Your He gestured at her head with long, pale fingers that shed always remember as clutching a bible. Or a toad. The makeshift squire stretched his mouth to speak, but after a few more gesticulations and widemouthed gasping, couldnt express his obvious dismay with any more than, Im just so sorry.
Sera rubbed a hand over her scalp, assuming his chagrin to be directed at her hair. Twill grow back.
The sound of her own voice, abraded and sore, was an odd thing. She did not recognize the deep rasping tones. New, shiny scar-flesh had begun to appear beneath the scabbed wound on her neck. Little pain lingered. Save that which seeped from the tear in her soul.
Butits soohMother of Malice! Why did you command me do such a thing in the dark of night, my lady? It is hideous! You look a sheep shorn by a swillpot. It juts here and there andHeaven forgive me!
His dismay made her smile. Briefly. Soon as she realized her swing toward mirth, Sera checked herself and drew on a frown. Much easier lately to touch sadness than any sort of joy.
It is but hair, Bernard.
Baldwin is my name, my lady, I have it on very good authority from my mother and father.
If you insist.
The man was not averse to correct her; nor should he be. His forthright manner was one of many reasons Sera had invited him along on her quest. Baldwin Ortolano would do whatever the situation required to survive, be it honor-bound or criminal. A favorable ally to have.
There was also his plea not to be left behind at the castle dAnge in the blood-curdling wake of battle. Sera could not have ridden away, leaving the teen alone, fearful, and so lost. Especially when she felt virtually the same. Alone, lostbut not fearful. Never choose fear.
One final scrub over her lighter, choppier coif brushed off a scatter of half-melted snow. It will grow back. Her words did not work to cease the mans sorry head shaking. Come, Baldwin, I find it quite refreshing. I have lived four and twenty years, each morning being a struggle to pull a comb through such a long tangle of hair. So many treacherous curls, all coiling and slipping over myshoulders.
She made sure her sigh was as inaudible as possible. So much had been lost in so little time. Now, the last vestments of woman had been shorn from her head, making her more an anomaly than she had ever before felt.
But regret would not serve her mission.
Now, you see, Ive only to give my head a shake and it is done.
Tis a fine circumstance weve not a mirror in our supplies.
Sera yanked her leather hood up over her head. Lined with thinning white rabbit fur, the hood provided a bit of softness to ease the mental pain. I shall keep it covered if it vexes you to look upon it.
That is all well and good, but I fear your reaction when finally you do come upon a mirror. You were always so beautiful, Seraphim
A twinge of regret spiked in her breast. The removal of my hair has made me ugly?
Oh, ernay.
Sera straightened her neck, lifting her head regally. Insistent revenge pounded back the regret with relentless gall. The luxury of her past was no more. Tomorrow only promised trial, which must be faced with iron will. I should hope so. As you have said, I cannot risk anyone discovering I am a woman.
Mustnt allow any more time to ruefulness. Last night had been for Henri de Lisieux, her fiancé. Five days ago, in memory of her brother Antoine, Satanas de Morte had fallen. The future held justice for her mother and father.
And Seraphim dAnge.
With your hood up and those smudges of dirt on your face, I wager you shall pass as a man in the next village, Baldwin offered. But you mustnt bat those long lashes or allow any man to look upon you too closely.
She felt for her dagger, secured at her waist inside a thin leather baldric. You could cut my lashes, as well.
Dont be silly, I would blind you in an instant. What a fine pair wed make, the blind black knight and the postulant-cum-squire-former-toad-eater, traveling the countryside seeking to extinguish the minions of Lucifer de Morte.
The black knight. At both battles Sera had heard the moniker. Issued in awed wonder as shed exacted her revenge with a mighty swing of her blade and then, mission accomplished, had ridden off into the darkness.
The armor shed plucked from the dead body lying in the bailey of her familys castle had been of smoked steel, dark enough to be considered black. With little time to pick and choose, shed lifted a set of scaled gauntlets and slid them over her blood-stained fingers, following with a breast plate. It was the only armor that would fit her frame; tall and slender, with broad shoulders and remarkably muscled arms. She hadnt the stout torso or powerful, heavy thighs of a spurred knight. But on more than one occasion Antoine had teasingly accused her of hailing from a lost tribe of Amazons.
