Seraphim

And that someone would be her.

“Creil is another two days’ journey,” the squire offered in the silence of torch flicker and horse chawing. “Might we bed down here tonight and start afresh in the morn?”

“That is what I intended.”

Baldwin’s sigh of relief could have been heard in the dark cacophony of yonder tavern. Sera smiled, but turned her face to Gryphon’s flank so the squire would not see such emotion.

“Shall we get a room?”

“Is there one available?”

“I believe there is.”

“You have my coin stashed safely?”

“I do.” He patted his hip where a conglomeration of baldric, gauntlets, leather bone-bag, and wool cape made it impossible to determine just how slender the man really was. He kept her coin in his codpiece, Sera knew, from the rhythmic tink that accompanied his strides.

“We’ve enough to see us through many months.” Though she prayed this quest would end much sooner. “Go ahead. One room. I shall sleep on the floor.”

Already eagerly on his way to make arrangements, Baldwin stopped in the doorway. He turned with a pained moan and pinched grimace. “Sera, you know I will not sleep a single wink should you be lying on the floor while I have a straw pallet to cradle my weary bones.”

“Are you propositioning me, squire?” Sera peeked under her arm to catch his reaction.

“Why no!”

He blushed a deep crimson. The two of them had never shared more than a brief nod in passing through her father’s castle, or whispered morning prayers in the chapel. But she had heard of his former profession, the very reason that pressed him to seek atonement by applying to the church. Baldwin Ortolano had done things to survive—cheating, lying, stealing—acts that branded him a criminal. Those same acts also fashioned him imperfectly human. And she certainly needed human right now, imperfections and all.

“If the bed is wide, we can share. We shall lie so our heads are opposite one another’s feet. What say you?”

Baldwin lifted a suede-booted foot and rubbed it along his opposite ankle. “I’m not sure…”

Sera gestured through the air with the brush. “I’ve smelled worse than your feet in my lifetime. Now be gone with you. Run up and find us a room with a fire and have it blazing for me when I return.”

“Yes, my lady—er, my lord.”

A while later, Baldwin strode out of the Dragon’s Eye, pleased that his mistress’s coin had purchased them a fine room with a wide bed, fresh water (melted-down snow for washing), and clean straw.

Sera hadn’t come in from the stables, and an odd twinge of foreboding had prompted him to seek her out. She was, after all, a woman. A young female of four and twenty who should not be left to defend herself against any danger that should approach.

Oh, he knew Sera was not your average amiable, submissive female. He’d lived at the d’Ange castle for nine months, and in that time had learned Sera had taken over chatelaine duties when she was but twelve. Elsbeth d’Ange, Sera’s mother, had developed twisted joints that would not allow her to do anything with her hands, save brush aside the bed curtains to receive her maids.

He now knew that affliction had come following the abduction of Elsbeth’s newborn daughter. Faeries, eh? Fine enough, the little winged creatures. But the idea of a changeling, mewling in a newborn’s crib…well, it just gave Baldwin the shivers.

When Sera could not be found taking accounts in the larder, or purchasing food and fabric at market, or mending clothing, or shearing sheep, she stole a free moment here and there to practice in the lists with her father and brother. An unusual female, Seraphim d’Ange, in that she wanted to do it all. If her brother Antoine could do it, she could as well.

And her father had encouraged her masculine pursuits. Marcil d’Ange, a stalwart lord possessed of a compassionate but fierce heart, had treated Sera as if a son, but not without the occasional gentle smile and knowing wink.

Beyond such knowledge of her abilities, the fact that Sera had beheaded two of France’s most notorious villains still troubled Baldwin. When ensconced in the black armor and charging through the roar of battle cries with a steel-clashing sword, Sera rode a strange sorcery that tricked her mind into believing she would succeed.

Baldwin prayed that sorcery would keep its hold on her until this quest was finished. For if and when she did fall, it would be a hard fall, indeed.

Just as he had suspected! A strange man leaned over a figure lying on the freshly spiked straw at the end of the stable. Long, narrow legs and wide hands splayed over the nest—he stood over Sera!

In a cacophony of tinking coins, jangling bones, and breathy huffs, Baldwin dashed through the stable door. He tripped up his feet on a block of wood, righted himself with the expert skill he’d developed since his teen years had seen to stretching his limbs to ridiculous lengths, then scrambled to the end stall where Gryphon was tied.

