“What is it?”
“I’d forgotten about the horse. I can walk back—”
“No time.” Henry was about to lift her and set her on the saddle, when the lad who’d been watching Gawain stepped forward and held out a slip of paper. “What’s this?” Henry asked.
“An old woman stopped and asked if this was your horse, Your Grace,” the boy said. “When I answered it was, she said to give this to you.”
Curious now, Henry opened the yellowed slip of paper.
“Procure petal of flower, dash of dust of thefae.
Combine now in this goblet, please if youmay.
Hear me now, great goddess of good andlight.
Take mercy on these children. Ease theirplight.
Lose they may all they holddear,
But open a path to clean thesmear.
If true love they find, they may return to thestart.
Changed, they may offera
Henry looked up at the lad. “Where’s the rest of it?”
“That’s all I was given, Your Grace.”
Henry shook the scrap of paper. “But the words are cut off. There’s more.”
“I don’t know, Your Grace.” The lad’s eyes were large and frightened.
“Carlisle, what is it?” Katie asked.
“Where is the woman now?” Henry demanded of the lad. “Which way did she go?”
“I’m not sure.” The boy looked frantically left, then right. “Maybe that way?”
“What was her name? Had you seen her before?”
“Never, Your Grace. I thought she was with you. She had a strange accent.”
Henry stilled. “Strange how?”
The boy shrugged. “She didn’t sound like she was from here. She sounded a little like one of them Highlanders who came through once.”
“She was Scottish.” Henry sat down, clutching the paper in his hands. Katie was instantly beside him, her hand on his forehead.
“You’ve gone very pale, Carlisle. Boy, fetch him a brandy. Quickly.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking and your skin is clammy. What is on that paper?”
Henry handed it to her without thinking. He’d wanted to believe the witch he saw in the fire at White’s had been an illusion or a figment of his imagination. But the note was no trick of the mind. It was real.
The curse was real.
