Page 177 of The Daughters of Avalon
He nodded, and she blushed, feeling oddly embarrassed about discussing these matters with him. To cover her nervousness, she lifted up the horse mushroom, tasting it gingerly. Clearly, he’d put so much effort into hunting for sustenance in order to please everyone. Jack would be grateful for the rabbit, but, she would be quite content with whatever he’d foraged. Whilst living at the priory, their meals had rarely consisted of animal flesh. Betimes they ate a bit of fish, but Seren preferred to harvest what could be grown in their garden.
In London, there had been no dearth of carrion on the table, but it was not appetizing in the least to ogle a carcass made to look as though it could still be alive, complete with head and eyes. Thankfully, their mother rarely invited them to sup. Mostly, their meals had been consumed in the privacy of their own quarters. And, fortunately for them, Rosalynde was a handy little thief, so she’d quite oft ventured down into the kitchens to pilfer whatever could be found. Whilst on the road with Arwyn, they’d eaten nothing but bread—so muchpanthat Seren now felt like a fat loaf herself.
This was a nice surprise.
“Thank you,” she said.
He cast a backward glance at Jack, snuggled comfortably underneath the blanket, and shrugged. “Your sister did eat some cony, but it seemed to me she preferred not to. I thought perhaps you might feel the same.”
“Thank you,” she said again, surprised by his thoughtfulness, dropping the poisonous mushroom and crushing it beneath her slipper so Jack wouldn’t find it and mistakenly eat it. Then, wiping her fingers on her skirt, she wondered what else Wilhelm knew—and moreover, whether he’d spied her at her casting. There was that about his expression that made her feel maybe he had, and she tilted him a glance. “Did you see me?”
“I did,” he confessed, blushing, then averting his gaze, and turning toward the horses. Once again, he stepped over the leaves, and she knew beyond a shadow of doubt it was not a coincidence. Withdrawing something small from his saddlebag, he returned, once again taking care to avoid her pentacle lines. He knelt by the kindling, picking a stick. “Thank you,” he said, waving it at her.
“For what?”
“For gathering wood.”
Seren smoothed her skirts. “Well… it was the least I could do,” she said, feeling self-conscious. And then he peered up, surprising her with a question. “It was never my forte,” he confessed, pointing at the tinder. “Before I go making a clod of myself, I don’t suppose you can…”
Seren’s brows collided. “Kindle the fire?”
Wilhelm nodded, and she blinked, surprised that he would ask—not that she wouldn’t happily do it, if she could, but it surprised her they were speaking so frankly about the unspeakable. Her grandmamau was executed only because Elspeth had breathed a word ofmagik. How times had changed.
She thought perhaps Wilhelm was trying to make the point that he was okay with witchery. But, alas, she couldn’t do it. “I’ve never been good with fire,” she said, shaking her head.
Wilhelm nodded, then shrugged. Resigned, he struck his fire-steel to the pile of tinder as she knelt to watch, thinking that,after all, it might be a good time to broach the unbroachable. “So… you know?”
Two more times he struck his fire-steel to the kindling, then cursed. “Aye.”
Seren inhaled sharply, then exhaled. “You are not afeared?
He peered up then, his dark brows furrowing. “What gave you that stupid idea?”
Seren frowned. “Well… because… you don’t appear to be afraid.”
He tilted his head, and said with certainty, “You are wrong. I am terrified.”
And with that declaration, Seren’s heart sank.
Chapter
Fifteen
Wilhelm realized he must have disappointed her with his answer, but he was unaccustomed to speaking aught but truth. He wasn’t afraid of Seren, per se, but he was, indeed, afraid of everything she represented.
And more, he was afraid unto death that he would fail her—and this man-boy as well—just as he’d failed his kinsmen on the eve of Warkworth’s burning.
As he’d failed her sister the night in the woodlot.
If there was one thing he’d learned that day it was that there were forces at work outside his dominion that he was powerless to control, much less defeat.
That day, he’d been little more than a raging beast himself, brandishing his weapon against a creature that could not bleed—leastways not the way mortal men bled.
That strange amalgamation of smoke and shifting flesh had put the fear of God into him. Alone, he had been powerless to stop it. It descended from the heavens like a winged serpent, with a wingspan longer than Wilhelm was tall and a tail thatcould have sliced his flesh to the bone. Both appendages had put him on his arse faster than he could blink, and it was Rosalynde and Giles who’d discovered a way to defeat the creature—if, indeed, it was dead.
Somehow, Rosalynde’s incantation gave it form, and the instant Giles severed its head, it shifted again, metamorphosing into the shape of a man, then into a rush of foul-smelling smoke that vanished into a bauble.
God’s truth, he didn’t know where that reliquary was now, but he hoped with all his heart to never to encounter it again. Harmless though it might be, the very thought of it gave him a shiver, and truth be told, he wasn’t over the ordeal any more than he was over the burning at Warkworth. Admittedly, he’d experienced a jolt of fear when Seren ran toward that burning ship to save her sister, and he was still suffering the consequences—physically. He had a bellyache that could only be attributed to the greasy turkey leg he’d consumed in the market—that, or the ungodly knot of fear she’d inspired in the pit of his gut.