Before Baldwin could blurt out an angry shout, the man turned and backed away from Sera, acknowledging the squire with a nod. ’Twas the dark-haired knight that had set Sera to a swoon.

“That is my lord at rest, and I shall thank you to leave her—er, him at rest.”

Baldwin knew his eyes bugged at that slip, a response to mistruths he had never been able to tame. Indeed, he’d played a blind toad-eater, wearing a scarf over his eyes to keep the innocents from reading his grift.

He clutched the bag of bones tied at his waist. For strength. “Pray, tell what you think you are doing, sir?”

“Forgive me.” The man raised his hands briefly to show he had no ill intentions, then stepped back. “I was just seeking my own resting place for the night. All the rooms are taken.”

Baldwin took a moment to look over Sera. On her back, the heavy mail tunic pressed her body into a snug nest of straw. Her hood was still up and her eyes were closed, a soft snore purring from her mouth. So tired, she hadn’t even made it to the room he’d rented. But, thankfully, curiously androgynous under cover of sleep.

“What is wrong with him?”

“Hmm?” Baldwin turned and looked over the man. Two black eyes beamed at him. Dark hair slicked over his ears, and a shadow of a beard progressed dash-and-scatter from his cheeks to his jaw. There lived an eerie peacefulness in the depths of those eyes. Perhaps he was a little handsome—ah, hell! What was he thinking?

“Your master.” The man gestured to Sera. “To look over his face one would wonder…”

Sweet Mother of Wonder, did the man suspect?

“Is he ill?”

“Ill?” Not the suspicion Baldwin had feared. He swallowed a melon-size gulp and tried to act nonchalant. He pressed his hand to the stable wall, crossed his legs at the ankle—and winced at the pinch of coin digging into his delicates. “Wh-why do you say that?” He quickly uncrossed his legs.

“It is only because he looks it. Those dark crescents under his eyes and the gaunt flesh over bone… Mayhap he is frail?”

“He is no thinner than I, my lord.”

The obsidian eyes of the stranger took in Baldwin’s lank frame. Dressed in squire’s tunic and the tight-fitted brown leggings borrowed from yet another dead man, Baldwin felt awkward and exposed. But better to distract attention to himself.

“You’re not a soldier, are you?”

“A postulant, actually. I am soon to become a monk.” Though for as much as that was worth anymore, he might just as well go back to eating toads.

“Really? I thought you a squire to this man’s knight.”

“Well…” Baldwin twisted his head upon his neck, fighting the sin of mistruth even as he babbled a thousand lies. Closing his eyes to avoid discovery, he offered, “That, too.”

“Have you a condition yourself, man?”

“Condition?”

“Your eyes—”

“No. No, no…just, you see—I’m terrible exhausted, my lord. Traveling all day, you know. It tends to tire my eyes.”

“Indeed.” Not a spark of belief in the stranger’s condescending tilt of head. “Pray tell, what is your lord’s name?”

“My lord?”

“Yes, the man lying here on the straw.”

Baldwin shrugged, felt the color of blood flush his cheeks hotly. “My lord?”

“You just said that.”

“That is what I call, er…him. My—my lord.”

“Ah. But he must have a name?”

“He is of the d’Anges.” Yes, and leave it at that, Baldwin thought.

For the week they had traveled the roads the moniker of the Black Knight had served Sera’s alibi. He could not just announce to this man that “my lord” was really “my lady.” He couldn’t tell anyone, for that matter. Much as he wished an entire army backing he and Sera on this suicidal quest.

“D’Ange.” The knight, in thought, thumbed the scruff of his beard. “Were they not set upon by Lucifer de Morte? I thought the entire family murdered by that bastard less than a fortnight ago?”

“Yes, well, there were…” Baldwin fidgeted with a stray point that dangled from his shirt, and closed his eyes, “two brothers… One survived.”

“I see.” The knight cast another glance over Sera’s inert figure, then flashed his eerie eyes upon Baldwin. “And his name?”

“Who, sir?”

“The man sleeping on the floor. Your master?”

“Er, Antoine.” Baldwin gripped the bag of bones tightly. Pity he hadn’t been able to procure Jude the Obscure’s wrist bone last market day. ’Twas the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes, he. And this lie was certainly hopeless. “Yes, Antoine d’Ange.”

