A Passionate Magic (26 page)

”Mother,” Dain shouted at Lady Richenda,
“what do you mean by this act of vandalism? You’ve done as much
damage here as any barbarian.”

”I mean to prevent that unwholesome creature
you’ve been bedding from working her vile magic on you and your
people,” Lady Richenda exclaimed, facing him with an unholy fire in
her eyes. “So, Emma will help you to exorcise your demons, will
she?
She
is the demon!”

“I see,” Dain said. Fists planted on his
hips, he glared from his mother to Blanche. “Your maidservant
reported a private conversation that she overheard while
eavesdropping, and you misinterpreted a kindly meant remark, spoken
half in jest, to mean something dire and evil.”

“It’s your wife who’s evil,” Lady Richenda
cried. “Why can’t you see what she’s doing? She is trying to lure
you into caring about her, so you’ll give up the feud with Wroxley.
Then, when you are weak, she’ll strike. She will hand you, and
Penruan, over to Lord Gavin.”

“You are talking nonsense,” Dain told her. “I
am sad to have to say this to you, but since you cannot accept my
wife, or even ignore her presence at Penruan, perhaps you ought to
return to your beloved convent.”

“Not just yet.” Refusing to back down, Lady
Richenda glared at Dain with unabated rage. “I have one last duty
to my lord Halard. On his deathbed I gave him my solemn oath that
I’d see our son victorious in the feud against the lords of
Wroxley. And so I will, by whatever means I can find.”

“But not today,” Dain said. He removed the
knife from her fingers and took hold of her arm. “Your work is
finished for this day. Come along, Blanche. I will see you and your
mistress to your chamber. Sloan, I want a guard posted outside my
mother’s door. Neither she nor Blanche is to leave that room
without my permission.”

“Aye, my lord,” Sloan responded. “I’ll see to
it.” After a disgusted look in Lady Richenda’s direction, he turned
his attention to the ruined garden, shaking his head at its sorry
state.

Lady Richenda wasn’t ready to depart from the
garden. She wrenched her arm out of Dain’s grasp and stood
defiantly, looking from him to Emma, while she spoke with
deliberate malice.

“Did you know, my son,” said Lady Richenda,
“that your wife’s mother was a notable sorceress? And a notorious
whore, too. In a packet of messages that arrived here this morning
from court there was a letter to me from an old acquaintance of
mine. In answer to a note I sent to her weeks ago she provided all
the details of the wicked life and scandalous death of Lady Alda of
Wroxley. I have no doubt that Alda’s daughter is following in her
mother’s footsteps. It’s a well-known fact that magical ability can
be inherited.”

“Sloan,” said Dain, speaking through tight
lips, “see that this damage is cleaned up. Call in house servants
and men-at-arms if you must. Replant what can be replanted. Father
Maynard, if you will kindly come with me, I believe my mother has
need of you.”

“Dain, we must talk,” Emma said, stepping
toward him.

“Not now, my lady.” Dain’s handsome face was
every bit as cold and remote as it had been on the day of Emma’s
unwelcome arrival at Penruan. “I will deal with you later.”

***

“Is my mother’s accusation true?” Dain asked
that evening. “Was your mother a sorceress?”

“I’m sorry you had to learn it in such an
unkind way.”

“Answer me.” Dain remained on the opposite
side of the lord’s chamber from Emma, making no move to come
closer, no attempt to touch her. “I will hear it from your own
lips, and I warn you, my lady, you had better tell me the
truth.”

”Yes,” Emma said, “my mother was born with
magical ability. Unfortunately for her, no adult recognized her for
what she was, so she grew up unschooled in the methods of
controlling such power, until she met an evil man who encouraged
her to join his wicked schemes. The two of them planned to take
over Wroxley, and they almost succeeded.”

“Was this during Baron Udo’s time? Did Alda
use her magic to help Udo get the disputed land away from my
father?”

“So far as I am aware, my mother had no
connection with the feud. From all reports she and my grandfather
detested each other. She’d have been unlikely to help him in
anything.”

“I see. Go on. Tell me the rest.”

