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Still he waited, listening.
After a few minutes, as he’d sensed it would, a brisk wind picked up again, blowing them safely away from the rock.
They docked in the port of Barfleur a few minutes later; Roland confidently told Terric, “Your sister’s journey has begun.”
His cousin frowned. “How can you know that?”
Roland shrugged, not confident Terric would understand. “I feel her fear.”
Terric clenched his jaw and looked out at the treacherous rock. “It’s hard to understand how the White Ship could have struck Quilleboeuf all those years ago. It’s plain to see.”
“Well, by all accounts, the captain and most of the people on board were drunk. And, don’t forget, it was past midnight.”
“Still,” Terric replied. “I suppose some people can see and feel things others cannot.”
* * *
Like every noble English family, the de Quinceys had lost loved ones in the White Ship disaster, young people in the prime of their lives. No Englishman could sail by Quilleboeuf and not say a silent prayer for the dead. Terric half-expected to hear the cries of the desperate victims still echoing faintly across the water.
An unchristian thought intruded. Why couldn’t a similar catastrophe befall the heinous King John? It was unlikely anyone would lament his death, but the tyrant seemed invincible.
Terric pondered Roland’s words. Was it possible to sense things about a person who was far away? In Roland’s case, he’d never even met Adelina. Terric and his sister were as close as siblings could be, but he had no gut feeling about what was happening to her.
Was Roland simply guessing, given the circumstances, or did he fancy himself in love with Adelina?
Terric had courted women and been fond of a number of them, but he couldn’t say he cared enough to somehow sense where they were and what they were doing.
But then he’d never been in love, and, as far as he knew, neither had Adelina. She didn’t know he’d been spared from a gruesome death by Roland de Montbryce, so it wasn’t possible for her to have feelings for him. His sister might instead simply feel beholden to Roland if the rescue as successful.
