What the Heart Sees Read Free Page A

place.”
    “Perhaps not, but he still outnumbers us ten to one and even the strongest of castles can eventually be undermined.”
    Realizing there was a third pair of ears privy to their conversation, Sir Thomas turned to Cassie. “We need more of these arrows. How fast can your father make them?”
    Hoping for some small crumb of praise for her marksmanship, Cassie held back her disappointment. “He is only one man, my lord. Perhaps if he had help—?”
    “Go to him. Tell him he will have all the help he needs. The castle armory will be at his disposal. As well, the castellan keeps a ready supply of iron and steel plate in the storage rooms below the keep. He will be told to provide your father with anything he needs.”
    “Yes, my lord.”
    She turned to go but a further command halted her.
    “When you have done this, join me in the great hall. You will take a meal with me that I might praise you properly for your skill at...plucking acorns.”
    Cassie felt a surge of pride course through her veins. “Yes, my lord.”
    “Oh...and when you are speaking to the castellan, tell him to arrange for a bath and some clean garments. I find myself with an appetite for the first time in many weeks and I’ll not be off-put by dirty fingers and the smell of an overfilled slops pail.”

CHAPTER TWO
     
    “A courteous way to say: you stink like a dung heap,” she muttered to herself.
    She had found her father working in the small smithy located against the wall of the inner bailey. He looked like a Moor, covered head to toe in black soot, but he grinned through the grime and sweat when he heard how the lord of the castle had singled out his daughter, how she had proved her skill, and how, now, with men put to the hammering and cutting, he would be able to make a hundred arrows an hour rather than half a dozen.
    With neither page nor lackey immediately at hand, he sent her on her way to the vast storage rooms that lay beneath the castle keep.
    “As many dorés of iron as you can carry,” he commanded. “Any hammered sheets if possible as well. ‘Twould save time in the forge if the iron has been tempered once already.”
    Armed with two large canvas sacks and a horn-sided lantern, Cassie found the covered passage that followed the outer wall of the main keep. She went down a narrow, twisting staircase that uncoiled to the gloomy, cavernous undercroft and had to shake away visions of ghosts and huge salivating creatures. Tallow candles were set in black cressets mounted on every other stone arch, but the light they produced was weak and flickered in the drafty passage. Some had even blown out, which made for long gaps between leaving one pool of dim light and hastening to the next.
    The outer wall glistened with dampness and smelled of mold and dankness. The low ceiling was vaulted to carry the tremendous weight of the castle walls and while she was not considered tall for a girl, Cassie was still forced to duck in places to avoid scraping her head on one of the thicker arched supports. The air was cold, her skin was clammy. Her clothes were already damp from the morning dew and drizzle, so the chill struck clear through to the bone.
    There were so many storage rooms and niches carved into the stone base, she hoped she had not gone in the wrong direction after descending the spiral staircase. The air was close; she had the sensation of the walls pressing in on her, and she imagined shadowy figures lurking behind each archway. She had no idea where the donjons were—not that she even wanted to know such a thing—but she knew they must be down here somewhere too, and again her mind flared with images of chained prisoners, gaunt from starvation, pale as wraiths.
    A shudder quickened her footsteps. She came to the end of a wide passage, as her father said she would, and found the narrow door that led to yet another vaulted chamber. Normally there would have been a pair of guards placed on the door, and indeed she saw a table