Adrian (22 page)

“Why?” Adrian pressed. “She didn't protect the island.”

“Nae, lad,” Malcolm said, pulling out a chair and sitting heavily. “That wasna her purpose. She protected the treasure, which doesna need protecting any longer.”

Maisie heard the elfin maidens' faint screams of fright coming from the direction of the castle's entrance and she spun to face the front of the hall. The maids came flying back through the room along a far wall and disappeared into a doorway that led deeper into the castle. Maisie hoped she was wrong about what had turned them from their intention of escaping to the village.

But she didn't think she was.

“Adrian,” she said, with a measure of calm that she certainly did not feel, “go at once to my chamber. Stay there until Malcolm or I come for you, whatever happens.”

“I can't do that,” he insisted in his maddeningly logical tone.

“Malcolm and I still have need to ready the engines. I daresay we cannot be too careful. If we go now—”

“It's too late, lad,” Malcolm said quietly, even as the sounds of scores of boots on the stones rebounded overhead. “The best we can do now is pray.”

Adrian gave a snort of laughter. “Pray? Malcolm, I thought better of yo—”

Then Adrian fell silent as the redheaded man strolled through the doorway of the hall, pulling his gauntlets off in a leisurely manner. He was followed by what appeared to be two very different crews of men, some in the chausses and tunics of English soldiers and some wearing the long robes and head scarves of the Holy Land.

At his elbow strode a tall dark man with luxurious robes and ornate weaponry hanging from his belts.

“Blessed Ostara!” Glayer Felsteppe called out jovially, his arms spread wide. He halted at the end of the table and bowed. “Queen Maighread, how pleased I am to see you again. I would apologize for my early arrival, but I see that I underestimated your resourcefulness.” He grinned his terrible, ugly smile at the open chest on the table and then turned it on Maisie. “You knew the moment I arrived, did you not, my beauty?”

 

Adrian felt the blood quickly leaving his head, and for a moment he wondered whether he might faint. It was not the sight of Glayer Felsteppe that shook him so but the presence of the man at Felsteppe's side.

“I keep my promises.”

Maisie's voice shook him from his nightmarish memories, and the strength of her words reminded Adrian that he was no longer a prisoner. No longer at the mercy of an army of foreign soldiers.

Adrian's hands clenched into fists.

“I never doubted you for a moment.” Felsteppe smiled at her. Then he lifted a finger and motioned toward the chest, speaking over his shoulder. “Fetch the trunk.”

“Wait,” Malcolm called out as he rose from his chair, knocking the wooden lid closed and then turning to face Felsteppe. “I want your word: By accepting this coin, you shall never return here. Never to send any in your stead. You forget Wyldonna exists.”

Felsteppe cocked his head and gave a contrived expression of confusion. “And who are you again? Not the king, I'd wager. He was
deposed
, as I understood it. And I don't take orders from the
peasantry
.”

A roar sounded from the back of the hall as Reid gained his feet. He flipped the table he had recently been languishing on up into the air, and it crashed into splinters under his massive boots even as he tromped through the debris toward the group of soldiers. He drew his arms along his sides and leaned down, stretching out his neck like an attacking goose, although his warning was considerably more terrifying. He roared into the faces of the men so that their hair blew back and they swayed as if caught in a gale. Those not already armed scrambled to free their weapons from their sheaths.

If Adrian had learned anything, it was that giants valued courtesy.

His warning cry at his breath's end, Reid took yet another menacing stomp toward the group, and the stones beneath Adrian's feet trembled.

“Hold your ground!” Felsteppe commanded the men behind him, although his face blanched white. “He cannot harm us!”

“
You will not speak to my king in such a manner!
”

Felsteppe leaned forward, his head like a grape compared to Reid's wide visage. “He is not your king any longer. Move, mutant.”

“He doesna recognize you,” Maisie said to Adrian under her breath. “Draw nae attention.” And then she stepped forward, placing herself between Adrian and the man of his worst nightmares.

Maisie was right. When last Felsteppe and Adrian had met, Adrian had been clean-shaven, the sides and back of his head shorn in response to the sweltering Syrian clime. He'd been well-fed, his clothes fine, although he'd never paid his costumes much mind. Adrian had remained largely aloof to all the fighting men save for Constantine, and all other tasks save Chastellet's completion.

Now Adrian stood in the hall of a castle that, by all logic, should not exist. His hair was long, wild, his face disguised by his beard. He was only half-clothed, and the skin that was exposed was covered with Song's swirling magic and the lean muscles carved by three years of cloister and anxiety. The gentleman of Chastellet was dead now. Here stood a different man.

But that man was without any weapon at all.

“Malcolm is nae longer king,” Maisie said, “but I am queen, and you will show respect to my brother and my manservant.”

