Seraphim. Michele Hauf

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      Seeking to break the cold silence that had settled between the two of them since he’d inadvertently mentioned Sera’s new coif was rather ugly, Baldwin hiked a heel to his mount’s side, and came upon Gryphon. “’Tis magical, no?”

      “What? Your amazing ability to irritate?”

      “No, my lady, the air, the sky, the—why the moment. Look all around, the moon glimmering upon the snow. ’Tis as if the faeries have danced about and laid their magical dust over all.”

      “Speak not to me of the foul creatures,” she snapped.

      “Foul—you mean—faeries?”

      “There shall be no more talk of such.”

      “Very well.” Baldwin smoothed a palm across the saddle pommel. That attempt at lightening the mood had gone over about as well as a cow tiptoeing through a pottery shop.

      “They are mischievous, evil creatures,” Sera muttered.

      Evil? He’d always thought faeries rather whimsical, fey things. Course, should the abbe Belloc discover he had such thoughts—well, it mattered not anymore. That dream had been dashed on the eve of the New Year.

      Baldwin pressed his mount faster so he could hear Sera’s quiet words. She did not pay heed to her own request for silence. “When I was twelve my mother gave birth to my sister, Gossamer.”

      He’d not known the d’Anges had another daughter. When Sera was twelve? That would have been, hmm…right around the time Elsbeth d’Ange had taken ill.

      “Gossamer was but one month in the cradle when the faeries stole into my mother’s solar under the blackness of midnight and made the switch. A changeling they laid in the soft nest of silk and down where once my sister had cooed.”

      Baldwin cringed at Sera’s dour recitation of the word, changeling. The mere thought of such a beast curdled a shiver from his spine up to his earlobes. Everyone knew changelings were hideous, sickly things; far from whimsical.

      “The creature lived but a day. My mother was not the same after that. She grieved in silence, would but utter few words. She closed herself from others. I could see her limbs literally begin to curl in on themselves. Until finally she was so crippled she could not take up a needle or even walk without assistance. ’Twas then I took over her duties as chatelaine.”

      “I’m so sorry,” Baldwin said, meaning it, and wishing he’d never tried to brighten the mood. Brighten? He’d just snuffed out any light that had existed. There was much he did not know about Seraphim d’Ange.

      “No more mention of faeries?”

      “Most certainly not—” A glimmer of steel flashed in the squire’s peripheral view. “What is that yonder?”

      They came upon a lone rider dismounted at the edge of Pontoise. Moonlight poured over the sharp angles of his face and glittered in the plush snowflakes capping his shoulders.

      Sera did quick reconnaissance of the man. Leather jerkin and braies, a grand black wool cloak ornamented with metallic-black stones around the collar. Hematite, she knew, a stone that quickened the blood. A two-handed battle sword and dagger glinted at his hip, both of simple design, with brown suede wrapped about each hilt.

      No doubt a knight—no, his spurs were steel, not gold. Perhaps he was a mercenary, looking for his next purse.

      “Good eve to you,” Baldwin called, as he and Sera passed by the stranger who had not yet opened his eyes, only appeared to be worshipping the moon. He must have heard their approach.

      “It is,” the man finally responded.

      Gryphon eased by the man’s white stallion. Seventeen hands for sure, Sera judged the remarkable beast from the added height it grew over Gryphon’s withers. Impressive.

      “Headed for Pontoise?”

      “If that is the name of yonder village, indeed I am.”

      Sera wished the squire were not so friendly with strangers. They could trust no one. But the stranger did no more seem eager to share conversation than she.

      As they completely passed him by, she turned at the waist, propped a fist on Gryphon’s hindquarter, and saw he still stood a silent sentinel, his face lifted to worship the moon-glow, his eyes closed.

      The beginning of a black beard shadowed his square jaw. The trace of a mustache squared his lips in an inviting frame. Black shoulder-length hair glimmered blue, like Gryphon’s coat, in the eerie midnight illumination. A graceful, yet sharply boned profile, he possessed. Gluttony was not his vice. Perhaps a bit of pride, though. He could be a knight, valorous and brave, for not all wore the gold spurs when not riding in battle.

      It might have been the play of moonlight—surely it was—for the man seemed to give off a glow of sorts. It caressed his figure, romancing him in a cocoon of white light.

      “Sera?”

      Caught in a silly swooning pose, Sera spun around and took up Gryphon’s reins, keeping her sight from what she sensed to be a smirk on the squire’s face. “Onward then,” she said.

      But she could not resist twisting at the waist and stealing one final glance at the moon worshipper. And from deep inside her scarred and damaged being, the damsel she had once been emerged—and sighed.

      TWO

      “Bertrand, what say you?” Sera dangled a chunk of stringy brown food above her trencher, imploring the squire to comment.

      “It СКАЧАТЬ