He isn’t like most men, is he.”
“Doesn’t sound like a question. More an observation.”
“I’ve observed many a man.” She looked him right in the eye. Difficult to escape her arrow-true gaze. “Often.”
“Really?”
“How else could a woman blend into a man’s world? He’s different,” she said, as she turned to place the mercenary in eyesight. “Dark, yet peaceful.”
Indeed—but she spent all her time observing men? For some reason that information set a tickle to the back of Baldwin’s neck. What did she do when she observed these men? Did she think, well…things about them? When could she have had the time?
“So you watch men…all the time? Have you ever, er—” he drew a wide arc in the snow with his boot toe, trying to act nonchalant “—observed me?”
“Certainly.” Her summation of his expression worked a catty wink and a one-sided smirk to her thick lips. “Castle d’Ange’s reluctant postulant, who spends the hours he should be studying religion in the battlements watching the knights practice in the lists. He drinks the holy water after the abbe Belloc has left the chapel—”
Baldwin stifled a gasp.
“And,” Sera continued, “he attracts the women with a mere curl of his lips and a roguish wink.”
Baldwin released his held breath. “You have observed all that?”
“Aye. You are lithe, agile—now that you have mastered your growing legs—”
“Not quite, but I’m working on it. And about that holy water—”
She smiled, freely. “And—unless it has to do with religious pursuits—you are ever willing to please and learn. Very much opposite our mercenary. For some reason I feel San Juste has no need to learn, that he possesses wisdom untold.”
“Quite an observation for a morning spent fuming.”
“Aye.” She punched a fist into the birch trunk. “You have had your say then, squire. Forgive my rude treatment of you this morning. I remove the curse of the evil eye. Though, I shall not forgive you for inviting the mercenary along.”
“But what is wrong with seeking help? And moreso, with allowing softer emotions?”
Her mood quickly changing again, she slammed a clenched fist to her breast and croaked out in her battle-roughened voice, “This heart will not feel until all the de Mortes lie six feet under. And if you can even think I will bat my lashes at the very man sent to kill me, you’ve eaten one too many poison toads in your lifetime, squire. Now come, we are leaving San Juste behind.”
“Oh? And you think he will just sit there and allow us to ride away? Where, then, are you two off?” he mocked the mercenary’s proposed question. “Oh, we favor a head-start before you fell us with your sword.”
Sera paced in the snow before him, chewing her lip and punching her fist in her glove. The scaled platelets of armor riveted along each finger chinked. Erratic the rhythm. So…unsure about this new challenge.
“Men don’t do that,” Baldwin commented. She looked to him and he gestured to her mouth. “Chew their lips.”
She released hold of her lip. Baldwin noticed that what had once been plump pink mounds to tempt every man’s dreams of passion were now cracked and dry. Winter and the stress of battle had taken a toll on this precious angel.
Dominique had been right at guessing she was ill. But ’twas not a physical malady that darkened her eyes, but a ghost of weeks ago. A ghost that clung to her with horrid memories of the first night of the New Year.
“We must be rid of him.”
“Sera, you mean—” Baldwin sliced a hand across his throat in horrific display.
“It is the only way.” She gripped her sword hilt and slithed the blade in and out of the steel scabbard. “I must take him out before he assassinates the black knight.”
What could they possibly be discussing beneath the skeletal bower of birch branches? Dominique unwrapped the leather reins from around his gauntlet, then draped them between his thumb and forefinger. Perhaps he should skrit over there?—a series of movements so agile and quick, not even an ultra-alert deer could sense his presence.
No. He wrapped the reins tight again. He didn’t have time for tricks. Much as he had enjoyed conversing with the squire for the past few hours, he highly doubted the other would suddenly be gifted with the urge to speak any more than a few mumbles.
Though, the twosome were involved in a very animated conversation at the moment.
Hmm… Were his suspicions true? Could they possibly know something about the black knight? Mention of the mythical knight had been what set d’Ange into a sudden flurry of motion.
Dominique pricked his ears. He could not hear them talking from here. The only audible sound was Tor’s bursts of breath through gray velvet nostrils, and the press of the beast’s heavy hooves into the snow-packed ground. And Dominique’s own tense breathing.
Just ride, his conscience implored. You do not require conversation. Ride on to Creil and locate the black knight. End your own search for answers that much quicker.
Easier to think than to actually do.
Creil was a good-sized village, set apart from the imposing walls of Abaddon’s fortified battlements. Would the black knight be so foolish to just ride in to Creil, all glorious black armor and sword held high? The de Mortes had to be fully aware of who, or what, had taken down the first two brothers.
No, if the man had any sense to him at all—and Dominique highly questioned that for the brazen acts of riding into battle and felling two of France’s most notorious villains—surely he would lie low. A sneak attack this time. There were no rumors of a siege on Abaddon’s part. Dominique had not been alerted to such. And he would know as soon as the idea had birthed in the de Morte camp. For the Oracle was a relentless visitor.
It was decided. He would be off. Those two could offer no information that would help Dominique. He suspected something sinister between the squire who claimed to be a postulant and his mysterious partner. But that was of a personal nature; it did not concern him.
“San Juste! Dismount!”
Dominique jumped at the sound of the rasping command, which set Tor to a nervous stamp.
“Is there a problem?” Dominique wondered, as he slid from Tor’s back and his boots crunched upon the hard-packed trail. A glance to his heels reassured he’d not exposed himself with a cloud of telltale coruscation.
“Yes, there is a problem,” d’Ange announced. He paced before Dominique, his scaled black gauntlet working around his sword hilt. “But it shall be solved soon enough. Bertram!”
D’Ange’s sword was drawn in a sing of steel. Dominique was fleetingly aware that the squire led Tor away from him and d’Ange. The instinct to unsheathe his own sword worked the action before he realized he stood at the ready to defend himself.