Indeed, the lot of dAnges were a hardy breed. Sera had gotten her height and persistent work ethic from her father; her thick black hair, blue eyes, and undaunted pride from her mother. Years of practicing in the lists alongside her fathers knights had gifted Sera with the arm strength to swing her sword and deliver the killing blow.
Ah! Two weeks ago she would have never thought such a thing. The killing blow? Twas a term used only by knights and thieves and, wellmen. Much as Sera had always embraced her power, her freedom and lack of feminine wiles, her mind-set had been irreversibly altered by one vicious act.
And she would not rest until that act was served the justice it deserved.
I dont like it, Baldwin muttered. Not at all.
I have already told you I shall keep my hood upon my head. Cease with your whining, squire.
I am not a squire, I am a postulant. Ive subscribed to the Catholic church. Get that straight. And it is not your damn hair I am whining about!
Sera chuckled, her breath freezing before her in a manner to match the clouds that puffed from Gryphons nostrils. For a man who wishes to serve the church youve quite the cache of oaths spilling from that mouth.
Aye, and Ive paid penance for them a thousand times over. I cannot control my tongue. There are just so many words, and at times so very few of them to express my feelings. I try to control it. I know the Lord cringes with every damnevery bloodyevery
Squire!
Forgive me, my lady.
It is, my lord, she corrected with a stern rasp. With a painful jerk of her head, she shot him a steely look. Dont forget it, either.
He ceased what might have been another tirade at her casting of the eye. Shed honed the evil eye to an art form on the lackwit scullery maids that dallied more than dutied in her fathers home. That, and the mongoose eye always served her silence when she wished it.
Now, pray tell what it is you do not like besides this new coif with which youve gifted me?
Sera slowed Gryphon and Baldwin sidled up beside her. His pale blond lashes were frosted with tiny icicles. What you have become, he said boldly. What you are becoming. This is not you, Seraphim. You have killed two men
I know what I have done. She heeled Gryphon in the flank and the gelding clopped two paces ahead of the squire. It is what is necessary, she called back, the deep grit in her voice gifting her with an authority more suited to a man. I am adapting. A week ago my soul was torn to shreds and stolen away by Lucifer de Morte. With that evil triumph in hand he stole my familys souls, as well. I will not rest until I can reclaim what was taken from me. An eye for an eye, squire.
Gryphon dug heavy hooves into the snow and pounded ahead, leaving the shivering squire in a wake of fine, diamond-glittering particles of winter.
An eye for an eye, indeed. Seraphim dAnge had changed drastically upon the entrance of the New Year. A change Baldwin could attribute to the surprise attack laid on her fathers home, and all she had suffered from such.
But she was wrong about her stolen soul. The woman still possessed a soul. The evidence of such blazed brightly in her pale blue eyes, and in the fire that lit her path toward the ultimate goal. Mayhaps it had been damaged, for it had been stripped and beaten and bruised by that bastard Lucifer de Morte, the leader of the de Morte demons.
Was Seraphim dAnges soul beyond repair?
Baldwin prayed not. For she would need a soul intact to battle the devil himself.
Tors breaths powdered the air before his gray suede nose. Dominique San Juste spied a village just ahead, settled like a giants stone tossed amidst a thatch of forest. A fortuitous discovery, for he was weary, peckish, and hed already once caught himself dozing.
He knew Tor would not stop should his master fall in a dead sleep to the soft pillowing of fresh-fallen snow. Dominique imagined the elegant white Boulonnais might be waiting for that very incident. The stallion would suddenly notice the loss of weight upon its back and, without pause, pick up into a gallop and be off, never to be seen again.
He leaned forward and gave Tor a reassuring smooth across his withers, then scratched the sensitive spot just below his long feathery mane. Not yet, my fine one. When this mission is complete, I promise you the freedom you desire. You have served me well over the years; you deserve as much. Mayhaps we shall someday find that which has been lost to you?
In response, Tor lifted his head and tamped the air with his nose. At the stamp of an agreeing hoof, spray of snow sifted up, coating Dominiques face with a fine kiss of January cold.
Unseasonable, this heavy snowfall. And the frigid chill. There was something amiss in this fine and darkened moon-glittered world. Since the morn of the New Year, Dominique had felt the odd fissure between nature and the mortal realm. But he could not explain it any more than he could reason his acceptance of this bizarre quest he now found himself embarked upon.
