After the Storm (31 page)

He was glad of that. He knew he'd do anything he had to to keep Isabeau from harm, but it would be better if they didn't have to fight their way out of the keep.

The wound in his upper arm burned like fire from the brief encounter with Rolf.

"All right," he said as they backed toward the stairs.

After they'd carefully maneuvered their way around many sleeping bodies to reach the hall door she asked, "Where do we go now? Back to Lilydrake?"

He grabbed hard onto her wrist to keep her from fleeing. "We return to the forest. Where I can keep you."

Marj and Reynard rode through Blackchurch village a little after dawn. It was a small place, just a knot of wattle and daub huts set between a church and a timber-walled manor house. The place had a look of desertion and death about it.

They didn't pause to ask questions in the village, but rode on to Blackchurch Keep. A group of nuns, one leading a donkey, came through the open gate as they approached. The women passed them without a glance. The sisters walked in an orderly row, heads bowed. Pilgrims on their way to Canterbury, Marj assumed, and turned her attention back to Reynard.

Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

"Think we'll learn anything here?"

"I have no idea. Hopefully we'll find out that the fool girl went back to Lilydrake."

They had heard from a passing pilgrim that Rolf's hunt for his betrothed was the talk of the forest. Apparently, Rolf had not had sense enough to leave the search to her and Reynard, and Libby had led him a merry chase.

She gave a sardonic laugh at Reynard's comment. "We aren't going to be that lucky."

Reynard laughed as well. He looked down at the guard by the gate. "Lady Isabeau of Lilydrake?" he asked.

The man, a grizzled warrior, blanched at the name. "By the saints, not another one looking for the wench?"

Reynard leaned forward slightly to rest his forearm on his saddlebow. "Another one?"

The guard looked the lean and dangerous Reynard over from the iron-shod hooves of his mount to the graying hair on his head. The man was in a state of near panic. "I know not how they came to escape, my lord. I was not involved."

Reynard looked at her. "It seems she was here, Lady Marjorie. Come and gone and left chaos in her wake."

Which sounded just like Libby Wolfe, Marj thought. "Was she with Bastien of Bale?" she asked the guard. He gave a nervous nod. "Which way did they go?"

"I know not. It was night. I wasn't on the gate. Don't tell Lord Rolf!"

Reynard frowned in annoyance. "Is Lord Rolf within?"

"Aye. Though they say he'll recover."

Reynard glanced at her again. "Do we really want to know?"

Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

She shook her head. "I don't see any reason why we should talk to Rolf."

"I think we better continue to follow the trail of damage elsewhere."

As they turned their horses a pair of dogs came running up the road. The animals bounded enthusiastically forward, tongues lolling. They looked for all the world as if they were having a wonderful time at whatever they were doing. Before riding on, Marj paused to watch the hounds as they sniffed the ground around the gate. The large brown, black and white deerhounds were familiar.

"Luke and Leia," she said.

"Lady Isabeau's pets," Reynard said. "Do you think they're looking for her?"

The hounds circled the area around the gate for a few moments, then they looked at each other and took off once more. Marj watched the dogs head across a nearby field as they ran away from Blackchurch.

They'd almost disappeared into Blean Forest when Reynard said, "I think we'd better follow the dogs."

They'd walked hand in hand in silence for a very long time. Long enough for the sun to rise at their backs. The path they took wound deeper and deeper into the forest. The day was growing hot, and a great many bugs had been born since she'd first run off into the forest with Sebastian. They had discovered that she tasted delicious. Libby wasn't sure what time it was but weariness was about to overcome her. She stopped abruptly. He glared from under his heavy brows at her, but he didn't object when she sat down in the bracken. He stood over her and looked around restlessly.

She knew that Sebastian didn't want to stop, that he didn't want to talk. She didn't know what he did want. Just to be free of danger, maybe. She didn't blame him.

They needed peace and privacy. They needed to break the silence.

The first words she said were, "He killed Mark."

Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

His frown deepened. "Who?"

