Enchantress (Medieval Trilogy 1)

Garrick shook his head and drew his lips back against his teeth. “Aye,” he said in a deathly quiet voice that was barely audible in the cavernous chapel. “If Logan is not found alive, I swear to you on the blood of my child, I will be the death of all that is Tower Wenlock.”

Chapter Seven

“Would you like more wine?” Glyn asked with a giggle as she smiled up at Lord Garrick.

Morgana’s stomach revolted. She barely tasted the eel pie and the pheasant and was all too aware of the baron seated so close to her at the table. Rather than risk her father’s ire for not eating, she carefully slid most of her meal to Wolf, who lay beneath her bench, eyeing each morsel hungrily.

Beneath the sweep of dark lashes, she noticed her father talking and joking with Baron Maginnis, as if his daughter’s — aye, his very castle’s — fate mattered not to him.

Marriage to Strahan of Hazelwood! Was her father so angry with her that he would marry her off to such a monster? She almost lost the contents of her stomach yet again. Not that Sir Strahan was not handsome — indeed, Glyn had said much about his dark good looks — but he was related to Maginnis, and Morgana believed Strahan’s soul to be as black as night.

Maginnis’s threat hung over her.

“Morgana, eat,” her father ordered, pointing with his knife at the platter of white curd and meat cooked in almonds. “’Tis your favorite.”

“Aye, Father,” she said, not wishing to anger Daffyd any further. But the meat balled in her throat and she could barely swallow.

Maginnis cast her a dark look when she set down her own knife and could eat no more. “The journey to Abergwynn is long, and you will need your strength.”

She did not reply, nor did she partake of the celebration. Glyn laughed at the antics of the jesters and jugglers, and as the minstrels made their merry music she danced with more than one handsome knight. But Morgana returned to her chamber where Nellwyn, who claimed to have once been a servant to the king in London, was bustling about, packing tunics, mantles, wimples, and hose. “Aye, ‘ow lucky you are, m’lady,” Nellwyn prattled. “Such an adventure you’ll be ‘aving, and with the baron.” She sighed and looked dreamily out the window. “’E’s a handsome one, ‘e is, I’ll wager ‘e knows ‘ow to pleasure a woman, that one.”

“Nellwyn!” Morgana snapped. “I care not what he does or whom he does it with.”

“Ah, so ’tis true that you’re betrothed, and to the baron’s cousin, no less.”

“So it seems,” Morgana

bit out, though the very idea settled like lead in her stomach. She would no more marry Strahan of Hazelwood that she would wed the fierce one himself. Nay, when she married, her bridegroom would be a man of her own choosing, and Sir Strahan, from what she had seen of him, would not a good husband and father make.

She had spied him when she was barely fourteen. A band of Maginnis’s soldiers had rested at Tower Wenlock for the night. Strahan, the leader, had shown interest in her even then. He’d smiled at her during dinner, joked with her openly, and ignored Glyn’s attempts to turn his attention away from Morgana.

Glyn, trying to undermine his interest in her older sister, had mentioned that Morgana was a sorceress and that she had spent hours talking to the wind. Sir Strahan at first had been amused. “Bewitch me, then, sorceress,” he’d said, catching her in the garden picking herbs that afternoon. The roses had been in bloom, adding fragrance to the air, and bees from the hives near the kitchen had buzzed within the bailey walls.

“I’m not a sorceress,” Morgana told him.

“’Tis said you talk to the wind and that the wind answers.”

Curse Glyn for her wagging tongue! Morgana ignored the comment and bent back down, digging herbs with her knife, the blade gleaming in the hot sun. But Strahan lingered and seated himself on a garden bench beneath a mulberry tree. With one leg drawn up, he pretended to polish his sword with a cloth, though Morgana felt his gaze heavy upon her as he watched her work.

“Some of your father’s knights claim you may be a witch.”

“Do I look like a witch, Sir Strahan?” she asked, stopping her digging to stare him full in the face. A breeze came up, tugging her hair away from the wimple and blowing some black strands in front of her eyes. She saw it then, the desire that darkened Strahan’s gaze and curled the corners of his mouth.

Wolf, lying in the shade of the mulberry, growled, showing black lips, but Strahan took no notice of the animal. He sheathed his sword, very slowly, his eyes never leaving Morgana’s as the blade slid silently into its scabbard. “Nay, you are a beautiful maid, perhaps the most beautiful in all of Wales.”

Morgana was not flattered. “Then mayhap you should believe your eyes and not the gossip of my father’s men.” She plunged her dagger into the dry earth, intent on her task, but Strahan was not to be neglected.

Standing, he dusted off his hands. “Glyn tells me you hunt and shoot an arrow as straight as do any of your father’s soldiers.”

She saw no reason to lie about her talents. In truth, she would exaggerate her skill to scare the knight off. “Aye.”

“Also, that you are … quick with your dagger.”

She fingered her knife. “If need be.”

Dropping to one knee, he leaned close to her, his breath fanning her ear. “Then tell me, can you see what will be?” he asked eagerly, excitement showing on his hard features. “Can you tell what will happen next year or the next?”

Morgana stopped digging. “Nay.”