To Emma’s surprise, Dain appeared to be
perfectly calm. It was more than she’d dared to hope for after he’d
been with his mother since mid-afternoon. Still, she saw the steel
in him and knew her only chance of maintaining some degree of
affection between them lay in telling him all she knew of the old
story.

“When Baron Udo learned what Alda was and
tried to stop her, she killed him and his seneschal,” Emma said.
“She left a trail of folk who died by magic or by poison, until her
accomplice killed her and then died himself, in a terrible
confrontation with my father, who was newly returned from years in
the Holy Land. I wasn’t living at Wroxley in those days. My brother
and I had been sent away for fostering. We were brought home just
as my father arrived, too, and he quickly sent us off again, this
time to a monastery, to keep us safe till Wroxley was free of evil
magic.”

“Exactly how did Baron Gavin succeed in
freeing Wroxley?” Dain asked.

“With the help of a dear friend, a sage from
Cathay who was a powerful wizard,” Emma answered, “and of the Lady
Mirielle, who later became my stepmother.”

”Wroxley would seem to be a veritable den of
magic,” Dain remarked, his lip curling in distain.

“There is evil magic,” Emma told him, “and
then there is magic that’s properly controlled, so it can be used
for beneficial purposes. Mirielle is a good, kindhearted, loving
woman who would never harm anyone.”

“So, your mother was a wicked sorceress and
your stepmother is a good sorceress.”

“Don’t say it that way,” Emma cried, stung by
his sneering tone. “Don’t mock Mirielle. She loved me when my
mother did not; she taught me everything –“

“Yes?” Dain interrupted. “Everything she
knows? Now we come to the crux of the matter, don’t we? Are you a
sorceress, too?”

“Yes,” Emma said, unable in that instant to
utter more than the single word. She saw Dain receive the admission
like a blow to the heart. She could only pray the truth hadn’t
destroyed his newfound tenderness for her.

“How cleverly you have concealed your
ability,” he said, scorn dripping from each word he spoke.

“People with inborn magic learn early in life
to conceal their ability for their own safety. Ask Agatha; she is
more than just a healer.”

“Does Gavin know of your ability? I cannot
imagine he does not.”

“He knows. And he knows I will do no harm to
any living being. I have spent my life trying not to be like my
mother.”

“Yet still Gavin sent you to me? To work your
spells on me, perhaps? Is that why I’ve wanted you so often and so
passionately?”

“No! I told you when I first came here that I
was a substitute bride. I begged my father to send me in place of
the younger sister he originally intended for you, who was too ill
to travel. Dain, what’s between you and me is entirely natural. The
only magic I’ve used since coming to Penruan was to help me see my
way through the fog, when I was lost.”

“Dare I believe you if you swear as much to
me?” He took a single step toward her, the first move he’d made in
her direction since entering the lord’s chamber.

“I would never hurt you or lie to you,” she
said. “I am pledged to you by a sacred vow. We are man and
wife.”

“So was your mother pledged to Gavin, yet
apparently her oath meant nothing to her.”

“I am not my mother. I am not evil, no more
than you are the fierce and bloodthirsty baron you are reported to
be.”

She was gazing directly into his eyes as she
spoke. He placed one fingertip under her chin and lifted her face a
little higher still, and to her astonishment she detected a faint
smile upon his lips.

“Never say so outside this room,” he warned
her. “It’s my fierce reputation that keeps Penruan safe.”

“I would die sooner than do anything to harm
you or your people,” she said.

“I’d like to believe you.”

“I wish you would. Every word I’ve spoken is
true. I’ve been afraid that when I finally told you, you’d disown
me.”

“Are you surprised that I haven’t done so
immediately? It’s what my mother advised.”

“And you refused her advice? Why?” She hoped
he’d say it was because he loved her, not because he was bound to
the marriage by the king’s command, which was true enough. His
explanation left her stunned. He began with what seemed to be an
innocuous question.

“Have you ever wondered why my mother is so
opposed to herbal healing, and to the very idea of magic?” he
asked.

”I assumed it’s because she is so
passionately, and rigidly, religious,” Emma said.

