Guy wound the reins around his fist and steadied his mount.
Every sinew in his body taut and battle ready, he raised his sword. If the cobbler-poacher had returned, the man was a fool. If the footsteps were from one who walked this earth only in the night, so much the better. He relished the opportunity to tussle with a demon.
The single shadow, shrouded in a black cloak with a pointed hood, stooped and scratched the earth with its long pale hand.
Human. No poacher this one. This one was digging.
Guy leapt from his horse and bounded o’er the snow-encrusted earth. He growled a violent sound that ripped from his throat and echoed off the stones as he lunged, reaching for the hooded figure.
Fabric shredded, slipping through his fingers. He landed with a thud on his knees, his arms outstretched and reaching, his hands empty.
The figure vanished, leaving nothing behind but a ghostly imprint in the air and trail of snowy footprints quickly swept away by the wind.
Guy of Warwick sat on his heels and roared into the darkness, his heart beating hard against his chest. “Be you man or demon, I will find you. I swear it!”
Chapter One
Cornbury, England
Four months later
Forbidden by the village priest to be here, she’d still do what she had to do. Sybilla Corbuc, at twenty years of age, unmarried and unspoken for, could not help herself.
Tonight, it was simply worth the risk.
She lifted her faded blue gown over her head and tossed it into the straw. The icy night air sucked her breath away as the feeble layer of warmth between her gown and her thin chemise vanished.
Better to remove the garment and suffer the cold than risk soiling it with telltale stains.
She folded her arms beneath her breasts and willed herself not to shake.
“Etienne,” she whispered, “are you certain the night watch did not see you? The moon is bright tonight.” Her warm breath, cloud-like and vaporous in the icy night air, rushed past her lips.
A boy with eager eyes and downy whiskers on his upper lip stamped his feet and rubbed his hands together. “No, mistress. They were all a sleepin’ afore I left ta fetch you.”
Sybilla shivered. Thick, wet snowflakes floated down and stuck to her cheeks and forehead. She wiped her face with the back of her hand and looked up. Sparkling snow drifted through a pie-sized hole in the roof.
She moved closer to Etienne. “I saw boot prints along the road. Someone is about. Please, snuff the candle. For this, there is light enough.” She slipped her arm from her chemise.
Shadows fell across the boy’s face, but not before his cheeks flamed red and his eyes grew wide. Was it possible he was both embarrassed and afraid?
His voice trembled. “What will they do if they catch us, mistress?”
“To you, nothing. But to me…prison. I’ll be tried and branded as a Separate, and cast out naked in the woods.”
A gasp slipped from Etienne’s mouth. “’Tis a death sentence,” he squeaked.
Sybilla shuddered at his words. “Tell no one about tonight, Etienne.”
She clutched her half-removed chemise to her chest, wishing she had some goose grease, or a little dab of butter to help with the task at hand. “I’m forced to risk my life and work in secret, else I’ll starve,” she whispered, her voice low.
Etienne glanced down at his feet. “Why won’t they let you help with the livestock birthings anymore?”
“The bishop has barred all women from working in the stables. He lost fifty of his foal crop this season, all aborted, slipped from the mares without warning. He does not understand what happened, so he blames the deaths on witches.”
Etienne blew on his cold-shriveled hands. “Were it witches, mistress?”
Sybilla shook her head. “Nay. ’Twas a contagion. There was nothing anyone could do.”
She dropped to her knees. “We’d best get on with it.”
The old horse resting in the straw beside them rolled her eyes upward and stared at Sybilla, pleading.
Without another word, she plunged her arm into a bucket, a bucket filled with water so cold it stung like nettles. She gasped and sat back on her heels. A cloud of sweet mold and straw-dust billowed upward, then settled on her lips and eyelids. She pressed her face into her bare shoulder and held her breath. St. Genevieve, I beg you, just this one last time, do not let me be discovered.
And then she sneezed.
A wet, head-splitting sneeze. A sneeze loud enough to roust the pigeons from the rafters. Fear streaked though her as Etienne clamped his hand across his mouth and turned his head toward the door.
Sybilla sat as still as a statue and held up her freezing arm. Water ran in rivulets to her elbow and steam wafted from her soaking skin.
Minutes passed. She sat in silence while the wind whistled through the roof hole. Pigeons cooed and skittered in the loft above. Beams moaned and the whole structure overhead seemed to shift. Mother Mary. Would the rearrangement of half-starved pigeons be enough to bring the building down?
The withered barn suddenly creaked. The ancient beams groaned and settled without collapsing. The night watch, apparently, had not heard the ruckus.
Sybilla let out her breath and stroked the swollen flank of the downer horse, a faded sorrel mare with a sunken croup, a broomstick tail and an udder which was not as full as it should be. What little nutrition the old mare had taken in had gone to keeping herself warm and not to making milk. Even if the mare survived, the foal might not.
Sybilla patted the mare on the rump and scooted round behind her. “God’s peace, Addy, why did you have to do this on the coldest night since Michaelmas?”
She slid her arm into the mare’s velvet warmth and probed to find a tiny hoof trapped behind protruding pelvic bones. Wrapping her fingers around a small fetlock, she looked at Etienne, his youthful face pinched with worry. “Don’t fret,” she whispered. “This will be easier than I thought.”
With one strong tug, she pulled as the mare pushed and grunted. The tiny limb straightened and the foal slithered out in a gush of shiny fluid, black hair, and legs.
Sybilla wiped the mucous from his mouth and nostrils. “Aren’t you a handsome one?” she said softly, as she traced the perfect white stripe that began between his soulful eyes and ended with a splash across his muzzle.
She raised her eyebrows and pointed to his feet. The hair there was solid white, right up to his fetlocks, on all four hooves. “Mother Mary. You look like you danced in chalk-paint, or you robbed the nuns at St. Bertone’s an’ stole their stockings. But you’re a beauty.”
She glanced at Etienne and her joy faded.
His mouth agape, he took a step back as he stared at the newborn. “Mistress, he’s marked like the magic horse from Hades! The one the seer told us would be born at Cornbury. You don’t want this one, mistress. He’ll bring you nothing but trouble.”
“Etienne, that’s tittle-tattle, a tale told by a seer to earn pennies at the fair. She’d say anything to earn coin to buy food.” She ran her hand along the foal’s graceful neck. “Marked as he is, he’s mine. I spent my last chink to buy his mother. He’s sired by the Duke of Marmount’s champion Spanish stallion. I shall call him my Regalo, God’s gift. Safely delivered, sent from heaven, not from hell.”
Sybilla’s words surprised her. She’d attended the births of hundreds of foals, but for this one, she felt an unprecedented sense of ownership.