"Mark Warin." She waved her hand. "Warin of someplace, you called him."

"Warin of Flaye. Who killed him?"

Bastien tried not to show shock that his link to Old Sikes was dead. His plan had been to find Sikes's encampment. It would have been easier with Warin as a guide. He and Isabeau had been heading west. Warin had always come from the west on his visits, and he'd always eluded Bastien's best tracker when he left.

"Rolf killed him." She sighed. "Maybe I shouldn't judge him too harshly. He thought he was executing a robber, someone who had no protection under the law. No, any bully with a sword and a title is the law in this place."

Bastien dropped down to sit beside her. "At least we agree on that point, lady."

She took his hand, twining their fingers together, brown and pale. She had large hands, strong hands. His flesh remembered the feel of them as they'd nursed him, caressed him, pushed him off a wall. He turned her palm up and kissed it.

"I'm no lady, Sebastian," she said on a caught breath as his lips brushed across her skin. "Stop that. We have to talk."

"You touched me first."

"I wasn't trying to seduce you."

He raised his eyebrows. "No?"

"No."

"Pity."

"Well, maybe. A little."

"Thought so." He reached for her.

She wagged a finger under his nose before he could take her in his arms. "Stay."

Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

He licked her finger, and she laughed. It sounded delightful.

He wondered why he had a constant urge to tease her. Not just to tease her, but to trade banter that would sound like a bickering argument to anyone listening to them. Why did it seem so right? So familiar?

After a few moments of silence she grew serious again. "I'm sorry about Warin."

"So am I.I needed him."

"We needed him. We needed to know what he knew."

"That's so. Sikes's camp is well hidden."

"I wasn't talking about Sikes. Or maybe I was." Libby took her hand out of Bas's grip. His dark expression told her he expected an explanation. She didn't know how to start. Or if she even should. The logical thing to do was to get him back to Lilydrake and from there to the Downs timegate. She needed to get him home and to proper treatment.

The trouble was, she wasn't sure helping the man she loved was the top priority right now. She didn't know if they could just pack up and leave. Leaving might be more dangerous than breaking all the rules about not interacting with the locals. There were so many unanswered questions about the accident—no, the sabotage. Questions Warin might have answered. Questions Sebastian might even have answers to. She was scared his answers might be ones she didn't want to hear. She felt compelled to find out what she could.

"Why was Warin with Sikes? Why weren't you with Sikes?"

He supposed he should be getting used to her odd questions and disturbing statements. He didn't mind answering these questions. If only to show her that perhaps he wasn't as bad as some of the other wolvesheads in Blean. "How would I know why the man threw in his lot with the murderous old brigand? I only know that I wanted no part of the other band and their black deeds. I trusted Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

Cynric's warning never to trust Sikes, no matter how much wine Warin poured down me on his visits."

"Warin's—visits?" She got to her knees. For a moment he thought she was going to grab him by the shoulders and shake him like a ferret shook a rat.

"What did he want? What did you talk about? Physics? Temporal field theory?"

Bastien grew dizzy at the sound of the words. Familiar words. He knew what they meant, and the disconnected knowledge made his head hurt. Such words were out of place in this primitive time. As out of place as he was. But if he was out of place where—?

He closed his eyes to block out the images of trees and sky that whirled around him. To block out the image of Isabeau's worried face. But with his eyes closed he could still see her, and she looked like his wife.

She wouldn't leave him in his confused world. Her voice was as much a lifeline as it was a goad when she said, "Talk to me about it. Talk to me about Warin.

What did he want from you?"

"To join—"

"Yeah, but
why
?"

Bastien opened his eyes. "Numbers. When we drank his wine numbers danced in my mind. Numbers and mad philosophy. He always wanted to talk numbers and

—theories." Bastien held his hands to his temples. "So many questions."

Isabeau jumped to her feet, she radiated fury like a fire did heat. "He drugged you, didn't he? I bet the bastard drugged you and then interrogated you about the prototype. He didn't lose his memory at all, did he? But he still didn't know how to get your time machine to work."

