Chapter 8 #2
Turning, Tilly dropped the small disc into her hand and looked up at her with her sharp, gray eyes. “Sure you don’t want one to keep a babe from planting?”
“You know I’ve got no need for that.”
Tilly raised her eyebrows. “You’re almost twenty years old, Rowan. It’s past time you had some fun. I’m disappointed in you. You’ve been tenderly nursing a handsome, injured soldier for two nights. It’s a recipe for romance.”
Rowan scoffed. “Two parts blood, one part urine? He vomited on me twice.”
“Pretty girl like you? He’s probably half in love with you already. It’s promising that you’re already sharing bodily fluids.”
She wasn’t even going to think about what Tilly was suggesting. “He’s been unconscious since I dragged him out of the woods.”
Tilly rolled her eyes. “There aren’t many young men who come through here. It wouldn’t hurt for you to flutter your eyelashes at him when he wakes up.”
“He’s a witch hunter.” And even though Tilly didn’t know the whole story about what had happened in Jarn—didn’t know that the man in her bed was the witch hunter who’d branded her mother—she knew enough to nod sympathetically.
And then she ruined it by dismissing Rowan’s objection with a wave of her hand. “Witch hunting is a paying job. Better than the army. Almost as good as the king’s guard as far as husbands go.”
Rowan choked back her response. Husband?
She’d sooner wed George. She didn’t want to tell Tilly the whole story.
She just wanted to get this done. Bring the witch hunter George so he could send for reinforcements.
Get him on his feet again and out of her house.
Then figure out what she was going to do if he couldn’t get rid of whatever was hiding out there in the woods.
Tilly went to the closed door in the back and knocked loudly three times before lifting the latch and yelling at the top of her lungs. “George, get up! Ro has a job for you.”
There was a mumbled reply and then Tilly’s voice again. “Yes, real coin. Get out here.”
Tilly came back out, pointing a gnarled finger at Rowan as she crossed the room. “You don’t belong in Toam, neither you nor your mother ever did. You should be living in the capital, wearing pretty dresses and going to balls. So what if he’s a witch hunter? He can get you out of here.”
“What witch hunter would want a branded witch for a mother-in-law?”
“One who wants to show everyone how good and merciful he is,” Tilly said immediately. “You know they love that sort of thing.”
She rolled her eyes. Casrian might be exactly that kind of self-righteous prick, all stiff and proper and rigidly devout. She remembered him being a rule follower. He was also the last person in the world she could ever want.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she said, “I’ve been meaning to ask, have you noticed anything strange about the woods lately?”
Tilly’s head snapped up. “I told you to stay out of there.”
“You know I have to go in there to hunt sometimes.”
“Stupid,” Tilly said sharply. “That’s how you end up like that boy in your bed, clawed up and left for dead, if anyone finds you at all. Just stay out of the woods. Nothing in there will bother us if we don’t bother it first.”
Rowan wasn’t sure she believed that. What she’d felt the other day…that watchful malevolence had felt so unnatural and alien. Whatever it was didn’t seem the kind of thing that would respect boundaries.
“You ever feel like the trees are trying to tell you something?”
“The trees don’t talk to me. We all have our gifts.
Your mother has her herbs and healing. I have my charms. You have the woods.
Don’t need to have your gift to tell me there’s something rotten there.
” She gave Rowan a hard look. “Don’t go saying such things to your witch hunter. That’s a good way to get branded.”
“He’s not my witch hunter, and I’m not stupid.”
Tilly grunted her opinion of that and shuffled back to the table. She scooped up another charm and shoved it at her. “Take this one too.”
Rowan looked at the disc. It had been etched with a symbol she hadn’t seen before—oval with a line crossing through it, four dots at the corners. “What’s this for?”
“Protection,” Tilly said. “It’s a ward against the evil eye, to keep it from seeing you.
Don’t let the witch hunter see it. His lot get weird about that kind of thing.
Better yet…” She pressed one gnarled finger against Rowan’s chest. “Don’t you go out hunting for a while.
See if you can get some kind of reward from the witch hunter for saving his life.
Get yourself out of here and buy yourself a new life. ”
She’d heard the same from Tilly a few times, but they both knew it wasn’t going to happen. Not until she could figure out how to take her mother with her. What kind of town would welcome a branded witch?
She smiled at the old woman. “You sound like you’re trying to get rid of me. If I go, who’s left for you to boss around?”
“I’ve got Georgie,” Tilly said unhappily.
Georgie stumbled out of his room, all six feet of him. His stained shirt was unbuttoned and his big, pale belly was hanging out of it. His hair shot out in five different directions and a patchy beard covered his face.
He scowled at her. “What the hell is it, Ro?”
“It’s easy money,” she told him, pushing away from the table. “Come back to the house with me. There’s someone there you need to meet.”
George looked skeptical, but he followed her out, which was good. There were only a handful of men in their village who were even capable of making the walk to Sulen and back in decent time, and none of them she trusted more than George. This job she needed done quickly.
The sooner she got the witch hunter out of her life the better.
The witch hunter growled as soon as she entered the house. “You were supposed to wake me.”
He was perched on the edge of the bed, her blanket thrown around his shoulders.
He wore only his small clothes and the blanket didn’t cover much.
His broad chest, muscular and dusted with golden hair, was fully on display.
The bandage needed to be changed. Wrapped around his torso, it was beginning to loosen and was stained with his sweat from the fever.
The muscles in his abdomen tensed when he caught her looking, and she snapped her gaze up to his face with a scowl.
She wasn’t ogling him. She was assessing her patient.
She was already more familiar with his body than she wanted to be.
“You needed the sleep,” she told him.
The witch hunter regarded her through narrowed eyes. She let him look his fill. One moment…
Two…
Nothing.
The bastard still didn’t recognize her.
She pulled George forward. “I found you a messenger.”
The witch hunter didn’t look impressed. She couldn’t blame him. It was an accurate assessment. George was less than impressive.
Looking around the room, she asked, “Has my mother been in?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t seen her. I just woke up.”
George rubbed his chin as he looked at the witch hunter. “Ro said you need someone to deliver a message to the church in Sulen and that it needs to be done quick. I saw your horse out back. If you’re willing to let me borrow her, I can be there and back before midday.”
She met captain’s eyes and shook her head. If he gave George the horse, there was a real possibility that George wouldn’t come back. Ever.
“I told him you’ll pay him half now, half when he gets back with a message from the priest,” she told the witch hunter and by the flicker of disgust in his eyes she could tell he caught the hint that George might not be entirely reliable.
“My horse won’t accept any other rider,” he said to George. “She’s battle trained and difficult to handle.”