Claire Delacroix (2 page)

Until Fergus and his honeyed tongue came to Inverfyre.

“Evangeline speaks aright,” Elspeth informed Fergus, uncommonly bold in her last moments. “If you do not release the bird by midwinter, she will be useless in the spring. It is always thus with birds snared after their second moult. They are captured too late to avoid their instinct becoming habit.”

“More counsel from women,” Fergus said with a roll of his eyes. “How fortunate I am this night to be privy to such wisdom.”

“Fergus!” Evangeline whispered, but Elspeth waved a hand.

“Go then, and leave us to our womanly whimsy.” She yearned to say more, but bit her tongue. There was oft a glint in Fergus’ eye that made Elspeth wonder whether he was as weak as she believed.

He left, with nary another word.

“I am sorry, Mother. He does not know what he says.”

Elspeth smiled and touched her daughter’s cheek. Here was the one jewel she had wrought in all her days. Evangeline was a beauty, with the blue eyes and fair skin of her father and the black tumbling curls of her mother’s younger days. There was more than beauty to Evangeline though, for she had a will of iron, not unlike that of Gilchrist and his warrior kin.

What a leader Evangeline could have been!

“You should have been born a boy,” Elspeth murmured, before she could halt herself. “If you had been shaped as a man, your father would have died at ease.”

“I doubt that I should have met his standards even then,” Evangeline said with unexpected bitterness.

Their gazes met for a heated moment. Then Evangeline smiled primly, as if she had made a jest. Her eyes had revealed the truth, though, and Elspeth was ashamed.

“All couples yearn for a son, Evangeline. There is no sin in desiring an heir and stability.”

Evangeline lifted a brow and looked away. She stroked her mother’s hand, her gaze searching the shadows.

“Do you see them, too?” Elspeth asked hopefully.

“Who?”

“The souls in the shadows.”

Evangeline smiled, as if she believed Elspeth to be losing her wits. “Be calm, Mother. There is no one in the shadows.”

“You should speak more with Adaira. She will teach you things I failed to teach you.”

“You said she was mad. You always forbade me to speak with her!”

“I was wrong. Ask her.”

“Ask her what, Mother?”

Elspeth was distracted by one shadow separating itself from the others, then astonished when she discerned its features. It was Gilchrist, yet not Gilchrist, Gilchrist as if he had been touched by the wand of the frost elves.

Her heart nigh stopped as he paused beside her bed, his gaze searching her own. Gilchrist always had looked into her eyes before he spoke, had done so with a marvel in his own expression, as if he could not believe she was his bride. It was this gesture that persuaded her of this shade’s identity. Silver glimmered along his silhouette, shone in his beard, crested his hair and spiked his eyelashes. Only his eyes remained the same vivid sapphire she knew so well.

Elspeth caught her breath, for she knew full well why he had come. He reached out to her and she hesitated to take his hand, fearing he would be displeased that she had not fulfilled her old pledge to him.

She turned back to Evangeline and was surprised to spy tears forming in her daughter’s eyes. The first fell like a gem, glittering in the lamplight until it splashed upon their hands.

Elspeth reached for her daughter and caught her close, closing her own eyes as Evangeline began to weep. “I can linger no longer, Evangeline.”

“I would never have asked you to endure the pain for so long as you have. But I shall miss you sorely.”

“And I you.” Elspeth stroked the dark silk of Evangeline’s hair, remembering all their former embraces, remembering the babe, the child and the young girl that this woman had been. This would be the last embrace they shared and she never wanted its sweetness to end.

“I never wished that you were aught other than you are,” Elspeth confessed softly. “Not once you were born, not once you smiled at me. Do not imagine otherwise.”

Evangeline wiped her tears and might have said something, but Elspeth hastened to tell her tale while she could. “I have waited five years for the right moment to share a tale, but this moment shall have to suffice. Promise me that you will share this revelation with Fergus when the moment is right, that he may act upon it.”

