cringed at Sera’s dour recitation of the word, changeling. The mere thought of such a beast curdled a shiver from his spine up to his earlobes. Everyone knew changelings were hideous, sickly things; far from whimsical.
“The creature lived but a day. My mother was not the same after that. She grieved in silence, would but utter few words. She closed herself from others. I could see her limbs literally begin to curl in on themselves. Until finally she was so crippled she could not take up a needle or even walk without assistance. ’Twas then I took over her duties as chatelaine.”
“I’m so sorry,” Baldwin said, meaning it, and wishing he’d never tried to brighten the mood. Brighten? He’d just snuffed out any light that had existed. There was much he did not know about Seraphim d’Ange.
“No more mention of faeries?”
“Most certainly not—” A glimmer of steel flashed in the squire’s peripheral view. “What is that yonder?”
They came upon a lone rider dismounted at the edge of Pontoise. Moonlight poured over the sharp angles of his face and glittered in the plush snowflakes capping his shoulders.
Sera did quick reconnaissance of the man. Leather jerkin and braies, a grand black wool cloak ornamented with metallic-black stones around the collar. Hematite, she knew, a stone that quickened the blood. A two-handed battle sword and dagger glinted at his hip, both of simple design, with brown suede wrapped about each hilt.
No doubt a knight—no, his spurs were steel, not gold. Perhaps he was a mercenary, looking for his next purse.
“Good eve to you,” Baldwin called, as he and Sera passed by the stranger who had not yet opened his eyes, only appeared to be worshipping the moon. He must have heard their approach.
“It is,” the man finally responded.
Gryphon eased by the man’s white stallion. Seventeen hands for sure, Sera judged the remarkable beast from the added height it grew over Gryphon’s withers. Impressive.
“Headed for Pontoise?”
“If that is the name of yonder village, indeed I am.”
Sera wished the squire were not so friendly with strangers. They could trust no one. But the stranger did no more seem eager to share conversation than she.
As they completely passed him by, she turned at the waist, propped a fist on Gryphon’s hindquarter, and saw he still stood a silent sentinel, his face lifted to worship the moon-glow, his eyes closed.
The beginning of a black beard shadowed his square jaw. The trace of a mustache squared his lips in an inviting frame. Black shoulder-length hair glimmered blue, like Gryphon’s coat, in the eerie midnight illumination. A graceful, yet sharply boned profile, he possessed. Gluttony was not his vice. Perhaps a bit of pride, though. He could be a knight, valorous and brave, for not all wore the gold spurs when not riding in battle.
It might have been the play of moonlight—surely it was—for the man seemed to give off a glow of sorts. It caressed his figure, romancing him in a cocoon of white light.
“Sera?”
Caught in a silly swooning pose, Sera spun around and took up Gryphon’s reins, keeping her sight from what she sensed to be a smirk on the squire’s face. “Onward then,” she said.
But she could not resist twisting at the waist and stealing one final glance at the moon worshipper. And from deep inside her scarred and damaged being, the damsel she had once been emerged—and sighed.
TWO
“Bertrand, what say you?” Sera dangled a chunk of stringy brown food above her trencher, imploring the squire to comment.
“It is meat.” Her traveling partner shoved another piece of the greasy fare into his mouth. Whenever they came upon food he became focused and voracious in his endeavor to fill his belly.
“Aye, but what sort?” Pressing her lips together in consternation, Sera turned the meat this way and that. “I cannot determine, there is so much salt.”
“Most likely venison,” the squire muttered through a slobber of watered ale. “But say naught, for the king’s men could be within hearing distance.”
“Yes, but which king?” She prodded the remainder of her trencher with a fingertip, wincing at thought of consuming such unremarkable fodder. All her life she’d eaten her meals from plates. Oftentimes a fine silver fork had been provided, as well. This salted, stale, indeterminable fare she’d seen over the past week was enough to make one’s stomach close up and choose starvation over death by disgust.
“Certainly, it is not what you are accustomed to, my lord.” The squire was not one to disguise his frequent bouts of sarcasm. Not one of the reasons Sera had elected to have him accompany her on this quest. “You always receive the finest cuts, while the lower table is given this salted ferment, or if we are lucky, your table scraps.”
“Bernard, I’m sorry—”
“It is Baldwin,” he hissed, spattering his own trencher with spit. “And if you do not wish your portion then I shall gladly consume such, for I fear it will be another full day before we again stop to fill our bellies.”
If all went well. Sera figured a two-day journey to Creil. Tonight they would rest, then greet the dawn and ride the entire day through by following the winding Seine. It was critical they reach Creil as quickly as possible. No doubt word of Mastema’s death already beat a sweating horse’s trail to Abaddon’s ears. She did not want to give him more time than necessary to prepare.
“So, is it mine?”
A glance to Baldwin’s finger-pocked trencher found it bare of meat and gravy. At that moment Sera’s stomach moaned in protest. She had not been eating well, could feel it in the lightheadedness that accompanied her yowling innards. With three of the five de Mortes left to hunt down she must keep her wits about her, and her strength. This bitter battle must be fought—or die.
She bit into the hard chunk of salted deer. All she could do was offer a negative nod, for she suspected this small morsel would need a good chewing.
“I do believe we are on Charles VII’s land,” Baldwin added quietly. “That damned English king holds but Paris now, does he not?”
“Aye, the bastard,” Sera muttered, equally as quiet. ’Twas difficult to know who was one’s enemy with the English occupying Paris. Many a Frenchman had deserted and gone to serve Henri VI. They craved the organization and rumored frequent pay dates that were quite the rarity in the French musters.
Never, Sera thought to herself. I shall serve my homeland until I die. As had her father and her brother.
Fact was, Lucifer de Morte was allied with the English king. Another good reason to take his head.
“Ah, there,” Baldwin whispered. “Yonder comes your moonlight knight.”
“Do not speak so loud,” she muttered. A glance to the tavern door witnessed the cloaked stranger stroll in with but a nod to the barkeep and a cursory scan of the room. “You will raise suspicion.”
“What suspicion worries you? That my lord was romancing over another knight?”
“Baldwin!”
“Ah, so she does know my name. When it serves her authority.”
“Enough.” Sera lifted the pewter tankard to her lips and forced a swallow down her throat. While the watered-down spirits were anything but appetizing, just the feel of the cold liquid running down her wounded throat alleviated the haunting pain.
The large vessel also blocked the moonlight knight’s view of her face as he strode by the long trestle table where she and Baldwin sat across from a half dozen dirty-faced men.
The man sought out a lone chair at the back of the tavern. There in the darkness, a single candle set into an iron