“Antoine d’Ange.” The stranger walked a few paces across the straw-littered floor, then turned on Baldwin, drawing his angular face up close until his breath hushed in cold clouds across Baldwin’s nose. Within the depths of the steely black eyes, Baldwin sensed the Fates toyed with his string at this very moment. “You’re lying to me, squire.”

“I am not a sq—er—squire. Yes, indeed. I am a squire.”

“Liar.”

“I am but a novice! I—I am not yet accustomed to answering to that title.”

“There is something up.”

“What is that, sir?” Damn, but he needed that bone!

The knight fit his hands at his hips. His studded leather jerkin skimmed his knees, and shiny black boots shrouded his legs from thigh down to his spurred heels. He was a tall man, slender, but possessed of thick arms and muscled wrists capable of matching blows in battle. “I had better find my own nest of straw before all the drunkards come spilling out of the tavern. Good eve to you, squire.”

“Good eve—” All the drunkards?

Baldwin flashed his gaze over Sera’s peaceful form. How soon before someone discovered she was a woman? And what would they then do to her—no, he didn’t want to think of it. He’d heard one perfectly horrific tale of abuse from Sera, had seen enough…

He could not leave her alone.

Baldwin glanced to the tavern, up to the second floor where he and Sera’s room waited. Already paid for. A warm bed waiting to cradle his tired, aching limbs. ’Twould be a shame to let it go to waste.

A sniffle, a crunch of hay, and the chink of chain mail accompanied Sera’s turn upon her makeshift bed. She curled on her side, pocketing her hands up near her chin, her knees arrowing toward her stomach. Sleeping like a babe. A woman’s position.

“You will be the death of me yet,” Baldwin muttered. “You there!” He hailed the stranger back over to his side. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Dominique San Juste,” the knight offered with a short bow. The black stones set around his cloak collar clicked with the graceful movement.

Just what did the man suspect? He hadn’t pressed for the truth behind the lie. Maybe he had just been guessing. Baldwin prayed so.

“Sir San Juste, I’ve a room in the inn with clean water and fresh bedding. But as you can see, my lord has seen to a change of plan. Would you take our room?”

“At what price to me?”

“No price. I’ve simply no desire to see the room sit empty all night.”

San Juste considered the notion, followed Baldwin’s pointing finger toward the lighted window, and then, “Thank you for your kindness, squire, I shall accept.”

Baldwin raised a finger to correct the man, but stopped. It was too late; he was too tired; it wasn’t worth the bother. Squire was perfectly acceptable. For now.

“If I may ask, what is your destination, San Juste?”

“Creil.”

“Ah, ours as well.”

“Indeed? Perhaps we might share the road tomorrow? I do favor friendly conversation.”

A smile captured Baldwin’s countenance, so surprising, that he smoothed a hand over his jaw to verify its reality. To touch such an unrestrained emotion had become something of a quest for him this past week. “That is very kind of you, Sir San Juste, I accept your offer.”

Though he wagered Sera would not be delighted about another traveling companion, the advantage of having this rather imposing, broad-shouldered knight alongside them could not be overlooked. And beneath the wool cloak there glinted a sword and dagger; an extra set of weapons could not be refused.

“Tomorrow morning?”

“I shall meet you at dawn.”

Such luck to procure a room with little difficulty beyond a mere “I accept.” Dominique settled onto the bed, for to stand up straight was impossible beneath the angled pine beams that reduced the height of the room from a man’s shoulders to his waist in less than a stride.

He splashed too-cold water from a dented copper bowl over his face, then shook his head, dispersing droplets across the bed.

Fresh bedding, indeed. The nest of mice sharing the packed straw on the pallet might argue against that. But with the kitchen’s chimney bracing the wall before which the pallet had been laid, the room was warm, so he had no argument about sharing quarters.

It hadn’t been kindness that had prompted the squire to offer his master’s room, Dominique felt sure. For could not the squire have taken the room in his master’s absence?

No, the squire’s need to remain at his master’s side was more necessity. The lank young man had wanted to protect the sleeping knight. He, a mere squire, thinking to protect a spurred knight! But he would not protect for long with the skein of lies he wove.

Dominique wondered now if the squire realized the wide boggled appearance his eyes took on when he spouted an obvious mistruth. Exhaustion? Would not the man’s lids then be heavy upon his sight?

And what exactly was the man protecting? Could it be that his master also danced with an illusory shroud to his steps? Were they thieves?

