Enchantress (Medieval Trilogy 1)

“’E’s a bloody ghost-horse! Just like that mare she use ta ride. Bloody Phantom — that’s wha’ the witch calls her.”

“Back to your task, and … and God be with you.” She made a quick sign of the cross and hoped her act was believable. If only Friar Tobia could see her now — all those years of lessons had not been wasted.

“You, too, Brother, ahh!” Robert dropped his shovel and stepped back a pace. “’Tis the fiend of Satan himself!”

His face was white in the half-light as Morgana heard a low snarl behind her. Wolf! Oh, Lord, why now? “Aye, I’m to bless the wolf as well,” Morgana replied, keeping her voice deep as she quickly led Luck into the darkening bailey.

“Y’re no monk!” Robert declared, following her. “Y’re the witch ‘erself!”

Morgana had to gamble. “That’s right, Robert.” She grabbed him by the front of his scruffy shirt and w

ound her fingers into the fabric as she dragged him close so that her eyes and his were level. “If you don’t want warts all over your face or your toes to fall off or worms to cover your head, you’ll keep your mouth shut. If anyone asks, swear that you saw me near the kitchen.”

“’Twould be a lie!”

“You’ve lied before, I’ll wager, and this one will save you from the warts.”

He gulped, and in the moonlight she saw the fear in his eyes. “I’m telling you now, go!” she said, pushing. She felt a stab of guilt for scaring the child, but she had no choice. The fate of Abergwynn was in her hands. Without wasting a second, she headed for the portcullis.

The guard at the gate was straining his eyes against nightfall as she passed. “Good night to you, Brother,” he said softly.

“And to you,” she murmured, hardly daring to breathe. She kept Luck’s gait at a slow walk so as not to disturb the sentry and was nearly past the portcullis when she heard him cry out.

“For the love of Saint Jude! What the devil is that beast doing here? Brother …?”

Wolf snarled menacingly, and Morgana kicked Luck hard in the sides. The horse plunged forward as the warning sounded. “God be with us all,” she prayed, thankful that Wolf had caught up with her and run ahead. They raced across the moonlit fields toward the forest to the north. The cowl flew off her head, and she stared into the dark stand of pine and oak. She prayed that Garrick was still alive. She would give anything — anything — so that he could live!

He was sore and tired, so bloody tired. But he felt as if he hadn’t moved a muscle in a fortnight. He heard the voices around him — voices he recognized. But her voice wasn’t there. Morgana wasn’t speaking to him. Morgana. Morgana. He had thought of her often since the blackness covered his mind, imagined he heard her, felt her warm hands on his stone-cold soul. But now, as he swam closer to the surface of consciousness, he prayed for her touch, for her smile, for her kiss … He tried to open his eyes but couldn’t, nor could he understand what was being said. There was trouble; that much he knew. Though his mind was blank when he tried to remember, he felt as if a heavy stone had been placed upon his chest and he couldn’t shove it off.

Clare’s voice again. She sounded worried, but hadn’t she always? Even when he was a child, she had tried to tell him what to do, where he was making mistakes, what the proper course of action would be.

He tried to smile but could not. His throat was dry and tasted of sour vomit. A searing pain burned through him, almost as if his muscles had been severed by a white-hot sword. His stomach convulsed when someone tried to pour hot broth down his throat.

For an instant he thought of his son. Where was he? There was something wrong where Logan was concerned — the rock on his chest seemed to grow heavier, and the blackness started creeping over his mind again. He thought he heard Strahan’s voice, and he went cold inside. Strahan, his cousin. Strahan … the evil one. Strahan would have to pay. He would burn in the fires of hell! Garrick struggled toward consciousness only to lose the battle, and the blackness covered him like a soothing blanket as he dreamed of the beautiful Morgana.

The rising moon was full. A few clusters of clouds dulled the stars, and the air felt like rain and mist — the coming of a storm.

Morgana gathered her courage. After three days of riding, she was only an hour from Abergwynn, and she knew her father and his soldiers were not far behind her. She had heard them on the first day of the journey; then the thudding of hooves and men’s shouts had disappeared. Today again she had heard them. Soon they would catch her, but not before she’d opened the gates of the castle. Not until she’d seen for herself if Garrick was alive or dead.

At the tormenting thought she let out a moan, and she herself felt dead inside.

Her horse was lathered and spent. She stopped near a stream, and as the stallion drank from the cool water, she made herself ready. As her grandmother had instructed, she unwrapped the knife and faced in one direction after another, touching the blade to each of the four elements. She closed her eyes, sure that her grandmother’s voice rode on the wind, but she heard nothing save the lonely call of an owl, its hunt disturbed by her incantations. The wind was from the north, which was not a good sign, and yet she faced the cool breath of the fates. The breeze picked up, cold as death, whistling through the trees and moving heavy clouds across the sky. Morgana shivered as her hair was lifted away from her neck and tossed in wild waves around her face.

“Do not fail me,” she begged.

After she thrust the knife into the earth one last time and muttered her final incantations, she doused her small fire with water from the stream, wrapped the knife again, and hid it inside her boot. Then she fell to her knees and prayed, not for herself but for Garrick and for God’s help in her task.

She shivered inside at the thought of marrying Strahan; her guts roiled in rebellion. Yet she would marry him gladly if he would but spare Garrick’s life!

Clouds slowly moved across the moon. Luck and Wolf quenched their thirst, then rested. Within the hour the pounding of hooves and the voices of men sounded through the forest. She had no time to lose, for if her father caught her before she reached Abergwynn, all her plans would be for naught, and more blood would be spilled. Quickly, scurrying in the darkness, she remounted. Rain began to fall gently, and soon the moon was all but hidden. Morgana’s heart thudded in a painful rhythm. More than once she questioned her wisdom in disobeying Daffyd. Surely her father knew more than she about taking a castle, but she was driven by an inner fire that could not be smothered. Only she could save Garrick.

The forest gave way to lush meadows above which Abergwynn rose, a cathedral like fortress that commanded the countryside. Through the mist, the moon cast silvery shadows upon the land and illuminated the great towers and battlements of the castle. Was Garrick inside, even now dying from a mortal wound? Was he already dead?

There was a small chance that he had wrested the castle from Strahan, that her visions of death had been wrong, but she knew, deep in her heart, that her hope was false.

Steeling herself, she kicked her tired horse forward. Marriage to Strahan — the thought was like a hard, painful fist in her stomach. Her hands trembled, and she began to sweat.

A hundred yards from the castle she dismounted and quickly planted six candles in the damp earth surrounding her horse and her dog. Using her flint, she lit each taper and held one long white candle aloft, saying nothing until a sentry, probably roused from his sleep, finally caught sight of the tiny flames.