Felsteppe looked Maisie up and down appreciatively, and Adrian wanted to strangle him with his bare hands.

“My most sincere apologies, Maighread.” He smirked. “You have indeed been most accommodating. But alas—you have not done what I most hoped for. Where are the men I seek?”

“Here is your treasure,” Maisie insisted. “All that I can lay hand to. Take it and go. My command is as my brother's: Doona return to Wyldonna.”

Felsteppe motioned toward the chest again, this time turning toward the Saracen. “Would you mind, General Abdal?” He looked to Maisie as the dark man stepped forward to seize the heavy chest. “Yes, about that. I've had a thought. It seems to me that my silence is worth more than such a small bit of coin. It's likely not even pure gold.”

“We had a bargain,” Maisie ground out.

“Hmm,” Felsteppe whined skeptically.

The Saracen grasped the handles on the ends of the trunk and straightened, and as he did, his eyes met Adrian's. The man froze, staring.

Adrian stared back. He found he could look nowhere else other than into those eyes he had seem so many times in his nightmares.

“You see, I really do need to locate them,” Felsteppe argued. “It's as if they've disappeared from the face of the earth, and I know of only one woman—one beautiful, beautiful woman—who might help me find them.”

“I canna,” Maisie said. “And I willna.”

“Which is it?” Felsteppe asked.

The Saracen gave a bemused smile. “I am interested to know,” he called out, interrupting Maisie's answer, “who is this creature with the strangely painted skin.”

Maisie spun on her heel, and Adrian clearly saw the way she looked at his face, the horror that dawned there as she understood who the man in the long robes was.

Could she see into his mind as well?

“He is my lover,” she said dismissively. “From the village.” Her eyes bored into Adrian's. “You may go.”

Adrian's feet remained planted on the stones, even as the Saracen—Abdal, was it?—protested gently.

“No, no,” Abdal said, setting the chest back on the table and stepping closer to Adrian, the black eyes he remembered so well searching his face. “I feel as if I know you. I do. I know you.” He stopped only one pace from Adrian. “Speak, beast.”

“You doona command my people!” Maisie shouted.

But Adrian could no longer remain quiet.

“I am no beast,” he said softly, clearly. “I am a scholar.”

M
aisie didn't hear Adrian's response to the Saracen general, but whatever he said was not well received.

The robed man's hand whipped up from his belt and then slashed through the air, a curved blade rushing in a downward arc aimed at Adrian's chest. Maisie screamed and lunged toward the Saracen, but Malcolm grasped both her arms from behind and held her firm.

“You canna, lass,” her brother warned.

Adrian threw up a forearm in a blur of motion, blocking the blade, and then brought his other hand up to join the first in grasping the underside of the Saracen's arm and twisting. In a blink, the man's robes billowed around him as he was yanked from his feet and tossed onto the stones on his back. Adrian advanced, readying himself to stomp the man's outstretched arm still holding the blade, but the Saracen gathered himself quickly, rolling away before Adrian could reach him and gaining his feet once more.

“Abdal!” Glayer Felsteppe shouted from behind Maisie, his reedy voice betraying his alarm. “Stop! If you attack them, they can then retaliate!”

Maisie watched as Abdal circled Adrian warily. The Saracen held his hands aloft, the blade gleaming dully in the torchlight of the hall. But Adrian only turned calmly, his arms relaxed at his sides.

“Have no fear, General,” Abdal called out almost happily. “None shall raise a weapon against us for this one's sake; he is not of their kind. Indeed, the queen has served us both well.”

“What
are
you talking about?” Glayer cried.

Abdal lunged again, but Adrian leapt back to avoid the blow, coming to his balance in an instant and sweeping his leg in an arc at the Saracen's knee. The attack met, but only briefly, as Abdal lifted the leg Adrian had targeted and kicked out. The kick glanced off the left side of Adrian's ribs, causing him to clutch at his side and stumble back. But as the Saracen advanced, Adrian straightened, ready once more.

“You are more lively than when last we met,” Abdal observed with a wicked grin.

Adrian did not return his smile. “A man tends to fight back against his attackers when he has the use of his arms and legs.”

“This is true,” Abdal acknowledged, thrusting with the blade quickly, but it was little more than a feint. “Which is why we prefer our infidels bound. They are infinitely more persuadable.” He thrust again, this time closer.

Adrian took a leveraging step forward and reached out boldly to grasp Abdal's blade arm. With one swift rise of his knee, the Saracen's forearm snapped audibly, and the dagger clattered to the floor as the general cried out in pain. Adrian kicked it to the shadows beneath a table and stepped away once more, his arms again relaxed at his sides, his gaze steady.

The Saracen panted, holding his arm close to his abdomen. “You have just added to your debt, infidel.”