“Of course.”

“In all your lessons of birds of prey, did you learn of the lammergeier?

Evangeline shook her head.

“It is a sheep vulture. It is not a noble hunter like the peregrine, the falcon or the gyrfalcon. It is not even of the lesser predators like hawks. The lammergeier is a scavenger.”

Elspeth could not help but sneer. A lifetime at Inverfyre had made her as discriminating about birds of prey as Gilchrist had been. “The lammergeier feeds upon plunder and carrion. It will not kill its own prey - it prefers to steal a kill from another, or to consume what has been discarded. They are to be reviled.”

“I have never seen one.”

Elspeth smiled, for she knew this was not quite true even if her daughter did not. “Do you know how your father died?”

Evangeline patted her mother’s hand, clearly certain that Elspeth’s thoughts flitted from one subject to another. “He took a fit and fell down the stairs. It is five years in the past, Mother.”

“And what caused his fit?”

Evangeline shook her head. “It is not of import. Do not excite yourself with this matter now, Mother…”

Elspeth held her daughter’s hand more tightly. “A man by the name of Lammergeier - an apt choice on the part of his forebears - sent a missive, offering the
Titulus Croce
for purchase.”

Evangeline’s flicking gaze revealed that she did not know what to say. “But the relic is in the chapel,” she began cautiously.

“No, it is not. We lied to you, your father and I lied to all of Inverfyre.”

Evangeline sat back, but Elspeth would not be halted now. “The
Titulus
was stolen years ago. Your father knew that he had failed his people and his forebears in allowing such a theft to occur.”

Evangeline was curiously aloof, but no one liked to learn that she had been deceived.

“What choice had we had but to guard our secret closely?”

Evangeline arched a brow. “Then, surely Father would have paid any price to retrieve the
Titulus
.”

“So thought Avery Lammergeier.” Elspeth swallowed. “And the price he set was more, far more, than your father ever could have paid. It infuriated Gilchrist beyond belief, for as a matter of principle he believed he should not reward a pirate to return his own birthright.”

“Yet still he desired the
Titulus
.”

“He believed its return was the sole thing that could save Inverfyre.” Elspeth held her daughter’s gaze steadily. “It is far more cruel to be offered a solution to your failure at a price you cannot pay, than simply to have failed in the first place. Your father’s fury overcame him when Avery wrote that another nobleman would pay double the price he had initially asked.”

They watched each other in silence for a long moment, Evangeline’s grip tight upon her mother’s hand. “And his fury prompted his mis-step, and thus his fall,” Evangeline said quietly. Elspeth nodded. “You never said as much.”

Elspeth frowned. “Further, it is the responsibility of your father’s successor to avenge his death.”

“You will wait long for Fergus to do as much.”

“I have waited as long as I can. The burden now lies with you. You are the bough, Evangeline, the bough that will bear the prophesied fruit of the seventh son. You must ensure that your son has his due, that the
Titulus
Croce
is here to legitimize that son’s suzerainty and bring prosperity to Inverfyre.”

“These are the workings of men, Mother. A relic, however holy, will do little to aid in such a goal.”

“Is that so, daughter mine?” Elspeth spoke sharply as seldom she did. “Tell me then: why are the falcons barren? Nary an egg is there to be found since the
Titulus
was stolen. The
Titulus
was granted to your forebear, Magnus Armstrong, by divine favor and brought with him to found this keep. His holding prospered, because he kept his bargain with God. The relic must be here, the grace of God must be upon us, or Inverfyre is doomed forevermore.”

She fell back against the pillows, exhausted by this tirade. Evangeline looked down at her hands, her expression solemn. Fergus’ laughter rose from the hall below, the cries of the gyrfalcon tied to his wrist making both women wince.

“It may be too late,” Evangeline said quietly.

“You are the vessel!” Elspeth said fiercely. “You cannot lose faith or fail in your responsibility!”

