Claire Delacroix (8 page)

A pair of red leather gloves lay discarded on one chest. They were Merlyn’s gloves, the very gloves he had slapped against his palm the day before. My innards tightened at the sight of them and I forced my glance to slide over them.

There were a trio of high small windows on the far side of the chamber, and all were shuttered against the west wind. I flung them open, one after the other, then looked over the sleeping countryside beyond. I eyed the stars above and the waning moon, and took a deep breath of the chilly night air. Ada clicked her tongue in disapproval.

I turned to face her with a smile. “Merlyn always preferred to smell the wind.”

She averted her face for a moment and I wondered anew how much she mourned his passing.

Let alone how much she knew about it.

A cold shiver slid down my spine and I resolved to lock the door of the solar and secure myself against all in this keep, at least until I knew more.

I could no longer ignore the bed. I clutched Merlyn’s box more tightly against my ribs, then turned, well aware of Ada’s gaze upon me.

Even braced for it, the sight nigh stopped my heart.

This was no common bed. It was not even the bed of a great lord, it was a magnificent and enormous bed befitting some potentate whose exalted rank I cannot imagine. Perhaps kings sleep in beds so fine at this, but I doubt it. I doubt that there has ever been or ever will be another bed of this ilk.

The bed’s corners were marked with heavy pillars, which rise to meet the timbered ceiling. Each was carved with a doughty griffin at the base then swirled upward, as if wrought of heavy rope. At the foot of the bed, a massive bird of prey was carved between the top of the two pillars and the ceiling, with his wings outspread. The tips of those wings stretched beyond the pillars, and his menacing beak was wide open, as if he meant to devour the heart of any fool come to sleep here unbidden.

It was a lammergeier, the predator for which Merlyn’s family was named, the same predator whose silhouette was inlaid in the lid of the box I clutched, the same predator whose shape adorned the clasp of Merlyn’s cloak.

The lammergeier is a sheep vulture, the largest bird of prey known to mankind. Its origins lie in the mountains of the east, uncharted and poorly known. It was the sacred bird of the Scythians and of the Goths, revered for its strength and the ferocity of its attack.

Merlyn told me these details on my nuptial night when I was startled by this very carving. It was still daunting in the candlelight. He had told me also that this carved bird was nearly the size a lammergeier is said to be - its wingspan one and a half times the height of a man.

They must be formidable and terrifying creatures, though if the likeness is a good one, then there must be a wild beauty and grace in them as well.

Not unlike the men who bear their name.

Beyond that carving, the bed is merely rich, if richness can ever be inconsequential. The mattresses are three and so thick with goose-down that one has the sense of sleeping in the clouds. A single one of them would grant sweet luxury, three seems most decadent. The bed is hung with silken brocade, so deep an indigo as to be black, embroidered in silver thread with that heraldic bird of Merlyn’s family. The hangings are backed with cut velvet of the same hue, a rich foreign fabric which I had only seen and touched once.

In this bed.

With Merlyn. His presence was stronger here, as was the lingering scent of him, as if he might step from the very shadows to greet me again. Memory assailed me, and my lips burned with the recollection of his recent kiss.

I closed my eyes, feeling a phantom parody of his touch slide across my flesh, and willed myself not to flush.

“I trust you will not be troubled that I have yet to air the linens,” Ada said, her gleeful tone implying that she expected precisely the opposite. “It is but one night since my lord slumbered here.”

“He was not here last evening?”

“No. He did not return from his errand.” Ada smiled thinly. “I apologize for my lack, but you must be so tired from your journey that you could sleep in a stable.”

“Which is undoubtedly what you would prefer,” I had not intended to say as much but the words slipped over my lips.

We stared at each other, Ada’s hostility suddenly unguarded.

“He should not have granted Ravensmuir to you,” she spat. “It was a mistake. It must have been a jest he never intended to see honored. He could not have bequeathed Ravensmuir to you - he would not have done so, had he lived another day!”

She then stepped back, alarmed that she too had uttered words she had not intended to say, and clapped a hand to her mouth.

