Knight's Lady, page 16
part #1 of Tenebrae Series
The birds had gone silent at his intrusion, and there was no wind to rustle the leaves. Peace filled his head, calming the noise there, and he closed his eyes to take deep breaths of it. One thing he appreciated about the training that had been forced on him was that it had given him the means to master the anger that had filled him all his life. Rage had always caused him to do stupid things, and though he knew it would never go away, now he was able to control it. Usually. He took more breaths of the sweet, calming air in this place and knew his spell would work today.
He knelt and cleared a hole in the damp, mushy leaf bed. The sticks of old deadfall made a tidy pile for a fire. Elder for the sake of seeing that which would hide itself. Especially faeries. He could have lit it with a gesture, but that was a heinous amount of power for an incidental thing he could accomplish with the flint and steel in the bag at his belt. He lit some dry leaves and spent some time rather than power encouraging the flame.
Then came the part he sometimes liked and sometimes hated. Today he hated it, for the air was cold and the fire was small. He stripped, piling his clothes and weapons to the side. Dang, it was cold! The icy air played over his skin, and goose humps rose to cover him. His balls tried to crawl up into him. He hurried to do what he'd come for, in hopes of getting hack into his clothes before too much shivering would set in. He’d been raised in Tennessee, and as far as he was concerned, weather this cold was just evil.
He took his water skin and the small scrying mirror he kept for this sort of thing from his saddlebag. No larger than a small brooch, it was a piece of glass painted black on the hack and sides. A small, woolen, drawstring pouch protected it from scratches, for the paint was fragile and would scratch off. He knelt by the fire. This would have gone faster if Morag were here, the more maucht with more people, but he looked around at the trees surrounding him and didn’t find her. It didn’t appear she was going to make a timely surprise appearance, though he was sure she would if it suited her purpose. He wondered what her purpose with him was. No telling. All he knew was that she had one. Everything she did was for a reason; sometimes it seemed her whole life must be ulterior.
The spell was neither lengthy nor complex. He simply summoned the energy from within himself and visualized the thing he wished to find, a drill he’d been made to do hundreds of times before. He’d hated the training as much as he’d hated learning multiplication tables in the third grade, and this was ultimately as simple. Today he shivered as he gazed into the mirror, glad when the dark reflections of trees around him resolved into an image of Irish countryside. Then more images. Landmarks. And as he gazed, he felt a pull. A direction, but not a direction. He realized he was going to need to maintain this state of focus throughout the rest of his journey to find what he sought, otherwise he would be kept going in circles forever.
Finding the faerie lands beyond the mists wouldn’t be as simple as reading a map or following a series of turns. More like having a GPS unit in his head that would tell him which fog would take him there and when to work his maucht to slip through the barrier in the midst of magical confusion. Not simple at all. No piece of cake. It would require huge, appalling amounts of power, and he wondered if he had it in him.
There was only one way to find out, and that was to proceed.
In a hurry now, for he could already feel the effort of focus draining him, he pulled on his clothing, the silk, linen, and leather somewhat the worse for dampness from the ground. The damp and cold seeped into him, for he had little enough body heat left to warm them. A huge shiver took him and made him growl with annoyance, and he rubbed his arms and hopped up and down a little to warm himself. A while back, he’d seen some Scottish men walking around in snow, wearing nothing more than tunic and shoes, with a wool plaid wrapped around themselves to keep off the wind, and had no clue how they could stand it.
Once he stopped shivering, he extinguished his fire, stowed his mirror among his things on the pack horse, mounted, and headed off in the direction indicated by his faerie GPS.
