Chapter 3.

NORA HAD PLENTY of help once she arrived. Ben’s staff appeared as soon as they spotted her, Ben appearing next, hurrying out the door.

Nora smiled as she dismounted and ran to him. He was a portly man, balding on top of his head, and the rest of his long gray hair hung to his shoulders. He rarely wore a wig, even at official functions. He dressed in the typical Colonial garb right down to his buckled shoes, but didn’t don a frock coat, despite the chill in the air. Nora herself was near frozen to the bone without the benefit of her cloak.

“Nora, my dear!” Ben called. “Thank goodness you are alive and well.”

Hugging Ben tight, she lingered in his arms. He remind-ed her of her grandfather, who had been gone a long time now. She hoped she wouldn’t be alone forever, but with each passing decade, she often wondered if she’d ever find the others—if she was stuck with this stone and life on the run while the others were tucked safely away. Were they hunted, as well? Were they together?

“I feared Rogan had caught you.” Ben said, pulling away.

“He did. Fortune smiled upon me, and I was able to escape,” she said, rubbing her shoulders with her iced hands in an attempt to create some friction.

“Captured? Good Lord, my dear! Was it indeed Rogan?” Ben asked. “Did you see him?”

“It was his men,” Nora nodded. “His lieutenant was there. I didn’t see him myself, but he must have been there giv-ing orders.”

Ben turned to watch the servants slowly remove the man from his horse. “Who is this you brought us?”

“I don’t know his name.” Nora looked to her uncon-scious companion and shook her head. “He saved me in the woods when Rogan’s men chased me down.”

“The servants will see to him,” Ben said. He turned and brought her into the house and right to the large stone fireplace where a fire blazed. He called for a blanket and hot water bottle for her and put her in a chair in front of the hearth.

“I escaped and was on my way back here. I was being pursued and the man I brought back saved me in the forest, but he was injured in the fight. Ben, he killed four men.”

“Four?” Ben asked. He looked thoughtful but didn’t give voice to what he may have been thinking.

“Yes,” Nora said, “easily, too, but he was injured by the last man. He has a fairly bad shoulder wound.”

“Betsy will clean it,” Ben said, “then we will see to its care.”

Nora nodded and thanked the servant who brought her warm coffee. Wrapped in a blanket before the fire with some-thing to warm her insides, she began to thaw. As she regained feeling in her toes and fingers, they stung with the return of the blood flow.

“There is another pressing issue we must now discuss,” Ben began.

“I know; I cannot stay any longer,” Nora said. “Now that Rogan knows I am in the area, I cannot endanger you and your family.”

“We’ve discussed different options, but you’ve made no firm decisions.”

“I’ll need time to gather supplies for the trip. My personal belongings remain ready to leave, but I’d like some food and soaps, herbs. Rogan knows I am in the general area, but it will take him time to track me. He couldn’t possibly know where I went after entering the forest, only a general idea. For all he knows, I went into Philadelphia.”

“Which will make going there difficult now. I still believe you need to go back to England—back to where it all be-gan. There are answers there. They could be in your father’s li-brary, or it could be you’ll find the others there. Just because you left for the Colonies does not mean the others did. I know you are looking for your Warrior, my dear, but the Scholar, Healer, and Fox are just as important.”

“I can’t leave the Colonies until the Warrior is revealed. Fox said I would meet him here and the timing is right,” Nora insisted. “Then I can consider going back. The prophecy—”

“He only said you’d meet him in the Colonies,” Ben re-minded her. “He said you’d meet the Warrior ten years after you met me. He did not specify you’d meet him in the Philadelphia area.”

Nora sighed, shook her head, and looked away. “It is so frustrating at times. I get so discouraged that I’m afraid to do anything at all. I look for him now in every strange man I come across. Is he the one? The one to change everything?”

“Perhaps I will escort you to Boston. You can take a ship from there and return to Europe. I would be uncomfortable with you traveling alone now that we know Rogan is in the area.”

Nora opened her mouth to remind him of her capabilities. She was not without her survival skills, and they’d served her well this long. Ben merely held up a hand to stave off her comments. “Tell me about your encounter with this man up-stairs.”

Nora watched him pace the room slowly as she described everything that happened from the time the dark-haired stranger felled her first accoster until the time she returned home. Ben was a man that studied details and looked at situations from all angles. She had learned patience from him, a virtue she wouldn’t have said she possessed before meeting him.

She had learned other things from him as well. He had a passion for learning. He was an inventor, an alchemist, a printer, a statesman. He could predict the weather and wrote about it. He was a brilliant man, a forward thinker. She respected his opinion greatly. Any advice he offered would be educated and based on her best interests.

“Could he be the one?” Ben asked, stopping and turning to her.

Nora shrugged. “He has the skill, and he was heavily armed. But I’ve met fighters before. It will take more than a for-est brawl to convince me.”

“The timing is right,” Ben said. “It has been ten years since you found me. He should be showing himself any time now, and this was a grand introduction.”

“I told you what the prophecy said,” Nora said, shaking her head. “I can’t afford to be wrong, not when the price is so high. I think, perhaps, the Warrior may be a soldier. He could be militia or British.”

“I agree,” Ben said. Nora successfully halted her impending eye-roll. Ben often argued the other side so she could con-sider all the possibilities, so his quick agreement was surprising. “Perhaps if his injury is not too great, he can offer temporary protection. You’ll need someone with you when you leave if I am not traveling with you.”

“If he survives.”

“What happened with Rogan’s men?” Ben asked. “How did you come to be taken, and how did you escape? Were you with him long?”

“I was on my way home from Mr. Jefferson’s in Virginia when I was captured. I don’t believe Rogan is in Pennsylvania. I believe him to be in Virginia, though I can’t be totally sure. I was only two days into the journey when I was ambushed. They took the stone from me and left me in the forest. I had to go after it, which was when I was captured.

His current holding, of course, is a very grand manor indeed. I was surprised when I was given an opulent chamber instead of some sort of basement cell. After ten years, I don’t know how he finally tracked me down to this area or even the Colonies themselves. I didn’t see him, personally, thank God, just his henchmen, but they con-firmed they worked for him. I managed to escape after locating the stone, which is when the pursuit began again.”

“That was very foolish,” Ben chided.

“I couldn’t let him have it, I’ve protected it all this time. Ben, I’m its Guardian. I must always go after it.”

“I meant it was foolish to go alone,” Ben said, raising his hand in peace. “You have spent ten years building a network of spies and associates. You say you know Rogan well, but you cling to notions that he is redeemable. He is not, my dear. Do not take more risks like that.”

Nora smiled sadly at Ben and looked back into the fire, promising nothing. Ben was only concerned about her. He had become like a father to her, and she sorely missed her own father. Ben was everything her father was once—what he should have been.

Her thoughts turned back to her ever present worry. The timing was right for her Warrior to reveal himself. Until these last months, she had only ever really thought of him in the abstract. According to Fox’s prophecy, she wouldn’t meet the Warrior until 1773, and it was November of that year now. She hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the man and was beginning to think she might have missed him. Perhaps Ben was right. It could be that she would meet him in her travels to Boston. But she simply would not leave the Colonies without the man.