“I am giving you opportunity to leave this island with your life,” Adrian said slowly, and his voice was such that Maisie had never heard it before. Gravelly, low, threatening—he could have been kin to Reid. “What you did to me in Damascus you did in the madness of grief, the sick duty of war.”

“Damascus?” Felsteppe squawked.

Adrian ignored him. “But you have aligned yourself with a devil, and I cannot allow you to further aid him.”

“
You killed my son
,” Abdal ground out, his earlier facetiousness vanished. “My only son! I saw the moment when your sword met his neck!”

“I was preserving my own life,” Adrian said. “I cannot return your son to you. But I can let you live.”

“Hailsworth?” Glayer ventured hesitantly.

The Saracen roared at Adrian, and Maisie saw the mad tears in the man's eyes. “
It is you who shall not live!
I will command you unto the very moment of your death, and then you shall endure the torture of my vengeance for all eternity!”

Felsteppe seemed to startle, as if awoken from a daydream. So shaken was he that his words tripped over themselves as he stabbed his bony finger toward Adrian. “S-s-seize! S-seize . . . k-k-kill h-h-him!”

Two of the English soldiers came around Felsteppe's back, their swords at the ready.

“Adrian!” Maisie called out, straining against Malcolm's firm hold. “Behind you!”

Adrian glanced over his shoulder and saw the men approaching him. He sidled to the left, keeping the Saracen in his sight as he readied for Felsteppe's soldiers to attack.

“Malcolm,” Maisie pleaded. “They'll kill him!”

“By all means, Queen Maighread,” Glayer said, his words breathy and full of anxiety, “make your best move. I have six ships waiting in your bay, all full of trained warriors who are eager to storm your pathetic shore upon my signal.”

Maisie felt Malcolm tense behind her. Six ships. How many men did they hold? Two hundred? Three? Even if Wyldonna's folk could hold the shore and force the ships to turn back, at what cost of life? How many good folk would die?

The soldiers raised their swords and began moving away from one another to surround Adrian, who looked at them calmly.

“
Kill him
!” Glayer Felsteppe insisted.

“No!” Abdal shouted. “I never finished with him, and he suffers so well.” He looked toward the group of soldiers standing now to either side of Felsteppe and gave orders in a strange language, his good hand going to the numerous thin leather belts about his waist. “He will leave the island with us.”

Maisie thought Adrian must have understood what the Saracen said, though, for the color drained from his face. Two robed warriors approached Adrian, and one reached a hand into the air to catch the tangle of leather tossed to him by Abdal.

“Perhaps my men can find the grooves left by my belts, eh?” Abdal taunted. “I am certain there is still some trace left, no matter how much you have tried to erase my marks from your body. I own you, infidel.”

Adrian did not move as the dark-skinned soldiers walked around the Englishmen holding him at swords' point. He would not meet Maisie's eyes, keeping his gaze pinned to Glayer Felsteppe, who was all but chortling with glee.

“Adrian,” Maisie choked as one of the Saracens reached out to pull Adrian's arms behind his body. She recalled the glimpse of his nightmare, the way he had been so cruelly restrained for weeks.

Adrian's eyes closed, as if he, too, were seeing the sandstone dungeon again.

“Malcolm,” she pleaded again, twisting her head to look at her brother.

“Shh, lass,” Malcolm hushed, his eyes still locked on the scene before them. “The Painted Man would nae give up so easily, now would he?”

When Maisie brought her gaze back to Adrian, his head had bowed as if in defeat. But then she realized the faint glow about him—a rippling, expanding halo of first red, then gold, then a bright, pure white—hugging precisely the outline of his body.

“It looks like . . .” Maisie swallowed, not knowing how Adrian was conjuring energy such as she had shown him on that first day in the turret room.

“Everyone is magic, Maisie,” Malcolm whispered in her ear. “And none save us can see it.”

And then, as the other Saracen touched the first leather strap to Adrian's skin, Adrian raised his head, and his eyes were like glittering black stones.

He whipped around, dragging the soldier still holding his arms with him. The English soldier lunged with his sword, and Adrian jumped backward, pushing the Saracen onto the blade and using the leverage of his skewered body to lift both feet and kick away the other robed man holding the leather ties. He twisted away, landing on his feet with a spin and sending out his forearm into the other English soldier's throat, grabbing the hilt of the sword and wresting it free. He plunged it through the ribs of the man, withdrew it, and swung in a wide arc behind him, severing the hand of the Saracen who had gained his feet and had been flying at him with a dagger.

Another backhanded swing found its target in the abdomen of the first English soldier, who had only now freed his weapon from the Saracen's body.

“Kill him!” Glayer Felsteppe cried out to the men behind him, prompting three more English soldiers to rush forward.

Adrian set his stance as the men ran at him. Maisie watched him bring his weapon low before him, gripping the hilt with both hands. His tattooed skin gleamed in the torchlight, his eyes glittering like ebon treasure as he waited, waited.

