Chapter 17.3

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Peter and I waited until Charles came in, saddle bags in hand. Treble slipped in behind him, then darted away to the dining hall.

I lifted my hands and signed slowly, "What passed between you and Treble, out there in the stables?"

Peter started to translate, but I gestured for him to be silent.

"I was just telling him about the rats." Charles set down his bags. "The ones at Rockridge that ate a horse and didn’t even leave the bones behind. Five feet long they were, and black as evil..."

I cut him off with curt gestures. "I saw you hand him a letter."

Charles shrugged, then came very close to me. He spoke in a low voice. "As we came through the square, a young woman caught my eye, and asked me to deliver a note to Treble. I said I would, if she would go to the Warlocker’s shop and deliver a message for me."

I raised my eyebrows in question.

"To a certain lady, that we have arrived at the Bardhall, and my sword is at her service. And when Treble seemed unhappy to get her note, I told him about the rats to cheer him up."

Was this the Warlocker’s assistant that Master Iving had mentioned? "What was she like, the woman who gave you the note?"

Charles looked off into the distance and smiled. "Very beautiful – and charming. Black hair in a braid to her waist, with ribbons and greenery woven in. Skin like milk, lips like plums. And the greenest eyes I have ever seen. Odd, though – they seemed to flecked with silver."

I shivered. The mortal children of Oberon all had green eyes flecked with silver. This would be quite a dangerous woman, indeed – not just beautiful enough to wrap men’s hearts in their handkerchiefs, but a daughter of a god. And she wished to control a Bard.

Treble was safer here, as a prisoner of the Bardhall. And if there was any truth to the rumor that his father was a wizard, then the world was safer as well.