“I doubt it.Sister Eve could find her way out of a labyrinth.”
“Ye don’t think somethin’ bad has—”
Their conversation was cut short by a distant rustling from the woods, growing closer.
They responded with practiced haste.
Hew knocked over the stump, sheathed his knife, and shoved the wattle panel into a gap in the byre.
Carenza spread the grain about with her foot, startling the hens, and unhooked the pair of fresh trout she’d strung up at the entrance of the byre.
The brush-rattling grew louder.
With a swift glance to be sure they’d retrieved everything, they ducked in to the byre.Carenza slid the wattle panel across the doorway.Hew pulled down the concealing branches.
Then they waited.
Carenza held her breath as the tramping abruptly stopped.
Someone hissed loudly from across the glen.“Psst!Hew!”
Hew peered through the gap in the wattle.
“’Tis her,” he whispered, sliding back the door panel.
Carenza hardly recognized the nun as she came racing breathlessly across the glen.
She wasn’t wearing her habit.Instead, she wore a rather sumptuous gown of crimson velvet, as fine as any Carenza had ever owned.
Her chestnut hair was long and loose and lush, hardly a short-cropped holy tonsure.
And nothing of the calm, cool, collected nun was visible in her manner as she charged toward the byre.
“I…don’t have…much time…” she panted as she slid to a halt, scattering hens in her wake.
Not much time?She hadn’t seen Sister Eve since the night they’d left the convent.And Carenza had so many questions.Not only about what had happened to Sister Eve’s habit, but…everything.
What had become of Gellir?And her father?And the maidservant Merraid?
Had the Rivenloch clan returned home?
What was the disposition of the king?
Was it safe to leave the byre now?
Sister Eve was the only one who could tell them.
Eve glanced nervously over her shoulder.“May I come inside?”
Carenza welcomed her in.
Eve perused the interior and gave an impressed whistle.“Not bad.”
Carenza smiled.It might not be a castle.But it was far nicer than any rotting byre deserved to be.
Hew dragged up tree stumps for the ladies and poured a cup of water for Eve, who was still casting an occasional glance toward the covered doorway.
“Were you followed?”he asked.