With a terrifying battle cry, Adrian swung the broadsword, once, twice, and then paused as the two helmed heads thudded to the stones and wobbled there, and the third soldier skidded to a halt with a strangled cry. His boots slipped in the blood spraying across the floor from ragged necks as he sought retreat, causing him to crash to his hip. He skittered away like a crab before gaining his feet again and running from the hall.

Malcolm was no longer restraining Maisie now but only holding her hand tightly in his own. The thick, sweet stench of blood stuffed Maisie's nostrils and she raised a hand to cover her nose.

Adrian stood facing Felsteppe and the Saracen general, who had skirted the hall to rejoin the safety of the unit with which they'd arrived. There had once been a score of men; now their number was nearly halved.

“Come, then,” Adrian invited. “You wanted me—here I stand.
I crave more cowards' blood upon my steel!
” he finished in a stone-shaking roar.

“I must go,” Malcolm whispered in her ear. “The soldier who escaped—he will surely give the word that their men are being attacked. I canna let them take the shore.”

Maisie glanced at him nervously. “Be careful, Malcolm.”

Her brother squeezed her hand briefly and then slid away, stepping back into the shadows and then, in a blink, Malcolm had disappeared.

“Hailsworth, you cannot hope to prevail against a dozen men,” Felsteppe reasoned in a strangled voice. “Surrender to me now and save yourself an agonizing death. I mean to do nothing more than release you to the governing authority of the Crown.”

“I needn't prevail against a dozen men,” Adrian growled. “Only the pair of them that I shall first reach.” He took a single step toward them. “For I find I've no intention of releasing either of you to any authority save my own. And that means
you will die.
”

“What in the bloody hell is happening?” Glayer exclaimed, throwing out his hands and looking around wildly. “When last we met, you were little more than a bookish, mealy scribe! And now you presume Zeus!”

“He is no mere scribe,” Abdal said, relieving one of the Saracen soldiers at his side of a long thin dagger. Then Abdal, too, took a step toward Adrian, brandishing the weapon in his weaker left hand.

“He is a scholar.” Abdal braced his feet and nodded to Adrian. “You are not the man I captured at Chastellet.”

“You are right. But I am no longer just a scholar, Abdal—on Wyldonna, I am the Painted Man. And I am to be feared.”

The Saracen's throat convulsed. “Then perhaps you should thank me for allowing you to achieve such potential. It is clear to me that you will not so easily be captured again, but I cannot leave this place while one of us still lives. We should not haunt each other's dreams any longer. Let us end this now.”

“Very well,” Adrian agreed, dropping once more into his ready stance, the sword held vertically before him. “At your move.”

The Saracen glanced up and muttered a high stream of unintelligible words before giving forth a loud cry and charging toward Adrian.

For one terrible, eternal instant, Maisie thought Adrian was not going to move. He stood in the hall as if he was nothing more than a statue as the dark-skinned soldier raised his dagger, running, running. Another pair of steps would bring him close enough to take Adrian's life.

But then Adrian released his two-handed grip and swiftly lowered the sword with his right hand, turning sideways to brace himself and holding its full length before him.

Maisie saw the Saracen become aware of the move.

And still, General Abdal ran full upon the blade with a cry that sounded almost triumphant.

Glayer Felsteppe cried out at the horror of his most valuable ally's gristly end as Adrian let his fingers open wide, dropping the sword and the skewered body of the general to the floor.

Maisie's eyes filled with tears as she watched Adrian stare down at the man, as if he could not believe that his nightmare was over. There was a cold, hollow ache in her stomach at the gravity of death in her hall; never had she been witness to such carnage, and this at the hand of the man she had loved with her body, her heart. What had it done to him, to his soul?

Perhaps he was not capable of loving her.

Then Reid stepped to her side and his deep voice rang out with an ominous warning. “I invite you to avail yourself of my queen's generosity by taking what you came for and removing yourself from the hall. I will allow you the courtesy of collecting your dead first, if you wish.”

“This man,” Felsteppe said to Maisie, pointing to Adrian, who had yet to look up, “is wanted by the Crown. If I return with word that Wyldonna is harboring one of the traitors of Chastellet, your little island of freaks will know no peace.”

Maisie let her lips curve in a cold smile. “Perhaps at first. But what think you will be the outcome when the queen of this little island, her brother, her servants—all the folk who live here—reveal that this man—” she also pointed at Adrian—“was never a traitor? That the king's so-called loyal man Felsteppe has been in league with Saladin's army since Chastellet, and indeed, on his death, General Abdal confessed that it was you who orchestrated the siege of Chastellet? Hmm?” Maisie cocked her head. “What would your Baldwin do for you then, I wonder?”