Dominique had observed the duo in the tavern. The squire had no more thought than most men after riding all the day, to fill his belly. But the other, Antoine d’Ange, had plucked and prodded suspiciously at the fare the tavern offered. So…effeminate his actions. Just not…right.

Perhaps the two were engaged in more than just a partnership of the ride? Mayhaps there was reason the squire chose to bed down next to his master this eve. Dominique knew there were those men whose carnal preferences led them in sinister directions.

He smirked at the thought, then lay back. A few squeaks near his hip protested his position, but soon settled to sleep as well.

THREE

She pouted for two leagues, hunched on the saddle, every so often casting Baldwin the evil eye. She did have a knack for the evil eye. ’Twas a shade more intimidating than the lesser mongoose eye. Her pale blue orbs barely revealed color as her lashes meshed in the squint of hell. Baldwin felt its damning power bore deep into his gut, where it twisted his intestines into a nervous knot.

But he could not ignore the advantage of traveling with real muscle. And Dominique San Juste was just what a wayward monk-in-training-playing-squire and a mixed-up-lady-playing-knight needed.

Sera hadn’t been able to argue with Dominique’s request to accompany them; he had already been mounted and ready to ride. Instead she’d purposely stepped on Baldwin’s foot on her passage to Gryphon’s side, and had twice knocked him to the ground with an elbow to his ribs before they rode out of Pontoise.

Heaven knew no fury like that of an angry angel.

Dawn gifted the chilled riders with a slash of vibrant color. Pink painted the horizon as far as the eye could see, followed by amber, and orange, then the bright flash of sun, before all too quickly fading. To find the sun in the winter months was rare; most days it hid behind clouds that filled the gray sky, as if that were the natural tint instead of cerulean. And so Baldwin cherished the few moments of color.

Hours later he’d learned little of Dominique San Juste, save that the dawn beguiled him as well, yet it was midnight that truly bewitched the moonlight knight.

“It’s too damn dark,” Baldwin said. “Especially riding through the forest. A man cannot know when a creepy will jump out and rip him to shreds.”

“It is a time when I feel the greatest strength,” Dominique offered as his mount, Tor, sidled to a walk alongside Baldwin. “If there are enemies to be felled I shall wait for the moonlight. Perhaps I’m one of those creepies you fear?”

Baldwin shot the mercenary a look. All seriousness in the man’s expression. Much as he favored having him along for the ride, he did not have to trust him.

“And yet, you find the dawn most beautiful as well?”

“It is a compulsion I must meet every morning as the sun rises. And yet, I am drained and oddly weak at that moment. A bit testy, too.” He offered a shrug and a knowing grin. “I cannot explain it. Never have been able to, for as much as I’ve questioned it over the years. Have you an hour in the day during which your energy seems most frenzied?”

“I do favor the supper hour,” Baldwin said with a grin. “Aye, I challenge any man to stand against me when there’s a fine roast boar waiting on table with apples stuffed in its mouth and wine flowing from a fat wench’s pitcher.”

Dominique cocked an agreeing nod at Baldwin. “I shall see to remember such when we stop to fill our bellies, lest I might lose a finger to your ravenous appetite.”

With renewed interest Dominique changed tactics. “Have you a voice, sir?” he prompted from the other side of Baldwin. The squire’s master rode a horse-length ahead of the trio. “While I find your squire’s conversation most enjoyable, I wonder how you find this fine gray morning.”

A thick cloud of frozen breath blossomed before the rider’s face, and he rasped out, “Cold.”

Dominique raised an inquiring brow to Baldwin. The squire merely shrugged and looked ahead over the stretch of white-frosted ground. Rabbit tracks stitched a line in the quilting of snow and led to the forest edge where black-striped white birch grew tall and slender amidst the thick trunks of decades-old oak and elm. Within hearing distance, the Seine sang crisply, her waters impervious to frost. Beneath the snow cover verdant earth and grass slept in a moist bed until spring.

“I feel I’ve offended in some way,” Dominique said, more to himself than anyone. Not that anyone listened.

The gruff-voiced man who led their motley trio certainly did keep to himself. Fine with him. The squire offered enough conversation to keep a man’s jaw oiled in the stiffening chill. “What is your business in Creil?”

Baldwin started, “We’re to—”

The squire’s master blasted over with a quick, “What is yours?”

