LITMIR.BIZ

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him I better go and get a cart to carry him back to Sheffield.”

      “Thank you, Ethyl,” Serine answered, but this time her whole attention was focused on the man beside her. The man who pinioned her with eyes filled with pain. The man whose hair fell in ebony ringlets across his forehead. The man who managed with all that was left of his strength to drag a breath into his punctured lungs and say, “I would have thought I had surely died and been taken to my reward, had it not been for the old hag beside you.”

      “Do not fear, Celt,” Serine said as she placed a cool hand on his fevered forehead, “I do not intend to let you go anywhere until you tell me where I can find my son.”

      She fought down the jolt she knew when her flesh touched his, and tried to act as though nothing unusual had happened, nothing that could not be explained as concern for his condition, nothing that might indicate that each moment she was near him filled her with emotion she had never before known and never so much as imagined.

      His voice was little more than a whisper as he fought down a quickening of his blood that was slightly less than devastating. “No man could desire eternity with you at his side on this earth.” His voice faded, and he stared at her, unblinking.

      “Why do you look at me so?” she demanded, unnerved by his scrutiny.

      “Because I fear if I close my eyes you will disappear and the one-eyed harpy of my nightmares will return.” His eyes closed against the pain, nonetheless.

      “I will not disappear,” Serine assured him. “At least, not until you tell me how I can find my son.” But even as she spoke his head lolled back and she knew he could no longer hear her.

      She turned him onto his side to ease the pressure on his wound. What was he trying to do to her? Offering compliments when he was barely conscious. It was almost obscene! A Celt offering flattery with his last breath. How dare he? If only she didn’t need him so desperately. If he wasn’t her only chance to discover the whereabouts of her son. If her heart didn’t beat so erratically when she so much as thought about their unconscionable first meeting. If these things weren’t so, she would leave him here without blinking an eye. But they were true. They were all true, and she couldn’t leave him behind again.

      * * *

      The man did not regain consciousness as he was moved from the coast to the castle. Serine watched him closely, making certain he continued the shallow breathing that was all his wound allowed.

      Secreted in her own chambers, Serine removed the arrow and bathed the wound with bedstraw tea, then applied a poultice of fresh crushed lady’s mantle. But the Celt’s fever did not abate and the women worried over what course to take next.

      “Nettle tea would give him some nourishment and purify the blood,” Margot suggested, “but before we dare try to get him to swallow we must bring down the fever.”

      Serine watched the man’s life slipping away as the poison of the wound had its way. With him would go her only chance of finding her son. She could not allow him to die.

      She knew which herbs to administer to ease the pain of childbirth, to heal a cut or draw the infection from an ulcer, but the man before her was sore wounded and she feared she did not have the knowledge to save him. Yet he must live. She must make him live...for Hendrick...and perhaps for Serine herself. Somehow she must find a way.

      “I do not know if I have the skills to save him.” She spoke the words aloud as the man thrashed on the bed.

      “Perhaps we should send for a surgeon,” Margot suggested.

      “A surgeon would only bleed him. In the end he would die and all our efforts will have been for naught.” Serine never looked away from the man. She was determined that he would live long enough to tell her what she wanted to know if she had to breathe life into his body herself. He must not die, she would not let him die until she learned the fate of her son.

      Aware of Serine’s desperation, Margot agreed to stay with the man while Serine went to gather the herbs she hoped would be of the most benefit in lowering the fever and healing the wound.

      Dame Margot did not feel comfortable left alone with the Celt, even if he was unconscious. There was something about him so raw and primitive, so completely virile that it intimidated the gentlewoman.

      * * *

      “Does he still live?” Old Ethyl asked as she met Serine at the postern gate.

      “He has a grave fever. I have little hope of keeping him alive. We can only pray that he says something in his delirium that might tell us where they’ve taken the children.” She paused and looked back toward the keep, thinking how dismal it would be without little Hendrick there to give it life and hope for the future. “I must gather herbs to rid the wound of poisons.”

      “There was no poison on my arrows,” Old Ethyl declared. “I depend on my skill to kill my enemies.”

      Serine sensed the hostility and answered patiently. “The poisons come from the arrow entering the body and breaking the tissues. The man lay in the mud for hours, which was also detrimental. No one said your arrow was poisoned.”

      Old Ethyl hung her head. “If I had shot true the man would have been dead.”

      Serine touched her arm comfortingly. “If the Celt had died there would be no chance of his telling us where they have taken the children. You said you were from the land of the Celts,” she reminded her. “Can’t you guess where they might be?”

      “The Celts are scattered along the sea like stones in the sand.” Old Ethyl narrowed her eye. “And while there’s no doubt in my mind that this one came to us from Ireland, we could search for years without coming upon his village. You speak true, m’lady. We must hurry and get the herbs to heal the man. This is one Celt better left alive.”

      And Old Ethyl strode off down the path at a pace Serine was hard-pressed to follow.

      Chapter Three

      “We went back a second time,” the thane told Guthrie. “Just as you said. But your brother, Rory, was nowhere to be found. Perhaps he was taken by the sea.”

      “Perhaps he has been captured by those who set fire to our ship,” Guthrie growled.

      The man shifted nervously and inched his way toward the door, anxious to be away from his liege, who was fretting over the disappearance of his brother and the loss of a ship.

      “Send Drojan to me,” Guthrie ordered, dismissing the man with a wave of his hand. “Perhaps the Runes will tell of my brother’s fate.”

      Guthrie paced as he waited for the seer to appear. His anger and frustration had been unabated since he had learned of Rory’s disappearance and the loss of the majority of the children. First the ship had burst into flames, then the children had been stolen from the guards and spirited off and finally Rory had disappeared without a trace. Evil spirits were to blame, of that Guthrie was certain, and Drojan would surely be able to ferret them out and force them to give up the secret of his brother’s whereabouts.

      “You sent for me?” The spaeman’s deep voice brought Guthrie from his reverie.

      “I have need of your talents,” Guthrie said respectfully.

      “You have only to ask,” Drojan assured him. “You know that I am always at your disposal.”

      “I need to know the fate of my brother, Rory,” Guthrie told the older man. “He did not return with us from the ill-fated raid on the villages of the English. If he lives I must go after him and bring him back. But if he has died and his body was taken by the spirits, I shall leave the English in peace.”

      Drojan nodded and placed his bag on the floor. After drawing a circle, he took his place within and began to lay out the Runes. He cared deeply for both Guthrie and Rory; he had known them since they were children. It saddened him to think that he might never see Rory again.

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