"Time machine?" More words that sounded so familiar they hurt. They had something to do with Isabeau's wizard, he thought.

Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

Libby thought maybe she'd gone too far, said too much. Anger frequently made her reckless. "I shouldn't be telling you these things. Not like this."

Bastien was furious at her sudden reluctance, so he grabbed a handful of her heavy skirts and pulled her down beside him. With his face close to hers he said,

"You will tell me everything. And you will tell me now."

"I don't want to hurt you."

His head was pounding, but he didn't care. "Stop trying to protect me."

Libby knew she hadn't handled this right from the beginning. From the first all she'd wanted to do was help him. Even when she'd thought he was an outlaw who'd come to rob Lilydrake she'd wanted to help him get his memory back. His welfare had been more important than any rule book even before she remembered who he was. She'd struck out on a reckless quest to save him and hadn't done one thing right. She couldn't be circumspect, she couldn't be subtle.

All she was any good at was telling the truth. She'd never done anything but tell Sebastian the truth. She couldn't stop now. She closed her eyes for a moment and prayed that she wasn't going to completely mess up his head.

When she opened them she met his angry, haunted gaze. "I'll tell you anything you want to know."

What to ask first? He turned away from her for a moment. He looked up at the sky, blue for now but with a cloud bank in the east promising rain later. What should he ask her? About them? About how she came to be his wife? No, he couldn't look at that subject directly. Not yet. He couldn't quite grasp the truth of it. What he could grasp was the instinctive knowledge that Isabeau irrevocably belonged to him. He knew that any effort to look past instinct would bring down a moun-tain of pain, and past the pain would be a country where he wouldn't want to face himself.

Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

Maybe it would be enough if he lay down with her and took and gave comfort to her with his body. It would be so much easier just to mindlessly claim a mate, do anything to defend her, and leave off thinking forever. Curiosity wouldn't let him take such an easy road, however.

"Tell me about me." he said. He ran a hand down the front of his torn, stained tunic. "How did I come to be like this if I'm such a great wizard?"

She sucked in a great, deep breath between her teeth. "Your name is Sebastian Bailey."

"You've told me that before."

"But do you believe it?"

He shrugged, which reminded him of his injury. "I might as well believe you since you believe it so fervently. Who is Sebastian Bailey?"

Libby could think of a hundred answers to that question, some of them new and startling, for she'd seen some very new sides of him lately. She stuck with the facts. "You'll be born in the early twenty-first century, in Canada, an only child, a child prodigy at that. Everyone calls you Bas, just like almost everyone calls me Libby. You've been working for Time Search for about five years. My dad grabbed you out of a postdoctoral program he was supervising and put you to work. He says—though not in your hearing— that you're smarter than he is."

She ducked her head, then smiled up at him from under lowered lashes.

"Actually, we Wolfes have made a habit of grabbing you. I knew I wanted you the first moment I saw you."

It wasn't easy, but he waved away the longing to skim his hands down her body while he invited her to go ahead and grab him. He needed to know about himself. But once again curiosity got the better of him, for he needed to know about them more. "When was it, then, and where? This first moment you saw Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

me?"

"In Mongolia," she answered. "I was standing outside a yurt waiting for a repairman. And—"

And the forest was swept from his sight. The imperfect, mangled, imaginary world he'd fought to survive in swirled around him like a cloud of choking smoke. Foul things reared up from the bottom of his mind. And things not so dark as well. Among the murky, frightening things a door opened and spilled out light. He ran toward it. Ran for his life.

If she said more he didn't hear it because of the sudden memory superimposed over everything else.

So that's Wolfe's daughter, he thought as he appeared behind her. The transfer
had been a little rough, which didn't add to his annoyance at the Director of
Time Search ordering him to personally see to the equipment malfunction. He
figured Wolfe was just being overprotective of his little girl.

The landscape was stark, grassland beneath an endless sky. The only thing in it
was the white felt tent and the dark-haired woman looking at it.