I could not resist temptation. “My lord Merlyn had a great fondness for blunt speech,” I whispered wickedly. “Perhaps it is his specter that forces the truth from our lips.”

“Do not say as much!”

I advanced upon a horrified Ada. “Perhaps he left Ravensmuir to me for that very reason, that I might conjure him back from the dead. You know my repute as well as any, Ada.”

“You would not!”

“Indeed, are you not the one who called me the Witch of Kinfairlie? Does that mean that you, above all others, most believe it?”

Ada paled slightly and stepped back. Under the eye of that carving, it did indeed seem that all the dark arts were possible.

I pursued her with measured steps. “Perhaps I will use those gifts which you accused me of having. Perhaps I shall summon Merlyn this night and set him to haunting this place. Perhaps I shall dispatch Merlyn’s specter to torment you, Ada Gowan, in retaliation for the wickedness you showed my sister.”

Ada glanced quickly over the chamber, then met my gaze again. She spoke boldly and scornfully, though she clung to the crucifix strung on a lace around her neck. “And what would you know of my lord Merlyn? You, who fled his bed in a fortnight?”

“In name and in body, I was Merlyn’s wife, just as I am his widow, and now his heiress.”

“You were his harlot! You will not stay this time either,” Ada insisted even as she eased toward the stairs. “You will not last the night in this chamber!.”

“Perhaps it is you who will flee in the night, Ada,” I said, fully expecting as much.

“You should have been tried and executed for your sorcery!”

The depth of her hatred for me was sobering. I watched her as she glared at me and tried to find reason in her accusations. “To whom do you think Merlyn ought to have bequeathed Ravensmuir?” I asked quietly. “Surely not to you?”

“What I think and what I do not think is not for you to know,” she snarled, but I did not miss the flash of her eyes.

Fear? Or had it been greed? I would have to think about her words and their import. Later, after I slept and my thoughts were more clear.

After I made my peace with Merlyn’s death.

I spoke crisply, as if untroubled by this chamber. “I should prefer to break my fast early on the morrow, the better that we might review the inventories.”

Resentment darkened her eyes. “As you wish, my lady.”

Ada would have turned away, but I put out my hand and the gesture made her pause. “I would have the keys, if you please.”

“You have no need of them.”

“Indeed I do.” I strolled after her. “In fact, I feel a certain threat toward my own health on this evening and I would secure my door against it.”

“My lord Merlyn never locked his chamber door!”

“My lord Merlyn is dead. I would prefer not to join him in that state this night.” I put out my hand again. “Just as I would prefer not to find myself locked into this chamber at first light, the keys tied on your girdle on their way to Dunbar.”

Ada’s eyes glittered as she studied me. “You are not the Ysabella that once I knew.”

“No, I am eighteen summers of age and readily cowed no longer. I have learned much in these past years, Ada.” I gave her that cool smile which seemed to trouble her the most. “Give me the keys, and give them to me now.”

To my surprise, she chose not to further defy my command. I had thought I might have to wrest the keys from her, but Ada untied the rings of keys from her girdle and sourly surrendered the smallest ring to me. “The keys to your chamber, my lady.” The title she uttered with a sneer, but already I grew accustomed to that.

“And the others?”

“I have yet to secure the stores this night, my lady. I would not disturb you by bringing the keys to you later this night.”

She lied and we both knew it.

But the truth was that I would need the knowledge of Ada in the days ahead, as much as it galled me to admit as much. And there was something she desired of me, something that had compelled her to make this concession. I would unravel her reason for that later. For the moment, I would compromise in the hope of prevailing at the greater battle.

I smiled. “Then good night, Ada. May you have pleasant dreams.”

She looked as if she might have said something else, but instead she turned away. Her footfalls echoed on the stairs, then the door to the chamber below closed audibly.

* * *

I lit a candle with the coals in the brazier and followed her, sifting through the keys until I found the one that locked the outermost door. I then climbed the stairs again and dropped the latch to bar the door at the top of the stairs, praising the fact that the Lammergeier were so concerned for their own security. There was none within this chamber but me, and there would be no others all the night long.