“That’s only part of the reason. In his youth
my father took a beautiful first wife, a famous herbal healer, who
was also rumored to be a sorceress. He loved Morigaine with his
whole heart and soul, and when she died in childbirth my father was
devastated. But he needed an heir, so he quickly married my mother
and I was born a year later. No one at Penruan ever mentions
Morigaine. I know her name only because Agatha told me the story
and made me promise never to let my mother know I knew of it.

“I think my mother has always been jealous of
the love my father felt for Morigaine, and that’s why she has
forbidden medicines or magic here at Penman. I think she has tried
to root out all memory of Morigaine. She has succeeded; it’s as
though the woman never existed.”

“Lady Richenda hasn’t forgotten her,” Emma
said. “When she was sick and her thoughts were wandering, she
mentioned that first marriage to me, though she included few
details.”

“When Agatha told me the story she insisted
that Morigaine was a good woman, a wise practitioner of her art,”
Dain said. “Now you tell me your stepmother is the same kind of
benevolent sorceress, and you claim that you will use your magic
only for good. Yet all my life I’ve listened to my mother speak of
magic with fear and great hatred. What am I to believe?”

“Do you hate me for what you’ve learned about
me?” Emma asked. From the way he was acting, she couldn’t guess
what his true feelings were. She didn’t think he was terribly
angry, but she couldn’t be certain. For a reason as yet unclear to
her, her own thoughts were fixed upon Morigaine.

”I don’t know what I feel,” Dain said, “or
what I’m going to do about you. I need time to think.”

“So do I,” Emma murmured. “Dain, there is
something about Morigaine’s story—”

“I won’t be sleeping here tonight,” he
interrupted. “My mother is right about one thing; it’s dangerous
for me to share a bed with you. I won’t be using this room until
I’ve decided whether to return you to Wroxley or hand you over to
King Henry and his bishops.”

“There is a third choice,” she said,
beginning to be frightened by the possibility of having to explain
herself to clergymen who likely would not be as understanding as
Father Maynard or the priest at Wroxley. “You could keep me.”

He only shook his head at that suggestion. He
gathered up a few items of clothing and then he left her alone,
with Todd to guard the door.

The next morning Emma found a large blue bead
on Dain’s pillow.

***

“Todd, are you absolutely certain no one
entered the lord’s chamber last night?”

“My lady, I’ve told you twice; since Lord
Dain left yesterday evening no one has come to this level of the
keep.”

Emma knew why Todd wasn’t quite meeting her
eyes. He was embarrassed because Dain hadn’t spent the night with
her. But someone had sneaked into her room while she slept. She
believed Todd’s insistence that he hadn’t fallen asleep. If he had
been under a spell for part of the night he wouldn’t remember it.
He’d think he had been awake the entire time.

“If Lord Dain comes to see me, please tell
him I’ve gone to the beach,” she said.

“I’m sorry, my lady, but you may not leave
the lord’s chamber,” Todd said.

“By whose order?”

“Lord Dain’s, my lady.”

“I see.” So, Dain didn’t trust her in spite
of her reassurances. He probably didn’t believe her claim that
she’d do no harm to him or to his people. Perhaps his mother had
talked to him again, and finally convinced him he’d married an evil
wife. In that case, there was just one thing for her to do, one
hope of salvaging her marriage and preventing the old feud from
blazing up anew with Lady Richenda fueling it with charges of
trickery and magic.

“Todd?”

“Yes, my lady?”

“Please look at me when I speak to you.”

“I’m not sure I should. Is it true you’re a
witch?”

“No. I have some magic, but I only use it for
good. Have I ever hurt you or anyone else that you know of? Did the
syrup I gave you help your cough?”

“It did, but Lady Richenda says—”

Todd made the mistake of looking directly
into her eyes, and Emma immediately took advantage of that fact. He
would not know he’d been put into a trance during which Emma
slipped past him and hurried down the steps. If Dain, or anyone
else, came to the door of the lord’s chamber and demanded to know
where she was, Todd would insist with perfect honesty that he had
seen no one going into or out of the room.

Several servants and a few men-at-arms were
in the great hall, but Emma hurried past them with only a quick
greeting, and they didn’t try to stop her. It was still early, and
everyone was busy with morning chores. She guessed that Dain hadn’t
told anyone except Todd that she wasn’t to be out of her room.