Immortal Champion (44 page)

BOOK: Immortal Champion

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She slipped out of his arms before he could pull her closer. “Thank you for hiding me.”

“’Twas my pleasure.”

She backed away. “I know.”

He couldn’t see well, but he thought a smile flickered over her lips. “Josian . . .”

“My sister Catherine is breeding. She asked me to stay with her until she gives birth. At Castle Bromwich. And then I will visit my parents for a time. At Park Hall.”

“Castle Bromwich,” he repeated. “Park Hall.”

She backed into the door and reached behind herself to tug it open. “God’s rest, Master Rollison. Torvald.”

“Wait. You never told me what dream brought you down to me.”

“A white horse,” she said from the doorway. “I dream always of a white horse running toward me. I wonder what it means.” And then she was gone, her bare feet nearly soundless as she raced back to her bed.

A widow, not a wife. And she dreamed of a white horse.

Thank you, Freyr, keeper of the sun and rain, giver of peace and pleasure.
He would have to make a worthy offering for such a gift.

He went to close up the priest hole, making sure the lever tripped and vanished into its hidden slot, so no one else would find it by accident, and then he collected his cloak from the peg and the raven from his perch in the hall and slipped out into the night.

“Warwickshire,” he repeated aloud as they rode out the gate. “Castle Bromwich and Park Hall.”

And then he turned west, in search of a patch of woods deep enough for him and Ari to face the daily torture that was dawn.