Chapter 7
Marcus stood quickly, glancing aroundthe small room and then looking back at the straw mattress again. Empty. Even her sheath and belt were gone. How had she moved him from the door and slipped out? It didn’t matter. He opened the door and hurried down the stairs. Had she run? If he were in her position, he would have. Anger simmered in his veins.
She had the book and her sword.
The smithy was dark. The continuous rumble of the torrential downpour sounded on the roof. Had she left the smithy in this weather? He started for the exit when he heard a muted conversation from behind the opposite doorway leading to Gareth’s chambers. He paused, listening. Two people were speaking, but he couldn’t make out the words. He crossed the smithy and knocked on the door before swinging it open.
Gareth and Sage looked up as he opened the door. They sat across from each other at a wooden table, a bowl of pottage before each of them. Sage’s bowl was pushed aside and empty. She held the book flat before her, the parchment next to it, the quill in her hand.
Marcus’s hot gaze swung to Gareth in silent accusation.
“Poor girl was hungry,” Gareth explained. “Are ya starving her?”
Marcus shifted his gaze to Sage. She had likely started to make a run for it, but Gareth had seen her. Marcus was sure that was what had happened exactly. His eyes narrowed.
Sage grinned innocently.
“Ale?” Gareth asked.
Marcus nodded and sat beside Sage. His gaze scanned the parchment as Gareth stood to retrieve a flask of ale from a nearby bench.
“Gareth was glad you untied me,” Sage commented. She placed her hand flat on the parchment. “He said it was unmanly to tie a woman.”
Marcus ignored the insult. “He doesn’t know you as I do.” It was almost as if she was hiding the document from his view. “Did you need your sword to get food?”
She grinned a half-smile. “You never know who you might run into.”
Marcus grunted in disbelief. His stare moved to the parchment. “Any luck?”
Sage shrugged. “That depends on what you mean by ‘luck.’”
He couldn’t see much beneath her splayed fingers. “Then I shall be more precise in my wording. Have you decoded any words?”
Sage looked down at the text and then at the book. “No,” she finally admitted.
Her movement was strange. It was clear she didn’t want him to see the parchment. His stare moved over what he could see of the page, what her hand was not covering. None of the words made any sense.
She quickly folded the document in half and tucked it inside the book.
She didn’t want him to see what she was doing. His gaze slowly, suspiciously, shifted to her eyes.
Sage glanced at the mug of ale before her. She picked it up and drank deeply.
What was she hiding?
Sage set the pottery mug down and pretended to study the book. “It’s difficult because I am guessing.”
He stared hard at her.
She kept her gaze on the book, furrowing her brow as if in thought. She felt his intense gaze on her, and she mentally told herself not to panic. Even when Gareth gave Marcus the flask, he didn’t take his stare from her. Had he figured out what she was doing? Her father had told her never to underestimate anyone. She ran a finger along the letters in the first line of the book. She wasn’t even close to deciphering the words.
That was not what she was doing.
She was copying the book.
She had spent the entire night working on it, refusing to sleep. She had carefully copied each letter, each sentence. That way, she could leave Marcus with the book and still have a copy of it. He would not come after her when she escaped. Or so she hoped.
The boy, Thomas, had been incredibly helpful, securing three extra pieces of parchment. The copy of the book took up the front and backside of one-and-a-half pages. On the second page, she had listed the alphabet, as she had seen Brother Nicolas do. Next to theG, she wrote anA. Just as she and Brother Nicolas had deciphered. Below the alphabet, she wrote the first line and replaced all theG’s withA’s. But she had not even begun to decipher any of the words. She wanted to make certain she had a copy of the book first.
