Page 101 of The Daughters of Avalon
God’s bones, at this rate, they’d never catch their thief, but he was going to try. And still, he sighed, because Wilhelm was not his enemy; he was only a jealous fathead. And, in the long run, he wanted exactly what his brother wanted—even regarding the Lady Seren.
He no more intended to be saddled with a mole in their midst than he enjoyed riding two-to-a-saddle with the ox at his back. If only to counter Wilhelm’s snores—not because he relished the season, nor because he longed for a burning Yule log, or because he was bloody glad for the company of his brother—he adopted the ear worm his brother left him.
Alas my love you do me wrong
To cast me off discourteously;
For I have loved you, oh, so long
Delighting in your company.
Greensleeves was my delight,
Greensleeves my heart of gold,
Greensleeves was my heart of joy
And who but my Lady Greensleeves.
Chapter
Eight
Nearly half a dozen times through the long night, Giles had considered stopping for a piss and a rest.
He didn’t for a number of reasons: To begin with, there was every possibility his thief would be traveling north. The deduction was elementary: He knew of an inn near-about, where the most unsavory of characters were wont to gather. There was no way to say whether his thief could be in route to this place, but there weren’t many establishments along these roads, so if he found the inn, he would, conceivably, discover his thief, and then he would give the knuckle-dragger a Yuletide gift he wouldn’t soon forget.
And if he didn’t find his thief, there would be other stolen horses to purchase.
He followed his gut, pressing forth, never imagining how close he was, until, right before sunrise, he made a fortuitous discovery. Wilhelm may have passed on by, but Giles had a nose for his horse; her scent tickled his nostrils.
She must have scented Giles as well, because she nickered softly, and Giles reined in abruptly, dislodging Wilhelm’s head.
“Wha—”
Giles elbowed his brother in the belly. “Shhhhh!” he said.
Sensing trouble, Wilhelm sat upright, sobering.
Dismounting quietly, Giles made his way toward the sound of grazing and what he discovered in the thicket hobbled his tongue as surely asshehad hobbled his sable.
God’s bones! His thief was a woman—a nun.
She lay sleeping peacefully, her wimple askew and her veil concealing only half her face. Even so, Giles found himself tongue-tied, and would have roused the girl, except… there was something about her that disoriented him.
He’d seen her face before, if only in his dreams. But nay… this girl was like a chimera—undefinable at the edges…
Tilting his head, Giles studied the nun, and couldn’t say whether she was young and lovely… or if she was old and unattractive. Her nose wavered between pert and small to hooked and crooked. But… if he looked very, very intently, her skin appeared so perfect as to seem translucent…
Achingand sore from her crude bed, disoriented from her fitful rest, Rosalynde cracked her lids and found a strange pair of eyes peering down into her face—not Arwyn’s nor Elspeth’s, who each had violet-blue eyes, and not Seren, whose eyes were the silvery blue of a winter sky, nor Rhi, whose eyes were gold, like a wolf’s. Nor were they precisely like Morwen’s eyes—so uncannily black that one could scarce see where her pupils ended and her irises began… these were the eyes of a stranger.
Squealing, she scrambled to her feet, only belatedly remembering to retrieve her book. Her heart hammering with fear, she nevertheless bent to seize it, and noticed that the man didn’t bother to stop her.
He merely stared.
“Who are you?” she demanded to know.
“Who am I?” he asked, his dark eyes crinkling slightly at the corners. “You know… I wondered the same about you.” He was still posed on one knee, making no effort to rise, but his gaze shifted to the mare grazing nearby.