Evangeline shook her head. “It has been five years, Mother. Even if I told Fergus of it now, even if he departed this very night, the relic could have traveled to any place in Christendom.”

“No. No, this is not true.” Elspeth mustered the last of her strength and sat up, despite her daughter’s attempt to urge her back against the pillows. “Avery Lammergeier died, not long after your sire. Murdered, he was, murdered by his own son, this I heard, and a more fitting fate could not have been found for that wretch. There have been no tales of such a relic being transported, and one would hear of it for it is a prize worth the bragging. The relic is still there, still at the Lammergeier abode of Ravensmuir.”

“Ravensmuir.” Evangeline rolled the name across her tongue.

“Ravens are carrion-pickers and foragers.” Elspeth fell back again, exhausted. “This felon named his eyrie well. The son must not know what he has, or he would have sold it by this time. Perhaps God favors our cause, I cannot say. But Fergus must go to Ravensmuir to retrieve the
Titulus
, and you must persuade him to do so.”

“You have seen how he heeds my counsel - not at all!”

“Promise me!” Elspeth felt the pain rise anew and feared the end came too soon. She seized Evangeline’s hands and her tears rose, so fearful was she that she would fail Gilchrist. “Promise me that you will find a way!”

Evangeline’s lips set to a firm line. She looked not unlike a peregrine now, her carriage proud, her gaze intensely blue. Even her pupils dilated and her lips thinned almost to naught. Her black hair gleamed like a bird’s plumage and she held her chin proudly.

The similarity to her father was startling. Gilchrist had taken this pose when he would not be swayed from his course, and the sight reminded Elspeth of an old legend. It had been whispered through the years that there was a curious kinship betwixt Magnus Armstrong, the forebear of the lairds of Inverfyre, and the falcons. Indeed, it was rumored that he had taken flight with them on moonlit nights, that he was one of them, that they had prospered in his holding because they were among kin.

Certainly, Elspeth had seen an echo of the bird’s savage determination in her husband, though this was the first time she had glimpsed it in her daughter.

“I promise that the
Titulus
shall be returned to Inverfyre,” Evangeline vowed. “No matter what I must do to see it so.”

Elspeth had no time to reply. The pain redoubled and seized her innards with sharp talons. She writhed, parted her lips to scream, and then saw the silver shimmer of Gilchrist’s proffered hand. She seized the shadow, welcoming whatever he offered.

A coolness like a spring stream flowed over and through her flesh, filling her with quicksilver, sweeping all earthly sensation away. It was like walking into the shade or dipping into a cool river, effortless and soothing. She saw a thousand shades of grey and silver that she had never imagined before, then drank of the gleaming sapphire of Gilchrist’s gaze. She slipped from her flesh as easily as she might have shed a garment in her mortal days, shaking off her pain like an old chemise.

One touch and all she had known, Elspeth abandoned. Her earthly life became no more than a distant dream. Inverfyre, Fergus, even her beloved Evangeline, was forgotten. Deaf to her daughter’s sobs, blind to the watchful presence of an old woman in the woods below the keep, Elspeth surrendered her past to embrace her future.

She held fast to Gilchrist’s hand, watched the wings unfurl from his back, then took flight at his side, as free as any falcon to ride the mists forevermore.

* * *

An Unwitting Pawn

Gawain

* * *

I

December 29, 1371

Only a fool rides at night in these times, especially with a burden so precious as mine. The sky was darkening as the shadowed walls of a burg rose beside of the road. It was York, not far enough from Ravensmuir to my thinking, but the darkness gave me pause.

It seemed that Ravensmuir breathed at my very back. Though my brother was dead, I had stolen from him and I half-expected his specter to demand some grisly compense of me. Though I am not a superstitious man, I would have preferred to have all of England and half the continent betwixt Merlyn’s corpse and I. The ominous shadows lurking on either side did little to ease my trepidation.