“Ah, a tidbit of conversation.” Dominique heeled his mount to catch the faster pace of the man.

What was his name? Ah yes, Antoine d’Ange, of the ill-fated d’Ange disaster less than a fortnight ago. So he would allow him the morose brooding. Surely he had lost much to Lucifer de Morte’s cruel rampage. “As for my business, I am on a mission.”

“Aren’t we all—”

“Squire!” d’Ange quickly silenced.

Dominique could feel the air crackle between the two. Tension held both stiff upon the saddle. Something had lit a flame beneath d’Ange’s mail chausses.

“I stop in Creil,” Dominique added carefully, all the while gauging the vibrations between the two. Though d’Ange spoke little, each word, every movement was charged with a remarkable energy.

“So you are a mercenary?” Baldwin called.

Such perception. Or rather, an obvious guess, for he was a lone rider, fit out with sword and a mysterious manner. No gold spurs on his heels. There was no necessity in remaining a mystery. Clues to finding the black knight were welcome from any and all. And he much intended to get to the core of this intriguing tension that shot back and forth between his travel mates.

“Indeed, a mercenary. I’m sure you’ve heard much of the dark knight who swoops into battle to claim the members of the de Morte clan? I’ve been instructed to seek this legendary knight.”

“Oh?” Baldwin and his master exchanged looks. There was a glimmer of—something—in Antoine d’Ange’s pale eyes. Dominique couldn’t place what it was, but it overwhelmed the haggard condition of the man’s face. An inner fire, perhaps that is what kept the poor soul going after his entire family had been murdered.

“Don’t tell me you’ve not heard of the black knight?”

“We have not,” Antoine d’Ange rasped, and in a stir of hoof-sifted snow, turned his horse from the trail. With a nod of his hooded head he beckoned the squire to his side. “A moment to converse with my squire, if you please, San Juste.”

Dominique inclined his head and crossed his hands over the hard, leather saddle pommel.

The twosome dismounted and walked off. D’Ange positively steamed as he pumped his fists and worked his way toward the forest. Filled with a raging force, he was. Their boots kicked up little parallel mountains in the soft layer of snow following their wake.

An interesting reaction to Dominique’s mention of the black knight. They must know something. Or perhaps they knew no more than any of the villagers claimed to know? That the knight was all-powerful and stealthy in his pursuit of the de Mortes. A legend amongst mere mortals.

Hmm… Dominique just couldn’t get a grasp on d’Ange’s physicality. The squire he’d already pinned as faithful, eager to spin a mistruth to protect those he served, and not entirely cut out for the journey he’d most likely been persuaded to embark upon. But d’Ange was a tough read. He purposely kept apart to avoid consideration.

What hid beneath that cold facade of utterly serious silence?

Slipping a hand down the side of his leg, Dominique mined for the itch that had tormented his ankle for the past few minutes. When he returned his gloved hand to the pommel he cursed the coruscation that coated his gauntlet.

“A fine day it is when you’ve invited the enemy to accompany us like hell’s guardian to our deaths,” Sera hissed, and punched her gloved fist against Baldwin’s tunic.

He gripped his shoulder and groaned, “Sera.”

“He is the one,” she said in harsh whispers, her eyes alight with accusation.

Dominique San Juste sat out of hearing range, but both were aware he kept an eye on them. Overhead, a hawk spread his wings wide as it skimmed the ground, plunged, and snatched up a field mouse in a graceful act of violence.

“What one?” Baldwin wondered, as he pulled his gaze from the death peals of the mouse.

“You recall the rumor we heard in the inn, that Lucifer de Morte has sent a mercenary to stop the black knight before he can get to the Demon of the North.” She punched a fist into her opposite palm. “Well?”

“Sera, do you not think if San Juste wanted to kill you he would have done it by now?”

“He knows not who I am!”

“And he never will. If only you would let him know you are a woman, his suspicions would never come to fruition.”

“He suspects me? What say you, squire?”

“He does not.”

“Then why speak such a thing?”

“I don’t know!” He gripped his scalp, then spread out a hand in dismay. “Your foul mood sets my brain aquiver. I cannot think aright with you hounding me like a rabid dog. I like San Juste. He’s a personable fellow. And I rather enjoy speaking with him.” Baldwin followed her frantic footsteps. “Did you hear he lives on his own? An available man, Sera. And quite the handsome face, too.”