***
Ireland didn’t seem as green as he’d always heard. Spring was still new, and the bracken was winter dead and brown. The snow here had gone, and the countryside looked soggy. Dank. There was plenty of fog nestled among hills and drifting within the forests, but Trefor could sense these were not what he sought. It wasn’t until he came upon the same thicket twice that he knew he had to be near his goal. Instead of retreating the way he’d come, as would have a human trying to find his way, he pressed forward a second time and paid sharp attention to his gut urges. Part instinct, and part awareness taught to him by the Bhrochan, it was as true as a compass. He walked his horse slowly now, his head tilted as if listening, though it wasn’t sound he sought. He guided his mount in the opposite direction of where they both wanted to go, and found himself entering thicker and thicker mist. The way became treacherous, and the animals began to snort and balk. Their unease was a good sign, and Trefor kicked his mount forward. Slowly, they made their way through the forest and the mist, dead of sound and damp enough to plaster Trefor’s hair to his face. He no longer had any sense of direction; his only guide was the pressure to turn around and go back.
Then suddenly he was in the clear. His horse stepped out onto a meadow, from a wall of mist so perfect and flat it appeared as a stone wall that rose to the sky. The bank was the height of a skyscraper, and Trefor looked up at it like a New York tourist. He’d made it. This was the faerie land, which Brochan claimed but Nemed held. It was morning, the sun low in the sky and the grass still glittering with dew, though when he’d entered the mist it had been late afternoon. Had he ridden all night? It didn’t seem so. It seemed no more than a couple of hours since he’d entered the thick mist. It should be dark now. The mist had been dark but had never gone the complete black of night.
But that was no real matter, and could more than likely be chalked up to the same magic that kept humans from finding this place. He relaxed his focus, and his body went wobbly from exhaustion. A small but persistent headache thudded just above the hack of his neck. He rubbed the spot with his lingers and rolled his head. He took his bearings, free of the warding influence. The trail he'd been following was now clear, and the horse and mule no longer balked. Trefor kicked his mount to a trot to follow the trail and looked around at the empty countryside.
It didn’t look much different from the human territory of Ireland, though perhaps more sparsely populated. Trefor saw no farms, no smoke from cook fires, not even sign of domestic animals. The only indication of habitation was the track he followed, so wide it almost was a road. Many horses had come this way, the most recent ones headed the direction he was going.
Soon he came upon a signpost, little more than a thin pole stuck in the ground. It didn’t look much like a sign. The only reason he knew it as such was that he’d been taught the occam alphabet and he recognized the slash marks cut along the pole. His fluency in the old tongue taught by the Bhrochan was recently acquired and poor, but the pole bore only one word: Finias.
The track led straight through a glen, where hills on either side rose to become mountains. Then he turned a bend, and there, on the floor of the valley and sprawled across the pass through the hills beyond, lay a castle so perfect he knew it must have been built by magic. He’d arrived.
Twelve
Lindsay and Reubair were at breakfast when a faerie retainer knight entered the chamber to announce a lone rider at the gate.
“His name?”
“Sir Trefor Pawlowski.”
Reubair gave a sharp glance to Lindsay, who struggled to maintain her composure though she allowed herself to express a reasonable amount of mild surprise for Reubair’s benefit. Trefor. She might have guessed why he was there, but that he’d presented himself so openly was a puzzle. And disturbing. That man always seemed to have something up his sleeve and had never had any respect for Alex or herself; Lindsay wondered what was on his agenda this time, and figured it couldn’t be good. Particularly not with Alex so vulnerable. “A relative of yours?” asked Reubair.
“A distant cousin, actually.” Obviously she must know him. It would have been madness to deny it, for the Polish name was otherwise unheard of in this country.
“What could he want with me, I wonder? And how did he find me?” There seemed a slight edge to his casual tone.
Lindsay shrugged, as if she didn’t know, and could never have known, the answers to those questions.
The messenger spoke up. “He bears the mark of the fey.” That raised Reubair’s eyebrows. “Indeed?” His fingertips went to his own ears, and he looked askance at Lindsay. His meaning was clear; how did she know this cousin and not have known all her life she was of faerie heritage?
