The Irish Warrior Read Online Free Page B

not yours?”
    Her smile collapsed entirely. “No, my lord.”
    Rardove said nothing.
    â€œI deal in wool.”
    â€œOh, I am interested in your wool, Senna. Quite. Exceedingly.”
    No sense of relief followed these softly spoken words. Quite the opposite: a shiver walked down her spine. So, he was a harrier, was he? One who preyed on smaller creatures. She had had ample experience with such men. Squaring her shoulders, she said firmly, “Well good, my lord. Just so we understand, then. I deal in wool. Not dyes.”
    â€œThat is too bad, Senna. For you.”
    â€œMy lord?”
    â€œI need a dye-witch.”

Chapter 4
    The shiver became a cold chill down Senna’s spine. ‘Dye-witch,’ people had said for a thousand years, as a way to insult. Or, depending on the whims of the local parish or lord, as a way to get a person killed. But, for those who knew such things, ‘dye-witch’ was a term of respect bordering on awe.
    Senna so desperately wished she was not one of the ones who ‘knew such things.’
    â€œOh, dear, my lord,” she said briskly, “I believe there has been a misunderstanding. I am here about the wool.” She extended the account ledger in her arm.
    His gaze lowered briefly, then came back up. “There is no misunderstanding, Mistress de Valery. I have the Wishmé mollusks. I need the dye they create.”
    â€œOh, my lord, the Wishmés are legend. Only legends.” Ones she recalled her mother telling her by firelight. “Nothing about them is true—”
    â€œThey are real, Senna. Your mother’s treatise clearly outlines that.”
    She practically recoiled. “My mother’s treatise? ”
    Her mother? What did Rardove know of her mother? And what did her mother know of treatises? She’d known nothing but immoderation. Overweening fervor. Passion. She left the family because of it, ran away when Senna was five. Left Senna in charge of a one-year-old brother and a father descending into the vortex of heartbreak and gambling that had been slowly killing him all the years since.
    She’d left it all to Senna and never come back.
    Her mother knew nothing of documents, nothing about managing things. Corraling and harnessing the frightening forces of the world. She knew only about running away. And she certainly knew nothing about documents .
    That was Senna’s realm.
    â€œAnd Senna?”
    She jerked her attention back.
    â€œThe Wishmés are real. They are valuable. And I need you to make them into a dye for me.”
    She clutched the account ledger to her chest, feeble armor. She could not make dyes. They could offer her chests of gold that would save the business forty times over, and she would still not be able to dye. She’d spent her life avoiding it.
    The question was: what would the stranger before her do when he understood that?
    At the moment, he was simply watching her, but with a hawklike intensity that did not bode well for creatures smaller than he. Senna figured she would come to his chin. In slippers.
    â€œHave you a suggestion on how to proceed, Senna?” His voice was calm, as if they were discussing the menu for the evening meal. Perhaps…her.
    She wiped her free hand on her skirt. ’Twas time to prove herself reasonable enough not to be splayed and boiled as a first course.
    â€œHave you attempted dog whelk? Or mayhap woad. Its colors are deep and rich, well suited to the fibers. Surely it can produce what you are looking for.”
    By the look on his face, Rardove did not agree.
    â€œSir, ’tisn’t possible for any person with a will to craft the Wishmé dyes. Only a very certain few can—according to legend,” she added hurriedly, then tacked on, even more hurriedly, “which I know only as a result of being in an associated business, you understand, and hearing such things. But even if I wished to dye, I could not do it, just