What the Heart Sees Read Online Free

dazzling and stunning to eyes accustomed to seeing only wooden bowls and using whittled sticks for spoons. There were sword handles and daggers encrusted with jewels, church plates likely hidden here for safekeeping, alongside gold and silver crucifixes.
    The jeweller’s hands were wrinkled with age, and thick around the knuckles. His fingers were blackened by years of working with silver and lead, and were moving slowly, rhythmically as he applied a polishing cloth to the object he held in his palm.
    “Bring yourself closer, child. I do not often have the pleasure of company.”
    “I am looking for the armory,” she said, staying where she was just inside the doorway.
    “Ah yes. I hear the defenses are holding well. The regent’s taxman is not having so easy a time of it as he had hoped.”
    “Lord Purefoy has vowed to keep the gates closed until it snows in hell.”
    The old man chuckled. “Yes, he would say that. Just as his father would have done.”
    Cassie’s interest was roused despite her need to find the armory and leave this creepsome place. Sir Thomas’s father had died before she and her father had come to settle at Belfontaine, but she’d heard tales of his exploits with the old king, Henry Secund. He had been the king’s champion, and—though it was only whispered as a rumor—lover to Queen Eleanor for most of the fifteen years she had been imprisoned by her husband.
    “You knew the old master?”
    The hooded figure chuckled again. “Aye, and his father before him. And his. I crossed the Channel with William the Norman , thinking to return home once he had conquered this strange, savage land. But alas I was needed here and stayed.”
    “The Conqueror William?” Her eyebrow inched upward as she felt an imaginary tug on her leg. “You must be very old then.” Old and addled , she thought.
    “Oh indeed. Verily I am called ancient by all who know me.”
    “And who knows you? I, for one, have never seen you before and I have lived in the village these past ten years or more.”
    His shoulders shrugged within the cowl. “I live in the forest and come and go without much notice.”
    “Even if that is so, the gates have been closed and barred these past two weeks.”
    “Ah, but I have my own gate. There.” He pointed a gnarled finger at a niche in the wall, a niche that proved to be, once she lifted her lantern to chase away the shadows, a doorway of sorts, waist high and shaped much like a mouse-hole.
    “Do the guards know you come and go at will?”
    “Old Ugly-Nose used to know. I made a trinket for his wife so he would keep his tongue between his teeth.”
    He still had not looked up or turned around. Cassie inched closer and, detecting her curiosity, he lifted the cloth and tipped his hand to the light. Seeing what he held, what he was so intent on polishing, the breath caught in her throat. Jewels flashed and silver flared, for nestled in his palm was a large, silver pendant. The heart of it was an oval-shaped mirror, polished so finely that the reflection was almost as pure as that from glass or water. Surrounding it were vines made from silver filigree; set in the vines were emeralds representing leaves, and cabochon diamonds representing flowers.
    “God’s truth,” she said in a hushed voice. “It is beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.”
    “Truly?”
    “Truly,” she said. “I swear it.”
    He turned then and smiled up at her. His face was as wizened as his hands, the skin thin as parchment and wrinkled like berries left too long out in the sun. It was his eyes that caused her mouth to drop open, however. They were completely white, coated with a thick, milky caul that rendered him completely sightless. How he “saw” enough to create such a beautiful jewel was far beyond her knowledge.
    “Would you like to hold it?”
    “Me?” She took a step back at the thought. Once, when very young, she had held a silver coin until her father had smacked it out of her hand.
    “Of course