Her response was equal puzzlement, though she knew full well where Trefor had gotten his ears. “He does? The ears, you mean? Surely they aren’t so very pointed. Though I can’t say I’ve known him well, and have only met him once or twice, surely I would have noticed a genuine faerie mark, were it that plain.”
“It is, my lady,” said the knight. “However hidden his ears may have been before, he now has them displayed to be seen.” He pulled back his own locks to indicate how Trefor wore his hair behind his ears.
“Ah,” said Reubair, “he kept them hidden.” It seemed he was glad to accept the theory and let Lindsay off the hook. “What does he want, then?”
“To see you, he says. A request.”
“Of what nature?”
“I confess, my liege, I was unable to determine his wishes.”
Reubair grunted. “Bring him here.”
Lindsay’s heart began to pound and dance, and her mind rushed to sort through the many aspects and implications of this visit. How had Trefor found this place? Did he know Alex was here? Did he even know she was here? What would he tell Reubair when he saw her? But the most important question was, what did he really want?
It was nearly half an hour later that Reubair was informed the visitor awaited him in an antechamber. The faerie lord stood and said to Lindsay, “Come with me.” Not a question, nor even a request, but an order, and Lindsay obeyed.
In the anteroom Trefor stood near the hearth and turned when Reubair and Lindsay entered the room. His smile of greeting was bland, and didn’t change when he saw her. It didn’t even flicker. She gathered he’d known she was there. Good. Perhaps the situation was controllable.
Or else it was already lost.
Trefor bowed to Reubair, and the faerie lord responded with a nod. Then Trefor acknowledged Lindsay’s presence with a nod and said, “What a pleasant surprise to find my cousin here! It’s good to see you, Lady Cruachan.”
Relief made Lindsay’s legs go wobbly, but she locked her knees to keep them from shaking as she offered her hand to her son. He grasped it, the first time she’d touched him since... since he was a baby. His hand was rough with calluses from riding and fighting, and there was a scar across one knuckle that looked like it should have had stitches but hadn’t. Her heart tore in a way that made her wish he would go away and not make her feel so inadequate. “And you, sir. How have you been in your travels?”
“Well enough. And yourself?” A darkness filled his eye, and his lids drooped as if to shield them. It was an angry expression and made Lindsay wonder what he was thinking. She wished mightily for a chance to speak to him alone. To explain. But that wasn’t likely to happen soon enough for damage control, and she wasn’t sure what would be safe to tell him, in any case. She was at the mercy of whatever Trefor knew or didn’t know about her situation, which could be anything, or nothing. Oh, how she wished he had never come! And beneath that was a dark, awful, secret wish he’d never been born.
* * *
Trefor was stunned to find Lindsay at Reubair’s side, dressed in finery even Alex couldn’t afford for her, and appearing as calm and comfortable as if she were the lady of the manor. She even wore a ruby necklace of astonishing cost, and he wondered what she’d done to earn that. Betrayal had always been a fact of his life, and his parents were no paragons of loyalty to him, but one exception had always been their feelings for each other. The earl was a fool for his wife, easily manipulated for it, and Trefor would never have dreamed the countess could cross her husband this way. It was appalling. He very nearly dumped the idea of rescuing her, and began to cobble together in his head a story that would have him on his way back to his men and King Robert in the morning.
But he was exhausted from his travels and the scrying spell, and knew he wasn’t thinking straight. A niggle at the back of his mind made him think twice. Something didn’t ring properly here. Though Lindsay’s behavior told him nothing other than that she had thrown over Alex for Reubair, something in Reubair’s demeanor wasn’t quite right. In addition, there was an energy somewhere in the castle that was even more wrong. Not just wrong in the way that every castle had bad spots touched with evil or grief, but wrong in a way that was particular to him. It spoke to him in ways he understood on a gut level. As if to say to him that if he ignored it he would cease to be the man he thought he was. Whatever that might mean, he didn’t know; all he knew was that he needed to find out what was really going on here. So he went with his original plan.