One final mission and then he, too, would find the freedom he desired. The Oracle had promised as much. If that is what the ghostly figment of an innocent-faced boy who had been appearing to him over the past few years really was. Could be a damned ghost, for all Dominique knew. Didnt resemble any childliving or deadhe had known. Oracle was as good a title as any.
Leaning forward once again Dominique smoothed his palm over the bald spot on Tors forehead, reassuring in a manner he knew Tor understood. Perfectly round, the wound never did heal, though it did neither fester. It merely remained pink and moist, as if waiting. Waiting to become whole once again.
We both seek wholeness, Dominique whispered, then straightened, and closed his eyes.
Another battle last night. Mastema de Morte had been executed; his troops had retreated behind the safety of twelve-foot-wide battlements. Word told that a mysterious knight clad in black armor had arrived midcombat. Deftly, hed woven his way through the clashing, battling men, right up to Mastema de Morte. One swift blow had cut through leather coif and flesh and bone to sever the mans head from his neck. That done, the black knight had turned his mighty black steed and galloped away in the same mysterious manner that he had appeared.
Hed done the same less than a week ago, when Satanas de Morte had laid siege to Corbeil for no more reason beyond boredom and the need to see fresh blood purl down the groove in his sword.
The black knight sounded more myth than legend to Dominique. But he was not the man to dispute the tale. Especially not in these troubled times, when the common man needed a vision of heroics to cling to in the face of certain death.
Twas rumored the de Mortes served the English king who occupied Paris in his never-ending attempts to possess French soil. The French king, Charles VII, who had been crowned but two years ago thanks to the ill-fated Jeanne dArc, had yet to banish all the English from Burgundian France. After almost a century of fighting, these were surely the blackest years yet.
But at this moment in time Dominique did not care for any man other than himself. He was on a mission. The finding of this legend.
Tors lead took them dangerously close to the prickles of a bushy gorse. Dominiques spur caught up on the spiny branches that splayed out over the path. At contact, a cloud of iridescent particles coruscated into the air.
Dominique eased Tor to a stop and dismounted. Not at all favorable, he muttered, as he slapped at his left calf with a leather-gloved palm. The platelets scaling the back of his gauntlet chinked with the motion. Its been too long. Another slap released a generous cloud of glitter from his lower leg. The accursed dust permeated all clothing, even his leather boots and braies.
A few stamps of his feet and finally, the last of the renegade particles dispersed. It besprinkled the ground and lay upon the moonlit snow like diamond dust.
He had to be cautious. Dominique was destined for the first tavern that offered fire and food. It wouldnt do to wander in and seat himself in a dark corner only to begin to coruscate.
Then rationality overtook peevishness. Anger served no man but to draw him farther away from his own soul. Besides, anger was for the dawn.
Drawing in a deep breath of icy air, Dominique lifted his face to the eerie white moon sitting low and fat in the sky. It hung as if a pearl framed between the black iron latticework of a twisted, leafless elm. Midnight. Twas the time of the faeries.
The first time hed ever heard that phrasethe time of the faeriesDominique had been nursing watered ale in an ash-dusted tavern, sharing a table with a grizzle-bearded old man. With a bristle of his shoulders, and a hearty swallow of his own ale, the man had then nodded toward the door, where the moonlight seeped through cracks in the boards. Tis the time of the faeries, hed said, as if imparting great wisdom.
And so, Dominique had walked outside, lifted his face to the moon, and had decided that indeed midnight and all its mysterious darkness was a time of magick.
The stroke of midnight finds the Dragon of the Dawn at his weakest, Dominique muttered now. He closed his eyes and drew upon the moons glow as if it were the sun and cast beams of heat upon his face. Avoid the dawn. Triumph beneath the moon.
Seeking to break the cold silence that had settled between the two of them since hed inadvertently mentioned Seras new coif was rather ugly, Baldwin hiked a heel to his mounts side, and came upon Gryphon. Tis magical, no?
What? Your amazing ability to irritate?
No, my lady, the air, the sky, thewhy the moment. Look all around, the moon glimmering upon the snow. Tis as if the faeries have danced about and laid their magical dust over all.
Speak not to me of the foul creatures, she snapped.
Foulyou meanfaeries?
There shall be no more talk of such.
Very well. Baldwin smoothed a palm across the saddle pommel. That attempt at lightening the mood had gone over about as well as a cow tiptoeing through a pottery shop.