Temptress by Lisa Jackson

through the great hall, where boys were adjusting the tables and benches and Alfrydd, the steward, was surveying their work with a practiced, if doubting eye.
    Near the grate, Dwynn was tending the fire, tossing in chunks of mossy oak that caused the flames to crackle and spit. His gaze followed the tiny sparks as they climbed toward the high ceiling.
    Mort, resting in the corner, gave out a soft yip as he rose to his feet and, wagging his tail, approached. Noticing the dog, Dwynn cast a glance at Morwenna and scrambled up. Nervously he rubbed the sawdust and slivers from the knees of his breeches as he turned back to the flames. “M’lady,” he said, his head hanging a bit, as if he’d been caught stealing from Cook’s larder. “I was jest . . . I mean . . . the fire . . . it needed—”
    “It’s fine, Dwynn,” she assured him, and a smile stretched from one side of his mouth to the other.
    “You like it?”
    “Yes, thank you,” she said, though her mind was elsewhere. Dwynn, satisfied, grabbed an empty basket and headed outside. Morwenna paid him little attention, as Bryanna was still demanding more information.
    Though she lowered her voice, Bryanna was flush with excitement, her eyes glowing with exhilaration. “Tell me,” she insisted. “Carrick, er, the patient, he’s unharmed?” As if realizing her words bordered on the ridiculous, she added swiftly, “I mean, no one hurt him any further.”
    “Not that we know. Nygyll is with him now.”
    “I’ll alert the sheriff, m’lady,” Alexander said, “and report back to you.”
    “Good.”
    With a tip of his head, he strode out the main door, pausing only to say something to the guard. The man listened, nodded curtly, and straightened his spine as Alexander disappeared, the door banging shut behind him.
    “What does it all mean?” Bryanna asked, tugging at Morwenna’s sleeve. “First the man is found beaten, near death, perhaps ambushed. And then while he’s unconscious, under guard in this very castle, he’s robbed!”
    “I know not,” Morwenna admitted.
    “Do you think the person or people who beat him live here ?” She gestured with one hand, indicating the entire castle.
    “I don’t even know if the ring was truly his. He could have stolen it.”
    “Why didn’t whoever attacked him and left him for dead take it then? During the fight?”
    “Mayhap he was scared off.” Looking over her sister’s shoulder, Morwenna noticed that Dwynn had returned to the fire. He now squatted near the iron dogs supporting the back log, poking at the embers and, she suspected, straining to hear every word of the conversation. From the corner of her eye Morwenna watched as he jabbed the iron poker hard at a stubborn piece of wood, his face reflecting the gold light from the flames. He seemed so childish and innocent that Morwenna doubted her assumptions about him. Why consider him calculating?
    As if he felt her eyes upon him, he slid a glance in her direction. For a heartbeat, she thought she noticed a shadow passing behind his eyes before he turned away again, his childlike demeanor restored as he stared once more at the greedy flames.
    “Maybe someone else stole the ring,” Bryanna was saying, lowering her voice to a whisper.
    “Someone else?” Morwenna repeated, steering her sister out of the great hall, away from hidden ears and prying eyes.
    “The thief!” Bryanna said in exasperation. “He could be among us even now. Any one of the servants or the merchants or even the guards could be a traitor.” As if to add conviction to her words, she lifted an eyebrow, then watched as a maid with an overflowing basket of laundry headed for the stairs.
    “You’re making more of it than there is,” Morwenna said discouragingly, all the while shepherding her sister to the stairs leading to the solar.
    But Bryanna’s eyes were bright with the mystery and excitement of the theft. That was the trouble with the girl; Bryanna rarely understood how dire