“I seek the Dagda, to pledge myself,” he said. “I’m told he’s expected here.”
It seemed to surprise Reubair that Trefor would be so well informed. “Indeed he is, but how did you know? And why do you wish to pledge yourself?”
“I learned his itinerary from the goddess Danu, when I began my search for the king. I wish to pledge myself as Danann, which you can clearly see is my right. I tire of human folly and wish to join the faerie realm.”
Reubair’s eyes narrowed. “There’s very little about you that is Danann.”
“There is enough. Not just my ears, but also my heart, which is not so very little.”
The faerie lord grunted provisional acceptance of that. “Well, your information is correct; Dagda is expected here shortly. In fact, we wouldn’t have been surprised to have seen him as early as two days ago. But I’m told he travels from the Continent and may be delayed by circumstance. Weather, or unanticipated concerns.” Trefor glanced at Lindsay and noted mild surprise on her face. Apparently she hadn’t known of the impending visit. If she was the lady of the manor, she was an ill-informed one.
But then a look filled with meaning passed between her and Reubair. It was only then that the lord of Castle Finias let drop his reluctance and continued, “Do stay with us until he comes, and you may pay your respects then.” Trefor looked from one to the other, astonished anew. Danged if they weren’t acting like a married couple!
“Thank you, sir,” he said.
Reubair turned to one of the human servants. “Show our guest to a chamber in the tower. See that he wants for nothing.”
“Aye, sir.” The retainer wearing Reubair’s livery nodded to his charge and led the way from the room.
Trefor gave Lindsay a searching glance as he left and wished the others would simply disappear for a time so he could question her freely. But he was stuck following the program, weird as it was, and wouldn’t have a chance to talk anytime soon. And now that she knew he was here, she would surely avoid him. She must be ashamed to be found in Reubair’s bedchamber. He would need to seek her later on, to make her explain herself. Oh, yeah, his mother had some explaining to do.
He went with the servant and mentally focused on the bad thing he sensed within the walls of the fortress. Like a knot in his consciousness, he picked at it and hoped it would unravel and reveal itself. He tried to visualize, but nothing came. Something wasn’t right here. It just wasn’t right, and he needed to figure out how it was wrong.
***
Lindsay clasped her fingers together, her knuckles aligned with each other and pressed hard in a way that kept Reubair from seeing the tension in them. She arranged her face in the most relaxed smile she could manage and watched Trefor retreat with the servant. “Lovely to see Sir Trefor again.”
“Quite a coincidence.”
Now she smiled at Reubair, and held her expression when she saw his knitted brow. Her voice conveyed only mild wonder at that coincidence. “Not so much, I think. He apparently knows himself to be of Danann blood, and you chose me for that same blood; perhaps it was only a matter of time before each of us would end up here. The only coincidence is that we are here at the same time.” She sighed, but hurried to continue. “Though I knew he was in the north, I had no idea he wished to join the Danann. To be sure, last time I saw him I hadn’t the foggiest notion of them at all, let alone that he was one.”
Reubair had no reply to that beyond a bland gaze that settled on her like... like a warm blanket. She blinked, shocked at the pleasure it brought. This was so wrong. Terribly wrong. The fuzzy heat that rose in her belly shocked her, a disturbing evil she must resist. She took a deep breath and looked away to the window, toward the portcullis and freedom. Escape was imperative. She had to take Alex and get away from there before Trefor could give them away. God help her if Trefor found his father before she could find a way out of the castle. With no love lost between father and son, Trefor would be only too happy to reveal Alex to the man who would murder him. And gain favor for it as well, with Reubair and therefore Reubair’s king. No downside for Trefor. Another deep breath, and she said, “I would like to take a ride.”
“Then by all means you should.”
“It would be a greater pleasure if I could ride through the forest rather than up and down alleys and baileys.”
