Haith did not want to answer. She wanted to keep Minerva here with her, forever, in this very room, if need be.
But she was no child to give voice to those selfish desires. Minerva had sacrificed her own life to come to England many, many years ago and had stayed, first with Haith’s mother and then with Haith. She would not deny this woman her final wish, not when Minerva had asked for so little in her long life, and not when Haith loved her so very much.
She swallowed. “I understand.” She would be strong for Minerva because she sensed that the old Scot needed it, but tears still rolled down her cheeks, and Haith felt as though she were a young girl once again, frightened and unsure.
“There’s my lass.” Minerva smiled and glanced down at the fur sack still clutched in Haith’s hand. “You use those now, and care for ’em.”
Haith nodded. “I will.”
“I know ye will,” Minerva whispered with a fierce smile. She leaned in, placed her palms alongside Haith’s face, and kissed both her cheeks softly. She pressed her forehead to Haith’s, and both women closed their eyes. Outside the keep, thunder rumbled.
“I do love ye, faery.”
A great, shuddering gasp rocked Haith, stopping her heart for a moment, an eternity. And when she opened her eyes, Minerva had simply vanished, the ghostly warmth of the old woman’s palms already fading from her cheeks.
Evelyn was waiting in the night shadows just inside Hartmoore’s gates on shaking legs, the reins of two horses gripped in her hand. She had pilfered the required supplies from Hartmoore’s kitchens, God forgive her theft, and divided them up between the two packs on the beasts.
Thunder rolled across the land like evil laughter, and then a bolt of lightning lit the surrounding hills, causing Evelyn to jump. She had never been so frightened in the whole of her life. She tried to soothe the horses lest the guards on the wall above hear.
An odd tinkling sounded behind her, and Evelyn turned to see the old witch striding swiftly toward her, her black cloak billowing in the sudden gale.
“You’ve done well, Eve,” Minerva said as she neared, eyeing their mounts and supplies.
“How are we to get through the gates?” Evelyn asked as she helped the old woman onto her horse by making a low stirrup out of her linked fingers.
“Doona fret about that, now,” Minerva answered, taking easy control of the nervous beast. “Just gain yer mount and let us be off—we’ve no time to spare.”
So Evelyn did as she was told, and in a moment a thunderous wind washed through the bailey, splintering the broad oaken beam and blowing one half of the gate open. The portcullis beyond, oddly, was already raised.
“Yah!” Minerva yelled in her warbly voice and kicked her horse, bolting through the open gate and into the storm beyond.
Evelyn leaned into her mount’s neck, very much aware of the rain-muffled shouts of alarm from the guards above her. “Follow Minerva, eh, boy? Can you hurry, please?”
And in an instant, Evelyn, too, was galloping through the dark barbican, following a dying old witch northward to their destinies.
The open half of the gate swung closed after Evelyn with a crash that drowned out the thunder.
Neither woman would ever see England again.
Chapter 27
The deepest interior of the ruined abbey, the remains of a great hall, was mostly intact, its rotted, ancient wood withstanding the brunt of the storm’s fury. But the rain rippled down the walls in sheets and dripped from the roof beams and poured through gaping holes, giving the shelter the atmosphere of a damp sea cave.
Sputtering torches dangled haphazardly around the walls in crumbling, crooked iron holders, and a large fire snapped and sputtered directly in the center of the spongy floor. Ragged holes hid amongst shadows in the rotted boards, grinning back black nothingness. Simone felt as though she and Genevieve had been dropped into the midst of a nightmare.
The two women huddled together near the fire, their wet, heavy clothes plastered to their bodies. They sipped warm, watered wine from crude wood bowls and tried to remain as inconspicuous as possible. Since their arrival at the coast, Armand had seemed to grab a firmer hold on his sanity and now spent his time talking with one group of seamen or another, discussing the storm, the sea, the viability of setting sail.
The day had dawned hours ago, but the skies were still black as night, the storm roaring vitriolicly at them, unrelenting. Simone thanked the heavens for the violent weather—she knew ’twas the only thing keeping Armand and his captives on English soil.
“We must set sail by nightfall,” he said to the captain, a swarthy man with hard eyes. “’Tis unsafe for us to remain here.” He suddenly stomped over to Genevieve and grasped her chin, turning it toward the man as if in proof. “Look at her—she is unwell!”
Genevieve indeed looked quite ill. Her face was chalky, with bright, hot coals in place of her cheeks and dark hollows around her glassy eyes. She did not struggle against Armand’s touch.
But the captain would not be swayed.
“To put out to sea now would mean death for us all,” he said. “Even should the storm subside, seas are high—we would be dashed upon the rocks or swept out to the open waters.” He shook his head and spat. “We’ll wait. A day or two, mayhap.”
“We cannot wait!” Armand bellowed, stomping his feet in time with his words. He shook his head violently, as if to clear it, his eyes wild. “Am I not p-paying you the exorbitant price you demanded? Are you not obligated to heed my wishes?”
