“Good.” Sweyn nodded, as if the smile had been his aim. “Go now, and speak with Radulf. Tell him of the troop of men, tell him what you think. It won’t hurt to warn him.”
“Aye. Stay here, and guard them well. I will return as soon as I can.”
Sweyn teased. “Do you plan to sleep at all, then?”
Ivo laughed. “Do you think I have slept since Briar came into my life? I am used to going without.”
Sweyn gave a roar of laughter, the sound drifting over the river. The silence following it was eerie. As if someone out there was listening to them, observing them.
“I will say my farewells, then,” Ivo murmured.
Sweyn nodded, and set his gaze upon watching the shadows.
Inside the cottage, Briar had settled Mary into her bed by the fire. The girl was almost asleep, her dark head cradled against her sister’s shoulder as Briar stroked her hair. As Ivo stepped forward, Briar looked up and smiled.
Ivo held her eyes, as if he would convey something to her by them alone. “I have to go back,” he said softly, mindful of the sleeping girl.
“Oh.” She glanced away, but he sensed her disappointment.
“I am called to Lord Radulf.” He came still closer, eyes fastened on her profile. Beauty was in the curve of her brow and the straight line of her nose, the stubborn tilt of her chin and the long tendrils of her chestnut hair.
“Lord Radulf,” she said, and managed to invest those two words with all her disgust.
He smiled. Here was the firebrand back again. “Sweyn is on guard, demoiselle, nothing will get by him. I will return as soon as I am able.”
“You must please yourself, de Vessey.”
“So you do not care whether I come back or not, Briar?”
“Not at all.”
He reached out and touched her hair, the softest of strokes with his blunt fingers. “I do not believe you,” he whispered. And then he turned and went outside.
Sweyn, who had been waiting by the doorway, closed the door and dropped the bar into place. With a half smile, he sank down onto the floor with his back to it and closed his eyes. Briar frowned at him a moment, but he seemed impervious to her displeasure. So, instead, she listened as Ivo rode away.
“I do not need his help,” she said softly, firmly.
Sweyn smiled mischievously. “I see that, lady. But be kind to him, for he does not.”
Radulf was waiting for him.
He sat in his chair, a goblet in his hand, a fur cloak wrapped close around his broad shoulders and chest. When he looked up at Ivo, his eyes were almost as intent as Ivo’s own.
“Are they who I think they are?”
Ivo came forward, his direction clear. He could not even think of lying to this man; he had complete faith in Radulf.
“Aye, my lord. They are the daughters of the traitor Lord Richard Kenton, outcast from their estates and their home. They play and sing, not for the pleasure of it but because it keeps them alive.”
Radulf nodded slowly. “Tell me, Ivo,” he said, and leaning forward, prepared to listen.
“I don’t know all, my lord, only what I have heard, and what has been told me by Briar. ’Tis not much.”
Radulf shrugged impatiently. “Sit down, Ivo—you make my neck ache—and talk.”
Ivo sat on the stool by the fire. The heat was so wonderful against his back, after the damp cold of the riverbank and then the road to Radulf’s quarters, that he almost groaned aloud. But he stiffened his spine and prepared to tell his lord what he wanted to know.
“Briar, the songstress, knows little of Lady Anna, only that she was murdered. She blames you for that, my lord. There were rumors at the time, and she believed them. Her father swore vengeance upon you before he turned traitor and died, and she has taken up his pledge as her own.”