That took the steel out of my shoulders. I leaned back against the door for a moment and closed my eyes, breathing deeply of Merlyn’s presence and glad to finally be alone. Rain began to fall in heavy drops against the stone walls, though the wind had died. The sound was rhythmic and soothing. I breathed deeply of the night air and felt somehow soothed.

I put Merlyn’s box upon the pillow, running a fingertip across the inlay work on the lid. Merlyn’s box is wrought of some exotic wood, its surface dark and burled. It is polished to a gleam and it snared the lantern light now, glowing as if dusted with gold. It is twice the length of my hand, the width of one hand from longest fingertip to wrist and almost the same depth. Its lid is inlaid with a white lammergeier, the bird’s wings outspread and its hooked beak open.

Five years ago, I had stood in this very chamber with my new husband. Merlyn had caressed the inlay with his thumb, a gesture I now echoed unintentionally, while he told me that the bird was wrought of ivory. I did not know what ivory was, which he found amusing, as he found it even more amusing when I challenged his explanation. Elephants, I had informed him, did not truly exist outside of fireside tales, as every woman of sense knew.

Or so I had been certain then. I stroked the inlay now and smiled. I had learned much from Merlyn in a mere fortnight, the mere fortnight that we had lived as man and wife.

Perhaps I had learned more than I truly wanted to know.

Merlyn’s box held everything precious to which he could lay claim - it contained documents and deeds and coins and keys and the occasional jewel. It still did, though my single treasure - of worth to me alone - now nestled in the silk lining with the box’s contents, as well. And the key hung upon the worn red silken cord looped around my own neck, not Merlyn’s.

My hand rose to that silken cord, my fingers coiled in its softness. A lump rose in my throat as I fancied I could still feel the heat of Merlyn’s flesh trapped within the cord. I caught my breath and abruptly turned away from the box, my gaze falling immediately upon those gloves.

Crimson gloves.

I crossed the floor without ever having decided to do so, and yet, I could not stop until I stood before the gloves. They were fanciful and lavish and I smiled at the evidence of Merlyn’s taste for opulence. The gloves were lined with white fur, the ermine I knew he favored, and they were barely worn.

They were undeniably Merlyn’s.

I sighed his name without intending to do any such thing.

Then, I touched a finger to the fur, catching my breath when its silky softness swallowed my fingertip. I stroked the length of fine leather, then picked up one glove.

It was heavy for all its fine construction, the palm already stained dark from use. The fingers were curled slightly in the shape of Merlyn’s hand, curled as his fingers would be around the leather reins of his destrier’s bridle. I half expected it to still be warm from his touch. I lifted the glove to my face as if he cupped my chin and closed my eyes, remembering.

Yearning.

There were tears in my eyes when I impulsively slipped my hand into the glove. My fingers were immediately engulfed in softness, lost in the greater size of Merlyn’s glove. It was more like a gauntlet upon me, the cuff coming nearly to my elbow. I was assailed by the scent of Merlyn, the memory of his playful manner, the certainty of his death.

Merlyn was dead.

I bent my head over the fine glove and stained its fine leather with tears.

I thought I had only a few tears to shed for Merlyn, but a torrent was loosed once the dam was opened. I cried and could not stop. I wept for my dead husband, in the solitude of his chamber, breathing the last vestige of his scent. I wept that I would never see him again, I wept that all chances were now lost forever.

When my tears finally slowed, still I felt bereft, as lost as a child, and in dire need of solace.

With nary a second thought, I crossed the chamber, shedding my chemise and shoes as I went and leaving them cast upon the floor. I climbed through the heavy curtains as naked as the day I was born, as naked as I had been on my wedding night. When I realized that Merlyn’s gloves were still gripped in one of my hands, I nestled them upon the pillow beside the box. It was foolish and I knew it, but I could not put anything of his from my side.

Not on this night, at least.

I kissed each leather fingertip like a benediction, then slid beneath the coverlet. I was embraced by the furs that still covered the mattress, engulfed by the heady musk of him upon the pillows, swallowed by sweet memories.

Merlyn was dead and gone, never to love and laugh again. And I, I mourned him alone as I would never mourn him before others.