Senna saw a telltale flicker shudder cross the veteran warrior’s face. It was nothing of note, a flash by his lips, a tightening along his jaw. He turned to his men-at-arms, who were lined up along the walls.
“You heard what your lord said. Double the watches, everyone on half rations. Mac and Conally, round up the men from the rabble out front.”
A slow groan rose from the war-wasted men, some of whom were only here on castle duty from their own lords, a service that was due to end for some of them within a dawn.
At the sound, Balffe turned back with a blank and utterly terrifying look. “You want for me to convince you?”
The men scattered. Wood-soled boots cracked stone as they barreled up the stairs out of the hall. Angry echoes bounced back into the hall as the soldiers passed along the long, dank corridors to the barracks.
Rardove turned to Senna. “And now, what shall I do with you?” he said, his tone contemplative.
“Do with me, my lord?” The interchange with Balffe had given her just enough time to gather her wits, and she needed them all to carry her next words into the air. “Why, you shall marry me.”
Rardove’s attention narrowed in on her like an archer’s. “I somehow doubt you will say ‘I will’ in front of a priest.”
“I somehow doubt you would have a priest who much cared. But I shall come willing enough.”
“You will?”
“Aye.”
Rardove’s hand shot out and gripped her shoulder. The pain had begun. “Willing? You lie,” he spat. “That is as big a lie as the other.”
Cold drops of fear slid down the back of her throat like medicine. “Aye, I lied. But we both knew that, did we not? I am a dyer. As skilled as my mother was.”
“You are like her in every manner,” he snarled, then reached into his tunic and slammed something into her chest. She toppled backward a few steps, gripping what he pressed there.
The missing pages. He’d found them.
Indeed, she found herself thinking—some rational, orderly part of her mind was still in working order—no more concerns on how to proceed. We know just what to do.
She pushed back her shoulders and said in a clear voice, “I will make you the d
yes.”
He burst out laughing. “I know exactly what you will do, Senna. When, and how.”
“Do you?” She met his gaze. “Tell me, do you want them explosive or”—she paused for effect—“camouflaging?”
His face underwent a series of small metamorphoses, from startled, to impressed, to furious, to…desirous. She seized the moment.
“You call off this war, and I will make you the dyes.”
His breathing, made unsteady by her admission, slowed. “I cannot. It has gone out of my hands.”
“Retrieve it back into them,” she said coldly. “Tell the king the dyes are only legend. A lie.” She looked down at the pages in her hand. His tongue flicked over his lips as she smoothed them. She perused them briefly before looking up. “I do not want King Edward to know of this. Do you?”
His eyes were slightly distant as they met hers. He looked in the beginning throes of madness. Or passion.
“I do not want anyone to know,” he agreed hoarsely.
She lowered her voice to match his. “No. ’Twill be our little secret. Tell Wogan, the governor. Send word to King Edward.” She looked down at the manual languidly, ran one finger slowly over it. “Call them off, and I’ll stay here with you. Willingly.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why?” He might be pure evil, but he was pure cunning evil. Incipient madness—or lust—had been overtaken by scheming. “You do not want me to have the dyes.”
She had to find a way to bind him to her more than Edward. More than his hatred. She took another intuitive step in the dark.
“This is what we do, the women in my family, is it not?” she murmured. “We start as de Valerys, but we end with you. I know my mother was here, with you.” She took a step closer. Desire swept over his face, slackening his jaw. He nodded as if in a trance. “And now, ’tis I.”