“I do not have it in me.”
“Ye can tell yerself that until hell freezes over, Senna, but ye’re too scared to even try, to know what ye’re capable of,” he rejoined with a hard edge in his voice. She was to have a choice no one else did? One does not wish to do a thing, and so one doesn’t? Not under this sun. Only in dreams. “Just so ye know.”
Senna turned and looked at him, and he became quite sure she would not be making dyes for anyone.
“You think you can tell me something of my life, Finian? I do not need to know anything better than I do. My father made certain I was well aware what I was capable of. The same things as my mother.” She paused then, and her face paled. “Oh. Do the Irish want the dyes?”
He just looked at her.
A bitter smile crossed her face. “Of course. Of course the Irish want the Wishmés.”
“The question is, Senna, can ye make them?”
“No, Finian. The question is, are you going to tell them?”
Chapter 38
Dawn had not yet crept over the battlements when William de Valery arrived at Rardove Keep.
He was led into the hall, asked to see Senna, and when she wasn’t brought immediately, demanded in a loud voice to see Lord Rardove. Servants scurried in all directions as if to do his bidding, but no one entered the hall for three quarters of an hour. By then the de Valery knights’ heads were bent in a tight, murmuring circle, their hands by their sword hilts.
A servant poked his nose in the baron’s bedchamber, his brow already scrunched up to ward off any objects that might be sent flying from his lord’s ill humor. “My lord?”
“What the hell is it?” he snapped.
“Sir William de Valery, my lord.”
Rardove’s eyes snapped open. He looked up into the gray light. “What are you talking about?”
“Sir William de Valery is in the hall, my lord. A bit angry at being kept waiting.”
Rardove sat up straight. “De Valery? Waiting? What is he waiting for? What is he here for?”
The servant cleared his throat. “He wants to see his sister, sir.”
Rardove entered the great hall five minutes later and found a circle of six or seven knights standing in the center of it. His gaze swiftly scanned the group and settled on the one who looked most like Senna.
Gauntlets stripped off and held in one hand, the knight had also removed his helm, holding it under one crooked arm, and pushed the mail covering back from his head, revealing damp, matted blond hair. Leather boots, rising to his knees, were coated with mud. His surcoat was barely visible beneath an equally impressive layer of muck. The rest of the group looked in the same state, as if they’d ridden hard and long without stopping.
Rested or no, though, the blond-haired knight turned at the first sound of boots scuffing the rushes. His eyes were alert and infinitely wary as he crossed the hall in long strides.
“My lord?”
“Sir William?” inquired Rardove, nodding. He smiled, but the young cub did not seem inclined toward social proprieties, for he pointedly did not return the smile.
“My sister.”
“Ahh.” Rardove turned to wave a servant into bringing refreshments. “Senna.”
“No one has brought her to me.”
Rardove clasped his hands together like a monk and sighed. “There’s been a slight problem.”
“Problem?”
“She’s…gone.”
The hazel eyes shaded darker in confusion. “What?”